Four Downs: Northern Illinois is feel-good story. Should Shedeur opt out?

First Down

This is the danger of overreaction, of penciling in favorites and roaming blissfully unaware through the minefield that is the college football regular season.

A week ago, Notre Dame had a clear path to the College Football Playoff. Now there’s wild uncertainty under the Golden Dome after a 16-14 loss to Northern Illinois.

A week ago, Irish quarterback Riley Leonard gutted out a big win at Texas A&M, fighting a defense full of elite athletes and going head-to-head with Mike Elko, his former coach at Duke. Fast forward to an unusually chilly September Saturday afternoon in South Bend, Indiana, with little ol’ Northern Illinois staring back from the other side of the ball.

Leonard threw two interceptions, averaged one lousy yard per carry and the Irish looked like a team in disarray — a week after strutting like a playoff team.

When will we ever learn?

This is the beauty of college football, and its perfectly imperfect fall Saturdays. Sometimes it’s not so much about bluechips and big NIL deals as it is want. Who wants it more?

A roster full of blue chip recruits with strapping, rising 30-something coach Marcus Freeman building what seems like a national power, or a bunch of MAC castoffs with tough love coach Thomas Hammock, who looks more like John Candy than John Heisman.

He was blubbering on the field at Notre Dame Stadium as the sun set over Touchdown Jesus, yet speaking so poignantly about players doing the right things, and listening and taking coaching. Football is more than NIL deals, he said.

You better believe it is. More times than not, it’s about who wants it more.

Like gutty and gritty Northern Illinois quarterback Ethan Hampton, who threw for 198 yards and had a few key runs ― including converting a key fourth-down run on the game-winning drive. Prior to this season, he had nine career passing touchdowns against eight interceptions.

Or running back Antario Brown, who was 13 when his mother was shot and killed outside their apartment in Savannah. After rushing for nearly 1,300 yards last season, he could’ve left NIU for a Power Four team and earned a sweet NIL deal.

But he stayed with the school who first recruited him, much like he did when leaving high school despite an offer from South Carolina.

Or Hammock, a star running back at NIU in the early 2000s who bounced around in college football and the NFL coaching running backs, before his alma mater asked him to come home in 2019. And then back him over and over despite some rough spots, including a three-win season in 2022.

So yeah, he was weeping in the biggest moment of his coaching career. So were his players as they dove into the stands to celebrate with the few hundreds who made the 150-mile drive east to witness history.

This is college football. Not daily pontificating or weekly overreactions or looking down a three-month road and declaring no one is beating Notre Dame. Until Northern Illinois does.

And picks up a cool guarantee game check worth $1.4 million in the process, thank you.

Second Down

Of all the critically bad decisions to chance for college football administrators, there are defining moves that somehow continue to be made through emotion.

Hiring a head coach shouldn’t be a heart over head proposition, but here we are, and the strange scenario continues to play out when it shouldn’t. From beloved assistant coach to head coach — to overwhelmed by the moment.

All because emotion clouded judgment in the hiring process, and the ”players’ coach” or “the importance of transition” or “you know what you’re getting” meant more than finding the right coach. 

Speaking of a clouded process, it may be time to give Michigan coach Sherrone Moore an early invite to the waiting room of bad decisions.

Because after Michigan’s 19-point home loss to Texas (it wasn’t that close), Moore looks a lot like Bobby Williams at Michigan State. Or Randy Shannon and Manny Diaz at Miami, Ron Prince at Kansas State and Matt Luke at Ole Miss.

And that’s just a handful of assistant coaches who got their first power conference head coaching job when elevated at their respective schools — and were then engulfed by it all. They were “players’ coaches” who were hired in the heat of the moment and amid the fanfare of player support, after the previous coach either took another job, retired or was fired.     

Williams followed Nick Saban (left for LSU), Shannon followed national championship coach Larry Coker (fired), Diaz followed Mark Richt (retired),  Prince followed Bill Snyder (retired) and Luke followed Hugh Freeze (fired).  

Only Diaz, now coaching Duke, got a second chance as a Power Five conference head coach. 

Now here we are with Moore, who won four games as an interim coach last year during Michigan’s national championship season while former coach Jim Harbaugh was suspended. But that was with a loaded team, built over the years by Harbaugh and built specifically to peak during the 2023 season.

