Five Games Which Mattered Last Week: Texas Finally Wins a Big One & Oregon Goes on Red Alert

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With one more week of mostly non-conference play remaining, last weekend did not have a shortage of games to choose from. I found five with five different reasons for making the cut today including a Top 5 battle, a major upset, a minor upset plus redemption, a hard lesson about taking hype videos a little too strong and a historically pathetic offense school looking that way again – and almost suffering a bad upset themselves.

Here we go!

‘Horns Finally Pull Through – Texas 24 Ohio State 23 – And they probably have Ohio State Coach Ryan Day to thank for it. With a 23-3 lead late in the 3rd quarter and famous name and media favorite Arch Manning putting up his usual low-end effort against a quality opponent, Day’s Buckeyes went to low-risk 3-and-out mode while Manning was able to to put together 80 or so yards of passing and three big drives to lead Texas on 21-point run and a 24-23 comeback win.

Media immediately again pronounced him the greatest QB in the college game, even though the big picture showed another sickly effort – 23-37 195 yds, a TD, a pick and a sorry 5.3 YPA. However Texas is #1 for now and Ohio St. is suddenly on early non-CFP watch with a still brutal schedule ahead of them.

Is this a glitch or a crash for the Ducks? – Oklahoma State 39 Oregon 31 – Not too many eyebrows raised when Oregon had a tough go with always tough Boise State, but after Okie State dismantled the Ducks in a game, in which the 39-31 score failed to show just how badly the Ducks were dominated, Eugene is on high alert. Oklahoma State, while expected to improve over their 1-11 record in 2025 after hiring North Texas coach Eric Morris and 20 of his Mean Green players from the 12-2 AAC champs, was not expected to do THAT.

What they did was almost double up the #6 Ducks in yardage 554-281 while QB Drew Mestemaker, with 317 yards passing and 110 rushing, completely outplayed potential #1 draft pick Dante Moore. No one’s sure just how good the Cowboys are now, but with Boise losing to Memphis last weekend, questions abound about the Ducks – are they taking their first steps toward a 2025 Penn State start?

The Wolverines win a tough one, this time in regulation – Michigan 17 Oklahoma 10 – After their unofficial 12-7 loss to Western Michigan, thanks to more dirty pool by the country’s most corrupt officials the poster children for officiating being nationalized, Michigan redeemed themselves with a win over the Sooners, even if they changed no one’s perceptions of the team. As has been the case ever since Connor Stalions was no longer there to let them know what defenses they will face play-to-play, the Michigan offense is challenging Iowa for the conference’s most anemic.

However, their defense is showing they may still get them to 9 wins with scores which will be at home with those of the Big Ten circa the 50’s and 60’s.

Civil War hype videos..probably not the way to go – Missouri 38 Kansas 21 – For those not familiar with the origins of the Mizzou/Kansas rivalry, here’s a quick education to save time on that and the video. But bottom line, Kansas thought they’d lean into it as they played the second of two games since Missouri left for the SEC and Kansas officials swore they’d never play them again.

As you can see from the score, it didn’t have the desired effect.

Missouri is no angel – back in 2007, their fans sported t-shirts of Lawrence burning with “SCOREBOARD” emblazoned on them, a reference to the William Quantrill raid of 1863.

Same old offense, almost disaster – Iowa 16 Iowa State 13 – Iowa expected a pretty easy road in the annual battle for state’s bragging rights, especially after the Cyclones lost a staggering 55 players in the transfer portal following Head Coach Matt Campbell happily absconding for Penn State as their 6th or 7th choice. with 25 players followed him to Happy Valley.

The Squawks broke a 13-13 tie with just over 4 minutes left and neither team reaching 300 yards of offense. Many preseason picks had Iowa winning 10 or more games and being a dark horse to make the CFP. Those are now being rethought.

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