There was no shortage of chaos in Week 2, but the biggest stories all came with a clear theme: some teams found a way to seize the moment, and others spent Saturday making life harder on themselves.
Texas owned the night in the game everyone was watching. Down 20 to No.
1 Ohio State late in the third quarter and staring at 4th-and-9 from its own 40-yard line, the Longhorns were in a spot plenty of coaches would’ve answered with a punt. Steve Sarkisian didn’t want any part of that.
“That’s how losers think,” Sarkisian said. “Winners win, baby.
You’ve gotta go for it. Keep it close?
They didn’t hire me to keep it close, they hired me to win.”
Texas still had to finish the job, and Arch Manning did exactly that. Manning, who said after the game that he simply couldn’t lose to Ohio State again, led the Longhorns on a string of touchdown drives to flip the game.
First came the initial breakthrough to make it 23-10. Then Texas forced a 3-and-out, and Manning answered again with a 13-play, 72-yard touchdown march to pull within 23-17.
After Ohio State missed a field goal on the next possession, Manning put together another scoring drive, this one 12 plays and 73 yards, to seal a 24-23 comeback. Texas is 2-0 and now sits as the Associated Press’ No. 1 team.
If Texas was the feel-good winner, Oklahoma was the opposite.
It was a brutal Saturday for the Sooners and their fans, and the list of misery kept getting longer. Oklahoma lost to a team that needed a Hail Mary to kind of beat Western Michigan.
John Mateer puked on his cleats in his 2026 prove-it game. Star linebacker Kip Lewis went down with a non-contact injury and, per Brent Venables, “will miss time.”
Then there was the rivalry damage: Texas beat Ohio State, grabbed the No. 1 spot in the country, and may have collected the most impressive win anyone will get all season. Oklahoma State also snapped a 12-game losing streak by beating No.
6 Oregon. And looming ahead for Oklahoma is a brutal stretch with a trip to face No.
2 Georgia in Week 4, then a bye, then the Red River Shootout in Dallas to open Week 6.
Mississippi State found another rising star in Kamario Taylor. After flashing in Week 1 against UL Monroe, Taylor was even sharper against Minnesota, piling up just over 300 yards and three touchdowns in a 38-13 win over the Golden Gophers.
His arm strength stood out again, and so did the way he handled the whole package: downfield throws, quick game work, movement outside the pocket, and calm play with pressure closing in. Taylor completed 72% of his passes against Minnesota, hasn’t thrown an interception this season, and has taken just one sack.
He’s moved well beyond athlete-with-potential and into real quarterback territory. Week 3 brings a matchup with LaNorris Sellers.
Kansas, meanwhile, had a social media plan that badly outpaced the result on the field. The Jayhawks rolled out a rivalry hype video that leaned into Civil War-era militant leaders, the philosophy of good and evil, and the sins of the rival’s ancestors.
That’s the kind of thing you better back up with a win, especially when you haven’t beaten Missouri in the Border War since 2008. Kansas didn’t.
Missouri controlled the second half and won 38-21 for its fifth straight Border War victory. Afterward, Eli Drinkwitz called the Kansas video “embarrassing” and said he told Austin Simmons to step on the Jayhawks’ throat in the final minutes while already up two possessions.
Alabama’s defense kept stacking up another impressive week. The Crimson Tide haven’t just looked good; they’ve looked suffocating.
Yhonzae Pierre has been a force off the edge, Devan Thompkins is making his presence felt inside, and linebackers Caleb Woodson and Luke Metz turned in big outings against Kentucky, with Metz adding a pick-6. Opponents are just 1-for-23 on third down against Alabama, and the Tide are one of four teams in the country holding foes under 200 yards per game.
Kentucky managed one productive drive after the Wildcats defense caught a Keelon Russell deflection and turned it into points, but once Alabama took a 14-7 lead with six minutes left in the second quarter, the game swung hard. The Tide outscored Kentucky 38-3 the rest of the way, while the Wildcats finished the second half with 57 yards, two turnovers, and two turnovers on downs.
Florida State comes to Tuscaloosa in Week 3 for a shot at revenge.
The Big Ten took the roughest collective hit of the weekend, with Michigan and Iowa as the only league teams to beat a power conference opponent. Eight Big Ten programs had those kinds of matchups, and most of them went sideways.
Ohio State’s collapse against Texas was the headliner, and Oregon got hammered by a team that hadn’t won a game since August of 2025, with Dan Lanning saying the Ducks “got (their) ass kicked in a lot of areas.” Rutgers gets a pass because Boston College is the Boston College of the Red Bandanna Game.
Purdue lost at home to Wake Forest, Minnesota got rolled by Kamario Taylor, Illinois squandered home-field advantage in a 31-27 loss to Duke, and Washington nearly slipped up too, escaping Utah State 16-14. Through Week 2, the Big Ten is 3-7 against non-conference power 4 opponents, while the SEC is 8-2.
In Other News...
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Texas rally against Ohio State got the headlines, but the broader picture is what matters in Tuscaloosa and across the league. The SEC is already setting the pace nationally, and with so many of its teams winning early, the margin for error figures to shrink fast once conference play begins to sort out the contenders from the rest. [Read more 🡒]
Alabama Had An Unexpected Game Problem While Trying To Settle Keelon Russell
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Alabamas New Top 10 Ranking Just Raised The Stakes Dramatically
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The Tide are about to face a run of top-15 opponents that will tell the real story of this season, and it begins right after the calendar flips into October. Georgia, Tennessee, Texas A&M and LSU all wait in a stretch that could define whether Alabama stays in the College Football Playoff race or slips into damage-control mode, and the early ranking only makes those games feel bigger. [Read more 🡒]