The Sun-whine State: Week 3 Recap

Good morning and welcome to 4th & Forever, Rand & Tate’s College Football Newsletter. There’s a theory in college football that only two of Miami, Florida, and Florida State can be good at the same time because there’s not enough talent to go around. The inverse of that theory fails to explain what’s currently happening with Florida & Florida State being two of the worst teams in the P4. It’s humorous, sad, and incomprehensible all at the same time but believe us, they’re not the only programs that suck. We don’t discriminate so let’s rag on them and all the other horrid teams and performances from Week 3.

Week 3 Recap

The State of Florida is in Shambles

Holy hell man, Florida and Florida State are so f***ing bad. Florida head coach Billy Napier has been on one of the hottest seats in college football history since his embarrassing home loss to Miami to kick off the season, but thankfully this week he got to host a lowly Texas A&M team that announced right before the game that its starting quarterback, Conner Weigman, would be out due to injury. How did Napier’s squad respond? By immediately going down 20-0 and never even threatening to win the game. Napier elected to start Graham Mertz over DJ Lagway, but Mertz’s offense did nothing early in this game before the Gators turned to Lagway anyway, which seemed inevitable. The defense was simultaneously letting A&M’s backup QB gash them through the air and on the ground, while the crowd relentlessly booed and booed and booed. I (Tate) will fully admit when I’m wrong, and I was very wrong about Napier at Florida. This is a joke right now and it can’t end soon enough - rumors started swirling Saturday night that UF’s top boosters have already raised $26M to cover Napier’s buyout, but at the same time, there is literally nobody on UF’s staff that is qualified to be an interim for the next nine games. This is one of the most pathetic, awful, inexcusable situations that one of the sport’s top programs has ever been in, and firing Napier so quickly - after firing both Dan Mullen and Jim McElwain in moves that many around the industry found to be premature - is not going to make this the most desirable job for the next group of candidates. If you’re Lane Kiffin - Florida’s #1 want right now - why on earth would you leave Ole Miss for this? There’s no university president, the AD is a lame duck, and they’re currently firing coaches within like 700 days of hiring them. This is a trainwreck of a situation and while Napier shares a ton of the blame, it’s far from being all of his fault. The players are about to quit, the coach is done, and this is a completely unattractive job right now. Awful, awful, awful.

Up north in the state capital of Tallahassee, things are somehow worse. Florida State lost to Memphis 20-12 against head coach Mike Norvell’s former school. Memphis was paid $1.3 million for their troubles which might as well be an apology from the Noles for not providing them enough competition or a resume-boosting win. Florida State has played 120 minutes of football this year in Doak Campbell and has led for exactly 0 of them. The Noles were coming off a bye and did not solve their ineptitude on offense. DJU is a bust and the prevailing wisdom is he’s only still playing because you can’t justify benching him yet given how much they’re paying him in NIL. Earth to dumbasses: yes you can. This is a lost season for FSU and we’re not even out of September. They’ll be forced to turn to the transfer portal again this offseason because they’re half-assing their high school recruiting. Per 247 Sports they have the 34th ranked 2025 class which is unacceptable for a program of their supposed caliber. Did you read what we just wrote about Florida? Their class is ranked 23rd. Mike Norvell cannot and will not be fired and he can thank Nick Saban for that. After Saban retired he was on Bama’s shortlist but FSU locked him up for 8 years and $84 million. If they wanted to fire him it’d cost $65 million in buyout which isn’t Jimbo/TAMU level but remember, FSU is broke. Maybe Saudi Arabia’s PIF can pay it for them.

Speaking of Florida State’s high school recruiting, remember when Travis Hunter was committed there before Deion flipped him to Jackson State? He’d be a nice addition to the Noles roster right about now but Hunter is on a better team even though the Buffs will finish 4-8. 4th & Forever would like to make an official stance that Travis Hunter should be in New York for the Heisman if he continues to play at his current pace. He is the college football equivalent to Shohei Ohtani because there isn’t a comparison for him. Hunter is 2nd in the nation with 30 receptions, 7th in yards with 342, and 2nd in touchdowns with 5. Pass catching is essentially his side gig because he will be a CB when he goes to the NFL. He has 1 INT and 11 tackles but he’s being treated like Darrelle Revis as no one has the cojones to test him out there. Think what you may about Shedeur, Deion, and the circus that is Colorado but appreciate what Travis Hunter is doing because he’s 1 of 1. 

