The path to the 12-team College Football Playoff Week 2: Quinn Ewers can win Texas a title

We haven't quite reached a full slate of conference play in college football, yet plenty of the College Football Playoff pretenders have already revealed themselves. A year ago, Florida State was left out of the mix following a perfect season, this year after an 0-2 start, it'll be much less controversial when Mike Norvell's team misses the 12-team CFP.

The Noles quickly dropped out of the AP Top 25, and they'll be joined by plenty of Week 2 fallers. Five ranked teams lost on Saturday, including the defending champs in a top 10 matchup. With all eyes on Ann Arbor for a Noon ET kickoff, No. 3 Texas went into the Big House and made the biggest statement of the week.

The Statements

1. Quinn Ewers can win Texas a title

He nearly did it last season. In the College Football Playoff semifinal against Washington, Ewers threw for 318 yards and one touchdown and nearly led a masterful comeback. Had Adonai Mitchell hauled in a touchdown grab on the final play of the Sugar Bowl, Ewers and Texas, not Michael Penix Jr. and Washington, would have had a shot at Michigan. 

Then, Ewers came back to Austin. He could have been a first or second-round pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, and it would’ve been fun to see Arch Manning start as a sophomore for Steve Sarkisian, but I can’t imagine it would’ve been more fun than what the former Ohio State Buckeye did when he finally got his shot at the Wolverines.  

In the first half of No. 3 Texas’s 31-12 win over Michigan at the Big House, Ewers was nearly perfect. The Longhorns jumped out to a 24-3 lead and Ewers went 18/26 for 203 yards and two touchdowns. Most importantly, his offense went 8-for-10 on third down, and aside from a missed field goal to start the game, Texas scored every time it touched the ball in the first half. 

It wasn’t just that Ewers put up impressive numbers, it was the way he functioned under pressure, navigating a muddy pocket, keeping his eyes downfield, and throwing darts even when he couldn’t set his feet. Texas generated three 20+ yard plays before Michigan ran its fourth play of the game. 

Ewers finished the game 24/36 for three touchdowns and while it’s not the same team from last season’s title run, Michigan still has plenty of talent on the defensive side of the ball. Will Johnson could be the best corner in the country and defensive linemen Mason Graham and Kenneth Grant will almost certainly be first-round picks this spring. Now, with this performance on his resume, Ewers will almost certainly be a first-rounder too, and he could even be QB1.

Texas’s defense hasn’t been tested through two weeks, but after what Ewers put on display in the Big House, I have no doubt he’s good enough to go toe-to-toe with any quarterback or offense in the SEC or the country. 

2. Rocky Top is a real contender

When Josh Heupel has a quarterback, his team is one to worry about and with Nico Iamaleava, he has a future Heisman Trophy contender. Only, Iamaleava didn’t play well in No. 14 Tennessee’s 51-10 Week 2 win over No. 24 NC State. The former five-star sophomore threw the first two interceptions of his career including a pick-six, but his mishaps were matched by NC State’s Grayson McCall who finished 14/21 for 104 yards with a pick-six to Tennessee walk-on Josh Turbyville and two fumbles. 

Not only does Huepel have a quarterback for the first time since Hendon Hooker led the Vols to 11-2 in 2022, he also has a championship-caliber defense for the first time since taking over in Knoxville. During that 2022 season, Tennessee finished 91st in the country in total defense, after allowing 405.3 yards per game, and was 127th against the pass. 

On Saturday, Tim Bank’s Tennessee defense allowed just 143 total yards and only 2.9 yards per play. James Pearce Jr. could be the best edge rusher in college football and the Vols’ disruptive defensive line racked up three sacks and 13 tackles for a loss. Through two weeks, Tennessee’s defense ranks third in the country in defensive success rate against the run at 19.2% and in Week 2, the Vols posted a 40% stuff rate, which is the percentage of run plays stopped at or behind the line of scrimmage.

There will be plenty of growing pains for Iamaleava, but now that Josh Heupel's team can win with a running game that amassed 249 yards, 65 of which came from his quarterback, his team can win a national championship. The Vols are a real contender and will prove it in Week 4 against No. 15 Oklahoma. 

