The Path Week 3: Georgia survives an SEC scare and Arch Manning takes over in Texas

The Week 3 slate looked unremarkable but the beauty of college football is that every week will deliver a fresh batch of chaos. All eight of the top 10 teams in the country that took the field this week remained undefeated, but Kentucky had the top dogs against the ropes. 

We didn’t have a jaw-dropping upset like Northern Illinois provided just eight days ago, but No. 1 Georgia narrowly escaped its SEC opener in Lexington and the No. 2 team in the country could have big questions at quarterback after Quinn Ewers left Texas’s win over UTSA with an injury and the whole country got a good long look at the chosen one. 

Even with just two head-to-head ranked matchups on the schedule, Week 3 gave us plenty to talk about and it started on Friday night. 

The Statements

The biggest wins of Week 3

1. The kid is alright

This offseason, Kansas State head coach Chris Klieman lost his starting quarterback Will Howard to Ohio State, but that was always the plan. Klieman and his staff were ready to move on from Howard and hand the keys of the K-State offense over to the Kansas kid, 2023 four-star quarterback Avery Johnson. 

It's been a bit of a shaky start to the year for the 19-year-old while Howard is lighting it up in Columbus, but on Friday night with No. 20 Arizona in Manhattan for a non-conference matchup between Big 12 foes (more on that later), Johnson answered questions and quelled concerns. The kid is alright. 

The No. 14 Kansas State Wildcats pulled away in the second half for a 31-7 win over Arizona, and Johnson did it with his legs. The sophomore finished 14/23 through the air for 156 yards and two scores, but on the ground, he added another 110 yards on 17 carries. 

Through the first two weeks of the season in wins over Tennessee Martin and Tulane, Johnson only carried the ball five total times on designed runs for just 17 yards. He hadn’t even cleared 100 yards on the ground for the season including scrambles. Then, Friday night, Johnson kept it on nine designed runs and racked up 92 of his 110 rushing yards on those carries.

The threat of Johnson’s legs allowed K-State to average 5.9 yards per rush with DJ Giddens adding 86 yards on 17 carries and Dylan Edwards chipping in with 41 yards on six attempts. For the season, even without Johnson running it much in the first two games, K-State ranks ninth in rushing success rate at 54.7%. Against Arizona, Johnson had a staggering 71% success rate on his carries. 

Arizona was outmatched by K-State on both lines of scrimmage. Yet because of veteran quarterback Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan, arguably the best wide receiver in the country, Arizona and K-State generated the same number of explosive plays (4). 

Fifita even averaged more yards per dropback than Johnson. However, Johnson’s rushing provides such an incredible floor for K-State offensively. If you strip out the explosive plays, Arizona generated -17.55 expected points added (EPA) while K-State generated -2.04 EPA without the explosives, per GameonPaper.com.

Johnson still needs to develop as a passer to reach his full potential, but even this adolescent version of Kansas State’s most highly-rated quarterback recruit in program history is good enough to lead the Wildcats to a Big 12 title and a secure spot in the 12-team College Football Playoff. 

The death penalty

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

2. Injury and infractions stall South Carolina

ESPN College Gameday was in Columbia South Carolina for the first time in a decade and the crew got treated to... well I'm not exactly sure what that was. With 4:15 left in the second quarter, South Carolina’s 6-foot-3 242-pound redshirt freshman quarterback LaNorris Sellers ran for a 75-yard touchdown to put his 2-0 Gamecocks up 24-10 on No. 16 LSU and the vibes inside Williams-Brice Stadium couldn’t have been higher. Then, the next 4:11 seconds may have cost Shane Beamer’s team its season. 

LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier drove his Tigers down the field 75 yards in just six plays going 4/4 passing with a 12-yard touchdown throw to Kyren Lacy to make the score 24-16.

As a response, with 1:20 remaining, Sellers dropped a 39-yard dime to Jared Brown to move the Gamecocks onto LSU’s side of the 50-yard line but stalled. On third-and-10, Sellers tried to evade the LSU pressure, was sacked, injured his ankle, and for all intents and purposes was lost for the rest of the game. With backup Robby Ashford at quarterback for South Carolina, LSU pulled off the comeback and Gamecocks kicker Alex Herrera missed a game-tying 49-yard field goal as time expired to fall 36-33. 

In Week 2, true freshman Dylan Stewart and South Carolina’s defensive line dominated Kentucky in a 31-6 win. A week later, in the first half of Week 3, Sellers blossomed into a young star. The future is still very bright for Beamer’s program in Columbia, but with No. 5 Ole Miss, No. 4 Alabama, No. 15 Oklahoma, and No. 22 Clemson still on South Carolina’s schedule, any hope of a Cinderella CFP run was dashed in the second half on Saturday. 