Top Teams Roll 

Outside of Georgia’s scare at Kentucky (more on that in Tate’s UGA section below), the top teams in the country mostly took care of business around the country. With #3 Ohio State on a bye, #2 Texas commanded some national focus for what happened in its 56-7 drubbing of UTSA. Quinn Ewers continued to look great as he has all year, but seemingly randomly early in the 2nd quarter, he started favoring the left side of his body and ended up calling for the training staff to come out after a simple handoff. Turns out he has some sort of abdomen/oblique strain and while the Sunday reports are indicating he may not be out longer than next week’s game against UL Monroe, his absence opened the door for Arch Manning to come in, and boy did he cause a stir in Austin. Arch went 9/12 for 223 yards and 4 TDs through the air and added another 53 yards and this TD on the ground where he clocked 20.7 MPH in an all-out sprint to the endzone. He looked incredible and while we’re well aware this is a dreadful UTSA team, Ewers’ injury history makes the Texas backup QB job a very important one in the story that is the 2024 college football season. We don’t think this will be a one-off Arch appearance this year, and we’re sure the daytime ESPN shows will be questioning whether Ewers should lose his job over the next couple of weeks. Texas looks really good right now, by the way - so much so that AP Poll voters just moved them into the #1 spot ahead of the Dawgs.

#4 Alabama had one of the weekend’s more intriguing matchups (yeah, it was a rough weekend) as they went north to Madison to take on Wisconsin, but that intrigue quickly turned to boredom. We never saw a reality where Wisconsin could score enough to keep up with Milroe’s unit on offense, and any hope of that quickly died when Badgers QB Tyler Van Dyke was knocked out of the game halfway through the first quarter. We still have major questions about Alabama’s young secondary, but this was a great showing for a team looking to prove they’re still one of the nation’s best.

#5 Ole Miss traveled over to Winston-Salem to take on the vaunted Wake Forest Demon Deacons (as always, more on the Deacs in Rand’s Wake section below), and beat them so bad that Wake announced they’re going to buy out their return trip to Oxford next year, seemingly to avoid another out of conference drubbing. Bad look, Deacs! The Rebs are clicking on all cylinders offensively right now, with QB Jaxson Dart looking like a Heisman frontrunner as he throws to his group of very talented receivers who are doing things like this every week, and the transfer portal-aided defense has still not given up a touchdown. The Rebs haven’t been tested yet, but they’ve looked exactly how a national championship-contending team should look against lesser competition so far.

#6 Missouri spotted #24 Boston College some early points and trailed 14-3 in the first quarter, but the Tigers took complete control of the game and more-or-less cruised to a 27-21 victory with BC’s last touchdown came in desperation time to make the score look a little closer. #7 Tennessee absolutely demolished Kent State 71-0 and continues to look like they’re maybe better than just the #7 team in the country. Still a bunch of hillbillies but being up 65-0 at halftime is an impressive feat worthy of mention.

#9 Oregon finally looked like the team we all expected them to be, crushing in state rival Oregon State 49-14. We don’t have much to say about this one, other than Dillon Gabriel is somehow one of the best players in the country for the 5th straight year while simultaneously being one of the most god awful quarterbacks we’ve ever seen. A true Heisman contender who cannot throw the ball to the right side of the field, it’s remarkable. He sucks, yet he’s so good.

#10 Miami smoked Ball State 62-0, and that’s about all you need to know from that one aside from an evergreen reminder that QB Cam Ward is nails. Big 12 favorites #14 Kansas State and #12 Utah didn’t look like world beaters against #20 Arizona and Utah State, respectively, but both were able to cruise by the end of their games. This was truly the most boring weekend of college football in recent memory with no top teams going down and a plethora of blowouts, so we won’t bore you with further breakdowns. We had to get through these first few weeks before the true bangers begin, and we promise, they’re coming starting next weekend.

Quick Hitters - Sicko Edition

The drama at the upper echelon of the sports was lacking this weekend but what makes college football great is the lower-tier games or blowouts where we get to question if everyone sucks - and the answer is probably yes.

Does N.C. State suck? They looked pedestrian against Western Carolina, got murdered by Tennessee, and overcame a 17-6 halftime deficit to beat Louisiana Tech 30-20. Supposed savior and transfer QB Grayson McCall left the game with an injury and never returned but State fans were already calling for his head before the injury. Now, they don’t want him to touch the field for the rest of the season in favor of CJ Bailey who finished the game 13/20 for 156 yards, no touchdowns, and an interception. Is it already that bad in Raleigh or are State fans being irrational again? That’s a rhetorical question but we’ll learn a lot more about the puppies when they head to Clemson next weekend. 

