There were surprises and important developments in Week 9 of the college football season. Matt Hayes analyzes four hot topics from Saturday’s games.
First Down: Penn State’s big uncertainty in a B1G week
His name is Beau Pribula, and he arrived at Penn State in the same recruiting class as heralded five-star quarterback recruit Drew Allar.
Now Pribula may be called on to save Penn State’s season.
Allar, No. 3 Penn State’s emerging junior quarterback, injured his left knee late in the first half of a 28-13 victory at Wisconsin Saturday, and his status is undetermined for next week’s critical showdown with No. 4 Ohio State in Happy Valley. While Pribula played well against the Badgers, the top five game against Ohio State is a different story.
Penn State coach James Franklin didn’t want to speculate on the extent of the injury because he said he didn’t have specifics. Allar spent the second half of the game on the sidelines, with a brace on his left knee.
“It really came down to Drew once he came out,’ Franklin said at his postgame press conference. ‘I asked him to be very honest, and he just didn’t feel like he was (able to play). Like at the end of the half there, you saw even throwing was challenging.”
That’s not a good sign heading into the biggest game of the regular season, especially considering Franklin’s record at Penn State in big games.
Penn State is 1-9 vs. Ohio State under Franklin, and 3-17 vs. top 10 teams. While Penn State likely doesn’t need to win to advance to the College Football Playoff, a loss to Ohio State significantly damages hopes of playing for the Big Ten championship.
That’s why the potential loss of Allar is so critical. Penn State figured out a way to beat Wisconsin, but direct snaps to running back Kaytron Allen or tight end Tyler Warren won’t work against Ohio State’s elite defense.
At some point Pribula, who wasn’t nationally-rated by 247Sports in the 2022 class (Allar was the No. 3 overall player at any position), will have to make plays in the passing game. That means new offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, the heralded addition this offseason from Kansas, will have a week to find what works for Pribula — and how to attack an Ohio State defense giving up 12.7 points per game.
Even if Allar is available, he most certainly will be limited. He wasn’t held out of the second half as precaution; the Lions were trailing 10-7.
Kotelnicki will have to get either quarterback (or both) ready to play against a top 10 pass defense giving up 172 yards per game. The Buckeyes held Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola to 152 yards passing in a 21-17 win Saturday, with no touchdowns and an interception.
HIGHS AND LOWS: Winners and losers from Week 9 in college football
Second Down: Texas on the SEC road
Texas learned a valuable lesson in its first season in the SEC, and first true conference road game: just get out with a win — no matter how it happens.
Especially when chasing a spot in the SEC championship game.
Texas responded from last week’s embarrassing loss to Georgia by avoiding a disastrous second loss in the SEC, holding off Vanderbilt 27-24 with a critical fourth-down stop with five minutes to play.
Texas will quickly find out that these are the games that help you win a conference championship: those you’re supposed to win, despite the dangerous reality of playing on the road in the SEC.
The Longhorns have two SEC road games remaining: Nov. 16 at Arkansas, and Nov. 30 in the regular season final at Texas A&M.
This time, against a hot Vanderbilt team that beat Alabama in Nashville earlier this month, quarterback Quinn Ewers threw two interceptions that Vanderbilt turned into 14 points. It also looked clunky on both sides of the ball for Texas for much of the game.
But every time the Longhorns needed a play in the critical fourth quarter, they it made it.
A defensive five-and-out stop after the Commodores closed to 24-17. An interception on fourth-and-two from the Vanderbilt 35 late in the fourth, and a 23-yard run from Jaydon Blue on third-and-nine that allowed the offense to bleed two more minutes off the clock before a short field goal sealed the win.
That’s the handful of important but overlooked plays that happen every week on the road in the SEC. It’s how you overcome two interceptions from your quarterback, and a scoreless span of more than 20 minutes in the second half.
And how you win and advance along the road to reaching the SEC championship game.
Third Down: The rise of Notre Dame, Riley Leonard
It’s not about rock bottom, it’s how you respond.
Welcome, everyone, to the evolution of Riley Leonard at Notre Dame.
He called Notre Dame’s upset home loss to Northern Illinois in Week 2 rock bottom — and has responded with the best run of games in his career. This time it was unbeaten Navy, and Leonard threw for 178 yards and 2 TDs, and ran for 83 yards and another touchdown in a 51-14 win.
That makes six consecutive wins for the Irish since the NIU loss, by a combined 31.3 average points per game. In those six games, Leonard is completing nearly 70 percent of his passes and has accounted for 18 TDs (10 rush).
And while there are any number of reasons why the ball isn’t going downfield more in the pass game — inconsistency at receiver, protection by the offensive line, Leonard’s development with new offensive coordinator Mike Denbrock — the explosion plays are beginning to come.
Notre Dame had five explosion plays (10+ yards) against Navy, a week after getting nine against Georgia Tech. The pass game is evolving at the right time, with Notre Dame likely needing to win out to reach the CFP for the first time since 2020.
A loss in any of the final four games — Florida State, Virginia, Army (Yankee Stadium), at Southern California — against overmatched opponents would be too much to overcome.
Fourth Down: Indiana’s backup plan
He left the state of Indiana three years ago, a bluechip recruit too good for the floundering Indiana program with big dreams of playing in the big time at Tennessee.
But there was Tayven Jackson Saturday afternoon in Bloomington, Indiana, less than an hour southwest in the state from where he played high school football in Greenwood, and the big time was all around him.
A packed Memorial Stadium. A key Big Ten game as a ranked team. The biggest moment of his college career.
The Hoosiers’ backup quarterback threw for a touchdown and ran for another, and kept unbeaten Indiana headed toward the College Football Playoff in a 31-17 win over Washington.
First-year Indiana coach Curt Cignetti signed Ohio transfer and Heisman Trophy candidate Kurtis Rourke from the portal, in part, because the quarterback room at Indiana needed an upgrade. That existing room from the previous season included Jackson, the one-time heralded recruit who shared time in 2023 in his first season after transferring from Tennessee.
With Rourke recovering from thumb surgery, Jackson played efficiently, didn’t put the Hoosiers in problematic situations with bad plays, and proved he could be a reliable option should Rourke – expected to return next week at Michigan State – need more time to recover.
“He made some good plays,” Cignett said in his post game press conference. “He left as many plays out there.”
In other words, Indiana will need more next week if Rourke can’t play, or if Jackson is needed in the month of November when the degree of difficulty increases over the final four games (at Michigan State, Michigan, at Ohio State, Purdue).
But it’s all out there for the Hoosiers, who could lose only to Ohio State, and likely still make the first 12-team CFP.
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.