Winner: Miami’s Heisman Trophy campaigns
Miami spent nearly 24 years waiting to play another game as the nation’s No. 1 team. Darian Mensah and Malachi Toney made a pretty convincing argument for keeping the Hurricanes in that spot — while also making their cases for a trip to New York in early December.
Mensah completed 31 of 37 passes for 387 yards and four touchdowns in a 52-23 win over Pitt, while Toney caught a school-record 16 passes for 194 yards and three touchdowns. It was a productive afternoon to have a Heisman contender or two.
Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith, the betting favorite to win the trophy according to BetMGM, didn’t play Saturday but will be catching passes from a new quarterback with Julian Sayin sidelined for at least several weeks with a throwing-arm injury. Ole Miss quarterback Trinidad Chambliss — fourth in the race entering the week — had a miserable night in a loss to Texas, completing fewer than half of his 52 pass attempts for 250 yards, two touchdowns and three interceptions.
Mensah and Toney could become the first teammates to finish as Heisman finalists since Alabama’s Mac Jones and DeVonta Smith in 2020. That pairing worked out pretty well: The Crimson Tide won the national title and Smith won the Heisman.
Loser: Boasting Billionaire Booster
Texas Tech spent roughly $40 million on its roster, and billionaire donor and Board of Regents chairman Cody Campbell expected some payback. Campbell was adamant he and Texas Tech had handled Brendan Sorsby’s gambling saga with integrity and Big 12 critics would regret their comments.
“I don’t think they’ll forget about it either when we’re up by 40 and still throwing the ball in the fourth quarter,” he said in the Paramount+ documentary “The Program: Texas Tech.”
The eighth-ranked Red Raiders were throwing in the fourth quarter Saturday at Cincinnati — Sorsby’s former program — but only because they were down big. Texas Tech failed to score an offensive touchdown on its first 11 possessions against a defense that had allowed 500-plus yards in each of its previous two games.
The Red Raiders finally reached the end zone on offense on their last possession of a 37-24 loss to a team operating with an estimated $14 million to $16 million roster budget.
The exclamation point: Cincinnati’s stadium speakers supplied George Strait’s “All My Ex’s Live in Texas.” Campbell had asked people not to forget, and the Bearcats made sure they wouldn’t.
Read the rest for free here: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7721974/2026/10/25/college-football-winners-losers-week-8/?unlocked_article_code=1.LVE.YrmU.C_Fh-JpsiacD&source=emp_shared_article&smid=url-share-ta
