9/13/2026

What another week in the greatest sport in the world. We saw upsets, we saw close games, we saw massive stat lines, and we saw a shake up in the AP Top 25. I was at the Rice/Notre Dame game, so I was not able to watch any games during the morning/afternoon slate, but we raced home to Chicago to make the night slate of games. My Gameday Experience article will be out tomorrow, so stay tuned for that it will be a good one. 

Winners

Darien Mensah (Second time this season)

He will stay on this list until he deserves to be taken off. Yes, they played an FCS school this week, but in the first half he still went 14/15 252 through the air, and 3 more TD’s. He has double the amount of TD’s he has incompletions through the 5 quarters he has played this season. Read that again. He has 8 TD’s, and 4 incompletions. That is mental. 

Jeremiah Smith (Second time this season)

Even though OSU lost this game, he could not have done much more. 8 catches, 164 yards, and another TD. That is 20.4 yards per catch against what many people consider the best defense in the country. It is no shock him, and Mensah are leading the Heisman odds. 

Steve Sarkisian/Arch Manning

This was not a clean game by Texas which is why I do not have the entire team listed as winners. They had 3 turnovers, and going into the 4th quarter they were down by 20. They then scored 21 unanswered to win the game. This was a huge confidence builder for both Sark and Arch. This win gives them confidence to execute in future big games, confidence they did not previously have after losing many games to top teams. Arch played and managed the game very well in the 4th, 8/11 for 83 yards and a TD. It does not look particularly impressive, but he looked fully in command, forgetting the first 3 quarters, and executing where he needed. This was big for Arch, and he should be playing with greater confidence moving forward.

Michigan Defense

Their defense won them this game plain and simple. The offense continues to struggle, but their defense played outstanding. They completely shut down John Mateer, he completely slightly above 50% off his passes for 189 yards, 1 TD, and 1 pick. Oklahoma also went 3/13 on 3rd down and finished with sub 300 yards. Jyaire Hill came up with the play off the game, picked it off with less than 10 minutes left in the 4th at a tie game, ran it back to inside the 5 yard line. They looked great this game, and if Michigan will want to continue winning, they need to keep up this pace on defense, and start to create their production on offense. 

Iowa

I had to include this, they did not do anything special, but they won the game, and got the Cyhawk trophy back. Go hawks. 

Texas A&M Defense

Two pick 6’s, two more fumble recoveries, I had to put them here. TAMU also only gave up 115 rushing yards and no rushing TD’s. I still want to see more out of them, Week 1 played Missouri State which was obviously nothing impressive, but ASU is a significantly better team. They gave up 254 yards through the air, so I would like to see some more improvement from the pass rush and pressure rate. But they looked good this week, they have Kentucky next week who played Alabama well in the first half. 

The FCS (Second time this season)

The FCS won two more games this week bringing their season win over FBS opponents to 5. They have 38 more games against FBS teams this year, curious to see how many more they will win and add onto their record breaking win total season. 

Losers

Ohio State 4th Quarter Defense

Their defense through the first three quarters was going to be a Winner this week, but as I learned from a young age, you cannot win the game in the first quarter. They completely fell apart in the 4th. It is not like they were giving up huge plays, they just allowed Texas to sustain drives, and could not get off the field. This is where you miss those three top 11 picks in last year’s draft. Ohio State has 7 new starters on defense, and although very talented, and they will get better, the inexperience was a factor in them not being able to close out this game. 

UNLV

In a game where UNLV was favored by three, they lost by 38 to UNLV. They looked absolutely awful on offense. They turned the ball over 4 times, and were held to just 159 total yards. For a team that is supposed to compete for the Mountain West title, they got wiped. 

Kyle Steel

Good friend of the program Kyle Steel went out to Salt Lake City, UT to see his Arkansas Razorbacks take on the Utes. He swore to me all week to watch out for this game, as he thought it would be close, they ended up losing 43-10. Worst of all, once the game finished at midnight local time, all the bars were closing shortly after so he could not even get drinks after watching his team get demolished. He made me aware of this at 1:00 AM CST. SlawekOnSaturdays did reach out for comment and Mr. Steel replied saying “Hopeless, humbled, outfought, out coached. It was a pathetic performance. Nothing will change with Hunter Yurachek as the AD, and the people of Arkansas deserve better.” I pray for the well being of Mr. Steel, but I hope his satisfaction comes next season as I am on the under for Arkansas wins, which is at 4.5. 

Akron’s First Drive OC

Akron tried a promotion this year that was wildly popular. They had a chance for a season ticket holder to call the offensive plays for their first drive against Robert Morris, which what a stray for them, they did not deserve that but it needed to happen to someone. Marty Wims won those sweepstakes and worked with the staff to create an opening drive strategy. He got to call just 4 plays before Akron fumbled the ball. Short day for the honorary OC. 

Questionable

Sam Leavitt

His stat line was weird, if you look at his total game, he had 366 yards and 4 TD’s, but he also had 3 picks in the second quarter, and all three were his fault. He turned it around in the second half, but his decision making against Louisiana Tech was poor. He will need to tighten that up next week when they play a massive game against Ole Miss. 

Keelon Russell

Alabama ended up winning the game 45-17, but Kentucky was winning at halftime. Keelon Russell threw 2 picks, one of which was returned for a TD. He finished the game 16/23 with 188 yards and 1 TD and 2 picks. This was not a great performance by him, and he is going to need to pick up his play if Alabama wants to keep winning. They have a tough SEC schedule coming up, and although Kentucky is an SEC team, they will face much stiffer competition. 

Texas Tech

They are 2-0 which at the end of the day is what matters. But this past week against Oregon State, they were 26.5 point favorites, and had to come from behind to win. Tech who was so dominant last season has been a little underwhelming so far. They are not closing out drives, and their defense is not playing as well as they should be. I am worried about their reliability moving forward, and I can see them dropping 1-2 games in the Big 12 moving forward. 

huh

Oregon

This to me was a shock. Last week I thought Boise played up to the skill level of Oregon, but this week they just got beat in every aspect by a team that lost to Tulsa last week. Drew Mestemaker played amazing, and Oregon’s DL was just not creating pressure, which they were supposed to be one of the more experienced groups in the country. This continues to prove the theory that returning production can be an overrated statistic in this game. 

Betting recap

This week I did very well. I went 16-11 bringing my season total to 30-31-2. After an abysmal start to the season going 1-6 in Week 0, we are almost back to even on the season. This is also the first week I did not post my picks, and I went nearly 60%. Not saying that is why that happened, but I am going to continue to do that until it does not work. 

Next Week

Notre Dame was incredible, but this next week I am going to one of the best environments in the sport going to Ohio State. Kent State comes to town so I expect OSU to have a big bounce back game after a collapse against Texas. Work asked me to go to Columbus and I am lucky enough to stay the weekend for the game.