This Week in Our Dumb, Beautiful Sport: Florida Teams Are Down Bad, Four Top-10 Teams Lose, and Top Big Ten Teams Roll

By Ryan Ginn on October 20, 2025 at 9:10 am
A Miami fan watches his No. 2 Hurricanes go down to Louisville
Sam Navarro-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.

It was another wild week in college football, particularly for Florida's three biggest teams. On top of that, four top-10 teams lost and a couple of Group of 5 contenders suffered their first loss as well. On the other hand, the Big Ten's two best teams just keep chugging along drama-free.

IT'S NEVER GOING TO BE 2001 AGAIN

The 2001 season ended with Miami (Fla.) beating Nebraska, 37-14, to win its fifth national championship. Almost 25 years later, the Hurricanes haven't won another championship and the Cornhuskers haven't played for another championship. With the exception of Miami's Fiesta Bowl loss to Ohio State the following year, the two teams that ruled the 1980s and 1990s haven't come close since that 2001 game, especially after each switched conferences. 

Here are the teams that have won the ACC since 2004, the year that the Hurricanes joined: Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Pitt, Virginia Tech, and Wake Forest. Wake Forest! In football! Not on that list: The Miami Hurricanes. Instead, Miami has only even played for an ACC Championship one time since the conference created a title game in 2005. Other teams that have played in one ACC Championship Game: Duke, Louisville, Notre Dame, SMU, and Virginia. Notre Dame, as you might know, is famously not in the ACC, or any other conference and still has as many ACC Championship appearances as the Hurricanes. 

Nebraska has not fared any better. The Cornhuskers haven't finished a season ranked since 2013, when they were 25th in the AP Poll and unranked by the coaches. They haven't won nine games in a season since 2016, when they went 9-4 and lost to the only four good teams they played, including 62-3 to Ohio State and 40-10 to Iowa. Their sole Big Ten Championship Game appearance resulted in a 70-31 loss to an 8-6 Wisconsin team that finished third in its division behind two teams facing postseason bans. 

All of this is to say that I'm not holding my breath for either team to ever get near the college football mountaintop again. It may happen, especially given Miami's proximity to elite high school football players, but there's a lot working against both schools. Friday night was just the latest example. Both teams entered this week flying high. Miami was ranked No. 2, and Nebraska was No. 25 -- the first time since 2016 the Huskers had been ranked this deep into a season. Both teams left with losses that were devastating in their own way and recalibrated expectations for this year. 

The Hurricanes lost 24-21 at home to unranked Louisville, once again putting their ACC title game appearance chances in jeopardy. Quarterback Carson Beck threw four interceptions, then went out of his way to explain that the one that lost the game was explicitly the fault of his teammate Elija Lofton. “He just ran the route wrong, and I went to go throw it, because we’re hot off the pressure and again, he made a good play on it, but it definitely didn’t help that we ran the wrong play," Beck said.

Nebraska, meanwhile, crumbled in a 24-6 loss to Minnesota after a week of speculation that Matt Rhule might be Penn State's top target to replace James Franklin. Unless they beat Iowa or USC, the Huskers will need to go at least 2-1 in their most winnable games left -- Northwestern, UCLA, and Penn State -- in order to avoid a second straight season of starting 5-1 but finishing 6-6. At least Huskers quarterback Dylan Raiola had the good sense to take the blame for the loss, unlike Beck. "Six points is pretty brutal, and I'll take that," Raiola said. "I'll take all the blame, I'll take all the hate, you know that's fine, it's part of my job, and that's why I am here."

FLORIDA FIRES BILLY NAPIER

What everyone knew would eventually happen became official on Sunday when Florida fired Billy Napier in the middle of his fourth season in Gainesville. He is now the fourth consective Florida coach to fail to make it through four full seasons without being fired. The Gators did manage to beat Mississippi State 23-21 in Napier's last game, which may make the timing seem curious, but I assume it's been the plan for several weeks now to wait until the team was entering a bye week to give the staff and players more time to adjust. I will miss the time after his hiring when most of the national CFB media briefly lost their minds and declared Napier a genius for creating a staff with insane job titles like Gamechanger Coordinator and Director of Recruiting Innovation. Worked well!

A Florida Gator fan with a "Fire Billy" paper bag
Matt Pendleton-Imagn Images

It sure seems like Florida's first call will be to Lane Kiffin, which I both get and also do not get at all. On the one hand, he scores points and sells tickets and has generally gotten Ole Miss to a level above what the program is historically used to. On the other hand, he has never won anything of consequence despite coaching at two different SEC schools, USC, and the Oakland (now Las Vegas) Raiders, and he has also shown that he simply will never grow up even if his antics hurt his team. Most of the teams that got rid of him seemed beyond relieved to have done so. The defining essence of Kiffin to me came in 2023, when he once again poked Nick Saban by spending the days leading up to the Alabama game doing press conferences with a coke bottle on the podium like Alabama does for Saban's pressers. He then went out and laid a complete egg against a gettable Alabama team, scoring only one touchdown in a 24-10 loss. All talk. Perhaps a better example would be the time Saban decided in the middle of the College Football Playoff that Alabama would be better off without Kiffin and then won the national championship without him. With that being said, he'd almost certainly be a better hire than any of Florida's post-Urban Meyer hires with the possible exception of Dan Mullen, which really says a lot about Florida and its hiring decisions. 

IS MIKE NORVELL NEXT?

I thought there was a chance we'd get Florida and Florida State firing their coach on the same day (fun!) but the Seminoles' trip home from a late-night 20-13 loss at Stanford might have complicated that. It's been quite a fall for Florida State, whose 14-point demolition of Alabama is a near lock to be the most mystifying result of the season now that UCLA and Penn State have switched places. 