More than they paid for

3. Notre Dame’s ultimate let-down

Just last week, I declared that after beating Texas A&M, Notre Dame would go undefeated and claim the No. 5 seed in the 12-team CFP. Boy was I proven wrong and immediately by Northern Illinois. 

The Huskies knocked off Notre Dame in South Bend 16-14 and it was a comprehensive victory. Northern Illinois out gained the Fighting Irish 388-286, controlled the time of possession 34:38 to 25:22, and most importantly forced Riley Leonard into two turnovers. 

Thomas Hammock’s team didn’t turn over the ball, though Ethan Hampton looked like he was trying to early in the game. 

Quarterback Ethan Hampton snuck that pass through for the game-tying touchdown in the first quarter and from that point, the Huskies wouldn’t go away. 

Marcus Freeman brought Riley Leonard to South Bend this offseason to give his team a chance to win the big games, like on the road in College Station, but a late interception from Leonard cost Notre Dame a Week 2 win, and with no conference championship to save them, possibly a CFP bid. 

Freeman didn’t just add Leonard, he brought wide receivers Beaux Collins from Clemson and Kris Mitchell from FIU as his weapons, and Mike Denbrock, who coordinated Jayden Daniels’ Heisman campaign at LSU as his OC. Yet, the Notre Dame passing game is generating just a 35.9% success rate on passing plays and just a 0.164 EPA. 

The Irish aren’t done, if they win out the rest of the way, they’ll likely get in at 11-1 with wins over Texas A&M and USC, but whatever margin for error this team had, it used at home against a MAC opponent that went 7-6 last season. A team that they paid the price of a transfer portal quarterback. 

4. Penn State gave up last week’s goodwill

In Week 1, Penn State cruised past West Virginia 34-12 in Morgantown and the Nittany Lion's new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki was the talk of the town. Well, in Week 2 at Beaver Stadium, Penn State narrowly escaped Bowling Green’s upset bid, 34-27 and now James Franklin’s offseason defensive coordinator hire Tom Allen isn’t quite as popular. 

Over his final three years as the head coach at Indiana, Allen went a combined 9-27, and on Saturday, Penn State fans found out why. In 2023, the defensive-minded head coach orchestrated the 106th-ranked defense in the country. That awful season came on the heels of allowing 460.1 yards per game in 2022 which ranked 121st. 

Bowling Green scored on its first three drives and carried a 24-20 lead into halftime behind Allen’s former quarterback, sixth-year veteran Connor Bazelak. Penn State held off the Falcons in the second half, but through two quarters Bazelak was 13/15 for 167 yards and two touchdowns and Bowling Green was averaging 7.7 yards per play. 

Two fourth-quarter Bazelak interceptions sealed his team’s fate and Kotelnicki’s offense saved the day for the Nittany Lions, but the MAC contender gave the No. 8 team in the country much more than it bargained for. 

Kotelnicki was brought to Happy Valley to close the gap between Penn State and Ohio State, but if the defense regresses under Allen, the offense's efforts will be in vain. 

The death penalty

They may not be mathematically eliminated, but with a loss this week, these teams are no longer CFP contenders. 

5. SMU can’t settle on a quarterback but it doesn’t matter if they can’t block for either

On Friday night, an ACC dark-horse contender had its CFP hopes all but dashed. SMU’s 18-15 non-conference loss to BYU certainly doesn’t eliminate the Mustangs from ACC contention, but the way Rhett Lashlee’s team played at home against an inferior opponent did. 

Coming into the season, both Preston Stone, who threw for 3,197 yards and 28 touchdowns in 2023, and backup Kevin Jennings were named team captains and through three games, Jennings has played 119 snaps to Stone’s 97. Against, BYU, Lashlee eventually settled on the more mobile Jennings who had the best chance of surviving behind the Mustang’s abysmal offensive line. 

Stone started the game and completed two of four passes for four yards. On his seven dropbacks, BYU generated five pressures and Stone was sacked three times. Jennings, then, was pressured 15 times, and wasn’t sacked once, but completed just 15 of his 32 attempts for 140 yards with an interception. 

The offensive line has made the QB controversy a moot point, Stone and Jennings have nearly identical EPA per dropback. 

