Who's trending in college football after Week 9? Plus, some rivalry game fun

Until Saturday Newsletter 🏈 | This is The Athletic’s college football newsletter. Sign up here to receive Until Saturday directly in your inbox.

While you were sleeping … Washington State staged a fourth-quarter comeback against San Diego State to win 29-26 and improve to 7-1. Wazzu was the first team out of the AP poll last week. Maybe the Cougars find their way into the Top 25 today.

Rivalry Results

Michigan-MSU, Kansas-KSU

• Michigan got competent play at QB with Davis Warren and knocked off Michigan State 24-17. The Spartans (4-4) came out of the gate swinging and outgained Michigan 135-15 in the first quarter. But a fumble to end the first half resulted in the Wolverines (5-3) gaining the edge. Michigan has won three straight in this series for the Paul Bunyan trophy.
• Kansas nearly spoiled No. 16 Kansas State’s season. The Jayhawks led the Wildcats by four points entering the fourth quarter, but Wildcats kicker Chris Tennant bailed out his team with a 51-yard go-ahead field goal with less than two minutes to play for a 29-27 win. The Jayhawks (2-6) haven’t beaten the Wildcats (7-1) since 2008, or as one fan put it, in 5,838 days.
• No. 12 Notre Dame ran away from No. 24 Navy for an easy 51-14 win. The Midshipmen entered the game with an undefeated record and high hopes to make a statement with a resume-building win. But instead, they faltered and saw their College Football Playoff chances fall from 5 percent to 4 percent, per The Athletic’s model. Meanwhile, Notre Dame (7-1) has an 83 percent chance to make the field.

Trending This Week

Backup QBs come through

📈 No. 1 Oregon. The Ducks crushed No. 20 Illinois 38-9 to improve to 8-0 for the first time since 2013. QB Dillon Gabriel threw three TDs, moving to third on the NCAA list in career passing TDs, and scored another on the ground. Illinois was the last ranked team on Oregon’s schedule, and while an upset is never out of the question, the Ducks’ Big Ten championship path and CFP potential keep getting clearer.

📉 The 3:30 p.m. viewing window. As the Ducks routed Illinois, the other mid-afternoon games didn’t provide much drama. No. 15 Alabama shut out No. 21 Missouri 34-0. No. 11 BYU (8-0) never trailed in its 37-24 win against UCF. The average margin of victory of the 16 games that kicked off at 3:30 p.m. was 15 points. There were, however, two one-point games: Tulsa’s 46-45 win over UTSA and TCU’s 35-34 win over Texas Tech.

📈 Backup QBs. Penn State starter Drew Allar did not play in the second half against Wisconsin after suffering an apparent injury on a sack. But backup Beau Pribula stepped in just fine in the Nittany Lions’ 28-13 win. Over in College Station, Texas A&M (7-1) made a mid-game switch at QB from Conner Weigman to Marcel Reed, which sparked a 31-point second half against LSU (6-2). Weigman was sacked four times early in the game, which prompted coach Mike Elko to turn to Reed, who uses his legs as a runner a bit more. The switch worked as the Aggies overcame their 10-point halftime deficit to win 38-23.

📈 Travis Hunter. Colorado grabbed its sixth win of the season against Cincinnati yesterday. Hunter reignited his Heisman campaign after some injury issues the past few weeks by recording nine catches for 153 yards and two TDs along with two tackles and four pass breakups on defense. He was on the field for 130 total snaps — 68 on offense and 62 on defense. The Buffs are going bowling in Year 2 under Coach Prime.

📉 Turnovers. Turnovers are never a GOOD thing. But they felt especially harmful this week. It all started on Thursday night when Syracuse QB Kyle McCord threw five interceptions against Pitt, three of which were returned for touchdowns in the first half, as the No. 20 Panthers made a statement in a 41-13 win. On Saturday, No. 22 SMU committed six turnovers against Duke in a game that went to OT. The Mustangs escaped 28-27, which was only the 32nd time since 2000 that a team had six turnovers and won, per The Athletic’s Matt Baker. The other team with six turnovers on Saturday? Navy in its loss to Notre Dame.

📈 Cal. The Bears entered Saturday having lost their three previous games by four combined points. But Cal broke through with a 44-7 win against Oregon State as QB Fernando Mendoza threw for 364 yards and two TDs — including what was credited as a 15-yard pass to himself for the first score.

Quick Snaps … and Scores

Stewart Mandel on the backup QBs who bailed out Penn State and Texas A&M and more in college football’s Week 9.

One thing we lacked this Saturday was a field storming. So, to fill the void, check out this story on Gary Morse, a Class of 2026 college baseball recruit who stormed the field three weeks in a row (at Vanderbilt, at Oregon and at Tennessee) while on official visits.

No. 4 Ohio State slid past Nebraska 21-17, but the win revealed questions about the Buckeyes’ national championship aspirations.

No. 5 Texas survived a close call of its own against No. 25 Vanderbilt with a 27-24 win. QB Quinn Ewers threw two interceptions as the Commodores hung around.

It wasn’t always pretty, but No. 6 Miami dispatched Florida State 36-14. After the game, Canes coach Mario Cristobal wasn’t afraid to throw some shade at the other programs from the Sunshine State.

You can buy tickets to every college football game here.

For streaming info on Fubo, click here.

📫 Love Until Saturday? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters.

(Top photo of Davis Warren: Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)