College Football Awards, Week 4 (2026) September 28, 2026

Posted by intellectualgridiron in Sports.
Tags: Alabama, Bill Belichick, Bowling Green, Buffalo, Cal, college football, Duke, Faizon Brandon, Florida, Florida Atlantic, football, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Iowa State, Jake Dickert, Jeff Brohm, Josh Heupel, Kirk Ferentz, Kyle Whittingham, LA Monroe, Longhorns, Louisville, Luke Fickell, Marcus Freeman, Maryland, Matt Campbell, Michigan, Mike Locksley, Mississippi State, Missouri, NCAA, NCAA football, North Carolina, Northwestern, Notre Dame, Ole Miss, Panthers, Penn State, Pittsburgh, Purdue, SMU, South Alabama, Sports, Steve Sarkesian, Tennessee, Texas, UNLV, Virginia Tech, Volunteers, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Western Michigan, Wisconsin
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COACHES
Wish I were him:  Steve Sarkesian, Texas

Glad I’m not him: Josh Heupel, Tennessee

Lucky guy: Kirk Ferentz, Iowa

Poor guy: Kyle Whittingham, Michigan

Desperately seeking a wake-up call: Jeff Brohm, Louisville

Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Jake Dickert, Wake Forest

Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Matt Campbell, Penn State

Desperately seeking … anything:  Mike Locksley, Maryland

TEAMS
Thought you’d kick butt, you did: Pitt (defeated Bucknell 59-0)

Thought you’d kick butt, you didn’t: SMU (defeated Missouri State 34-24)
Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you did: Purdue (lost to No. 3 Notre Dame 49-10)

Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you didn’t:  Northwestern (lost to Indiana 29-23)

Thought you wouldn’t kick butt, you did:  Florida (defeated No. 4 Ole Miss 52-28)

Dang, they’re good: Florida
Dang, they’re bad:  Maryland

Can’t Stand Prosperity: Louisville

Did the season start?  Penn State
Can the season end?  Bowling Green

Can the season never end? Georgia

GAMES
Play this again:  No. 1 Texas 20, No. 14 Tennessee 17

Play this again, too: No 17 Iowa 20, No. 18 Michigan 19

Never play this again: Duke 62, William & Mary 7

What?  No. 24 Mississippi State 31, No. 19 Missouri 24

Huh?  Wake Forest 30, No. 16 Louisville 27

Are you kidding me??  Wisconsin 24, No. 13 Penn State 20

Oh – my – God:  No. 21 Florida 52, No. 4 Ole Miss 28

NEXT WEEK

rankings are current AP (week 5)
Ticket to die for:  No. 7 Alabama @ No. 16 Mississippi State

Best non-Power Four vs. Power Four  matchup: Cal @ UNLV

Best non-Power Four matchup: Western Michigan @ Buffalo

Upset alert: Michigan @ Minnesota

Must win: Louisville @ NC State

Offensive explosion: No. 7 Alabama @ No. 16 Mississippi State

Defensive struggle: Michigan State @ Wisconsin

Great game no one is talking about: Pittsburgh @ Virginia Tech (Friday)

Also:  West Virginia @ Iowa State

Intriguing coaching matchup:  Marcus Freeman of Notre Dame vs Bill Belichick of North Carolina

Who’s bringing the body bags?  No. 11 LSU @ McNeese State

Why are they playing?  No. 11 LSU @ McNeese State

Plenty of good seats remaining: LA Monroe @ South Alabama

They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?  Texas Southern @ Florida Atlantic

Week 4 Thoughts:

Texas survived yet another strong challenge, this time in the hostile confines of legendary Neyland Stadium.  Many in the sports commentary sphere remarked that had this been a night game, the place would have been more intimidating to the visiting Longhorns to the point where the odds would have been more in the Volunteers’ favor.  That assessment does not take a rocket scientist to figure out:  the fans would have had all day to get good and drunk.  Drunker fans equal louder fans, making for an even more hostile environment in which for the visitors to play.  Small wonder LSU plays most of their games in the evening.

To compensate for this lack of, er, augmented home field advantage, Neyland Stadium opened up its gates early.  Parking lots opened at 6 AM for example, but that’s not the half of it.  The University of Tennessee discounted all of their stadium concessions, including (read:  especially) beer, at 50 percent between 9 and 10 AM (!).  The ostensible reason for all of this was to encourage early arrival in order to avoid congestion as President Donald Trump, who also attended the game, was to arrive.  But let us kid ourselves.  As plausible as this may be, on the surface, for the reason behind this “early bird special”, we all know the real reason behind it, and its somewhat genius.  Some might say dangerously genius, as it could set a new precedence for new degrees of fan inebriation earlier in the day going forward, but time will tell.

Regardless, all of this was before the game itself.  Hard to believe that this was the first time the Horns and Volunteers played each other in the regular season.  Moreover, the last time these two storied programs clashed was in the Cotton Bowl on New Year’s Day, 1969, almost seven months shy of the Apollo 11 moon landing, and a prelude to the Longhorns’ undefeated season that same year which culminated in a national title of their own.

The game lived up to its hype, for both teams gave strong efforts, and at the end, Texas’ defensive line made the difference in stifling Tennessee’s young but potentially-gifted QB Faizon Brandon.  Such potential showed itself in the form of Faizon almost completing a Hail Mary pass in the end zone as the game ended.

Random Thoughts:

There are body bag games, then then there are worse, even more pointless body bag games.  To wit, regarding the latter:  rarely would one consider the Pittsburgh Panthers to be pitiless executioners in such affairs, but so it went when they mercilessly ground down Bucknell 59-0.  It is one thing for a Power-Five team to pick up an easy win against a “Group of Six” team for cash.  It is quite another to pulverize a middling FCS team with no playoff hopes even at the latter’s level of competition.  In this new day and age of playoffs and increased parity in the sport at the upper levels of FBS play, is it not unreasonable that we ban such ugly matchups from ever happening again?

Same thing goes for Duke.  Scheduling a low-end Sunbelt or MAC conference team for an easy win is one thing.  Scheduling a middling FCS team is getting ridiculous.  At least with Pitt, they kept it in-state.  Stunts like these make for begging for some central authority to start making schedules like they do in the NFL.

How many holes did Jeff Brohm kick into the wall of his office in the wake of Louisville’s puzzling loss, at home to Wake Forest?  Either the Demon Deacons are far better than their currently unranked status shows, or the Cardinals demonstrated some weird refusal to effectively execute plays.  For a team to go toe-to-toe with Ole Miss and then to take down a formidable SMU squad only to come up short against this team leaves one to sympathize with Brohm in his current frustrations.

Don’t look now, but Luke Fickell finally got something close to a signature win in taking down then-undefeated Penn State, in Happy Valley, no less.  Perhaps the Badger program is gaining strength under his leadership after all.  Time will tell if this is a harbinger of further success for the program, or some curious anomaly instead.

Something to monitor for Week 5:  can Missouri’s defense contain Florida’s offense more effectively than Ole Miss’ did in The Swamp this week?