SMU survived a Week 0 scare against Nevada, but after this Week 2 loss, we can write off the Ponies in the ACC. 

And the Week 1 Heisman Trophy goes to…

6. Clemson’s Cade Klubnik… no really

Coming off a 34-3 loss to Georgia in Week 1, No. 25 Clemson took out its frustration on Appalachian State in Death Valley with a 66-20 win. Cade Klubnik completed 24 of 26 passes for 378 yards and five touchdowns with two touchdown runs. Oh, and that was just in the first half. The Tigers took a 56-13 lead into the break against an App State team with Sun Belt title aspirations, and Klubnik sat the rest of the way. 

Klubnik has plenty of doubters, and count me among them. In his first year as Clemson’s full-time starter, the former five-star never gelled with his new OC Garrett Riley, who came to Clemson from TCU. In 2023, Klubnik completed 63.4% of his passes for 2,844 yards 19 touchdowns to nine interceptions, but Clemson had one of the least aggressive and explosive offenses in the country. 

Last season, the Tigers finished 109th in the country with just 30 passing plays over 20 yards downfield and Klubnik’s 7.0-yard average depth of target ranked 167th among the 178 quarterbacks in the country with at least 100 dropbacks. His 6.1 yards per attempt was 151st despite completing 40.5% of his attempts over 20 yards downfield. 

Against Georgia, it looked like more of the same from Riley and Klubnik who averaged 4.9 yards per attempt against Kirby Smart’s elite defense. However, Klbnik had an ADOT of 10.3, the second deepest of his career as a starter and a sign of things to come. We’ve never seen Klubnik attack downfield the way he did in Week 2, and it started from the very first drive of the game with an aggressive mindset on third-and-long. 

Redshirt freshman Bryant Wesco Jr. caught three passes in the first half for 130 yards and that touchdown. Klubnik and Riley’s new deep threat might have unlocked Clemson’s offense and suddnely Miami has competition at the top of the ACC. 

Cupcake eaters

7. Georgia’s perpetual birthday party

At this point, it feels like Kirby Smart is feeding his Georgia Bulldogs a steady diet of cupcakes. In Week 2, the No. 1 team in the country cruised to a 48-3 win over Tennessee Tech, a wildly outmatched FCS opponent, and Carson Beck threw for 242 yards and five touchdowns in just over two-quarters of play. 

Now, across Georgia’s last three games, which includes wins over Florida State and Clemson in a top 15 matchup, the Dawgs have allowed just a field goal in each, and have outscored those three opponents by 145-9. 

Georgia is on an entirely different level than all but about five or six teams in the country. Whether its Tennessee Tech or Clemson, you don’t have a whole lot of hope when you line up against Kirby Smart’s team. 

8. Kiffin’s Rebels in the fast lane

In 2023, Lane Kiffin led Ole Miss to the first 11-win season in program history. Then in the offseason, he doubled down on his roster, adding Walter Nolen and Princely Umanmielen to his defensive line in hopes of turning the Rebels into a true national title contender. So far through two weeks, Ole Miss looks the part. 

The Rebels have a favorable schedule to start the season, beating Furman 76-0 last week and taking care of Middle Tennessee 52-3 on Saturday. They won’t face their first ranked opponent until visiting LSU on October 12 with Wake Forest, Georgia Southern, Kentucky, and South Carolina until then. 

Ole Miss’s biggest transfer portal loss was running back QuinShon Judkisn who went to Ohio State after back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons as a freshman and a sophomore, but Henry Parrish Jr. who transferred from Ole Miss to Miami (FL) and back again, is filling that void nicely with 165 yards and four touchdowns on just 14 carries in Week 2. 

Play the fight song!

Whether by a great play-call or just a great play, the week’s most exciting and important touchdowns

9. Avery Johnson strikes fear in Tulane

He might be the biggest quarterback recruit in Kansas State history, but Avery Johnson’s arm isn’t the reason he supplanted Will Howard and sent the Wildcat’s incumbent quarterback to Ohio State. Johnson might be the best running quarterback in the country. 

