This Week in Our Dumb Beautiful Sport: Notre Dame Collapses, Tennessee Does That Thing It Always Does and Two Pink Slips Already

By Ryan Ginn on September 15, 2025 at 9:13 am
Marcus Freeman is feeling early season pain in South Bend
MICHAEL CLUBB/SOUTH BEND TRIBUNE / USA TODAY NETWORK via 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.

By Week 3, college football had already hit peak absurdity. Notre Dame faceplanted, Tennessee invented new ways to lose, Miami looked unstoppable, and two head coaches didn’t survive Sunday. Dumb? Absolutely. Beautiful? Always.

Notre Dame’s Playoff Hopes Tumble

In a contest featuring two of the most annoying unique fan bases in college football, No. 16 Texas A&M scored a touchdown with 13 seconds left to win a back-and-forth game against No.
8 Notre Dame, 41-40. Irish defensive coordinator Chris Ash, who replaced Al Golden following the latter’s exit to the NFL, should probably not search his name on social media anytime soon.

The loss means the Fighting Irish will almost certainly have to win out to make the College Football Playoff, and frankly I’m not sure even that should be enough unless USC goes 11-1 with their only loss coming to Notre Dame. Other than that scenario, what chances for a quality win are left on their schedule? A road trip to an Arkansas team itching to fire its coach? Stanford looks horrendous, Boston College is apparently even worse after losing to Stanford, and Syracuse is making its players run sprints after games. Plus, there’s no conference championship game to give them an extra shot at a premium win.

But let’s be real – despite all the logic in the world, it’s hard to imagine the narrative-loving committee keeping out a team that played in the national championship game a year ago if they end the regular season on a 10-game winning streak. As a result, they likely still have everything to play for but with no margin for error going forward.

If the Aggies can get past Auburn in their next game, they’ll have a very good chance of starting the season 7-0. However, four of their last five games include a home game against a South Carolina team that has looked very good when its quarterback LaNorris Sellers is healthy and trips to LSU, Missouri, and Texas. While that’s not an easy slate, it’s worth noting that if they can’t make the playoff in a year when they don’t have to play Oklahoma, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, or A&M’s personal tormentor Lane Kiffin and Ole Miss, it’s fair to wonder when they will.

On a side note, I was alerted via TexAgs that a good number of A&M fans managed to pull off this tripleheader over the weekend: Thursday Night Football at Lambeau Field for Packers-Commanders, a Friday afternoon Cubs game at Wrigley Field, and a Saturday night game at Notre Dame Stadium. Hate to say it, but I’m quite jealous of everyone who did that.

Tennessee Can’t Have Nice Things

I’m sure this will come as a deep disappointment to everyone who had to endure the “Volumbus” experience last December, but Tennessee threw away a chance for a signature win on Saturday. After letting a 21-7 first-quarter lead slip away, No. 15 Tennessee went back and forth with No. 6 Georgia the rest of the way. After the Bulldogs tied it at 38 on a touchdown and two-point conversion with 2:32 remaining, Tennessee had a chance to go down and win it.

What happened next was peak Tennessee football. DeSean Bishop carried for 4 yards to get just shy of the Georgia 20-yard line, which would have set up a 38-yard field goal with 7 seconds left. But the ball was spotted near the left hash, so Josh Heupel sent the offense back out there for one more handoff that would have centered the ball. From there everything came unglued. The Vols were flagged for a false start, turning it into a 43-yard field goal. This apparently spooked Tennessee coach Josh Heupel into no longer attempting to run one more play to get the ball off the left hash, lest the offensive line commit another penalty and push the kick back even further. Instead, he sent out kicker Max Gilbert, who promptly pushed the kick wide right.

In an especially ironic twist, Gilbert then converted a 42-yarder in overtime that didn’t matter because Georgia instantly scored a touchdown that won the game and sent Heupel to an 0-5 career record against the Bulldogs.

Miami Might Actually Be Legit

I’m firmly on the record saying there’s no way I could handle the Mario Cristobal experience as a fan. And while I stand by that, there’s no denying that the Hurricanes are playing extremely
well at the moment.

The Hurricanes, who already have a win against Notre Dame on their resume, tore apart No. 18 USF in a 49-12 romp one week after the Bulls beat Florida in The Swamp. Carson Beck looked more like 2023 Carson Beck, completing 23 of 28 passes for 340 yards and three touchdowns. Looking ahead, the next two games against Florida (ha!) and at Florida State might be all that stands between Miami (Fla.) and an undefeated regular season.

Quarterback Hype Train Derails

The preseason Heisman betting odds leaderboard looked like this:

  • Arch Manning 6-1
  • Cade Klubnik 9-1
  • Garrett Nussmeier 9-1
  • Jeremiah Smith 12-1
  • LaNorris Sellers 16-1

It’s not been a great start for any of the four quarterbacks in that top five. Manning completed less than half of his passes against UTEP and has created speculation that he’s hurt. His coach has denied that, which leaves “he’s not good” as the only plausible explanation.

Klubnik appears to be well on his way to leading a 7-5 season for a team that was ranked in the top five to start the season. Nussmeier hasn’t been able to overcome a completely new offensive line and also looked unwilling to throw more than 10 yards downfield for most of an underwhelming 20-10 win against Florida. And Sellers just missed most of a 31-7 loss to Vanderbilt thanks to a targeting foul that gave him a concussion. Throw in Nico Iamaleava’s meltdown at UCLA and it’s been a rough year for highly touted quarterbacks thus far.

