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Kentucky’s CJ Baxter Jr. (1) and Ty Bryant (14) celebrate after an NCAA college football game against Texas A&M Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, in College Station, Texas. (AP Photo\/David J. Phillip) <\/p>\nKentucky’s CJ Baxter Jr. (1) and Ty Bryant (14) celebrate after an NCAA college football game against Texas A&M Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, in College Station, Texas. (AP Photo\/David J. Phillip) <\/p>\n
The powerhouse Southeastern Conference will have at least two top-10 teams lose in Week 3.<\/p>\n
No. 10 Alabama made sure it wasn\u2019t three by rallying to beat pesky Florida State 50-36 in Tuscaloosa.<\/p>\n
Kentucky stunned No. 9 Texas A&M on the road Saturday, winning 31-21 behind three transfers: quarterback Kenny Minchey, running back CJ Baxter and safety Jordan Castell.<\/p>\n
Minchey, a Notre Dame transfer, completed 14 of 18 passes for 252 yards and two touchdowns. He connected on his final 11 throws. Baxter, a former Texas standout, ran for 87 yards and two scores. Castell, a three-year starter at Florida, finished with a team-high 13 tackles and an interception.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not shocked,\u201d first-year coach Will Stein said on the field afterward. \u201cThis is how these guys practiced every single day. This is what Kentucky football is supposed to look like. So proud of our guys coming on the road, the eye of the storm. How freaking cool is this? Let\u2019s go!\u201d<\/p>\n
Stein, 36, replaced longtime Kentucky coach Mark Stoops in December and became the third first-year Wildcats coach to beat a top-10 team \u2014 first since Joker Phillips in 2010.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew it was going to be a bar fight, a fistfight, old school,\u201d Stein said. \u201cWe were the tougher team tonight. That\u2019s how we won the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is what we wanted, BBN. Let\u2019s freaking go!\u201d<\/p>\n
No. 7 LSU and eighth-ranked Ole Miss will finish later Saturday and provide another top-10 loss.<\/p>\n
Florida State led Alabama 21-6 early in the second quarter. But the Crimson Tide took over from there and cruised in the second half \u2014 ultimately avenging last year\u2019s season-opening loss to the Seminoles.<\/p>\n
LSU-Ole Miss game is the one to watch<\/p>\n
Lane Kiffin was wildly booed long before he arrived at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday for the LSU-Ole Miss game.<\/p>\n
Kiffin appeared remotely on ESPN\u2019s \u201cCollege GameDay,\u201d and Mississippi fans still angry about how he left the Rebels for LSU late last season greeted him with a chorus of expletive-laced chants. It was a clear sign of what Kiffin and the Tigers should expect when they play at Ole Miss later Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really appreciate you guys gaslighting them with this,\u201d Kiffin said from the team hotel.<\/p>\n
It was the latest in a growing buildup for the first top-10 matchup between No. 7 LSU and eight-ranked Ole Miss since 1962.<\/p>\n
It started when Kiffin left the Rebels to take the LSU job and a $91 million contract just as the team he had coached for six years was days away from its first appearance in the College Football Playoff. Kiffin wanted to stay through the playoff, but Ole Miss moved on to coach Pete Golding and advanced to the CFP semifinals. LSU finished 7-6, capped by a loss in the Texas Bowl.<\/p>\n
The off-field storylines haven\u2019t stopped since. Kiffin\u2019s comments about whether Black players could be recruited to Ole Miss, lawsuits alleging Ole Miss transfers owe big money for reneging on their NIL deals and LSU\u2019s now-abandoned defiance of rules against rostering former pro players have only brightened the spotlight for this one.<\/p>\n
LSU threw another wrinkle into the mix by saying midweek that quarterback Sam Leavitt was \u201cdoubtful\u201d to play, sparking immediate fan accusations of gamesmanship. He\u2019s been upgraded since and is expected to start.<\/p>\n
Kiffin himself acknowledged there could be \u201chatred\u201d in the stands Saturday. Security has been dramatically increased as authorities expect 100,000 people in Oxford, a town whose school-year population of about 25,000 is virtually all students.<\/p>\n
The winner improves to 3-0 on the season \u2014 and gets savory bragging rights.<\/p>\n
Swinney, Clemson get help from a lengthy weather delay<\/p>\n
Clemson coach Dabo Swinney can thank Mother Nature for alleviating some heat.<\/p>\n
Gideon Davidson ran for 105 yards and scored the go-ahead touchdown with five minutes remaining as the Tigers rallied from a 14-point deficit to beat North Carolina 28-20 on Saturday in a game that included a 2 1\/2-hour weather delay.<\/p>\n
Clemson\u2019s Tait Reynolds completed 20 of 29 passes for 215 yards with a touchdown and an interception in his first career start.<\/p>\n
The Tigers trailed 17-15 with 8:11 remaining and UNC with momentum. It was second-and-goal at the Tigers 7 when officials sent both teams to the locker room after lightning was detected in the area.<\/p>\n
When players returned to the field, it was all Clemson. The Tigers stuffed two runs, forced a field goal and took over from there.<\/p>\n
It capped a strange week for the Tar Heels. Investigators said they examined a range of allegations tied to potential drug use, inappropriate relationships and NCAA rule violations in the football program. It is a startling list considering Belichick was hired less than two years ago on a five-year deal that included $10 million guaranteed in each of the first three years.<\/p>\n
General manager Michael Lombardi resigned earlier this month, and Belichick\u2019s son, Steve, will not return to his job as defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n
Clemson, meanwhile, was still reeling from a 51-10 shellacking at LSU to open the season. And losing to Belichick would have provided more criticism of Swinney\u2019s talent procurement decisions.<\/p>\n
Ohio State has a new career receiving yardage leader<\/p>\n
Jeremiah Smith became Ohio State\u2019s career receiving yardage leader.<\/p>\n
Smith caught five passes for 85 yards in a 59-3 victory over Kent State. The junior needed 26 yards to surpass Michael Jenkins\u2019 2,898 yards from 2000-03 and become OSU\u2019s record-holder and got it on his second catch of the game, when he hauled in a 23-yard pass from Julian Sayin midway through the first quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cPut a lot of hard work into it,\u201d Smith said. \u201cThey said 33 games, so I\u2019m blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n
High-scoring affair between two of ACC\u2019s best<\/p>\n
Keyjuan Brown ran for a career-high 163 yards and a pair of long touchdowns to carry No. 23 Louisville to a 41-31 victory over 16th-ranked SMU. The teams picked to finish second (SMU) and third (Louisville) in the Atlantic Coast Conference put on a back-and-forth affair, trading the lead eight times before the Cardinals sealed it on Isaac Brown\u2019s 27-yard touchdown run with 5:32 remaining.<\/p>\n
Both teams were trying to keep pace with No. 5 Miami, which beat Wake Forest 33-20 on Friday night behind an impressive performance by quarterback Darian Mensah.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kentucky’s CJ Baxter Jr. (1) and Ty Bryant (14) celebrate after an NCAA college football game against Texas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-441635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}