College football Week 2 winners and losers: Big Ten’s slipping reputation and bad QB investments

We had a barefoot Texas student win $1.2 million for drilling a field goal on “College GameDay.”

We had a fan call the first four offensive plays for Akron.

And we had goalposts torn down and dumped in Theta Pond after Oklahoma State ended a 21-game FBS losing streak with a top-10 upset of Oregon.

Honestly, it was a great day for teams in orange jerseys and white helmets.

Arch Manning and Texas turned out to be the night’s biggest winners with a thrilling, 24-23 come-from-behind win over top-ranked Ohio State. The fourth-ranked Longhorns trailed 23-3 at the start of the fourth quarter but shut down the Buckeyes’ offense in the second half and won the game with a pair of Hollywood Smothers touchdown runs.

Next week, we’ll all be tuned in on Lane Kiffin’s return to Mississippi. But before then, here are our winners and losers from Week 2:

Loser: The Big Ten’s reputation

Nick Saban spent Friday arguing the SEC possesses considerably more depth than the Big Ten on “The Pat McAfee Show.”

“It’s not like the Big Ten where there’s three good teams at the top and then nothing,” Saban said.

One day later, two of those three good teams lost: Ohio State and Oregon.

The teams below them didn’t exactly help the conference’s reputation, either. Mississippi State crushed Minnesota on the road behind star quarterback Kamario Taylor. Duke won at Illinois. Wake Forest won in double overtime at Purdue. In Week 2, the Big Ten finished 2-5 against Power 4 opponents, with Michigan and Iowa producing narrow wins at home against Oklahoma and Iowa State.

Defending national champion Indiana handled Howard and Penn State eventually pulled away from Temple after leading 10-3 at the half.

The Big Ten has won three consecutive national championships with three different programs, so no one can erase the conference’s recent accomplishments. But Saban’s top-heavy argument sounds less outrageous than it did on Friday.

So far this season, the SEC is 8-2 against nonconference Power 4 opponents. The ACC is 5-6 and the Big 12 is 4-7.

The Big Ten? 3-6.

Winner: Drew Mestemaker’s draft stock

There were 20 NFL scouts representing 13 teams, and two general managers in attendance in Stillwater — and it turned out the guy expected to be the second quarterback taken in last year’s draft was also the second-best at his position on the field Saturday.

Mestemaker, a former walk-on at North Texas, may have leaped over Dante Moore, the presumed No. 1 quarterback in the 2027 NFL Draft, when he went airborne to complete a 10-yard touchdown run and the go-ahead score in Oklahoma State’s 39-31 upset of sixth-ranked Oregon.

Mestemaker, who began the season two spots behind Moore in The Athletic’s preseason QB draft rankings, completed 26 of his 43 pass attempts for 317 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 109 yards. He overcame two tipped interceptions — including one returned 96 yards for a touchdown — to end the Cowboys’ 21-game losing streak to FBS opponents.

Moore rebounded from a rough first half to finish 14 of 29 for 191 yards and two touchdowns, but his Ducks generated only 281 yards and lost as 23.5-point favorites. Mestemaker’s offense generated 554 yards.

One game won’t settle the quarterback rankings this early, but Mestemaker had a stellar day against what is supposed to be an NFL-laden defensive front and beat the player most believed would be taken before him in April.

Losers: $6 million worth of quarterback questions

Michigan rebounded from its embarrassing escape against Western Michigan by beating 11th-ranked Oklahoma 17-10. But it’s hard to consider either team a winner when both have expensive problems at quarterback.

Bryce Underwood, the No. 1 high school quarterback in the 2025 recruiting cycle, and John Mateer, the No. 1 transfer quarterback in 2025, are both believed to be making at least $3 million annually. Yet, Michigan and Oklahoma are winning these days mostly with defense.

Underwood supplied Michigan’s biggest offensive play Saturday with a 38-yard touchdown run, but completed only nine passes for 111 yards. Mateer went 17-of-33 for 189 yards, a touchdown and the fourth-quarter interception that gave Michigan the ball deep in Oklahoma territory and led to the winning touchdown.

Both quarterbacks are no longer investments waiting for a chance. Underwood has made 15 starts and Mateer is in his senior season, playing for the same offensive coordinator (Ben Arbuckle) who came over with him from Washington State.

Mateer is 7-4 for Oklahoma in 11 starts against P4 opponents, with 11 touchdown passes, 10 interceptions and 389 rushing yards and six rushing TDs. Underwood is 8-4 against P4 opponents with nine touchdown passes, eight interceptions, 370 rushing yards and five touchdown runs.