3. Shane Beamer brings Brian Kelly down with him

Sure, LSU survived South Carolina, but if anyone thought that one of the country’s worst defenses a year ago was fixed, they were proven wrong in Week 3. Even with Ashford, an Auburn castoff, playing half the game, the Gamecocks gained 7.0 yards per play and managed 33 points. 

This offseason, Kelly brought defensive coordinator Blake Baker over from Missouri to replace Matt House who orchestrated a defense that finished 108th in the country and allowed 28.0 points a game. Now, through three games, opponents are averaging 27 points a game against Baker’s unit that features relatively unchanged personnel. It doesn't matter how good of a chef you hire if you give him the same crappy ingredients.

In Week 1 against the other USC, LSU allowed 450 total yards and 10.7 yards per pass to first-year starter Miller Moss in a 27-20 loss. After that performance, both teams were praised for their improvement on that side of the ball, but now, LSU ranks 106th in defensive EPA/play and 98th in success rate. This year’s defense may be better, but not meaningfully. 

Saturday, one of South Carolina’s touchdowns was set up by a punt block, and a Gamecock field goal came courtesy of an LSU fumble, but those turnovers are another reason I’m ready to write off the Tigers and condemn this 2-1 team to the death penalty. 

Nussmeier was impressive in stretches, especially considering the amount of pressure that Stewart and fifth-year edge Kyle Kennard generated against LSU’s two future first-round offensive tackles. However, he finished just 24/40 for 285 yards with two touchdowns and an ugly interception. 

While the turnover stood, the back-breaking return for six was nullified by a late hit from Kennard on Nussmeier. That was the second South Carolina pick-six wiped away by a penalty. 

LSU/South Carolina was the matchup of the weekend and delivered a great game, but this was not a matchup between two great teams, but rather ones with fatal flaws that will finish in the middle of the pack in the SEC. 

"I promise you one thing..."

With a 12-team CFP, one loss doesn’t end your season anymore

4. Billy O has Boston College back on track

After Georgia Tech beat Florida State in Ireland, the Yellow Jackets came back to the States and lost to Syracuse in New York. Since then, we’ve learned that a win over FSU won’t be hard to come by in 2024, but No. 24 Boston College did something a bit more impressive than beating the Noles in Week 3. 

Bill O’Brien’s Eagles were 16.5-point underdogs to No. 6 Missouri in Columbia on Saturday, but they managed to hang around. The Tigers eventually prevailed 27-21, but I’m now convinced that if the ACC gets two teams into the CFP, BC will be in the mix for the second bid. 

There was a chance that the football program in Chestnut Hill would fall off a cliff when Jeff Hafley fled for the defensive coordinator position on Matt LaFleur’s staff in Green Bay. But, O’Brien came back home to Boston and most importantly he kept Thomas Castellanos on the roster. 

Heading into Week 3, the undersized quarterback led the country in yards per dropback at 12.04 and despite two interceptions against Missouri, BC’s offense created six explosive plays through the passing game and averaged 6.2 yards per play to Mizzou’s 6.14. 

Down 27-14 with just under six minutes remaining, Castellanos led an eight-play 75-yard touchdown drive capped by a 38-yard touchdown pass to Kamari Morales to give his team a chance. Missouri’s defense hadn’t given up a point through two games and the Tigers were leading the country in offensive success rate, so slowing them down, even if BC’s defense was aided by Mizzou penalties that put them comically behind the sticks at second-and-59, is enough to put the rest of the ACC on high alert. 

O’Brien likely won’t lead his team to the CFP in Year 1, or maybe at all, but the Eagles deserve recognition amongst the best teams in the country while they’re playing this well. 

I think I got my swagger back

5. Thomas Hammock fixed Notre Dame

After knocking off the Fighting Irish, Northern Illinois head coach Thomas Hammock made the media rounds this past week and told anyone who would listen that he called Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman to share the weaknesses that his Huskies exploited. While that’s a genius bit of PR by itself, Notre Dame bouncing back to pound Purdue 66-7 makes it even better for Hammock. Not only did he beat Freeman’s team, but he fixed it for him too. 

Maybe Hammock’s advice was to stop trusting Riley Leonard because the transfer quarterback only attempted 16 passes, completing 11 for 112 yards on his seven drives. Still, he led the Irish to a 42-0 lead before exiting the game. It took Notre Dame just 66 offensive plays (it finished with 70) to score its 66 points and secure the second-largest victory in program history. 

Leonard was excellent with his legs and Notre Dame leaned into the physicality that it used to beat Texas A&M in College Station in Week 1. He may not be the NFL prospect that many expected to see after getting over last season’s ankle injuries, but a quarterback who can do this against a Big Ten opponent, even one as down as Purdue, is valuable. 