Was Clemson-LSU This Year’s Meaningless Opener?

Every year there seems to be at least one Week One game that ends up being far less important than originally thought. This year, the leading candidate by far appears to be LSU at Clemson. The Bayou Bengals appeared to have scored a valuable road win, only for Clemson to look completely ordinary against Troy and then lose to Georgia Tech. Now, that top-5 win is an unranked win.

One quick note on that Georgia Tech win: It’s really rare in college football to see a fire drill field goal executed this well. Georgia Tech players started running off the field with less than 20 seconds to go but Yellow Jackets kicker Aidan Burr still had time to pause and collect himself before drilling a 55-yard game winner from the logo to beat Clemson.

LSU appears to have issues of its own, namely its inability to move the ball in a forward direction (more on that below). The Tigers beat Louisiana Tech (23-9) and Florida (20-10) by underwhelming margins and will be in real trouble if that continues against better teams.

Rich Rodriguez Gets Long-Awaited Revenge

It’s wild to imagine an alternate scenario where West Virginia doesn’t deliver the choke job of the century against Pitt in 2007. Les Miles, despite issuing a non-explicit denial at a press conference earlier that day, likely takes the Michigan job with LSU shut out of the BCS Championship. Jim Tressel likely beats the Mountaineers to wins a second national championship, stymying the ascent of the SEC. In the alternative, WVU wins it all and the world finds out what humans are truly capable of when West Virginia fans celebrate a national championship on Bourbon Street.

Instead, none of that happened. West Virginia lost 13-9 in the last game Rich Rodriguez coached there. Rodriguez went to Michigan and became the face of the Wolverines’ dysfunction. His reputation as a rising star never truly recovered and included stops at Arizona, Ole Miss, ULM, and Jacksonville State, the middle two of which came as an assistant coach. So I have to imagine it felt pretty good, although perhaps a little bittersweet, when the Mountaineers rallied from a 10-point deficit to beat Pitt in overtime on Saturday in Rodriguez’s first season back as West Virginia’s head coach. It doesn’t erase 2007, but look at the joy in this video:

Darian Mensah Returns to Tulane

A year and a half ago, Darian Mensah was a third-string quarterback at Tulane. On Saturday he returned as the multimillionaire quarterback of Tulane’s opponent. In between all that, Mensah became Tulane’s starter, quickly showed he had the goods and then received a contract that could pay upwards of $8 million over two years and conservatively seems like it will pay him at least $3 million per year for the next two years. And in twist nearly as surprising as Mensah’s rise, nobody seems to be upset by this at all.

Duke doesn’t seem to mind the cost of luring a talented quarterback to a basketball school. Mensah is obviously thrilled with being able to change his family’s life. And the party with the most incentive to be bitter about the transfer is perhaps the most understanding. Tulane coach Jon Sumrall has repeatedly gone on the record to say that Mensah effectively had no choice but to accept such life-changing money and that he has taken coaching jobs because of salary increases so it would be hypocritical for him to call out Mensah for doing the same.

I’m sure it didn’t hurt that the Green Wave had former BYU quarterback Jake Retzlaff fall into their lap as a replacement, though. The other thing that might have taken some of the sting away? Beating Mensah and Duke 34-27 to position themselves as a Group of Five playoff contender.

St. Joe’s Band Fills in for Pride of Oklahoma

Is there anything better than college sports spite? Oklahoma’s band was unable to make the trip to Philadelphia for the Sooners’ 42-3 win over Temple due to a budget shortfall, but the old expression “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” proved true yet again. The Sooners were aided by Temple rival St. Joseph’s, who learned Oklahoma’s iconic fight song and sent a pep band to play it over and over again while the Owls got boat raced.

Play of the Week

Kicker touchdown! Look at this play design from Weber State! Credit to tight end Ammon Munyer, the pride of Rathdrum, Idaho, for a terrific block to set the touchdown in motion.

Idiot of the Week

Sigh. It’s Brian Kelly, who picked a pointless (and incorrect) fight with someone who has covered LSU for a local TV station as long as I can remember.

When you are the coach of LSU and have a $95 million contract, part of your job is to explain why the offense managed just 10 first downs against a team that lost to USF. Part of your job is to explain why your team scored as many offensive touchdowns (one) as your opponent that threw five interceptions. Part of your job is to explain why you have an out-of-his-depth offensive coordinator who was promoted from quarterbacks coach solely because of his relationship with Bryce Underwood, did not sign Bryce Underwood, and somehow still works for you.

It would have been very easy to say that fans deserve better and that the offense is still a work in progress while highlighting the fact that they now have a defense good enough to keep them in the game against anyone. Instead, he apparently wants LSU fans to pretend that it’s actually good to not be able to convert third-and-short more than about 10 percent of the time. Most of the country probably wouldn’t have noticed how garbage his offense is if he could have just held it together like a normal person for 30 seconds. Unfortunately, that was apparently as hard for him to do as it is for his offense to move the ball against a team whose coach is about to be fired.

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:

Ole Miss 41, Arkansas 35
Bowling Green 23, Liberty 13
Cal 27, Minnesota 14
Stanford 30, Boston College 20
Iowa State 24, Arkansas State 16
Oregon 34, Northwestern 14
Alabama 38, Wisconsin 14

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