Purdue definitely sucks after getting annihilated by Notre Dame 66-7 in West Lafayette but performances like that make the Northern Illinois loss that much funnier or infuriating if you’re a ND fan. Riley Leonard only passed for 112 yards which isn’t promising but if you’re going to hang 66 on the board, who cares?

Pittsburgh came back for the second weekend in a row to steal a victory over rival West Virginia. West Virginia fans have gone through hell the past few years with a 1-4 record against Pitt & Penn State since 2022. Before the game Pitt was showing the score of the 2007 Backyard Brawl which knocked the Neers out of the national championship game. Good win for Pitt who’s 3-0 on the year and keeps pulling magic out of their hats with Bama transfer QB Eli Holstein. 

We can confirm that Michigan sucks even after beating Arkansas State 28-18. How’s this for a stat line from their starting QB Davis Warren: 11/14 for 122 yards and three interceptions. No incompletions! Their defense will keep them in almost every game but watching their offense might have to be codified in the Patriot Act as a new form of punishment for those at Guantanamo Bay. 

TBD if South Carolina sucks but their fans are going through it right now. They smashed Kentucky last week which led to College GameDay going to Satan’s armpit aka Columbia, SC for the first time in over a decade. An injury to QB LaNorris Sellers and a second half collapse to LSU after being up 17-0 at one point means they’re 2-1 and not undefeated heading into their game against Akron. They needed this game because after Akron they draw Ole Miss, Bama, Oklahoma, and TAMU. They’ll probably make a bowl but that’s a season-altering game for the Cocks. 

Hmmmmm who else sucks that we haven’t mentioned? Mississippi State lost to Toledo 41-17 in Starkville. Toledo’s one of the best teams in the MAC but Bulldogs boosters should’ve given more thought to hiring Jason Candle from Toledo instead of the HR/PR nightmare that is Jeff Lebby. Vanderbilt got their moment in the sun after beating Virginia Tech but a 36-32 loss to Georgia State means we’ve resumed their regularly scheduled programming of sucking. Seemingly the entire state of Indiana made it to Pasadena for UCLA’s first Big 10 conference game and they’re glad they did because the Hoosiers won 42-13 and they probably understand they’ll never make it back there unless they’re playing UCLA on the road. They did make it in there in 1968 but got killed by USC and OJ Simpson, metaphorically speaking of course. Hoosiers head coach Curt Cignetti is a confident, asshole, quote machine and for that we thank him. Before the season he was asked to introduce himself to the Hoosier fanbase he quipped, “It’s pretty simple. I win. Google me.” 

UNLV does not suck but deserves our attention and potentially respect? We mentioned in our Week 3 Preview that Kansas needed to watch out because UNLV has a good defense, exclusively runs the ball, and Jayhawks QB Jalon Daniels should probably stop throwing interceptions. Well, Daniels threw 2 INTs in the 23-20 loss while Rebs QB Matthew Sluka finished with 124 rushing yards because he is aerially challenged which matters little when you win. The Runnin Rebs are 3-0 and own victories over Houston and Kansas already. They’d be a fun G5 entrant for the playoff just for the story but their deficiency at QB is rivaling Michigan’s in futility. 

Last but not least, we have to once again call out Deion Sanders for his completely asinine clock management at the end of yet another game. We discussed this following his abject collapse in judgement at the end of the North Dakota State game two weeks ago, and here we are again. Up 28-9 with just a little over one minute left, Deion opted to throw three consecutive passes which all fell incomplete, forcing his defense back on the field when they very likely were already removing their ankle tape. There is genuinely no explanation for this other than it being an attempt to pad Sheduer’s stats and perhaps turn a 28-9 win into a 35-9 win for… fuel against the Denver Post? This type of stuff is completely unserious and will undoubtedly come back to bite him at some point, whether that be in the form of a Miami-type blown lead or in an injury to a key player.

Holding Ourselves Accountable

OnlyRans: Last week: 2-7 - Season Record: 10-20

W - TCU +2.5: UCF won 35-34

W/L - Arizona State -2 and Game Total Under 58.5: Arizona State beat Texas State 31-28