6. Betrayal and a beatdown

Oregon didn’t just ditch the Pac-12 for the Big Ten this offseason, the Ducks left their in-state rivals behind. It was a worse betrayal than Lee Corso receiving the key to the city in Columbia on Saturday and then picking LSU right in the mayor’s face.

Oregon State and Washington State both got a shot at Oregon and Washington in this Week 3 de-facto rivalry week, and the Cougars took down the Huskies in Seattle, but it was a different story in Corvallis. 

After struggling through the first two weeks of the season and falling from No. 3 to No. 9 in the AP Poll the Ducks rolled the Beavers in the Civil War, 49-14. Dillon Gabriel had the best game of his brief Oregon career, going an efficient 20/24 for 291 yards and two touchdowns, but it was the damage done on the ground that should give Oregon fans hope that Dan Lanning and offensive coordinator Will Stein got the train back on the tracks. 

The Ducks held just a 22-14 lead at the half and it looked like more of the same, another underwhelming win. Then, the Oregon offense came to life, scoring on its final five possessions of the game before kneeling it out. 

The Stein/Gabriel connection hasn't been able to create explosives, until Week 3. The Ducks came into the matchup with just one run of over 15 yards on the season and suddenly produced four in Week 3 including a 54-yard touchdown run from Gabriel. 

We won’t know if Oregon’s problems are truly solved until the Ducks host Ohio State on October 12, but for now, the offense is improved and Lanning can pull the rip cord on the AP poll free fall.

Sound the alarm

7. Arch Manning can handle things, for now…

In Texas’s convincing 56-7 win over UTSA, Heisman trophy contender Quinn Ewers left the game with what has been described as an abdominal injury and did not return. It wasn’t particularly clear when or how Ewers was injured, which could add to the panic level in Austin, though I have a feeling a different type of frenzied emotion will take over.

Ewers is coming off the best performance of his career at Michigan in Week 2, but the excitement of Arch Manning taking the field has predictably overshadowed the potential loss of one of the game’s best quarterbacks. 

When he left, Ewers was 14/16 for 185 yards and two touchdowns with an interception and Manning finished 9/12 for 223 yards and four touchdowns with three rushes for 53 yards and another score. T

Texas has UL Monroe up next and then opens SEC play with Mississippi State before a bye. So, Arch can handle things for now. However, if Ewers misses extended time, the four-letter worldwide leader will love having a new Manning to fill our timelines with and a quarterback battle to stir up.

Manning is going to be the future at Texas, but for now, the Longhorns are better off with Ewers on the field. This will be a QB controversy everywhere but the Texas locker room because Steve Sarkisian knows Ewers is his best chance to win a title.

8. Kentucky let Georgia off the hook

Just a week after losing to South Carolina 31-6 at home, Mark Stoops had his Kentucky Wildcats within a point of the No. 1 team in the country, facing a fourth-and-8 from the Georgia 47-yard line with 3:03 remaining, and he punted. Georgia proceeded to run the clock down and left just nine seconds for former Georgia quarterback Brock Vandagriff when Kentucky finally got the ball back.

Expectedly, Kentucky gained just 17 yards on that final drive and Georgia held on to win 13-12. Now, the Bulldogs head into the bye week scared straight, but with real reason for concern.

Smart spent much of the offseason waxing poetic about the “deterioration of college football” which sounds like a new way for Dabo Swinney to say he’s scared of the transfer portal and thinks he’s the only person in the state of South Carolina who should be profiting off college football, but when you dig deeper, Smart has an excellent point. 

This offseason, Georgia had 24 players transfer out of the program and brought in only 11. This, a year after losing 16 and adding four. If a veteran backup at Georgia, like Vandagriff or Jamon Dumas-Johnson, who both played against the Bulldogs in Week 3, is good enough to be a quality depth piece for the best team in the country, then they’re good enough to get a nice little NIL payment and a whole lot of playing time from a mid-tier SEC school. That means the gap between the superpowers like Georgia and the rest of the country is smaller than ever. 

This season we’ve seen the same thing at Alabama. When the Crimson Tide tried to rest injured starting right tackle Elijah Pritchett against USF with starting left tackle Kadyn Proctor already out, one of the best rushing offenses in the country spun its tires for three-quarters, Jalen Milroe was pressured a season-high 12 times and Kalen DeBoer had to insert his banged up right tackle to jumpstart the offense and avoid an upset loss. The dropoff was massive for Bama when in the past with restricted player movement, a future NFL first-round pick would have been coming off the bench and the death machine would keep rolling.

