2025-2026 College Football Thread

[Batman1980]

IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema has a Hawkeyes tattoo on his leg and, apparently, a trick up his sleeve.

The former Iowa player and assistant coach stunned his alma mater with a fake punt midway through the fourth quarter, and Montee Ball ran 8 yards for a touchdown with 1:06 left as the Badgers (No. 13 BCS, No. 10 AP) rallied to beat the Hawkeyes (No. 15, No. 13) 31-30 on Saturday.

Scott Tolzien threw for 205 yards and a touchdown and John Clay added a pair of touchdowns for the Badgers (7-1, 3-1 Big Ten), who pulled out a special teams gadget at just the right time.

Punter Brad Nortman ran 17 yards up the middle into wide-open field on fourth down from his own 26 with Wisconsin trailing 30-24. The Badgers converted another fourth down with 3:23 left and Ball capped an 80-yard drive with the game-winning score, barely breaking the goal line with an outstretched arm holding the ball.

"It was something we had seen on film," Bielema said. "Once I saw them put the punt return unit there ... we gave them the call."

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said: "[Nortman] did a great job of being patient. A big, big play in the game. It changed things around pretty dramatically."

The week after Wisconsin knocked off then-No. 1 Ohio State at home, the Badgers earned back-to-back wins over ranked teams for the first time since 2004, thanks to a call few in Madison or Iowa City will ever forget.

"I thought the guys just responded really well to adversity," Tolzien said. "In any big game you really got to keep your foot on that gas pedal, whether you're up or you're down you've got to just continue to be in attack mode. You got to be confident."

Iowa (5-2, 2-1) took a 30-24 lead on Michael Meyer's 40-yard field goal with 8:35 left and appeared set to take control.

But Nortman's run changed the game.

Iowa's final drive ended on the Wisconsin 35-yard line when Adam Robinson failed to get out of bounds before time expired. The Hawkeyes burned their final timeout the play before, after they had gotten a first down and could have spiked the ball to stop the clock.

"We wanted to burn the timeout and just go from there. I guess we could have gone the other way. Might have saved us 2 seconds," Ferentz said. "I don't think that was exactly the turning point in the game."

Ricky Stanzi had 258 yards passing and three touchdowns and Robinson added 114 yards for Iowa (5-2, 2-1), which suffered its first home loss of the season.

What was expected to be a Big Ten slugfest turned into an offensive free-for-all in a sporadic rain.

Wisconsin put faith in its offensive line and the 255-pound Clay, who barreled 2 yards for a touchdown and a 17-13 Badgers lead in the third quarter.

That seemed to suck the life out of Kinnick Stadium, but Derrell Johnson-Koulianos quickly woke up the soggy crowd. He got well behind the Badgers secondary and snagged Stanzi's pass for a 45-yard touchdown.

It barely phased Wisconsin, though. The Badgers went 51 yards on just four plays and jumped back ahead 24-20 on Clay's 2-yard TD run.

Stanzi answered back with his third touchdown pass, a 6-yarder off play action to Marvin McNutt with 10:16 left.

On the next play, Tolzien threw a pick to Brett Greenwood, giving Iowa the ball on Wisconsin's 26. But the Badgers held the Hawkeyes to Meyer's 40-yard field goal and ate 7:29 off the clock before the winning score.

Iowa, which came into the season with national title hopes, can forget about that now. But the Hawkeyes host unbeaten Michigan State next week with a chance to jump right back in the race for the Rose Bowl.

"The season's not over. We have five games. We have a good football team," Ferentz said. "A lot of things are going to happen and can happen."

Iowa let up just 17 points in its first four games at Kinnick Stadium, but Wisconsin had its way with one of the nation's best defenses.

The Badgers jumped ahead 3-0 on Philip Welch's 33-yard field goal, but Hawkeyes responded on Robinson's 1-yard TD run. Wisconsin defensive end J.J. Watt blocked the extra point to keep it at 6-3, though -- and that came back to hurt the Hawkeyes later.

"It ends up being the game," Bielema said. "It's a good example of how our guys play every snap."

Tolzien found a wide-open Bradie Ewing for a 7-yard touchdown pass to make it 10-6 early in the second quarter. Stanzi gave Iowa a 13-10 lead just before halftime with a 3-yard touchdown pass to Allen Reisner.

The Badgers played most of the game without tight end Lance Kendricks, their leading receiver who sprained his right ankle in the first quarter, and running back James White, who sprained his left knee early in the second quarter.

This was the last annual matchup between these close border rivals for the foreseeable future. The Hawkeyes and Badgers will be in different divisions when Nebraska joins the Big Ten in 2011, and they won't play each other for at least the next two years.