Winner: Fans of the pick six

If you felt like you saw a lot of interceptions returned for touchdowns this week, you’re not wrong: Quarterbacks spent the last 48 hours distributing touchdowns to both teams.

FBS defenses produced 19 pick sixes, while two FCS defenses had a couple of their own against FBS opponents. That’s the most FBS pick sixes in a week with 17 since at least 2019, according to TruMedia.

Cal’s Kingston Lopa had three interceptions, including one he returned 24 yards for the winning touchdown in a road win at Syracuse. Texas A&M returned two Cutter Boley passes for touchdowns in the fourth quarter to complete a 48-20 blowout of Arizona State. The Aggies didn’t have any last season. Alabama and Kentucky traded pick sixes in the Crimson Tide’s 45-17 win in Lexington.

The strangest pick six? Georgia’s Blake Stewart picked off Western Kentucky’s Brock Glenn, fumbled at the Hilltoppers’ 12, and Tyriq Green recovered it in the end zone for an interception return touchdown (technically).

Last year, all 136 FBS teams combined for 131 pick sixes during the season — an average of 10 per week. This week nearly doubled that average.

Winner: The Group of 6 College Football Playoff race

Memphis had a chance to leave Boise as the September favorite for the Group of 6's Playoff spot. Instead, Boise State made the whole thing messy again.

The Broncos, now a member of the restocked Pac-12, rallied from a 17-3 deficit and emerged with an impressive 38-20 win over the Tigers, who were 2-0 after wins at UNLV and over Arkansas State. Boise State’s hard-fought, season-opening loss at Oregon doesn’t look nearly as impressive after the Ducks lost as more than three-touchdown favorites. But style points could ultimately decide which top-ranked team outside the Power 4 gets the one automatic bid to the 12-team Playoff.

It feels like a wide-open race — although Tulsa has an argument for much respect since it knocked off Oklahoma State last week and improved to 2-0 this week.

Navy, the preseason favorite to win the American, lost 38-30 at Florida Atlantic on Saturday. Mountain West favorite New Mexico and Sun Belt favorite James Madison are off to 2-0 starts. Western Michigan, the coaches’ pick to win the MAC, rebounded from its 13-12 loss at Michigan with a 49-14 win over Monmouth on Saturday.

One team we probably don’t need to worry about anymore: UNLV, which fell to 1-2 after losing 44-6 to North Texas.

Some big G6 matchups remain on the schedule this month: James Madison at San Diego State (Sept. 19), North Texas at Texas State (Sept. 19) and Boise State at Western Michigan (Sept. 26).

Loser: Border War soundbites

There isn’t a graceful way to turn Bleeding Kansas, slavery and Civil War-era violence into quality pregame football banter. Tim Brando learned the hard way. Before Missouri-Kansas kicked off Friday night, the Fox play-by-play announcer tried to explain the Border War’s deep roots by saying Missouri quarterback Austin Simmons believed “Missouri’s way of life is best,” while Kansas quarterback Isaiah Marshall believed “Kansas, their view of life was best.” (Simmons is from Florida, Marshall from Michigan.)

“Different ways of life” might work if Ted Lasso was talking about Joe’s versus Arthur Bryant’s. Given the actual history of the Border War, Brando’s wording landed awkwardly.

Things already felt weird after Kansas's viral hype video invoked abolitionist John Brown, Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill and the bloody conflict between the two states surrounding the Civil War. Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz later criticized Kansas for framing the rivalry through that history — and then admitted he was trying to “embarrass” Kansas before adding, “We left Kansas bleeding again.”

When these teams meet next in 2031, maybe the safest Border War discourse should just be “these two schools just really don’t like each other.”

Loser: Ted Cruz’s home-field advantage

Nothing fires up a college football crowd quite like a nine-minute congressional infomercial.

Sen. Ted Cruz visited ESPN’s “College GameDay” set in Austin to promote the Protect College Sports Act on Saturday morning. It didn’t matter that Cruz was wearing a burnt-orange blazer or that he picked Texas to beat No. 1 Ohio State 21-10. Cruz, the lead sponsor for the bill and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman, was booed mercilessly as he warned viewers that college athletics could be reduced to 40 or 50 competitive football programs unless Congress brings order to transfers, eligibility and name, image and likeness compensation.

It was uncomfortable to watch and at times hard to hear. “Ted, you suck!” chants often drowned out Cruz’s sales pitch. He argued athletes should continue to receive revenue-sharing payments and legitimate NIL payments, but proposed a limit of one unrestricted transfer rule, five years of eligibility and a hard eligibility cutoff at age 24.

Cruz said that his confidence that the Protect College Sports Act would advance was “very, very high.” The Senate is scheduled to vote on it next week.

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