Oklahoma lost its quarterback. (For now.) Oklahoma State lost its coach. (Forever?) Plus there were all those games that happened over the weekend.
Thoughts on what’s gone down since we last spoke, loosely categorized:
The Sooner State
Heading into yesterday morning, the narrative was overstating Oklahoma’s chances at a big season. They’d beaten Michigan (good team) and Auburn (fine team) but neither game was easy, and Michigan and Auburn aren’t as good as Texas, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Missouri, and LSU, all of whom are still on OU’s schedule. Oklahoma’s used to being good and we’re used to Oklahoma being good, so people see “4–0” and “#7” and think these are the same old Sooners, the perennial playoff contenders of the late 2010’s. Even if John Mateer was fully healthy, that would be a questionable assumption. We have a decent sample of Brent Venables’s OU, and what we’ve seen through four games this year doesn’t change how that sample looks.
Adding to that: John Mateer is a delight, and it sucks that he’s hurt, but there’s a gap between John Mateer the swashbuckler and John Mateer the quarterback. This doesn’t mean Mateer’s a bad QB. It means he’s a great swashbuckler. Mateer is not good enough to carry Oklahoma’s still suspect offense. He’s charismatic enough to make big plays when lesser men might wilt, and he’s competent enough to hold that offense together when it otherwise might fall apart.
Usually, the narrative overestimates the impact of college quarterbacks. Ironically, this could lead the injury to work to OU’s advantage, provided Mateer does come back and play well and provided Oklahoma does enough in his absence to at least stay on the fringe of the playoff hunt. We’ve seen the CFP committee forgive losses suffered with injured starting quarterbacks. This one is prominent.
Up in Stillwater, it’s sad to see Mike Gundy go. He was a salesman, but most of them are, and he was among the most entertaining. What went wrong? To be honest, I’m not sure it was Gundy as much as it was Oklahoma State. From the looks of it, the NIL funding problems there are real. This is a program which was fourth in the ten-team Big 12 on the 2022 Talent Composite. In 2025, they’re tenth out of sixteen on that list. Oklahoma and Texas are no longer in the Big 12. It should be easier to out-talent the newcomers. Some of this could be players not wanting to play for Gundy, but most of it is that Oklahoma State is more similar to Iowa State and Kansas State economically than it is to Texas Tech and TCU.
If you know how bad Iowa State was before Matt Campbell and how bad Kansas State was before Bill Snyder, this all bodes poorly for Oklahoma State in the years to come. There are donors in Stillwater, but OK State’s prototype isn’t an affluent kid from the Dallas–Fort Worth area who didn’t get into Texas. Those kids go to Oklahoma, which is why Oklahoma’s more of a Texas school than an Oklahoma school, at least when it comes to the economics. Oklahoma State, like Kansas State and Iowa State, is an ag school on the plains. That usually doesn’t translate to booming coffers. Whoever gets this job is going to need to play moneyball.
Should Gundy have been allowed to finish the season? Morally, sure. But the risk there was that if Gundy did what Gundy did in 2023, Oklahoma State might have ended up just fine. If the powers that be wanted him fired (and it does sound like personal friction was clogging the already thin money pipes—remember what we say about Alabama, and how boosters and administrators and the coach all need to be pulling in the same direction), they needed to do it this week.
Congratulations to Tulsa. What a win for that program. Momentum is momentum, even if you’re so bad that your success becomes justification for the firing of a grown man.
Indiana way over Illinois, Plus More Big Ten
Curt Cignetti is one of the best football coaches in the country, and with a committee (and narrative) which punishes blowouts, it’s strategically wise to blow out inferior opponents and minimize the losing margin against superior ones. Where Cignetti becomes a loser is when he talks such a big game. The guy who takes the ball out of his quarterback’s hands in a playoff game can’t turn around and laugh at Illinois during a halftime interview.
Same theme: Curt Cignetti might be the biggest threat to Fernando Mendoza’s Heisman candidacy. Not because he won’t tolerate any narratives that don’t focus on him (although that could happen too), but because when Indiana goes to Eugene, Cignetti will most likely try to run out the clock and only lose by ten instead of forty. When Indiana goes to Happy Valley? If Penn State is measurably better, it’ll be the same thing. If Curt Cignetti won’t risk getting blown out in a playoff game, he definitely won’t let his quarterback loose to try to win those two.
Michigan’s machine is working surprisingly well given how big of scandals it’s failed to choke out. These guys had a spy and a sex pest on their staff and they’re still competent enough to keep putting good football teams on the field, even when they have to account for suspended head coaches every year. I don’t know what to make of that. Usually when it’s a mess off the field, it’s a mess on the field as well. What a turnaround from a year ago.