The Heartland Trophy will stay in Madison until then, as Wisconsin won for just the third time in nine tries against the Hawkeyes.

"We wanted to give the seniors a chance to come out and win with the trophy. We're going to have it for the next couple years so we wanted to come out with a bang," Clay said.

Source - ESPN

[Moviefan1203]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

I wish they would. I get so sick of that nonsense.

Why? Being a person of a pretty strong faith, I always think it's a classy move to see them give their thanks to whatever God they may pray to. Having said that, they should also be allowed to celebrate to an extent. The NCAA is taking all the emotion out of scoring a touchdown, sometimes I feel like they want them to be robots.

That was pretty close to a complete game Miami played last night, even without some players North Carolina is a talented team that is very well coached. Jacory Harris played outstanding, which was nice to see. It's a shame Byrd dropped that long touchdown pass early in the third, or Miami would have really had their stamp of authority on the game. If Missouri can knock off Nebraska next weekend (which is no small task), things are going to be really interesting coming down the stretch. I'd love to see a couple teams finish the season undefeated, that's the perfect scenario for why the BCS doesn't work. Unless you have only teams that finish undefeated, it's a very flawed system.

[ChadFL]

New polls are out.

1. Oregon
2. Boise St.
3. Auburn
4. TCU
5. Michigan St.

Boise St. ranked ahead of Auburn is a complete joke. Auburn has played a tough SEC schedule with wins over teams like South Carolina, Mississippi St., Arkansas and LSU. Boise St. has beaten Va Tech, Oregon St. and a bunch of scrubs.

[Moviefan1203]

Auburn is a good team with a great coach, but they are a one man show. As good as Cam Newton is, what kind of team would they be without him? You have to think they are going to drop one or two games before the end of the year anyway, so it's a mute point. At the current moment my top five would be:

1) Oregon
2) Auburn
3) Boise State
4) Alabama
5) TCU

[toxsic]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

Auburn is a good team with a great coach, but they are a one man show. As good as Cam Newton is, what kind of team would they be without him? You have to think they are going to drop one or two games before the end of the year anyway, so it's a mute point. At the current moment my top five would be:

1) Oregon
2) Auburn
3) Boise State
4) Alabama
5) TCU

one man show? you gotta be joking, or either you just don't know much about our offense. sure, we might be a different team without cam, as a matter of fact, show me one top team who wouldn't be different without their best player.

we have MANY great players on our offense who would do just fine, but when you have a guy like Cam Freakin Newton on your team, you use him. if it wasn't for our oline and wr's getting off great blocks, Cam would probably be useless. if it wasn't for our other running threats in Michael Dyer and Onterio McCalleb, Newton probably wouldn't be quite as effective. Newton is also a threat to pass the ball, and we have standout WR's in Darvin Adams, Emory Blake & Terrel Zachery, we just don't pass much because our rushing game is so good.

we just put up 442 yards rushing against the best rushing defense in the SEC. bama's d is not better than LSU's. hell, we were running bama out of the stadium last year with a gimped qb and worse defense than we have this year. i'm not worried about our game with bama at all after watching what we did to LSU's d yesterday. nobody is going to stop Cam Newton unless they injure him for good.

i personally don't think we'll face another d better than LSU the rest of the year, which bodes well for our offense. i know we have a suspect defense also, but they've been stepping up when it was really needed, and with our offense, i think it's gonna be hard for anybody to outscore us. i do fear it's possible we could have a letdown game vs ole miss or Georgia, but i don't think so, our team is focused week in and week out and not letting the rankings or Heisman hype get to them. i mean it's very well possible as anything is possible in college football, but i honestly don't see us losing a regular season game.

i'll hang up and listen now.

[toxsic]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

New polls are out.

1. Oregon
2. Boise St.
3. Auburn
4. TCU
5. Michigan St.

Boise St. ranked ahead of Auburn is a complete joke. Auburn has played a tough SEC schedule with wins over teams like South Carolina, Mississippi St., Arkansas and LSU. Boise St. has beaten Va Tech, Oregon St. and a bunch of scrubs.

you're right, Boise St. ahead of Auburn in any poll right now is a joke. however, the only poll that matters in the end is the BCS poll, and many espn "experts" are predicting that Auburn will be #1 and no lower than #2 in tonight's BCS rankings.

