College football takeaways: Travis Hunter’s triumph, Hugh Freeze’s battles and

about the Colorado experience, however Hunter is not one of them.In some methods, I think back to Ohtani and how he has had the ability to focus on simply being the best player (and baserunner)in the world this season.

It makes you wonder what Hunter might do if he simply played pass receiver or if he played just in the secondary. It would make him easier to compare to other players, much easier to measure his effect and perhaps simpler to appreciate.While the”what if” is an alluring thought experiment, I prefer to enjoy that the phenomenon of Hunter is that he has no peers.– Paolo Uggetti Issues on the Plains We’ve spent much of the past year worrying over coach Billy Napier’s status on the hot seat for his inability to right the ship at

Florida in a prompt sufficient fashion, but perhaps we’ve been concentrated on the incorrect SEC coach.Napier’s Gators went into cowbell nation Saturday and delivered an emphatic win over Mississippi State with nearly perfect QB play from Graham Mertz and DJ Lagway, who integrated to have just two incompletions.Meanwhile, Auburn lost in your home for the fourth time in its past six games– 24-14 to Arkansas– behind yet another miserable day of quarterbacking from Hank Brown and Payton Thorne.A quick accounting of how bad things are: Auburn is 0-2 versus Power 4 challengers this year Auburn is 6-19 in its previous 25 games versus

power conference enemies Auburn

has not beaten a Power 5 group that ended up the year with a winning record because Halloween weekend of 2021 For head coach Hugh Freeze, the numbers are just as damning. He completed his remain at Liberty by dropping 4 directly, consisting of a humiliating home loss to New Mexico State. He started his Auburn profession by dropping 10 of 16 games vs. FBS competitors, including an awkward home loss to New Mexico State.While Napier’s flagging Florida program a minimum of has a strong veteran

QB and a dynamic freshman to develop around, Auburn’s numbers at the position under Freeze because 2023 are a train wreck: 51.5 Overall QBR, finishing 59 %, 5.6 backyards per dropback, 29 goals and 19 turnovers.

Thorne was benched after throwing four choices in

• a loss to Cal 2 weeks back, just for Brown to be benched Saturday after throwing three against Arkansas.Making matters worse, among Freeze

• ‘s previous quarterbacks, Bo Wallace, took to X in the waning minutes of Auburn’s newest loss to gleefully celebrate Freeze’s

failures, recommending the coach had actually abandoned him as soon as he could no longer help Freeze win games.Since the start of last season, Florida has one less win but a better record in conference play, is balancing more points per game, and has had noticeably better QB play (65.7 Overall QBR). So why is Napier on the hottest seat of them all?Auburn took a significant danger in working with Freeze, a coach whose on-field résumé had been extraordinary, but whose off-field reputation was typically troubling. It was a computed gamble to try to right the ship after years of unsteady training. It’s hard to see how the gamble could settle at the moment, and with its next three games coming against ranked SEC groups, it’s most likely to worsen before it gets any better.– David Hale Surprise! Look who is undefeated in the ACC Pop quiz, hotshot: Can you name the 4 undefeated groups left in the ACC? Miami might not be much of a surprise. Louisville, having played in the ACC national championship a year ago, need to not be a surprise, either. But how about Pitt and Duke beginning the season 4-0? Thinking about Duke was picked 11th in the preseason media survey and Pitt picked 13th, their hot starts have definitely drawn extra notice.But there is something all 4 teams have in common: They each hit on the quarterbacks they selected from the transfer portal. Web Cam Ward( Washington State) has the prolific Miami offense setting records, while Tyler Shough(Texas Tech) has actually elevated the Louisville offense into a genuine danger every week. Maalik Murphy (Texas )helped provide new Duke coach Manny Diaz instant reliability with his arrival on campus.But you might make a legitimate argument the most significant impact portal player might extremely well be Eli Holstein (Alabama ), who won the Pitt starting task in fall camp and has actually not looked back. His ascendancy has been so unexpected, Pitt brought presumed starter Nate Yarnell

to ACC Kickoff back in July. Holstein not only provides the Pitt offense some swag, he and offending coordinator Kade Bell have been an ideal suitable for the pace offense Bell brought with him from Western Carolina.Last year, Pitt may have been the poster child for portal quarterbacks who miss out on– the Panthers generated Phil Jurkovec but he never entered a groove, was benched as quarterback and transferred to tight end. Coach Pat Narduzzi enjoyed his offense slog through a 3-9 season and thought to himself, “We have to do something different.”

teams that had actually previously tape-recorded Power 4 wins– Northern Illinois, Toledo and Memphis– all lost. NIU’s overtime home defeat to Buffalo likely will sting the most as the Huskies have by far the most remarkable nonleague victory, over then-No. 5 Notre Dame on Sept. 7. Most attention justifiably is on UNLV, which currently has wins against 2 Big 12 groups(Houston and Kansas are a combined 2-6)and gets Syracuse on a Friday night in Las Vegas, following a crucial home game this week versus Fresno State

. The Rebels likewise will host Boise State, which has the most outstanding loss amongst Group of 5 competitors, a 37-34 defeat at Oregon.Could Liberty, which reached the Feast Bowl last year, make it to the CFP regardless of a schedule once again lacking much substance? James Madison might have gone into the mix after installing 70 points in a win against North Carolina. There’s a lot of season left, but the race for the Group of 5’s CFP area is forming up to be a wild trip.– Adam Rittenberg