College Football 2024: Winners and Losers from Week 9
With four top-10 teams idle, Week 9 didn't provide a lot of the fireworks we're used to.
There were some near-misses, though, and then in the night time showdowns, Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula and Texas A&M second-team signal-caller Marcel Reed led their respective teams to wins over Wisconsin and LSU.
Ohio State actually trailed Nebraska in the fourth quarter before getting a Will Howard-led scoring drive and a game-sealing interception to give the Buckeyes a win rolling into Happy Valley next week.
Texas similarly sweated a near-upset, surviving a Vanderbilt onslaught in the second half to escape with a three-point win.
The magic ran out for unbeaten Navy as it was throttled by Notre Dame, while Indiana, Pittsburgh and BYU continued to roll throughout their stunning, undefeated starts. The Hoosiers still haven't trailed all season.
It wasn't a day for high drama, but there was still plenty of action.
Winner: Backup Quarterbacks in Huge Wins
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The two monumental, prime-time showdowns Saturday night were LSU traveling to Texas A&M and Penn State heading to Wisconsin.
In both cases, backup quarterbacks stole the show and led their teams to comeback wins.
Penn State's Beau Pribula managed the game in a 28-13 victory over Wisconsin. Texas A&M's Marcel Reed took over it in a 38-23 comeback win over LSU.
Just before the half, Nittany Lions starter Drew Allar left with what appeared to be a knee injury after a sterling half where he'd gone 14-of-18 for 148 yards. After a Jayden Reed pick-six gave the Nittany Lions a four-point lead early in the second half, Pribula did the rest.
The redshirt sophomore was a threat with his arm and his feet, finishing with 126 total yards and a touchdown, leading a pair of scoring drives that gave the Lions a win over the Badgers in Camp Randall just before a huge showdown with Ohio State in Happy Valley next week.
The big question will be Allar's health, but Pribula looks ready.
Perhaps a bigger gamble took place for A&M coach Mike Elko, whose decision to pull Conner Weigman in favor of Reed could have changed the face of the SEC.
Elko told ABC's Holly Rowe he felt like with the way the Bayou Bengals were defending the Aggies, he needed a running threat under center. Reed answered the call, and he spearheaded a comeback from a 10-point deficit to beat LSU in a battle of the only two SEC teams unbeaten in league play.
LSU had no answers for Reed, who led four touchdown drives and a one that ended in a field goal after entering. The Tigers' barrage of mistakes (three Garrett Nussmeier interceptions and a bad snap on a field goal) aided the Aggies' win, but Reed was unstoppable with 132 total yards and three rushing touchdowns.
Backups stole the show in prime-time football on the major networks.
Winner: D'Angelo Ponds and Indiana
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Indiana rose to the moment.
For the first time since 2017, ESPN's College GameDay came to Bloomington for the No. 13-ranked and undefeated Hoosiers' home game against Washington on Saturday. Yes, they'd been once for a Thursday night Ohio State showdown, but this was the first full-Saturday experience.
The party was on, and the football game against the Huskies had to follow suit. With starting quarterback Kurtis Rourke out, the rest of coach Curt Cignetti's full-team makeover in Year 1 stepped up to upend Washington, 31-17.
"I thought it was a gutty win," Cignetti told the Big Ten Network after the game.
It all started with defensive back D'Angelo Ponds' pick-six of Will Rogers to get the Hoosiers on the board. Then in the second quarter, he had another one that backup signal-caller Tayven Jackson converted into another scoring pass.
With the game still tight in the fourth quarter, Myles Price fielded a punt and returned it 65 yards to the 14-yard line to set up a Jackson scoring run.
Defense and special teams helped make up for a disjointed offensive day. It wasn't that Jackson and Co. were bad, but they just couldn't sustain drives. IU threw the ball just five times the entire second half.
It didn't matter, though. With Michigan State, Michigan and Ohio State coming up, "Coach Cig's" Hoosiers still have a ton of opportunities in front of them, but they've stood up to every test placed in their way so far. They haven't trailed for a single second all year.
Saturday's was on a big stage, and they're 8-0 for the first time since 1967.