If you want a Tallahassee temperature check, we've reached the "former players posting that the coach should be fired" stage of the proceedings. 

VANDERBILT WIN HIGHLIGHTS TOP-10 CHAOS

All you need to know about the college football world we're living in right now is that Vanderbilt spent the weekend dancing on LSU's grave -- including playing Calling Baton Rouge once the clock hit zero -- while Florida and Florida State contemplate firing their coaches and Penn State already has. Commodores quarterback Diego Pavia needs to read the room and get a real job before he turns 30, but until someone intervenes to make that happen he's shown he's more than capable of making opposing defenses miserable. 

In addition to No. 2 Miami's loss to Louisville and No. 10 LSU's loss to No. 17 Vanderbilt, No. 4 Ole Miss lost to No. 9 Georgia and No. 7 Texas Tech, who was without its starting quarterback, lost to Arizona State (more on that below). Just outside the top 10, No. 11 Tennessee lost to No. 6 Alabama. 

Now we've got a world where Indiana is ranked No. 2, Georgia Tech is ranked No. 7, and Vanderbilt is ranked No. 10. 

BUCKEYES AND HOOSIERS KEEP ROLLING

Each week is another reminder that -- outside of Columbus, at least -- Ohio State continues to live the dream of being an under-the-radar national title favorite. The No. 1-ranked Buckeyes, seemingly immune to the chaos infecting the rest of the sport, demolished Luke Fickell's Wisconsin, 34-0. That could be the final nail in the coffin for Fickell regardless of when the firing is actually announced. You don't have to beat Ohio State, but you can't go multiple weeks in a row without scoring any points at all. 

Meanwhile, the Hoosiers had quite a week themselves. First, they gave Curt Cignetti an extension that will presumably keep him from moving to State College or Gainesville. Then they dispatched Michigan State and climbed up to No. 2 in the AP Top 25. Just an incredible run at the moment. 

TEXAS ESCAPES KENTUCKY

One week after looking like world beaters against Oklahoma, Texas survived Kentucky by the skin of its teeth. The Longhorns needed a wild goal-line stand in overtime to hang on for a 16-13 victory over the struggling Wildcats. 

BILL O'BRIEN OUT OF ANSWERS

Let's check in on longtime Ohio State offensive coordinator Bill O'Brien, who departed Columbus after a lengthy three-week tenure in 2024 to become the head coach of Boston College. The Eagles are now 1-6 without a winnable game in sight on the remainder of their schedule, and it doesn't sound like O'Brien would disagree with that last part or his inability to fix it. 

CAL TROLLS BILL BELICHICK

UNC and Bill Belichick lost again Friday night, although the 21-18 defeat to Cal was far less embarrassing than the Tar Heels' previous games against P4 teams. Cal made sure to get in some last-second trolling about Belichick's statement denying he was discussing buyout possibilities with the Tar Heels.

PLAY OF THE WEEK

Fourth-and-2, game on the line. Absolutely sensational play by Arizona State quarterback Sam Leavitt.

IDIOT OF THE WEEK

Washington State controlled virtually the entire first three quarters against Virginia and had a 20-10 lead entering the fourth quarter. Unfortunately for the Cougars, the wheels came off in such fashion that obligates me to discuss it in a column about our dumb, beautiful sport. Emphasis on dumb. 

Virginia scored a touchdown with 9:45 remaining and then kicked a game-tying field goal with 2:55 left. What happened next is peak college football. On the ensuing kickoff, a Washington State running back Kirby Vorhees signaled for a fair catch -- but he wasn't the player who actually caught the kickoff. Instead of the ball being placed at the 25-yard line, it was placed at the 2-yard line where his teammate Leyton Smithson caught it. After a false start backed up the Cougs to the 1-yard line, you can guess what happened next. Vorhees -- the same player whose mistake put Washington State near its own end zone -- was swallowed up by the Virginia defense for a safety. Washington State never got the ball back and lost 22-20. 

Just as a point of clarification, since some articles from people who were actually at the game seemed confused about this: as of a few years ago, you can signal for a fair catch anywhere inside the 25-yard line on a kickoff and it's treated the same as a touchback. But you cannot do an illegal fair catch signal, which is what this was. In that case, the ball is spotted where it was caught or downed. 

REF JAIL INMATE OF THE WEEK

This might be venturing into camera man/broadcast producer jail due to lack of available angles of the play in question, but the whole sequence was chaotic enough that I'm still at least somewhat blaming the refs. 

Look at this mess. Florida State, inexplicably down 7 to Stanford with less than 10 seconds left in the game, uncorks a bomb that is caught at around the 8-yard line. A generous interpretation would say it's caught with 2 seconds left. In the ensuing chaos resulting from trying to snap the ball immediately after the game clock is reset, the Noles survived a botched snap and got off a pass that led to obvious pass interference from the defensive back. (I'll just add that the 37 seconds it took for the official to throw the flag did not do anything to help matters here). 

Here is where things really got fun. Having one play left to score, Florida State went with a shovel pass to running back Gavin Sawchuk, who may or may not have scored. It sure looked to me like he scored, but it is genuinely hard to tell. The officiating crew ruled that he was short, which was eventually upheld after review. I think whatever was called on the field likely would have been upheld, at least based on what was shown during the game, but I do think they got the original call wrong. 

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:

SMU 35, Clemson 24
Oklahoma 26, South Carolina 7
Cincinnati 49, Oklahoma State 17
Northwestern 19, Purdue 0
Oregon 56, Rutgers 10
Pitt 30, Syracuse 13
Virginia 22, Washington State 20

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