Georgia has seen similar injuries along its defensive line, missing Mykel Williams, Warren Brinson, and Jordan Hall in Week 3. Then in the second quarter, fifth-year veteran right tackle Tate Ratledge left the game and didn’t return. Kentucky dominated the Dawgs in the trenches and the “deterioration of college football” was on full display. Georgia will be fine, the Dawgs are still the best team in the country, but this year, even Kirby Smart can be had, Mark Stoops just wasn’t brave enough to take his shot. 

And the Week 3 Heisman goes to…

9. Miami (FL) QB: Cam Ward

There weren’t a ton of truly standout individual performances in Week 3, especially not in the big games.

Avery Johnson played well for Kansas State on Friday night, but he only completed 14 passes. Pitt redshirt freshman quarterback Eli Holstein was excellent in the second half of the Backyard Brawl, but if my goal is to stay true to College Football Playoff relevance, I’ve already said too much about the Panthers. And, most importantly, I refuse to participate in the already insufferable and incredibly predictable Arch Manning/Quinn Ewers quarterback debate that the media will desperately try to drum up around the Longhorns.

That leaves us with Ward, likely the Heisman front-runner with Ewers' injury in Week 3. On the day his former team claimed the Apple Cup, the Washington State transfer led the Hurricanes to 3-0 with an effortless 62-0 win over Ball State. Ward went a casual 19/28 for 346 yards and five touchdowns, averaging 12.67 yards per dropback before handing over the reins of the offense to Emory Williams. 

In the Week 3 AP Poll, six of the top seven teams in the country were from the SEC. Yes, I understand that a win over Florida looks less and less impressive as the google search volume for “Billy Napier buyout” continues to rise with each passing week, but Miami and Cam Ward are being ignored at No. 10 and that needs to change. 

Play the fight song!

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

10. The 2024 wide receiver class continues to amaze

Before today, if you asked me what stage of life people born in 2007 were in, I’d have guessed that they just finished middle school, and I was born in 2001. Somehow, 17-year-old Ryan Williams, born February 9, 2007 is a starting wide receiver for Kalen Deboer’s Alabama Crimson Tide and Jalen Milroe’s favorite target. 

Through the first three games of his collegiate career, the five-star freshman has six catches for 207 yards and four touchdowns. In Saturday’s 42-10 win over Wisconsin, Williams caught four passes for 78 yards and that score. This spot is typically reserved for Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith, but he’s not the only freshman pass-catcher who keeps his band busy. 

Welcome to…

11. The Big 12, Arizona… kinda

On Friday night at Kansas State, Brent Brennan’s Arizona Wildcats played against a Big 12 opponent for the first time as a Big 12 member themselves, and yet, they technically haven’t begun conference play. Arizona and Kansas State had a non-conference matchup on the books well before realignment brought Arizona into the Big 12, and Arizona couldn’t reconfigure its entire schedule on such short notice, so the game stayed on for Week 3 but doesn’t count toward either team’s conference record. Got it?

This isn’t the only matchup this season between two conference teams that won’t count against their conference records, but it is the most significant. 

Arizona fell 31-7 and while Noah Fifita to Tetairoa McMillan is the most nightmare-provoking quarterback/wide receiver duo in the Big 12, K-State proved that the true contenders in the conference, Utah, Oklahoma State, and itself, don’t need to fear the Wildcats. 

K-State dominated the lines of scrimmage on Friday night in Manhattan, Kansas, extending a 14-7 halftime lead to 31-7 with a dominant run defense. McMillan racked up 138 yards on 11 catches, but half of Arizona’s 18 rushes were stopped for fewer than two yards. Arizona’s one-dimensional offense may have been a perfect fit in the old-school Big 12, but they play physical defense in that conference now. Brennan may not have gotten the memo. 

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

12. It’s unclear what beating Florida State means, but Memphis did it too

Coming into the 2024 season, Memphis assumed it would have an opportunity for a marquee win in Week 3 with a trip to Tallahassee, but at this point what does beating Florida State even mean? The Seminoles are off to an 0-3 start after an undefeated regular season in 2023 and the other two teams to beat FSU, Georgia Tech and Boston College, have lost in back-to-back weeks. 

It’s clear that Mike Norvell did not construct a CFP contender in 2024, but in beating its former head coach, Memphis has still notched the most significant win of any G5 team on Saturday. Trips to South Florida and Tulane are the toughest tests left on Memphis’s schedule, so this 3-0 start should make Memphis one of the favorites to grab the G5’s CFP participation award which would mean that Ryan Silverfield took the Tigers to the playoff before his former boss could get the Noles there. 

Though if FSU truly is the worst team in the ACC, or close to it, then this win is nearly meaningless for Memphis and Norvell will have successfully sabotaged two team's playoff chances.