{"id":124869,"date":"2025-09-01T12:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-01T12:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/124869\/"},"modified":"2025-09-01T12:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-01T12:51:08","slug":"a-look-at-how-area-teams-performed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/124869\/","title":{"rendered":"A look at how area teams performed"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman deemed his team\u2019s 27-24 loss to Miami<\/a> on Sunday night in South Florida worthy of being a \u201ctop-10 fight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The No. 6 Irish charged back from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to tie it, but ultimately lost to No. 10 Miami on kicker Carter Davis\u2019 47-yard field goal with 1 minute, 4 seconds to play.<\/p>\n

It was an exciting ending to college football\u2019s Week 1, during which area teams turned in some good \u2014 and not so good \u2014 performances. Here are some takeaways from their season openers.<\/p>\n

CJ Carr had some big moments \u2014 and some mistakes \u2014 in his Notre Dame starting debut.
\n\"NotreNotre Dame Fighting Irish quarterback CJ Carr dives onto a fumble during a game against the Miami Hurricanes on Sunday, Aug. 31, 2025 in Miami. (AP Photo\/Peter Joneleit)<\/p>\n

When Notre Dame fell behind 24-14 with 9 minutes, 42 seconds left in the fourth quarter, CJ Carr rose to the occasion<\/a> on the next two drives.<\/p>\n

He led the Irish on a field-goal drive and then followed that with the tying touchdown drive, highlighted by a 65-yard pass to Eli Raridon and a 7-yard touchdown run.<\/p>\n

After Miami\u2019s field goal to go ahead, the Irish had one last chance with 1:04 left. But Carr was sacked twice \u2014 called for intentional grounding on one of them \u2014 and Notre Dame\u2019s chance then ran out on a false-start penalty.<\/p>\n

Carr, who hadn\u2019t thrown a collegiate pass before Sunday, was 19-for-30 for 221 yards, two touchdowns and an interception and also ran for 16 yards and a touchdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going to be a really good quarterback, everything that I thought he was going to be,\u201d Freeman told reporters at his postgame news conference. \u201cHis ceiling looks so high. He\u2019s going to have to learn to take this loss and not let it beat him up too much because he\u2019s an ultra competitor.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut he\u2019s a gamer, man. He performs when the lights are on. He prepares his tail off. He had answers for questions myself or Coach (Mike) Denbrock would have. And he\u2019s going to do great things, man. It\u2019s just the start for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

CJ Carr named starting quarterback for No. 6 Notre Dame over Kenny Minchey: \u2018Their strengths are very similar\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

His first touchdown was a wild one. Carr ran about 20 yards back from the line of scrimmage before racing forward and finding Micah Gilbert for a 7-yard touchdown. He also hit Jordan Faison with a 1-yard touchdown pass in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

But Carr threw a fourth-quarter interception into a crowd. The ball was tipped twice before Rueben Bain Jr. pulled it down, and Miami turned the takeaway into the field goal that put them up 24-14.<\/p>\n

Freeman said his inner dialogue on the first touchdown was chanting: \u201cThrow it away.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018Throw it away,\u2019 and then, \u2018Oh, great job,\u2019\u201d Freeman said. \u201cHe kept his eyes downfield and made a play. We don\u2019t draw \u2018em up like that, but those are plays that CJ Carr can make. He made a good amount of them tonight. Made some mistakes like any first-time quarterback will make. But his ceiling is extremely high and his future is bright.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outside linebacker Gabe Jacas got off to a good start to what Illinois hopes is a big season.<\/p>\n

ESPN named Jacas, a 6-foot-3, 270-pound senior, a preseason All-American after he had eight sacks, 13 tackles for a loss, 10 quarterback hurries, three forced fumbles and a fumble recovery last season.<\/p>\n

In a 52-3, season-opening win against Western Illinois<\/a> at Memorial Stadium on Friday, Jacas looked like he was on a different level.<\/p>\n

In the first quarter, he slipped through a hole on the offense to take down Western Illinois quarterback Chris Irvin from behind, knocking the ball loose in the process. Illinois defensive back Kaleb Patterson recovered it, and the Illini scored their second touchdown five plays later.<\/p>\n