Saturday stunk for Nebraska, but those fans should keep the faith. Matt Rhule hasn’t disproven the idea that he’s as good a coach as he was at Baylor. The schedule’s not bad this year. We won’t call the Huskers “back” or anything, but they’re still pointed in the right direction.
The numbers indicate we’re seeing USC’s ceiling. It’s higher than the AP Poll’s crediting them for being, and it’s high enough to make the playoff, but it doesn’t currently look high enough to win a playoff game unless they get a great first round draw.
Wisconsin seems to have the same problems Oklahoma State had: Not everyone’s pulling on the same rope, the money isn’t as big as the 2010’s performance was (skewing expectations), and there’s an institutional reticence to adapt. Luke Fickell deserves blame for all of that—Nick Saban didn’t become Nick Saban through x’s and o’s alone—but the problems there are deeper than the coach. It might not be a great idea to have a Barry Alvarez disciple running the athletic department. Nothing against Alvarez. He will and should be a Wisconsin legend forever. But he’s one of those figures who is against adaptation. It reminds me of Jack Swarbrick in those last few years at Notre Dame. The guy is great and has been great for the university. But it’s time to move forward.
Texas Tech over Utah, Plus the Rest of the Big 12
How about Texas Tech’s oil men refusing to take the big-money quarterback bait? The dollar goes a long way in the trenches.
Maybe Utah bounces back, but it seems like they’re in the wilderness as a program. It sucks to see Kyle Whittingham’s teams fail to answer the bell, but that’s become the norm, and while BYU pulls on the same rope (sorry, we’re sticking with that metaphor today), Utah AD Mark Harlan’s well-established shortcomings seem like they’re hampering efforts to tap what should be decent resources from that booster base. What are those shortcomings? The short version is that he just doesn’t come across as a serious person.
The Big 12 is still wide, wide, wide open. Nobody’s better than 1–0. Nobody’s worse than 0–1. Seven teams are within 2.5 points in Movelor, and those are the seven at the top of the list. We can’t guarantee that Texas Tech will lose, but Texas Tech has its work cut out for it.
There was some mourning over the Iron Skillet, the SMU–TCU game which won’t be played next year. That is understandable. It’s a bummer. Those two schools should play. At the same time, though, this is another case where the fiercest rivalries are the ones it’s hard to schedule. Also? Those at prominent outlets who wrote that the rivalry is “permanently” canceled shouldn’t have a job that involves words. These teams will play again. Probably pretty soon.
Syracuse over Clemson and More ACC
We wrote about Dabo last week, but to quickly rehash: The transfer portal was never Clemson’s problem. It’s a good tool for patching holes, but Clemson has similar talent across the roster to what it had at its heyday. The difference is that it doesn’t have Brent Venables at defensive coordinator, its quarterbacking is worse, and its strength and conditioning program is no longer defying biology. A lot of things went right at Clemson in the 2010’s. But Venables moved on. Trevor Lawrence’s successors weren’t and aren’t Trevor Lawrence. The strength and conditioning program hasn’t had a positive PED test in a while. The current state of Clemson makes sense.
The bad part for Clemson is that their longterm plans seem very centered on SEC membership. They’ve always been a football school in a basketball conference, making the SEC a more logical home. But Clemson’s fanbase isn’t big enough to make them a huge chip in a streaming world, and Clemson’s geography doesn’t bring anything new to the SEC in terms of footprint or media markets. UNC and maybe Miami are going to be the big targets in the next round of SEC vs. Big Ten. It doesn’t seem like Clemson will get many calls.
Speaking of Miami: Still good! We’re waiting for either a Mario Cristobal stress test (talking game management) or for a roster-wide lapse in focus, but we aren’t there yet. Right now, these guys might be playing like the third-best team in the country. Only Ohio State and Oregon are clearly playing better than the Miami Hurricanes.
Cal managed to lose 34–0 to San Diego State, who tortured Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele after three weeks in which Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele looked great. I do not know what happened there. That is a wild box score.
Missouri over South Carolina, With the Virginia Tech Job Open
South Carolina fans should probably be thrilled with Shane Beamer, because there are expectations at South Carolina right now and that’s not a natural state. South Carolina should be able to pay Shane Beamer more than Virginia Tech, because Virginia Tech is even more out of the way than South Carolina and it’s getting ACC money while South Carolina’s one eternal buy game for the big boys in the SEC. Basically, South Carolina shouldn’t do anything stupid, namely let Shane Beamer walk. Also, Missouri is good.
Speaking of teams who experience SEC football the way baseballs experience Cal Raleigh: Arkansas couldn’t get it done against Memphis. On the bright side, Memphis is probably the best FBS mid-major. On the dark side, there are games Arkansas can win and games Arkansas can’t. There are more of the former, but not by a lot. The Hogs needed that, and they didn’t get it, and now Notre Dame comes to town for a game it might take each team 57 points to win.
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