L - Washington -4: Washington State won 24-19

L - West Virginia -2: Pittsburgh won 38-34

L - Mizzou -16: Mizzou beat Boston College 27-21

L - Utah @ Utah State Game Total Under 44.5: Utah won 38-21

L - Tulsa +19.5: Oklahoma State won 45-10

L - Central Michigan +18.5: Illinois won 30-9

I was damn close to having an 0-9 record which I frankly would be more impressed with than going 5-4 or something. TCU blew a 21-point second half lead and blocked two UCF field goals and an extra point, and still lost. The bet didn’t lose but it deserved to. I’ll give myself credit for correctly picking ASU to beat Texas State on Thursday night because it all goes downhill from here. I missed that game’s under by 0.5 points and West Virginia allowed arch-rival Pitt to win despite being up by 10 with 4 minutes to go. I’ll happily take the L on the Washington pick because they deserve it and the Cougs are getting their moment in the sun. Boston College isn’t bad but Mizzou looked like a team that’s been doing layup lines for the first two weeks of the season and wasn’t fully ready for actual competition. Tulsa and Central Michigan not covering, eh whatever but I’m pretty pissed at Utah and their offensive performance. As expected, Utes QB Cam Rising did not play and we have 13 games worth of data points that show Utah cannot field a competent offense with their backup QBs except when I pick their game total under apparently. Moving forward fade me, don’t fade me, I don't really care. This is another statistically unfathomable performance but just remember when I nail a week's worth of picks I’ll be deservedly gloating my ass off. 

Tate’s Great Picks: Last Week: 4-3 - Season Record: 12-12

W - Alabama -16: Alabama won 42-10

L - Texas State +1.5: Arizona State won 31-28

L - Tulane +13.5: Oklahoma won 34-19

L - LSU -7: LSU won 36-33

W/W - Oregon -16, O 50.5: Oregon won 49-14

W - Colorado -7: Colorado won 28-9

We’re back at .500 on the year but damn did I think I was in store for a little bit of a better record here. The Alabama, Oregon, and Colorado picks were slam dunk wins that didn’t even come close which was nice. But each of the three losses were damn near wins themselves - the banger of a game that was Texas State/Arizona State came down to the wire with ASU kicking a field goal with six minutes left to go up by three, and Texas State not being able to move the ball into field goal range to at least send it to OT from there. Tulane had the ball with seven minutes left down 24-19 with a chance to take the lead, but Oklahoma managed to stop them and score 10 unanswered points to win by 15… dammit man. That game largely went how I expected it to, just a bad beat at the end. LSU had the chance to cover that 7-point spread multiple times in the second half but just could not stop shooting themselves in the foot, allowing Carolina to hang around. The missed FG at the end also ruined the chance of me pulling this one out in overtime too, but oh well. Such is life gambling on a bunch of 19-year-olds every week. Let’s get up over .500 next week.

Wake Forest & Georgia

(3-0) Georgia 13 - (1-2) Kentucky 12: Alright so hands up, I did not see this coming, and now I feel like I should have. Three times is a trend, and each of the last three years we’ve played like absolute garbage during our first SEC road game. Stetson Bennett had to pull some magic out of his hat to beat Missouri in 2022, Brock Bowers had to go Batman mode last year to beat Auburn, and now both the offense and defense had to come up big down the stretch to beat a Kentucky team that just got blown out by South Carolina last week. 

Kirby said after the game, “When you go on the road in the SEC, people don’t respect that. And I’m not sure our guys listened to the message all week because this is a good football team. You don’t judge SEC football teams on one week.” Kirby continued to reiterate that his team maybe didn’t hear his message during the week, and others in the national media have insinuated the same thing. But what if the opposite is the truth? What if the message of this is going to be a 60-minute dogfight and we’ll be lucky to come out with a victory is exactly what the team felt all week? I understand why that would be your message - to not have your vastly more talented team get lethargic and lazy in practice all week expecting a blowout - but could that message be a double-edged sword? We certainly did not look like a team that came in expecting to blow Kentucky out. Time and time again we’ve seen Kirby teams play down to lesser competition, and time and time again Kirby tells the media his message to his team that week was “You damn well might lose this game.” It’s silly to criticize Kirby as a coach because he’s obviously pretty good at this whole thing, but is it fair to question if that sort of consistent messaging in these games is screwing with his teams’ belief in themselves, that they can go run the hell over these teams? Kentucky was playing with more confidence than we were on Saturday - is that because the team didn’t hear the staff’s messaging, as Kirby says? Or is it because the team has heard how hard of a game this is going to be all week, and they come out and play like it’s going to be extremely hard for them to win?

