Week Zero was an appetizer. Week 1 was a surprisingly delicious first course. And now with Week 2 of the college football season here, we have a full entrée of incredible games ahead.
The headliner was, of course, No. 1 Ohio State’s trip to Austin to take on Arch Manning and No. 4 Texas. After falling behind 23–3 entering the fourth quarter, the Longhorns offense came alive with three consecutive fourth quarter touchdown drives to take home a 24–23 victory. Ohio State bludgeoned Texas in a defensive struggle at home last year; this season Manning has a slew of new weapons, and may even get a lift from the return of defensive coordinator Will Muschamp to the Forty Acres. Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde has more on how the veteran DC may impact the second-year starting quarterback.
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Texas removes Ohio State weight off its back with epic fourth-quarter comeback
The Buckeyes knocked off the Longhorns 28–14 in the national semifinal at the Cotton Bowl en route to winning the 2024 national title. Months later, they did it again—14–7 in a slugfest to open the 2025 season at Ohio Stadium.
Texas was a slight favorite to finally pick up a win against its tormentors from the north—a program it last beat in the 2009 Fiesta Bowl—but couldn’t get out of its own way to start the game. Raleek Brown fumbled after a pass from Arch Manning on the Longhorns’ first play from scrimmage. On the next drive, Manning found new star receiver Cam Coleman on a deep ball, but it ended up popping out of his grasp without hitting the ground, and was intercepted by an Ohio State defensive back.
In the second quarter, Ryan Wingo dropped a sure touchdown pass, forcing Texas to settle for a field goal. And on the coaching side, Steve Sarkisian dialed up a fourth-and-1 reverse to Wingo from Buckeyes territory that was sniffed out, and gave Julian Sayin and the OSU offense plenty of time to go down the field and add a late touchdown.
The Buckeyes entered the fourth quarter up 23–3, a lead that looked insurmountable. And then Manning and the Longhorns started chipping away. An early touchdown pass to Wingo, who hung on this time, to cap a 91-yard drive that clearly gave Sarkisian’s club some life. The next drive, extended by a gutsy Manning pass to Emmett Mosley V on fourth-and-6 to extend a drive that was capped by a Hollywood Smothers touchdown. And finally, a 73-yard drive to win it, with Smothers punching in another short touchdown with under a minute left for the lead.
After the game, Manning said last year’s loss gave him nightmares. They seemed to haunt him through three quarters, but they didn’t sink him or his teammates. This was the kind of resilient win that has often been missing from Sarkisian’s run in Austin. The fact that it came against Ohio State has to make it even sweeter.
The Big Ten is the top conference? Not so fast, my friend.
No FBS league has dominated the very top of the sport like the Big Ten in recent years, winners of the last three national championships. That much is hard to argue.
The depth of the league has remained an open question, and kept the door open for the SEC partisans to stake its claim, even if that’s been more difficult in recent years. Saturday’s results provided some strong evidence against Big Ten supremacy, though.
There was, of course, Texas’s comeback win over Ohio State to give the SEC a big win. Another elite Big Ten team, Oregon, fell to an Oklahoma State team that got run off the field by an American squad a week ago. SEC basement-dweller Mississippi State dominated Minnesota, a mid-tier Big Ten squad, on the road. The ACC got in some body blows as well, with Duke scoring a big win at Illinois, and Wake Forest pulling out a dramatic overtime victory at Purdue.
Even some of the Big Ten’s wins this week were deeply underwhelming; Washington, a fringe playoff hopeful, beat Utah State—fresh off of a loss to FCS Idaho—by two. Rivalry games are notoriously difficult to project, but Iowa escaped against an all-new Iowa State that had its roster gutted in the offseason and was voted in the preseason to finish at the bottom of the Big 12.
UCLA picked up a decent win against San Diego State, and Michigan—a week after being as embarrassed in a win as we’ve seen in recent memory—upsetting Oklahoma stood as the only definitive bright spot for the league this weekend. It may go on to win a fourth consecutive title, but this week poked some holes in the idea that the Big Ten is some impenetrable force.
Take Week 1 with a grain of salt
In the NFL, we’ve come to learn that you shouldn’t overreact to early season results. With fewer important players participating in preseason, it seems to take teams a good month to truly jell to midseason form.
That goes double for college football, where there isn’t even a preseason for coaches to hold star players out of. Week 1, in which many teams avoid huge opponents, is the closest thing we have—and even then, it doesn’t always tell an accurate story. We saw it last year, with Florida State’s stunning upset of Alabama that gave way to a 5–7 season. This season may have represented the opposite for Michigan. After what should have been a loss to Western Michigan, the Wolverines looked miles better against No. 11 Oklahoma, a program that comfortably dispatched of UTEP a week ago, 51–0, and seemed far improved on offense from a year ago.
Instead, Michigan went punch for punch with the Sooners, and even after surrendering an early lead, the defense came up big. With 8:40 left in the game, Wolverines cornerback Jyaire Hill picked off Sooners QB John Mateer and nearly took it to the house, going out at the Oklahoma 6-yard line. Two plays later, Michigan RB Jordan Marshall punched in what proved to be the game-winning touchdown.
Last season, the early season struggles proved real for Oklahoma State, which fired Mike Gundy in mid-September after it was fully embarrassed by Oregon, 69–3, followed by a 19–12 loss to Tulsa. New coach Eric Morris imported virtually an entirely new roster, including many players from his North Texas squad, but you wouldn’t know there was built-in familiarity there after the Cowboys’ second consecutive loss to the Golden Hurricane to open 2026 last weekend.
Oregon looked fairly sluggish themselves early on against Boise State but pulled away for a 34–27 win that most expect to look good, given the Broncos’ pedigree. Today, however, Dante Moore looked nothing like the player who had a chance to go No. 2 in last year’s NFL draft; he was held to 191 yards passing (with two touchdowns), while the Ducks running game managed just 90 yards and 3.0 yards per carry.
Oregon looked fairly sluggish itself early on against Boise State but pulled away for a 34–27 win that most expect to look good, given the Broncos’ pedigree. On Saturday, however, Dante Moore looked nothing like the player who had a chance to go No. 2 in last year’s NFL draft; he had just 191 yards and two touchdowns.
After their first outings, the Ducks looked like a national title contender that needed to shake the rust, and the Pokes looked in for another lost season. It feels strange to treat Week 1 as the preseason—that has never been how college football operates. And yet, in the era of the transfer portal, and especially coming off of a summer in which players were still being added to rosters in late August, it’s best to avoid overreacting before we have some serious data.
Miss any of the big moments from Week 2 of the college football season? Catch up with our live updates below:
College football Week 2: live updates, scores, highlights
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