This Week in Our Dumb Beautiful Sport: USF is an Absolute Terror, Sherrone Moore Keeps Catching Ls, and Mike Gundy Has an Awful Saturday

By Ryan Ginn on September 8, 2025 at 9:10 am
South Florida Bulls cornerback De'Shawn Rucker (22) celebrates with teammates after they beat the Florida Gators at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.
Kim Klement Neitzel-Imagn Images
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Welcome to This Week in Our Dumb Beautiful Sport, a weekly look at the chaos that reigns over the most perfectly imperfect world of college football.

Week 2 reminded us that in college football, just when you think someone might have it figured out, they hire Billy Napier. We got SEC meltdowns, spit-fueled collapses, coaches pretending to be Herb Brooks, and fans giving up $25K just to talk trash. It’s dumb. It’s beautiful. And it’s still the greatest sport in the world.

Sun Belt Billy Strikes Again

For reasons that are entirely unclear (although I suspect 2024 LSU’s inability to defend DJ Lagway had something to do with this), Florida was a trendy pick to be one of the top teams of 2025. In their way too early top 25 rankings following the CFP national championship in January, Andy Staples of On3 ranked Florida ninth and Stewart Mandel of The Athletic had Florida in the No. 11 spot. That, of course, was insane. While Lagway did look like he could grow into a transcendent talent, nothing about Billy Napier’s tenure as Florida’s head coach has indicated he’s the person to take advantage of it. In his three prior seasons at one of college football’s most resource-abundant jobs, he produced records of 6-7, 5-7, and 8-5. 

Sadly for Napier, his time away from the hot seat was short-lived. On Saturday, he doused the seat with kerosene and found the nearest match as Florida lost to USF, 18-16, on a game-winning field goal from famous kicking offspring Nico Gramatica. Now, the Gators are 1-1 with the following opponents coming up: at No. 3 LSU, at No. 5 Miami (Fla.), vs. No. 7 Texas, at No. 16 Texas A&M. 

How Florida got itself in this situation would be too incredible to believe if not for the three previous years of the Napier era. After Gramatica missed a 58-yarder with just under three minutes to play, the Gators somehow burned just 27 seconds off the clock thanks to two incompletions. USF gained 30 yards from Florida penalties on the second and third plays of the drive (including one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen with Brendan Bett’s ejection for spitting – more on that below in the Idiot of the Week section). The Bulls then hit a 29-yard pass to enter field goal range with 1:45 to play. Instead of using either of his two timeouts to stop the clock and settle his team, Napier waited until USF was at the Florida 14-yard line with 22 seconds left to start calling timeouts. It didn’t even matter at that point, because USF had a first down and outlasted the two timeouts to run down the clock to nothing and beat the Gators on Gramatica’s kick. 

This is the result of Florida apparently not understanding it has a boatload of money and a massive campus right in the middle of a state full of elite recruits. When they hired athletic director Scott Stricklin from Mississippi State, he came in and acted like he’s never left Starkville. He hired Dan Mullen, who recruited like he was still in Starkville. After firing Mullen for ignoring 5-star recruits, he hired Napier, who thus far has coached like he’s still at ULL. And now it seems like Stricklin is going to get a third crack at hiring a football coach, because he just signed a contract extension paying him more than $2 million per year through 2030. 

Arizona State Gets Clanga’d

Arizona State walked into Mississippi State as the defending Big 12 champs and left wondering what just happened. The Bulldogs, arguably the worst team in the SEC, pulled off a 24-20 upset over the Sun Devils right after it looked like they’d blown it. 

I should have known Arizona State was in trouble when I saw how they were preparing for a trip to Mississippi State.

If you’ve never had the pleasure of a visit to Davis-Wade Stadium, it sounds ear splittingly loud thanks to something that should be called the “They’re never going to win anything and they live in a place so grim it’s literally named Starkville, just let them have this” rule. Essentially, State fans are allowed to ring cowbells as long as they stop once the opposing offense lines up over the ball.

I’ll let you guess whether that ever happens. 

Sherrone Moore Delays Suspension To Hold An L 

For a game they crafted an unprecedented suspension delay for, Michigan sure looked uninspired for the majority of a 24-13 loss to Oklahoma. Having gotten a chance to visit his alma mater, Sherrone Moore is now free to serve his two-week suspension against Central Michigan and Maryland.