[Moviefan1203]

Originally Posted by toxsic

one man show? you gotta be joking, or either you just don't know much about our offense. sure, we might be a different team without cam, as a matter of fact, show me one top team who wouldn't be different without their best player.

we have MANY great players on our offense who would do just fine, but when you have a guy like Cam Freakin Newton on your team, you use him. if it wasn't for our oline and wr's getting off great blocks, Cam would probably be useless. if it wasn't for our other running threats in Michael Dyer and Onterio McCalleb, Newton probably wouldn't be quite as effective. Newton is also a threat to pass the ball, and we have standout WR's in Darvin Adams, Emory Blake & Terrel Zachery, we just don't pass much because our rushing game is so good.

we just put up 442 yards rushing against the best rushing defense in the SEC. bama's d is not better than LSU's. hell, we were running bama out of the stadium last year with a gimped qb and worse defense than we have this year. i'm not worried about our game with bama at all after watching what we did to LSU's d yesterday. nobody is going to stop Cam Newton unless they injure him for good.

i personally don't think we'll face another d better than LSU the rest of the year, which bodes well for our offense. i know we have a suspect defense also, but they've been stepping up when it was really needed, and with our offense, i think it's gonna be hard for anybody to outscore us. i do fear it's possible we could have a letdown game vs ole miss or Georgia, but i don't think so, our team is focused week in and week out and not letting the rankings or Heisman hype get to them. i mean it's very well possible as anything is possible in college football, but i honestly don't see us losing a regular season game.

i'll hang up and listen now.

Cam Newton IS your offense toxsic. Without him, they probably have at least three losses. What he did against LSU yesterday afternoon is the stuff that legends are made of. What concerns me about Auburn is when Cam Newton goes up against a defense that slows down his running, what is going to happen? Your defensive secondary is very suspect, and Newton is going to have to throw the ball to win. He's not a bad passer by any stretch of the imagination, but he isn't the same threat he is with his running skills.

[supersix4]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

Cam Newton IS your offense toxsic. Without him, they probably have at least three losses. What he did against LSU yesterday afternoon is the stuff that legends are made of. What concerns me about Auburn is when Cam Newton goes up against a defense that slows down his running, what is going to happen? Your defensive secondary is very suspect, and Newton is going to have to throw the ball to win. He's not a bad passer by any stretch of the imagination, but he isn't the same threat he is with his running skills.

Yeah and other then WVU every team LSU has played has put at least 20 points on them, so while its an SEC defense its not like they put all those yards up on last years Alabama team...

I can't wait for the Auburn Bama game

I agree Newtons a BEAST, but he doesn't have much help and that will eventually catch up with you.

[Batman1980]

Originally Posted by supersix4

Yeah and other then WVU every team LSU has played has put at least 20 points on them, so while its an SEC defense its not like they put all those yards up on last years Alabama team...

I can't wait for the Auburn Bama game

I agree Newtons a BEAST, but he doesn't have much help and that will eventually catch up with you.

Tigers are going to beat the Crimson Tide, may even finish this year ranked #1, with BSU ranked #2. Nightmare championship game for the NCAA.

[supersix4]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Tigers are going to beat the Crimson Tide, may even finish this year ranked #1, with BSU ranked #2. Nightmare championship game for the NCAA.

We'll see... Depending on which bama D shows up.

[ChadFL]

Originally Posted by Gandalf Stormcrow

Tigers are going to beat the Crimson Tide, may even finish this year ranked #1, with BSU ranked #2. Nightmare championship game for the NCAA.

No they won't. Alabama will beat Auburn in Tuscaloosa.

[ChadFL]

In looking at the computer rankings it appears that when the BCS rankings come out later today Auburn may very well be ranked 1st despite being #3 in the voter polls with Oregon 2nd and Boise St. a distant 3rd thanks to strength of schedule.

[toxsic]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

Cam Newton IS your offense toxsic. Without him, they probably have at least three losses. What he did against LSU yesterday afternoon is the stuff that legends are made of. What concerns me about Auburn is when Cam Newton goes up against a defense that slows down his running, what is going to happen? Your defensive secondary is very suspect, and Newton is going to have to throw the ball to win. He's not a bad passer by any stretch of the imagination, but he isn't the same threat he is with his running skills.

just what i thought, you have no idea about anybody on our team but cam. cam isn't doing this all by himself, one player alone cannot win you 8 games in the SEC. you actually don't know how many losses we'd have without Cam, nobody does, because our OC builds his offense around our QB, we'd be running a completely different offense if we didn't have Cam. and we have 2 qb's behind Cam that are very good, they're not dual threats like cam, but very good. why do you think Cam came to Auburn instead of going to Miss St. Miss St. doesn't have the talent on offense we have and he wouldn't have been near as effective there.