The main issue was obviously the offense. We came out absolutely flat, and Carson Beck was as off as we have ever seen him. That’s a bad thing to combine against Kentucky, who from the jump made it clear that their game plan was to waste as much clock as they possibly could offensively, to limit the opportunities for the Georgia offense to explode and blow this one open. We were punting the ball early, and Kentucky was more than content to go on a 30-minute drive if possible when they got the ball back. Even when the offense started clicking to start the second half, Kentucky was able to keep the ball away from us - our second possession of the second half came with one minute left in the third. My main concern offensively is that our coaching staff seemingly has zero trust in this group of receivers to separate and create explosive plays. That lack of confidence seems to have bled into Beck a little bit too, as he has been remarkably content checking the ball down so far this season. We have some unbelievable speed at receiver in guys like Arian Smith, London Humphries, and Anthony Evans, yet we basically don’t play Humphries or Evans and didn’t take a deep shot to Arian Smith all game. Why the hell not? We’ve seen Dillon Bell and Dominic Lovett be great receivers in this league - why are we treating them like we don’t expect them to get open? This offense clearly has a lack of confidence that they can be explosive in the passing game right now, and I don’t really know why. We need to spend this bye week figuring out how to distribute the ball downfield, or every team we play will try to play keep-away from our offense knowing that we aren’t even trying to be explosive when we have the ball. There is a lack of confidence on offense right now whether it’s coaches, players, or a little bit of both. But it needs to get figured out, and quickly.

Obviously this was bad, and there are things that Georgia fans should be concerned about. But as I mentioned up top, we have seen this before (not just in our SEC road opener, but in Lexington specifically too). And we’ve seen those same teams then turn around and look like clearly the best team in the country against much better competition over their next few games. The defense, despite not tackling to our standard, continues to look dominant as it still has not given up a touchdown this year, and we were again without Mykel Williams who is potentially the #1 overall pick in next year’s draft. We’re getting healthier on the DL and have some guys really starting to flash. At the end of the day, we yet again found a way to win a hard-fought game against a team who was throwing their kitchen sink at us, and I have almost zero belief that we’ll look like that again against Alabama following a bye week. These performances seem reserved for the most bad-to-average SEC teams on our schedule each year. Get better, get healthier. 3-0.

(1-2) Wake Forest 6 - (3-0) #5 Ole Miss 40: An expected result versus a much more talented team in Ole Miss. QB Jaxson Dart and his receivers are the real deal but that DL is otherworldly. There’s little to react to from the Wake or the Ole Miss side but I want to stand on my soapbox real quick for the fake injury bug that’s plaguing college football. There has to be a rule implemented soon that if a player has to leave the field for an injury he cannot come back until the drive is over. It was comical how blatant the fake injuries were for the Ole Miss players and the coaches telling them to go down. After one long Wake play, there were two Ole Miss players next to each other and they both went down, likely because they couldn’t tell who the coaches were talking to. Ole Miss did this after every Wake first down of which we had 21. No one should be in the business of regulating injuries or figuring out if they’re real or not, which is why not letting them in for the rest of the drive would stymie this problem. Ole Miss and every other program who do this (not yours though, your team would never stoop down to faking injuries, only your rivals partake in this practice) are within the rules. There is no mechanism for the refs or incentives for the conferences to punish teams who fake injuries and for good reason. Ole Miss had a DL who had to be carted off the sideline with a seemingly legitimate ankle injury. The conferences technically could step in but is the SEC going to punish Ole Miss for their game against Wake? No sir. Also, why the hell does Ole Miss need to fake injuries against Wake? Yes, when we get rolling on offense we play with tempo but it’s not like the Ole Miss D isn’t accustomed to it from their own practices or playing Tennessee. Maybe they were practicing faking injuries for later SEC competitions I don’t know. Kiffin is shameless so I’m not surprised but it’s an incredibly annoying part of the current college football experience that has much bigger fish to fry but this is easily fixable.

The Deacs are off next week before yet another home game in Winston against Louisiana. Let’s get healthy and reset after that beatdown. Go Deacs. 

Texts of the Week

“We are so small. Lithuania would beat us sadly.” - Alex S after the Dawgs went down 3-0 to Kentucky.

“Taking a page out of Kirby’s book and getting the whole menu.” - Eli S during a Cookout run at halftime of the Dawgs game.

“No diddy I’m lowkey kinda nervous fr.” - Alex S in the 4th quarter

“Kirby may decapitate Chip Towers this week". - Alec N

“Kirby is the most obese man in America.” - Sam W

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Rand Fisher & Tate Smillie met a few years ago through their good buddy Dave Peljovich who went to college with Rand and high school with Tate. Tate went to Georgia and has spent the last two years collecting championship rings while traveling to watch the Dawgs. Rand went to known CFB powerhouse Wake Forest and currently pays rent in Atlanta but is rarely found there with all the work & CFB travel he does.