Wonder boy Bryce Underwood completed just 9 of 24 passes, although Michigan’s underperforming wide receiver corps shares culpability in that stat line.What should be most concerning to the Wolverines, though, is that their coach does not seem to know what he’s doing from a game management standpoint. He misused timeouts, was far too conservative in situations where he could have been aggressive, and didn’t have much of an answer for anything Brent Venables threw at him. And now it seems Michigan probably mangled the suspension call, because if the Wolverines do end up in playoff contention they won’t be able to explain away this loss to the committee by saying their coach was suspended for it.

Top 10 Check-In: Some Romp, Some Struggle

It was an interesting week for the top 10, which had its share of blowouts and… whatever I watched in Baton Rouge on Saturday. 

No. 1 Ohio State 70, Grambling 0
No. 2 Penn State 34, Florida International 0
No. 3 LSU 23, Louisiana Tech 7
No. 4 Georgia 28, Austin Peay 6
No. 5 Miami (Fla.) 45, Bethune Cookman 3
No. 6 Oregon 69, Oklahoma State 3
No. 7 Texas 38, San Jose State 7
No. 8 Clemson 27, Troy 16
No. 9 Notre Dame Open Date
No. 10 South Carolina 38, South Carolina State 10

Trouble in SEC country, or typical letdown after some big openers? It’s at least worth keeping an eye on. 

Mike Gundy Is Toast

Oklahoma State, a school that treated oil billionaire T. Boone Pickens as its personal ATM until his death in 2019, spent the past week complaining about how unfair it is that a different team has a billionaire benefactor. It seems they had good reason to be afraid! Oregon led 69-3 through three quarters before Dan Lanning called off the dogs. Mike Gundy just doesn’t look like his heart is in it anymore. Luckily for him, he probably won’t have to pretend to care for much longer. 

Iowa Broke Another QB

Iowa imported South Dakota State’s two-time national championship quarterback – who won the FCS version of the Heisman last season – and broke him in record time. This is a man who came to Iowa City with more than 10,000 passing yards and nearly 100 touchdowns and now he can’t complete a forward pass. 

The Big 12’s No Good Very Bad Day

Oklahoma State got blitzed by Oregon. Last year’s playoff teams Arizona State and SMU both lost [thanks for the fact check – Ed]. Kansas lost a rivalry game after blowing a 21-6 lead. West Virginia lost to Ohio. Kansas State is 1-2 after losing to a school that just lost to Tarleton State. It’s not a good time to be in the Big 12. But, hey, at least they have a promising plan to fix it!

Border War Returns With A Vengeance

I’ve always said the best rivalries are the ones where the schools hate each other even though neither one ever wins anything. It’s why the Egg Bowl is so great. The Border War between Missouri and Kansas certainly also qualifies and fully lived up to that billing when, in their first game in 14 years, a Mizzou fan gave up a chance at $25,000 to troll the Jayhawks instead. 

Fran Brown Thinks He’s Herb Brooks

I don’t know if Syracuse recently watched Miracle at a team bonding night, but what in the world is Fran Brown doing? Having his team run postgame sprints smacks of fan lip service to distract from the fact that they almost lost to UConn. Just handle this behind closed doors and have your team better prepared next time. 

Grambling’s Band Puts On A Show

Grambling State still provided plenty of entertainment on Saturday, but it was mostly from the stands.

Play of the Week

Mississippi State’s game winner against the Sun Devils was a certified banger. Not sure how Arizona State let that coverage lapse happen, though. 

Idiot of the Week

Forget Idiot of the Week, we have an early contender for Idiot of the Season. Two days after Eagles defensive lineman Jalen Carter was ejected for spitting on Dak Prescott, Florida defensive lineman Brendan Betts jump-started USF’s game-winning drive by spitting on an opposing player while a referee was standing maybe one foot away. It’s legitimately one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen, and now the NFL might punish Carter even more for being a bad influence. Incredible work!


Ref Jail Inmate of the Week

I’m trying to decide whether or not I should continue this segment, because I don’t want to turn this article into a weekly debate about what constitutes a catch. With that being said, everyone involved in overruling this Northern Colorado game-winning catch against Colorado State is headed to ref jail. [Bangs gavel] 

No Context Scores of the Week

Here are some scores that caught my eye for any number of reasons – randomness, outcome, unique matchup – that shall remain unknown:

Illinois 45, Duke 19
Fresno State 36, Oregon State 27
Rutgers 45, Miami (Ohio) 17
Missouri State 21, Marshall 20
Vanderbilt 44, Virginia Tech 20
Michigan State 42, Boston College 40 (2OT)
Tulane 33, South Alabama 31

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