UT, A&M go in opposite directions in AP poll
Wisconsin moved into the top 10 for the first time this season, landing at No. 8 in The Associated Press college football poll after a weekend during which seven ranked teams lost.
The top of the AP Top 25 remained mostly unchanged, with Clemson staying No. 1, followed by three Southeastern Conference teams: No. 2 Alabama, No. 3 Georgia and No. 4 LSU. Ohio State edged past Oklahoma to No. 5.
Clemson received 55 first-place votes from the media panel. Alabama had six, and Georgia received one.
Auburn moved up a spot to No. 7 after beating Texas A&M 28-20 and Wisconsin jumped five spots to No. 8 after defeating Michigan 35-14. The Wolverines plummeted to No. 20. Florida remained No. 9, and Notre Dame slipped three spots to No. 10 after losing 23-17 at Georgia.
Texas (3-1) climbed one spot to No. 11 after its 36-30 win over Oklahoma State. No. 24 Texas A&M slipped six spots after its loss to Auburn but stayed ranked with a 2-2 record.
TCU (2-1) went from No. 25 to unranked after losing 41-38 to SMU, which improved to 4-0 for the first time since 1984.
UCLA pulls off epic comeback
Coach Chip Kelly says he never lost faith in his UCLA team, even as it was losing its first three games.
Kelly said the Bruins played hard all 12 quarters of those losses, and that paid dividends when they fell behind at No. 19 Washington State on Saturday night.
Dorian ThompsonRobinson threw a 15-yard touchdown pass to Demetric Felton with 1:07 left in the game as UCLA overcame a 32-point secondhalf deficit to claim a wild 67-63 victory over the Cougars in Pullman, Wash.
“I always thought we were a good football team,” Kelly said. “If we could be consistent.”
“When you are battletested like our guys are, I think that showed up today.”
The Bruins overcame a school-record nine touchdown passes by Washington State’s Anthony Gordon.
After Felton’s touchdown, Gordon was sacked and fumbled — the team’s sixth turnover of the game — on the next possession with about a minute remaining and UCLA recovered and ran out the clock.
Thompson-Robinson threw for 507 yards and five touchdowns for UCLA (1-3, 1-0 Pac-12).
Gordon threw for 570 yards for Washington State (3-1, 0-1). Jacksonville Jaguars’ starting QB Gardner Minshew, a sixth-round draft pick who was on the WSU sidelines for Saturday’s game, held the previous school record of seven touchdown passes in a game, set in November 2018 against Arizona.
Easop Winston Jr. was Gordon’s favorite target. He caught four touchdown passes for Washington State.
Washington State jumped to a 35-17 lead at halftime, and pushed that to 49-17 early in the third quarter.
But UCLA, which had failed to score more than 14 points in each of its three losses, stormed back, erupting for three touchdowns in the final 4 minutes of the third. That was part of a run of seven touchdowns in eight possessions, many fueled by WSU turnovers.
Washington State coach Mike Leach said his team lost its edge in the second half.
“Our guys got frantic and panicked,” Leach said.
“We collapsed in every phase of the game.”
Police: Ex-UT QB Snead found dead
Austin police are investigating the death of former Texas and Mississippi quarterback Jevan Snead, 32, but police released few details about his death Sunday.
Snead, a product of Stephenville High School, enrolled at UT as a freshman in 2006. He lost a competition for the starting job to then-redshirt freshman quarterback Colt McCoy and spent his only season with the Longhorns as a backup.
He transferred to Mississippi in 2007 and, after sitting out a season because of NCAA transfer rules, was a starter for the 2008 and 2009 seasons. He declared for the 2010 NFL draft but went undrafted.
S.C. newspaper issues apology
The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., has issued an apology for a headline connecting the Hilinski’s Hope foundation to South Carolina’s 34-14 loss Saturday at Missouri where Ryan Hilinski was the Gamecocks quarterback.
The story about the game in print editions carried the headline, “Hilinski Hope Sinks. ” Hilinski’s Hope is a foundation set up by the Hilinski family after Tyler Hilinski, Ryan’s older brother, committed suicide in 2018 while a quarterback at Washington State.
The paper received criticism on social media and from the university, which issued a statement against the headline Sunday.
The newspaper said on social media the link reference to the foundation was unintentional, but there was “no excuse” for the wording. It reached out to the family and university to express its regrets.
Ryan Hilinski is a freshman who became South Carolina starter earlier this month with a seasonending injury to senior Jake Bentley.