As a true freshman backup, Johnson ran for 296 yards and seven touchdowns on 52 carries, yet through two games this season, he only has 77 yards on the ground. Instead, Johnson orchestrated Kansas State’s comeback victory against a plucky Tulane team and new head coach Jon Sumrall, as a passer. 

Kansas State’s defense sealed it with a scoop-and-score touchdown and an interception with 12 seconds remaining. Before that, K-State was down 20-13 in the third quarter, and with a relatively lifeless offense, Chris Klieman opted to go for it on 4th-and-1 from the Tulane 45-yard line. 

Tulane’s defense got caught peeking into the K-State backfield, terrified of Johnson’s legs, and once DJ Giddens snuck out on a wheel route, the band could start to play the fight song. Gidden’s 45-yard touchdown catch-and-run sparked the comeback that kept K-State’s at-large CFP hopes alive. 

10. Jeremiah Smith, again

There has never been a pass that Ohio State freshman phenom Jeremiah Smith didn’t think he could take to the house. 

Here’s your weekly Jeremiah Smith update. No. 2 Ohio State jumped out to a 21-0 on Western Michigan, and same as last week’s 52-6 win over Akron, Smith was Will Howard’s go-to guy. 

On this play, Smith came to a dead stop, then accelerated to full speed so quickly that the defender fell down. He eviscerates angles with the ball in his hands, and is already in the conversation with Tetairao McMillian and Luther Burden as the best receiver in the country. Any time you throw the ball in Smith’s direction, you can just start playing the fight song. 

The Kirk Ferentz Trophy

Awarded to the head coach of the team that absolutely should not have won this week

11. Mike Gundy: Oklahoma State

No. 16 Oklahoma State had absolutely no business beating Arkansas in Stillwater on Saturday, and yet, the Cowboys pulled it out. More specifically, the Razorbacks fumbled it away and the loss may cost their head coach his job. 

Arkansas had a 21-7 lead at halftime, outgained Oklahoma State 648-385, held Heisman trophy candidate Ollie Gordan III to 49 yards and a touchdown on 17 carries, and lost 39-31 in overtime. 

Arkansas turned the ball over three times including a muffed punt at the start of the fourth quarter that set up an 18-yard touchdown pass from Alan Bowman to Rashod Owens that after a two-point conversion, tied the game at 21. 

As Sam Pittman’s team was desperate to give the game away, Mike Gundy’s was reluctant to take it. Even on Oklahoma State’s final drive of regulation in a tied game, sixth-year veteran Alan Bowman completed a 36-yard pass to Brennan Presley to set up the Cowboys at the six, but Bowman took a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty to eliminate a chance to milk out the last of the clock or score a clinching touchdown. 

Taylen Green answered with an unlikely field goal drive, then both teams missed field goals on their first possessions of overtime before Gordon sealed it with a touchdown and a two-point conversion that Arkansas couldn’t answer. Gundy’s team is loaded with veterans and returning starters, which paid off late, but a defense that gives up nearly 650 yards to Arkansas, isn’t a defense that can win the Big 12. 

UCF 2017 National Championship Memorial Group of Five Team of the Week

12. Ashton Jeanty is must-see TV

Yes, Northern Illinois knocked off Notre Dame in South Bend early on Saturday, but the Huskies didn’t come into the season on anyones CFP radar, even as the fifth automatic conference championship bid out of the MAC. Boise State however, was a popular pick and in most of those preseason prognostications factored in a Week 2 loss to No. 7 Oregon at Autzen Stadium. 

Well, Boise State did suffer that loss, but it was about as close as possible, which will help the Broncos through in the CFP rankings all year. Oregon escaped with a 37-34 win on a game-winning chip-shot field goal as time expired and the Ducks needed both a punt and a kick return touchdown to keep pace with Boise State and Ashton Jeanty. 

Despite Maddux Maden completing only 17 of his 40 pass attempts for 148 yards and a touchdown, Boise State gained 369 yards with 221 on the ground. Jeanty was responsible for 192 of those rushing yards and three of his team’s four touchdowns. Through two games, Jeanty has racked up a staggering 459 yards and nine trips to paydirt. 

With Jeanty, Boise State is must-see TV and would at least have a one player capable of competing in a CFP first-round game.