let me ask you this, just who do you think is going to slow cam down? LSU had the best rushing defense in the SEC and he shredded them for 217 yards alone. ole miss and georgia sure as hell isn't going to slow him down and the last team on our regular season schedule is bama. and i very seriously doubt they will slow him down. we COULD lose to bama, but i like our chances a lot more than i like theirs. bama doesn't have the type of offense to come from behind to win a big game. unless everyone forgets, we led bama for about 59 minutes of the game last year with a worse defense than we have this year, not to mention we had a qb with a gimped up arm and was no threat to run. you're right, we do have a suspect secondary, and it may cost us a game, but overall, our defense is better than last year and we have a MUCH better qb and our offense as a whole is better than last year as well.

everybody keeps saying the same thing you just said "what are you gonna do when somebody slows cam down", i say you show me one team that can slow him down and then we'll see what we can do. until then, that question is just silly. also, why do you think he's such a threat? it's not his running alone, he can throw the ball as well as anybody in the SEC, minus maybe mallett. you just don't get it, cam isn't the only threat on our team, we have playmakers at just about every position on our offense, we're just showcasing the best player on our team.

i'm not saying we can't lose a game, i'm just saying that with our remaining schedule, i honestly don't think we will.

[Moviefan1203]

Originally Posted by toxsic

just what i thought, you have no idea about anybody on our team but cam. cam isn't doing this all by himself, one player alone cannot win you 8 games in the SEC. you actually don't know how many losses we'd have without Cam, nobody does, because our OC builds his offense around our QB, we'd be running a completely different offense if we didn't have Cam. and we have 2 qb's behind Cam that are very good, they're not dual threats like cam, but very good. why do you think Cam came to Auburn instead of going to Miss St. Miss St. doesn't have the talent on offense we have and he wouldn't have been near as effective there.

let me ask you this, just who do you think is going to slow cam down? LSU had the best rushing defense in the SEC and he shredded them for 217 yards alone. ole miss and georgia sure as hell isn't going to slow him down and the last team on our regular season schedule is bama. and i very seriously doubt they will slow him down. we COULD lose to bama, but i like our chances a lot more than i like theirs. bama doesn't have the type of offense to come from behind to win a big game. unless everyone forgets, we led bama for about 59 minutes of the game last year with a worse defense than we have this year, not to mention we had a qb with a gimped up arm and was no threat to run. you're right, we do have a suspect secondary, and it may cost us a game, but overall, our defense is better than last year and we have a MUCH better qb and our offense as a whole is better than last year as well.

everybody keeps saying the same thing you just said "what are you gonna do when somebody slows cam down", i say you show me one team that can slow him down and then we'll see what we can do. until then, that question is just silly. also, why do you think he's such a threat? it's not his running alone, he can throw the ball as well as anybody in the SEC, minus maybe mallett. you just don't get it, cam isn't the only threat on our team, we have playmakers at just about every position on our offense, we're just showcasing the best player on our team.

i'm not saying we can't lose a game, i'm just saying that with our remaining schedule, i honestly don't think we will.

I'm calling it right now, Alabama is going to shut down Newton. I understand you are an Auburn fan and are passionate about them, in fact I respect you a ton for that. I'm a die hard Miami fan, and I put my blood, sweat, and tears into rooting for them so I see where you are coming from. Having said that without Newton, Auburn is an 8-4 team, there's no other way around it man. Newton should win the Heisman if he stays healthy though, and he damn right deserves is thus far.

[ChadFL]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

I'm calling it right now, Alabama is going to shut down Newton. I understand you are an Auburn fan and are passionate about them, in fact I respect you a ton for that. I'm a die hard Miami fan, and I put my blood, sweat, and tears into rooting for them so I see where you are coming from. Having said that without Newton, Auburn is an 8-4 team, there's no other way around it man. Newton should win the Heisman if he stays healthy though, and he damn right deserves is thus far.

Ehh... that may be true. But in fairness those Florida Gator teams of the past few years were probably 8-4 teams without Tebow. That's what a great QB can do in college football. It's the difference between a 12-1 team and an 8-4 team. We all now see what the Gators are like with Brantley at QB.

[Moviefan1203]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

Ehh... that may be true. But in fairness those Florida Gator teams of the past few years were probably 8-4 teams without Tebow. That's what a great QB can do in college football. It's the difference between a 12-1 team and an 8-4 team. We all now see what the Gators are like with Brantley at QB.

Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more Chad. Without Tebow, Urban Meyer would not be nearly as heralded as he is. How many times did Tebow pick up the Gators and carry them on his back to victory? There's a reason he is one of the greatest college football players of all time.

