College Football Week 2: 12 Winners, Losers from College Football Games Today
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College Football Week 2 is drawing to a close, with Saturday’s action featuring some marquee matchups between the Oklahoma Sooners vs Michigan Wolverines, Ohio State Buckeyes vs Texas Longhorns an the Arizona Wildcats vs BYU Cougars.
As the slate of Week 2 college football games finish, we now turn our attention to highlighting the standouts and disappointments from Saturday’s action.
Let’s dive into our winners and losers from the college football games today.
Winner: Josh Hoover, QB, Indiana Hoosiers
Reigning Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza put up 4 passing touchdowns and 438 passing yards on 56 attempts in his first two games last season against Old Dominion and Kennesaw State. Through his first two starts as the Indiana Hoosiers quarterback, Josh Hoover has 8 passing touchdowns and 376 passing yards on 27 attempts in six quarters against North Texas and Howard. We’re not saying that Hoover is going to make it back-to-back Heisman winners for Indiana, but Curt Cignetti’s quarterback is on pace to beat Mendoza’s numbers and the quality of competition to this point isn’t any different.
Loser: Dante Moore and Dan Lanning, Oregon Ducks
A slow start in the first half at home against Boise State (17-14) can be explained away. Trailing 24-17 at the half to an Oklahoma State Cowboys program that is 4-21 in its last 25 games is concerning. Dante Moore’s miserable first-half performance (5-of-15, 45 passing yards and 2 sacks taken) is rightfully going to be the major focus. However, we think it’s also worth putting Dan Lanning’s defense under the spotlight given it allowed 5 passing touchdowns in the first six quarters this season.
A second-half rally seemed to be on the table in the third quarter and then the wheels came off for Oregon. Lanning’s defense allowed a 13-lay, 75-yard touchdown drive to start the fourth quarter. Most dumbfounding, Lanning opted to go for it on 4th-and-8 from the Ducks’ 33-yard line with 6:48 left in the game and the failed conversion set Oklahoma State up for a field goal to make it an eight-point game. It felt over after that and the Ducks’ fumble on the final drive just served as the nail in the coffin.
Winner: Gunner Stockton, QB, Georgia Bulldogs
Are the Georgia Bulldogs beating up on some awful competition right now? Certainly, but so are quite a few top teams. We still have to tip our cap to Bulldogs starting quarterback Gunner Stockton, whose efficiency through the air in 2026 is absurd. In the regular-season opener against Tennessee State, the senior put up 202 passing yards and 3 touchdowns on 16 attempts (12.6 yards per attempt) with just a single incompletion. In Week 2 versus Western Kentucky, Stockton had more passing touchdowns (five) than incompletions (three) in the first half with 234 passing yards in the first half. Through two games, Stockton has twice as many passing touchdowns (eight) as incompletions (four) while averaging 13.6 yards per attempt.
Loser: John Mateer, QB, Oklahoma Sooners
The Oklahoma Sooners defense certainly performed well enough to beat Michigan in Ann Arbor in Week 2. Unfortunately for head coach Brent Venables, quarterback John Mateer had a brutal performance. Oklahoma’s offense couldn’t get much going on Saturday afternoon, but tight end Rocky Beers was a bright spot and the only player consistently capable of getting open. Bafflingly, Mateer didn’t look his way much in the fourth quarter. Then again, based on the amount of high throws to the Sooners’ receivers, he might not have hit Beers anyway. When he finally went Beer’s way on the final two drives, he was off-target. If this is the version of Mateer we’re going to see against top defenses, Oklahoma is losing to Georgia (Sept. 26) and Texas (Oct. 10) and effectively being ruled out of College Football Playoff contention by the end of Week 5.
Winner: Drew Mestemaker, QB, Oklahoma State Cowboys
There’s a reason coming into the season that we thought that Oklahoma State Cowboys quarterback Drew Mestemaker could finish top-five in Heisman Trophy voting this year. He didn’t look like that caliber of passer in the loss at Tulsa (2 interceptions and 2 sacks taken), but the new face of the Cowboys offense certainly had a Heisman-caliber moment in the upset win over Oregon. Mestemaker still threw 2 interceptions, but he also opened the game with a 75-yard run and put up 39 points on the Ducks defense with 317 yards through the air and 109 on the ground. Oklahoma State has a very special backfield.