Moore took over, and had to find a quarterback (he didn’t land one from the transfer portal despite the deep group of candidates), and replace the entire offensive line and wide receiving corps.

After an uninspiring season opening win over Fresno State, the Wolverines looked outcoached and outclassed against Texas. Michigan had 284 yards — 78 on the last drive of the game against Texas backups — converted only 3-of-12 third downs and had three turnovers.

Moore looked shellshocked from the first drive of the game, when a questionable holding call negated a Texas touchdown. The Longhorns then missed a short field goal. 

Then it got worse for Moore and Michigan, which had four win streaks snapped with the loss: 16 consecutive wins overall, 23 consecutive home wins, 28 consecutive wins in August and September, and 23 consecutive non-conference home wins. 

The Wolverines were an operational mess on both sides of the ball. Quarterback Davis Warren was shaky in his second start, and the play calling was uninspiring. 

The run game — the anchor of Harbaugh’s Michigan teams — rushed for 80 yards on 23 carries, and has produced 228 yards in two games. The defense wasn’t much better, giving up nearly 400 yards before the Longhorns shut it down in the fourth quarter to salt away the win. 

“I liked our poise and I liked our composure,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said after the game.

A team, and a coach, that wasn’t distracted in a critical moment. 

Third Down

Here we go again. Another one-possession game, another loss for Arkansas.

And another excuse to turn up the heat on embattled Hogs coach Sam Pittman.

Just in case you’ve forgotten what the last two years of Arkansas football looked like, turn on the DVR and watch Arkansas give away a big road win Saturday at No.16 Oklahoma State. The Hogs led by 14 at halftime and eight in the fourth quarter, yet couldn’t get out of Boone Pickens Stadium with an important non-conference win.

This one ended in the second overtime with Arkansas failing to convert on fourth-and-1 from the OSU 6. It also ended as the 15th one-possession loss under Pittman since 2000. Fifteen.

They’ve ended in every conceivable way: from Saturday’s loss of a yard when the Hogs needed only one, to holding Mississippi State to 205 total yards and losing 7-3 when Pittman admitted he ‘didn’t know what to do’ when faced with the decision of kicking a long field goal or punt.

Then there was the missed game-winning field goal against Texas A&M when the kick hit the top of the upright. Yes, the top. In a stretch last season that included three losses by one possession against Brigham Young, LSU and Ole Miss, Arkansas had a combined 35 penalties.

The latest unsettling loss to Oklahoma State, a game the Hogs had control of deep into the second half, shines more concern on the one-possession losses. it also underscores losses for Arkansas in nine of its last 10 games against power conference teams — the only win in overtime at Florida.

‘I’ve had success,’ Pittman told me in July. ‘I’m not concerned about ‘Oh, he’s a failure.’ Hell no, I’m not a failure. And I’m not going to do something different because I’m worried about a job.’

Fourth Down

it’s time for Shedeur Sanders to hear some harsh truth. And it has to come from his coach, and father, Deion Sanders.

It’s time to opt out. Of the season.

I’m half joking, but imagine Colorado star quarterback Shedeur Sanders, an elite NFL draft prospect and possibly a Top five overall pick, knowing the beatdown is coming, week after week, while playing behind a horrific offensive line.

Why stand tall and absorb those hits and take that physical pounding for what looks like a three- or four-win team? What exactly is the sense of this exercise?

The Colorado offensive line gave up 56 sacks last season ― that’s right, 56 ― and after two games against North Dakota State and Nebraska, this year’s group looks worse. Shedeur was sacked five times in the loss to Nebraska, and it could’ve been 10.

Why in the world would Deion (the coach or the dad) throw his son behind this mess of an offensive line, knowing it could lead to the only thing that could prevent his son from being one of the first players selected in the draft? By the end of the Nebraska loss, Shedeur was walking off the field with trainers with the two minutes to play in the game.

The beatdown was so bad that Huskers coach Matt Rhule, interviewed by NBC on the field moments after the game, began by declaring he hopes Shedeur is OK. I get it, opting out of the season is too harsh.

Maybe start with opting out of games when you’re down four touchdowns.

The Bracket

First round byes:

(1) Georgia, (2) Ohio State, (3) Miami, (4) Oklahoma State

First round games:

(12) Liberty at (5) Texas

(11) Penn State at (6) Alabama

(10) Missouri at (7) Oregon

(9) Southern California at (8) Ole Miss