[ChadFL]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more Chad. Without Tebow, Urban Meyer would not be nearly as heralded as he is. How many times did Tebow pick up the Gators and carry them on his back to victory? There's a reason he is one of the greatest college football players of all time.

And the funny thing is Tebow's Heisman season the Gators actually were a 4 loss team. People tend to forget they had that mediocre season wedged in between the 2006 and 2008 national championships and the solid Tebow senior year where the Gators lost 1 game. In my lifetime I'd probably put Tebow as the second greatest college QB after Tommie Frazier.

[toxsic]

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more Chad. Without Tebow, Urban Meyer would not be nearly as heralded as he is. How many times did Tebow pick up the Gators and carry them on his back to victory? There's a reason he is one of the greatest college football players of all time.

you were saying that he is our whole offense though, which is simply not true. he is a big part of our offense though. like chad said, great qb's can be the difference between 12-0 or 8-4. i'm just trying to say that we have many more playmakers than Cam, but Cam is a once in a lifetime player and no matter how many great players you have on offense, he's going to overshadow them.

my point that i was trying to make, was that even if cam gets slowed down, and lets be real here, NOBODY is going to completely shut him down (he's bigger, stronger, more agile and more athletic than Tebow), he's still enough of a threat that the opposing defense will still have to account for him either passing or running and that takes the pressure off our other stars to make plays. the only way our offense gets stopped is we stop ourselves.

now, with all that said, the real problem with Auburn is our secondary and i don't think it has anything to do with our DC as some folks think. i personally think that Tubberville was just getting very complacent in recruiting and was settling for what he could get. that and the fact that a lot of the players he was recruiting weren't making it into school, so they never played. we were very shallow on depth last year to the point that we didn't even have a full 2 deep. that's changed some this year and we're a little better, but still a good ways off in the secondary. the defense should get better every year though as we get more depth and talented players.

[supersix4]

Originally Posted by toxsic

just what i thought, you have no idea about anybody on our team but cam.

He's a beast and without him at least from what I've seen its above average at best

Adams is good but doesn't look like he'll have a better year the last (although there is plenty of time)

McCalebb and Dyer are a nice combination (but are helped a TON by Newton and also Dyer is a freshy lets not forget that), but like I said I'm really intrigued to see what Auburn can do in a fight with a more balanced opponent, every ranked team they've played so far while impressive has had holes, and still played pretty well, but thats the SEC for you


They should let N. Taylor out of VA play some

Its to bad Ben Tate couldn't be here for this season OH and guess what MD BOY!!!! (McCalebb is no Tate )

Originally Posted by Moviefan1203

Absolutely, I couldn't agree with you more Chad. Without Tebow, Urban Meyer would not be nearly as heralded as he is. How many times did Tebow pick up the Gators and carry them on his back to victory? There's a reason he is one of the greatest college football players of all time.

TEBOW

[toxsic]

Originally Posted by supersix4

He's a beast and without him at least from what I've seen its above average at best

Adams is good but doesn't look like he'll have a better year the last (although there is plenty of time)

McCalebb and Dyer are a nice combination (but are helped a TON by Newton and also Dyer is a freshy lets not forget that), but like I said I'm really intrigued to see what Auburn can do in a fight with a more balanced opponent, every ranked team they've played so far while impressive has had holes, and still played pretty well, but thats the SEC for you

They should let N. Taylor out of VA play some

Its to bad Ben Tate couldn't be here for this season OH and guess what MD BOY!!!! (McCalebb is no Tate )


TEBOW

again, we'd be running a completely different offense without Cam, hard to say what our offense would be like. our 2 backup qb's are not as big a threat to run as Cam, but they will run the ball, unlike Chris Todd last year, was never a threat to run at all. it's apparent the glaring weakness is defense, it's what cost us games last year and kept us from having a better record than we did.

of course he's not going to have a better year this year than last, we're taking what defenses are giving us and we don't need to pass as much as usual. last year our qb chris todd was never a threat to run, but was a pretty good passer, so Adams had a good year.

you could also say the same about Newton being helped a ton by OMac and Dyer. if we had no other run threats than Newton, then Newton wouldn't be as effective i don't think. as it is, defenses are having to account Omac/Dyer/Newton, then they're having to account for Adams/Blake/Zachary as well, hard to account for all that.

you're right, OMac is no Tate, but you saw first hand yesterday what OMac is capable of if he gets outside running. he took it over 70 yard to the house. and he broke the 99 yarder against Arky. and Dyer being a freshman doesn't bother me, he had 100 yards yesterday and he's injured. that speaks for itself.