Loser: Washington Huskies’ Run Game
With the losses by Oregon and Oklahoma in Week 2, the 2-0 Washington Huskies might be feeling like the door to making the College Football Playoff is starting to crack open. Based on what we’ve seen from the Huskies’ rushing attack, or lack thereof, the fan base shouldn’t feel optimistic. In Week 1, running back Jayden Limar managed just 47 yards on 12 carries (3.9 ypc), with 11 of those touches going for 36 yards. It wasn’t much better in Saturday’s narrow 14-16 win over Utah State. Demond Williams Jr. was Washington’s leading rusher for the second consecutive week, while the running backs combined for 49 yards on 21 carries. If the Huskies can’t find a viable run game soon, they will lose to USC, Penn State, Indiana and Oregon this season and there could be another defeat thrown in there.
Winner: Vernell Brown III, WR, Florida Gators
It won’t get talked about much given the competition faced (Campbell), but Florida Gators receiver Vernell Brown III delivered one of the best individual performances in college football this week and it all came in the second quarter. Brown took a punt return 64 yards to the house and, after catching his breath for a few moments, went back out there on the very next punt return and took that back 70 yards for a score. Clearly he needed the football in his hands a little more, so the Gators schemed up a touch for him on a pop pass and he took it around the edge and raced down the sideline for a 14-yard score. Feels safe to say the Gainesville native needs more opportunities moving forward.
Loser: Kalen DeBoer, Alabama Crimson Tide HC
Don’t let the 45-17 final score fool you, Kalen DeBoer’s offense looked awful in the first half against Kentucky and it was basically gifted two touchdowns in the third quarter. On the first six drives by the Alabama Crimson Tide, they totaled 140 total yards with three takeaways. When did Alabama finally take the lead? After its defense generated two turnovers that handed its offense the football in scoring range, including once in the red zone. DeBoer has time to figure some things out with his first-year starting quarterback, but this showing didn’t inspire any confidence that Alabama can be one of the SEC’s best teams in 2026.
Winner: Hunter Tipton, TE, Memphis Tigers
Ordinarily, a tight end isn’t among the receiving yardage leaders (229 yards) in college football games today. It’s also incredibly rare for said tight end to put up over 100 receiving yards in the first half of a game, even when you remove his biggest play of the game. Memphis Tigers tight end Hunter Tipton was left wide open at the 29-yard line and took it home for an 87-yard touchdown. On his other four receptions in the first half, he had 100 receiving yards. After transferring over from Middle Tennessee State this offseason, Tipton now has as many touchdowns (two) as he did all of last season and he’s more than halfway to his receiving yardage total (411 in 2025.
Loser: Sam Leavitt, QB, LSU Tigers
Sam Leavitt was the big man on campus after leading the LSU Tigers to a dominant season-opening victory at home against Clemson. The encore on Saturday night was an utter disaster. Leavitt threw interceptions on three consecutive drives in the second quarter, including a pick-six that allowed Louisiana Tech to make it a three-point game before halftime. We thought that durability would be Leavitt’s biggest issue coming into the season and what LSU’s title hopes would come down to. After Week 2? It now feels like the penchant for giving the football away is becoming a new concern with the Tigers quarterback.
Winner: Nate Sheppard, RB, Duke Blue Devils
The Illinois Fighting Illini entered Week 2 as a borderline top-25 team in the AP rankings and there was a real sense of optimism around the program with Duke coming to town. Blue Devils running back Nate Sheppard stomped that out on Saturday afternoon. Sheppard did it all against the Illinois defense, leading Duke in rushing yards (147) and receiving touchdowns (two) while carrying the team to a 31-27 win with his 188 scrimmage yards and three touchdowns.
Loser: Dan Mullen, UNLV Rebels Head Coach
After pulling in quarterback Jackson Arnold in the transfer portal, there were some who thought that Dan Mullen could sneak the UNLV Rebels into the College Football Playoff. Instead, UNLV has dropped to 1-2 this season after getting embarrassed 44-6 at North Texas on Saturday. We could cut Mullen a break for the close loss against Memphis, but his club struggled to beat Hawai’i (21-6) and had nearly as many turnovers (four) as points scored today. This is starting to feel like his Florida tenure, where the team had double-digit winning seasons early on and then fell off a cliff.
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