Week 5 didn’t just shake up the college football landscape - it kept the Heisman race crowded with quarterbacks and a wideout making noise in a big way.
At the top of the conversation is Ohio State receiver Jeremiah Smith, who keeps putting together stat lines that look unreal even by his standards. Against Iowa on Saturday, he caught 11 passes for 206 yards and two touchdowns.
The Hawkeyes tried different coverages and different answers, but none of it slowed him down. Smith now has 44 catches for 823 yards and nine touchdowns, and he’s already Ohio State’s all-time leader in receptions, receiving touchdowns and receiving yards.
Miami quarterback Darian Mensah is right there in the mix after another sharp performance against Clemson. He threw for 227 yards and a touchdown and added 27 rushing yards with another score.
The numbers behind his season are even louder: 84.2 percent completions, 1,438 passing yards, 15 touchdowns and no interceptions. Miami is 5-0, and Mensah has been the engine.
Alabama’s Keelon Russell keeps stacking up production too. He has thrown for 1,414 yards, 11 touchdowns and two interceptions this season, and he backed that up in Saturday’s 56-23 win over Mississippi State.
Russell finished with 285 passing yards, three touchdown passes and a rushing score while beating out fellow Heisman contender Kamario Taylor in the matchup. Over his last three games, Russell has a 10/0 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr has stayed a little more under the radar, but the results are there. He has 1,197 passing yards, 13 touchdowns and one interception on the season, then added 234 yards and four touchdowns against North Carolina on Saturday. He’s shown he can make every throw and do enough with his legs to keep defenses honest.
Taylor is still very much in the Heisman picture despite a rough outing against Alabama. The Mississippi State quarterback has thrown for 1,450 yards, 17 touchdowns and four interceptions this season, and he gets a chance to bounce back when Mississippi State visits LSU in Baton Rouge on Oct.
- That matchup is set to be one of the day’s top games.
In Other News...
Mississippi State Has Bigger Problems Than KaMario Taylors Health
Mississippi State is using the aftermath of its loss to Alabama to sort through a lot more than one quarterbacks health. KaMario Taylor put up 258 passing yards and three touchdowns, but the Bulldogs also had to live with turnovers and five sacks, a reminder that the offenses problems run deeper than whether Taylor can make plays with his legs. The focus now is on shoring up protection and cutting down on the mistakes that kept drives from fully taking hold.
The bye week arrives at a good time for a unit that needs more balance, especially on the ground and in its overall execution. Mississippi State wants to come out of it with a steadier offensive identity before LSU comes to town, and that means making the whole operation cleaner rather than leaning on Taylor to absorb the burden snap after snap. [Read more 🡒]
Mississippi States Third Down Problem Started Long Before Third Down
Mississippi States offense left Tuscaloosa with the kind of box score that tells only part of the story. The Bulldogs piled up 302 total yards against Alabama, but the balance was all wrong, with just 18 rushing yards and the rest coming through the air. They did convert seven third downs, which on the surface looks like a workable day, but the deeper issue was how often the offense had already put itself behind the sticks before those snaps even arrived.
The ground game never gave the Bulldogs much of a foundation, and that mattered well beyond the rushing total itself. When the running backs cant consistently move the chains or force a defense to respect the run, the next play becomes harder to call and the next third down becomes harder to survive. For Mississippi State, the problem was less about one isolated situation than a broader offensive rhythm that made too many of those conversion chances feel like escapes instead of signs of control. [Read more 🡒]