No. 9 Texas A&M loses at home to Kentucky, meaning SEC will have two top-10 teams tumble
The powerhouse Southeastern Conference will have at least two top-10 teams lose in Week 3.
It could be three if No. 10 Alabama doesn’t beat pesky Florida State.
Kentucky stunned No. 9 Texas A&M on the road Saturday, winning 31-21 behind three transfers: quarterback Kenny Minchey, running back CJ Baxter and safety Jordan Castell.
Minchey, a Notre Dame transfer, completed 14 of 18 passes for 252 yards and two touchdowns. He connected on his final 11 throws. Baxter, a former Texas standout, ran for 87 yards and two scores. Castell, a three-year starter at Florida, finished with a team-high 13 tackles and an interception.
“I’m not shocked,” first-year coach Will Stein said on the field afterward. “This is how these guys practiced every single day. This is what Kentucky football is supposed to look like. So proud of our guys coming on the road, the eye of the storm. How freaking cool is this? Let’s go!”
Stein, 36, replaced longtime Kentucky coach Mark Stoops in December and became the third first-year Wildcats coach to beat a top-10 team — first since Joker Phillips in 2010.
“We knew it was going to be a bar fight, a fistfight, old school,” Stein said. “We were the tougher team tonight. That’s how we won the game.
“This is what we wanted, BBN. Let’s freaking go!”
No. 7 LSU and eighth-ranked Ole Miss will finish later Saturday and provide another top-10 loss.
Alabama led Florida State 26-21 at halftime, rallying after trailing 21-6 early in the second quarter. It was an eye-popping deficit for a Crimson Tide team that shockingly lost at home to the Seminoles to open last season.
Lane Kiffin was wildly booed long before he arrived at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday for the LSU-Ole Miss game.
Kiffin appeared remotely on ESPN's “College GameDay," and Mississippi fans still angry about how he left the Rebels for LSU late last season greeted him with a chorus of expletive-laced chants. It was a clear sign of what Kiffin and the Tigers should expect when they play at Ole Miss later Saturday.
“I really appreciate you guys gaslighting them with this,” Kiffin said from the team hotel.
It was the latest in a growing buildup for the first top-10 matchup between No. 7 LSU and eight-ranked Ole Miss since 1962.
It started when Kiffin left the Rebels to take the LSU job and a $91 million contract just as the team he had coached for six years was days away from its first appearance in the College Football Playoff. Kiffin wanted to stay through the playoff, but Ole Miss moved on to coach Pete Golding and advanced to the CFP semifinals. LSU finished 7-6, capped by a loss in the Texas Bowl.
The off-field storylines haven't stopped since. Kiffin's comments about whether Black players could be recruited to Ole Miss, lawsuits alleging Ole Miss transfers owe big money for reneging on their NIL deals and LSU’s now-abandoned defiance of rules against rostering former pro players have only brightened the spotlight for this one.
LSU threw another wrinkle into the mix by saying midweek that quarterback Sam Leavitt was “doubtful” to play, sparking immediate fan accusations of gamesmanship. He's been upgraded since and is expected to start.
Kiffin himself acknowledged there could be “hatred” in the stands Saturday. Security has been dramatically increased as authorities expect 100,000 people in Oxford, a town whose school-year population of about 25,000 is virtually all students.
The winner improves to 3-0 on the season — and gets savory bragging rights.
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney can thank Mother Nature for alleviating some heat.
Gideon Davidson ran for 105 yards and scored the go-ahead touchdown with five minutes remaining as the Tigers rallied from a 14-point deficit to beat North Carolina 28-20 on Saturday in a game that included a 2 1/2-hour weather delay.
Clemson’s Tait Reynolds completed 20 of 29 passes for 215 yards with a touchdown and an interception in his first career start.
The Tigers trailed 17-15 with 8:11 remaining and UNC with momentum. It was second-and-goal at the Tigers 7 when officials sent both teams to the locker room after lightning was detected in the area.
When players returned to the field, it was all Clemson. The Tigers stuffed two runs, forced a field goal and took over from there.
It capped a strange week for the Tar Heels. Investigators said they examined a range of allegations tied to potential drug use, inappropriate relationships and NCAA rule violations in the football program. It is a startling list considering Belichick was hired less than two years ago on a five-year deal that included $10 million guaranteed in each of the first three years.
General manager Michael Lombardi resigned earlier this month, and Belichick’s son, Steve, will not return to his job as defensive coordinator.
Clemson, meanwhile, was still reeling from a 51-10 shellacking at LSU to open the season. And losing to Belichick would have provided more criticism of Swinney’s talent procurement decisions.
Jeremiah Smith became Ohio State’s career receiving yardage leader.
Smith caught five passes for 85 yards in a 59-3 victory over Kent State. The junior needed 26 yards to surpass Michael Jenkins’ 2,898 yards from 2000-03 and become OSU’s record-holder and got it on his second catch of the game, when he hauled in a 23-yard pass from Julian Sayin midway through the first quarter.
“Put a lot of hard work into it," Smith said. “They said 33 games, so I’m blessed.”
Keyjuan Brown ran for a career-high 163 yards and a pair of long touchdowns to carry No. 23 Louisville to a 41-31 victory over 16th-ranked SMU. The teams picked to finish second (SMU) and third (Louisville) in the Atlantic Coast Conference put on a back-and-forth affair, trading the lead eight times before the Cardinals sealed it on Isaac Brown’s 27-yard touchdown run with 5:32 remaining.
Both teams were trying to keep pace with No. 5 Miami, which beat Wake Forest 33-20 on Friday night behind an impressive performance by quarterback Darian Mensah.
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