Loser: Navy's Luck
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A tremendous start to the season for Navy ran face-first into a disastrous start for the Midshipmen in Saturday's game against Notre Dame.
They never could regroup and recover.
Despite starting the year undefeated in the first six games for the first time since 1979, No. 24-ranked Navy has struggled defensively, entering Saturday's tilt with the Irish ranked 91st nationally in total defense. Predictably, that reared its head in a major way in a 51-14 loss.
But the major culprit early was three first-half Navy turnovers that fueled the first-half onslaught from Notre Dame and helped create a gap far too wide for a running-centric team to overcome.
Defensively, there were major issues too, though, as the Irish unwrapped those Midshipmen gifts and turned them into scores.
Notre Dame continued its rebound from an early-season loss to Northern Illinois with four first-half touchdowns, a field goal and another missed field goal. They drove the ball at will behind a surgical performance from quarterback Riley Leonard.
Leonard finished the game with 178 passing yards and a pair of scores to go along with 83 rushing yards and another touchdown.
The Irish hit big plays in the running game, too. A 64-yard scoring scamper from Jeremiyah Love was Notre Dame's answer to Blake Horvath's 47-yard run that trimmed an early two-touchdown lead in half, and the Irish never looked back.
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Winner: Dillon Gabriel and Oregon
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There's nothing wrong with Illinois' come-from-nowhere, strong start to the season, and last week's win over defending national champion Michigan is nothing to shrug off.
There's a difference—this year at least—between the Wolverines and this year's No. 1 team, and the Fighting Illini found out the hard way in Eugene.
Coach Dan Lanning's Ducks had no problem whatsoever with the Illini, and Dillon Gabriel picked Illinois apart with an elite passing game to build a 32-point halftime advantage on the way to a 38-9 win.
Gabriel continued his march toward Heisman Trophy contention with 246 first-half passing yards and a trio of scoring tosses on his way to 291 passing yards (four total touchdowns). He was the perfect pickup this offseason, and he's the catalyst that has the Ducks soaring.
Meanwhile, Luke Altmyer, who had helped the Illini to a bit of an offensive resurgence this season, couldn't do anything. He had 29 passing yards and an interception as Oregon built its lead, and the Ducks allowed just 89 total yards in the first half.
This was about as one-sided as you can get.
The transition to the Big Ten hasn't been an issue for Oregon yet at all. Right now, the Ducks look like the best and most complete football team in the country. You'd better begin to mention Gabriel alongside Cam Ward and Ashton Jeanty in the Heisman discussion.
Loser: Big Ten Teams Battling Jet-Lag
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When college football decided to reshuffle, and conference expansion came to know no boundaries, it led to some wacky things we've all got to get used to.
In the Big 12, there were a couple of games between new conference foes this year that were already on the schedule so didn't count against conference record.
Then, you've got Pacific Coast programs like Stanford and California in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
In the Big Ten, it's more of a clash against time—literally.
Teams having to travel across the country (two or more time zones) this year are 5-14 straight-up and 6-15 against the spread.
After last week's teams traveling cross-country went 2-1 and covered (Oregon over Purdue and UCLA upsetting Rutgers in New Jersey, while USC was upset by Maryland), it was back to an o-fer this week. Is it a coincidence or an issue that needs to be dealt with?
On Friday night, Rutgers headed to Hollywood and was waxed by USC, 42-20 in a game that started at 11 p.m. Eastern time. Washington had to travel to Bloomington for an early game and lost 31-17. Ranked Illinois was no challenge in a lopsided loss to top-ranked Oregon in Eugene.
Yes, those were all three lopsided games on paper, but it doesn't change the fact this is an early issue for a new-look conference building a brand across the country with teams from both coasts.
It's something teams are going to have to adjust to, for sure.
Winner: Texas (Just Barely)
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Used to, elite teams could grab the Sharpie and circle Vanderbilt as a win, even before the season started if they saw the Commodores on their schedule.
As the college football world knows, that isn't the case this year. Coach Clark Lea's team already seized one of the sport's biggest upsets of the year when it beat Alabama in Nashville earlier this season. Then, they went to Kentucky and won in Lexington.