Photos: No. 12 Illinois routs Western Illinois 52-3 in season opener<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI just feel like we feed off energy,\u201d Jacas said. \u201cSo me making that play, like everyone just fed off the energy and the rest is history. Everyone was making plays and flying around.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the second quarter, he rang up another sack, bending by WIU offensive lineman Michael Forney to wrap his arms around Irvin and bring him down.<\/p>\n

Illinois coach Bret Bielema called Jacas \u201ca freak of nature\u201d and said he thinks being elected captain helped build even more confidence heading into this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cHighly motivated,\u201d Bielema said. \u201cHe\u2019s a big playmaker. He\u2019s a guy that\u2019s never satisfied. It\u2019s fun to see his energy and juice kind of fall out to other people as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Northwestern didn\u2019t just suffer a rough 23-3 loss to Tulane<\/a> on Saturday. They also found themselves in the middle of a uniform controversy.
\n\"RunningRunning back Maurice Turner of the Tulane Green Wave runs the ball past defensive back Garner Wallace of the Northwestern Wildcats during the second half of a game on Aug. 30, 2025, in New Orleans. (Tyler Kaufman\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Tulane honored the 2005 team that played in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina by wearing plain green helmets with no decals. Tulane coach Jon Sumrall said the team also wanted to wear white uniforms as the 2005 team did, but Northwestern, which wore its white road uniforms, denied the request.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not trying to take a shot, but we requested to wear white jerseys because that\u2019s what that team wore,\u201d Sumrall said in his postgame news conference on Saturday. \u201cThey got denied by the other team. That\u2019s their prerogative. But when you show disrespect to the city of New Orleans, that\u2019s what\u2019s going to happen to you. You\u2019re going to run into a team like this. They had a chip on their shoulder. \u2026 We might have used that for a little bit of motivation to represent the city. So don\u2019t disrespect New Orleans ever.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Northwestern source said the teams had agreed on which uniforms to wear well in advance of the game, but Tulane asked to switch to its white jerseys on Aug. 17. The source said such swaps are usually made months in advance, and given the short window of time for the Wildcats\u2019 equipment staff to make the change, the request was denied.<\/p>\n

For reference, Northwestern had made a similar request in May to an opponent to wear white uniforms at home and had it denied.<\/p>\n

Northwestern has not released a statement yet on the matter, but coach David Braun will hold his weekly news conference on Monday.<\/p>\n

Northwestern coach David Braun stood by quarterback Preston Stone despite a bad first start.
\n\"QuarterbackQuarterback Preston Stone of the Northwestern Wildcats throws the ball during a game against the Tulane Green Wave on Aug. 30, 2025, in New Orleans. (Tyler Kaufman\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Stone\u2019s first game with Northwestern after transferring from SMU was a hard one to swallow.<\/p>\n

He threw four interceptions \u2014 including three in the first half \u2014 and lost a fumble as the Wildcats fell behind 20-3 by halftime.<\/p>\n

Northwestern had one of the worst offenses in FBS last season and was looking for a spark from Stone, who replaced Jack Lausch, last year\u2019s starting quarterback who left to focus on baseball.<\/p>\n

\u201cPreston Stone didn\u2019t play his best football game today, but I said it boldly in that locker room,\u201d Braun said in his news conference. \u201cBelieve in that guy. That\u2019s our quarterback. And the second I said it, the locker room echoed that. We\u2019ve got a locker room that believes in that guy, will ride with that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Braun said he will frame the week ahead as an opportunity to respond on a short turnaround before they host Western Illinois on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnwavering resolve in the fact that one game does not define us as a football team,\u201d Braun said.<\/p>\n

Illinois\u2019 Hank Beatty<\/a> wasn\u2019t the only one with a return touchdown this weekend.<\/p>\n

Northern Illinois\u2019 Dev\u2019ion Reynolds returned a kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown in a 19-17 win over Holy Cross<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Reynolds is a redshirt freshman cornerback who played at Carmel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman deemed his team\u2019s 27-24 loss to Miami on Sunday night in South Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[79848,1607,79847,79850,399,79851,79849,13424,398,396,397,13425,1778,79852,99],"class_list":["post-124869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-cj-carr","tag-college-football","tag-college-kickers","tag-david-braun","tag-football","tag-gabe-jacas","tag-hank-beatty","tag-illinois-fighting-illini","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-northwestern-wildcats","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-preston-stone","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}