So, even though Texas was ranked No. 1 a week ago before losing to Georgia, the fifth-ranked Longhorns had plenty of hand-wringing to do with a road game against Diego Pavia and the Commodores.
Absolutely nothing was easy, but the 'Horns survived 27-24 in a game where they needed a late fourth-quarter field goal to go up by 10. Pavia brought the Commodores storming back down the field for a touchdown drive to close the gap, but VU couldn't corral the onside kick, and Texas escaped.
Pavia had plenty of arrows in his quiver for the top teams all year, and he mustered some magic late in this one, too, with the last drive. First, though, a fourth-down Pavia prayer was intercepted in VU territory to allow the Horns to kick a field goal and go up 10 in the closing minutes.
That was the difference.
Neither Pavia nor Texas quarterback Quinn Ewers had their best day as the 'Dores turned two picks of their own into a pair of touchdowns to close the gap. But any win against Lea's pesky program feels just fine.
Loser: McCord and Syracuse
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At this point of the college football season, you forget about the "nice little early-season stories" and begin separating the pretenders from the real contenders.
On Thursday night in Pittsburgh, that's exactly what happened. The undefeated Panthers hosted the one-loss Syracuse Orange in a battle of upstart ACC surprises. Pitt showed a national television audience it should be taken seriously with a 41-13 onslaught.
While it has been an exceptional start to coach Fran Brown's era in Syracuse, the Orange and quarterback Kyle McCord weren't yet ready for prime time.
Pitt entered having doubled its points-per-game average from last year with the hiring of first-year offensive coordinator Kade Bell and the infusion of offensive talent, led by former Alabama redshirt freshman quarterback transfer Eli Holstein.
Thursday wasn't about the explosive Panthers offense, though. This was a defensive bonanza.
They intercepted McCord four times in the first half—returning three for touchdowns—to build a 31-0 halftime lead. This was a 'Cuse team that entered second nationally in passing yards per game, second in passing offense and coming off six consecutive 300-yard games.
But McCord had a forgettable night as Pitt's undefeated train kept rolling, this time with a defensive flavor. The Panthers look for real.
Winner: Ohio State's Defense
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After Nebraska got embarrassed by Indiana a week ago, the Cornhuskers were more than three-touchdown underdogs hosting Ohio State on Saturday. While things didn't go the way Vegas expected, the Buckeyes still came out on top.
It was far from pretty.
Ohio State finished with just 64 rushing yards, averaging a tick over 2 yards per carry. The Buckeyes were also just 1-of-10 in third-down conversions, needing a Davison Igbinosun game-clinching interception at the end of the game to beat the Huskers, 21-17.
"We never really controlled the game," Ohio State coach Ryan Day told FOX's TV crew after the game.
That's true offensively. Nebraska actually took a three-point lead in the fourth quarter with a go-ahead touchdown and two-point conversion. But Will Howard calmly led the Buckeyes back down the field for the answering score, and the defense did the rest.
Coach Jim Knowles' unit regrouped after its last outing was a 32-31 loss to Oregon. The Buckeyes' defense rattled freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola throughout the day.
He fumbled (but didn't lose it) and also threw the pick. The Buckeyes finished the game with a whopping 13 tackles for a loss and, outside of a couple of hiccups, really played a complete game.
Ohio State avoided a massive letdown with a showdown against Penn State on the horizon to keep its playoff and Big Ten championship hopes very strong.
Loser: Liberty's Playoff Chances
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Liberty's College Football Playoff hopes went down in a haze of history.
They do say Owls are bad luck, after all, and they sure were on Wednesday night for the Flames. Kennesaw State's version somehow shockingly pulled one of the biggest Group of Five upsets of the year.
Just how big was the 27-24 win over Liberty? It was the Flames' first-ever win against a Football Bowl Subdivision team. They hadn't even beaten a Division I team since 2022, only upending Tusculum, Lincoln and Virginia Lynchburg last season.
By the way, '22 is also the last time coach Jamey Chadwell's Liberty program lost a regular-season game. Entering the Wednesday night showdown, they had a 17-game regular-season winning streak and was one of 11 unbeatens in college football.
But a Liberty team that has been nowhere near as dominant this season as it was a year ago when it ran the table before getting drubbed by Oregon in the Fiesta Bowl never could seize control of the game against Kennesaw State.
With an ugly loss like this, there's almost no way the Flames can rally enough and impress voters enough to get the Group of Five bid to the College Football Playoff. This was an egregious setback.
Winner: Bama Bounce-Back
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Alabama may not be big, bad ALABAMA in the first post-Nick Saban season, but everything is still in front of the Crimson Tide. Don't write their obituary just yet.
Coach Kalen DeBoer's team navigated a maelstrom of negative attention after losing to rival Tennessee a week ago and handled Missouri 34-0 to regroup and rebound.
Losing to the Vols and most certainly Vanderbilt will leave a bitter taste in the mouths of a fanbase used to winning every weekend, but don't forget this is a team that upset Georgia and, even with a pair of losses, the Tide could still make the playoffs.
Beating Mizzou will help, even if the Tigers were handicapped in a big way.
Quarterback Brady Cook left last week's game with an ankle injury, and he was uncertain to play all week. He did start the game but was banged-up throughout, rendered ineffective and left the game with other injuries.
Backup Drew Pyne never could get the offense moving as Alabama's smothering defense forced him into three interceptions and dominated the game.
There are still inefficiencies with Alabama's running game and the accuracy of quarterback Jalen Milroe, but the Tide did some nice things on offense in building a lead that was insurmountable for the Tigers without Cook.
You can definitely dock Mizzou's playoff chances with the loss.
Loser: BYU Doubters
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Despite a 7-0 record and leading the Big 12, BYU was a field-goal underdog flying across the country to the land of Walt Disney to take on a UCF team with a losing record.
That's one of the most puzzling things you'll see Vegas do, and the Cougars proved that if you haven't taken them seriously yet, you should. This team just finds a way to win.
Last weekend, it was a last-second, come-from-behind drive to beat Oklahoma State at home. They wouldn't need any such heroics against the Knights.
From the outset, BYU smacked coach Gus Malzahn's team in the mouth, scoring almost before you could blind with an eight-play, 75-yard drive out of the gates that was capped by a Jake Retzlaff 28-yard scoring run. That lead quickly swelled to three scores in a game the Cougars never trailed.
They ultimately pounded out a 37-24 win over the Knights that really wasn't that close, and they had an answer for everything Malzahn threw at them.
Retzlaff (266 total yards and three touchdowns) and running back LJ Martin were unstoppable on offense, but while UCF got in some offensive shots, the BYU defense didn't break much. They snuffed out quarterback Jacurri Brown, and even though the Knights had some big plays in the running game, it wasn't ever enough.
BYU should now surge into the top 10, and with a remaining schedule of struggling Utah, Kansas, Arizona State and Houston, it's time to start talking about the Cougars running the table.
Winner: Boise's Grind-it-Out Plan
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There's a whole lot of season left, but Friday night's Boise State trip to UNLV certainly felt like a College Football Playoff elimination game between two of the best non-Power 4 programs in the country.
What happened in Vegas won't stay in Vegas for the Broncos, which gritted through a 29-24 win over the Rebels with a fourth-quarter score that kept their playoff hopes very much alive and kept them looking like perhaps the best program on their level in the nation.
Some may say Heisman Trophy frontrunner Ashton Jeanty took a step back in the race for the country's top individual performer, but we're not so sure. Did he fail to have any of those breakout runs that has become his M-O? Yes.
But Jeanty was still a consistent force, and Boise rode him for 33 carries for 128 yards and a touchdown. That 3.9 average isn't going to impress anybody, but in a game where both defenses flexed, Jeanty's performance was important.
UNLV coach Barry Odom burned two of his timeouts earlier in the second half, and Boise got the ball back with 8:07 remaining and salted it out on the ground for a 14-play, 48-yard drive that led to 0:00 on the clock. Jeanty converted two key first downs on the end-of-game drive.
The Rebels hadn't lost a game in 14 tries under Odom leading at the end of the third quarter until Friday night. Boise State keeps marching along with its only lose being a tight one to top-ranked Oregon.
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