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There wasn’t quite as much anticipation for College Football Week 11 as the hype we saw leading into last weekend. With that said, the slate of college football games today still delivered some impressive performances (Darian Mensah, Gunner Stockton and Aiden Flora) along with some instances of coaching malpractice.
Let’s dive into our winners and losers from College Football Week 11.
While this game didn’t have Darian Mensah returning to Wallace Wade Stadium in Durham, Miami Hurricanes quarterback Darian Mensah still had a lot weighing on him in College Football Week 11. Firstly, he was coming off his first loss with Miami, and that only added to the pressure the Heisman Trophy contender is under. On top of that, he faced his former head coach, and Manny Diaz was going to have plenty to throw at his former Duke signal-caller. Mensah handled it all in stride, completing 30-of-41 passes for 382 passing yards (9.3 yards per attempt) and leading this Hurricanes offense to 36 points in the final three quarters. Mensah might’ve only accounted for one touchdown, but his performance, given the stakes and defense faced, was very impressive.
With Wake Forest’s Jake Dickert and UCLA’s Bob Chesney poised to get long-term deals, SMU Mustangs head coach Rhett Lashlee has the chance to be the most coveted name in the college football coaching carousel this winter. Performances like the one we saw on Saturday, however, might take that away. It was still a one-score game in the fourth quarter when Lashlee opted to go for it on 4th-and-1 from the Mustangs’ 26-yard line, running it behind the inexperienced side of his offensive line. The Demon Deacons stuffed the attempt and found the end zone five plays later to take a 14-0 lead with 3 minutes left in the first quarter. Lashlee’s offense finished the day going 3-for-14 on third down (21.4% third-down conversion rate) with three turnovers and the lone touchdown came in the fourth quarter trailing 49-0. With a road trip to Notre Dame up next, Lashlee is headed for his second consecutive four-loss season.
College Football Week 11 marks the fourth time in 2026 that Iowa State Cyclones running back Aiden Flora has rushed for 200-plus yards. It is also the sixth time he has put up 200-plus scrimmage yards (Bowling Green and Baylor). The Bearcats defense had no answers for Flora on Saturday, giving up 216 yards (7.7 yards per carry) to the sophomore on the ground, 37 through the air, and 38 to him as a pass-catcher. Flora finished Saturday with 291 total yards of offense and three touchdowns, finding the end zone more often than the entire Bearcats offense.
Maybe we should be listing the New Mexico Lobos as one of the biggest losers this weekend, given what the Wisconsin Badgers’ loss at Maryland will mean. It seemed as if Luke Fickell might have saved his job just a few weeks ago, starting the season with a 4-1 mark that included a victory at then 13th-ranked Penn State. The Badgers are now 2-3 in their last five games with Fickell picking up his fourth consecutive four-loss season and it could be five if the Badgers lose to Minnesota on Nov. 27. A Badgers coaching search is coming and it feels inevitable that Jason Eck will leave New Mexico to take over at his alma mater.
The Michigan Wolverines are a bad Power 4 football team this season, but that has largely been because of the offense. Heading into Week 11, the Wolverines defense held its opponents to a 59.57% completion rate, 5.9 yards per pass attempt (ninth in FBS), 154.8 passing yards per game (fifth), and a 114.6 passer rating (12th). By the midway point of the second quarter on Sunday, Dylan Raiola had 177 passing yards and two touchdowns while completing 11 of his first 14 pass attempts (12.6 yards per attempt) and he finished the first half with 261 passing yards and three scores. Raiola is one of the biggest reasons for the Ducks’ late-season turnaround, as Saturday marked his third consecutive performance with 250-plus passing yards and multiple touchdowns. He finished the day with 341 yards and four scores, giving him 934 passing yards with a 9-0 TD-INT line during this three-game stretch. It seems pretty evident who will be the Ducks’ starting quarterback in 2027, and he might even get them into the College Football Playoff this year.
Through nine games this season, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets had allowed the third-most rushing yards per game (222.8) to opponents with a whopping 5.1 yards-per-carry average on 390 attempts. Somehow, at home, the Clemson Tigers offense didn’t have a single rusher hit 40 yards and the team collectively finished with 86 rushing yards and a 2.5 yards-per-carry average. That is coaching malpractice, and it is the latest piece of evidence that Tigers offensive coordinator Chad Morris has no business calling plays for any Power 4 team. Quite frankly, it would be a mistake for any FBS team to let the 58-year-old design its offense next season. Of course, that is assuming Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney does the right thing and fires Morris, and that is not a given.
This is when the Georgia Bulldogs become very dangerous. Gunner Stockton was the biggest reason they lost to Auburn and they were their only issue in an otherwise dominant victory over Florida. We’re now seeing the senior quarterback round back into form. After a five-touchdown performance last week at Ole Miss, Stockton kept the good times rolling back at home on Saturday with a nearly flawless first-half performance. If Stockton can keep playing at an All-SEC level, the Bulldogs aren’t losing another game this season.
This was easy to see coming. Through nine games this season, Texas A&M Aggies quarterback Marcel Reed ranked 90th in ESPN QBR (45.1), 80th in passing yards (1,641), and he had completed just 57% of his passes while averaging 182.3 passing yards per game. Expectations were nearly on the floor in Week 11 against one of the nation’s best defenses. Reed still came up short of a very low bar. The senior missed wide-open receivers, particularly often in the fourth quarter, didn’t do anything on the ground, and left the field having completed just 9-of-22 attempts for 71 passing yards (3.2 yards per attempt). It was one of the worst performances by a quarterback we saw this month, and the fans at Kyle Field rightfully reacted positively to Brady Hart taking over late in the game.
We know that the West Virginia Mountaineers have one of the worst defenses in college football. Still, Kansas Jayhawks quarterback Isaiah Marshall deserves to be highlighted. In the first half alone on Saturday, Marshall completed 10-of-11 attempts for 111 passing yards and he put up 134 rushing yards and a score en route to 30 points in the first two quarters. Kansas rode that first-half dominance to a 37-14 win.
Lincoln Riley is now 1-8 against ranked teams on the road. We’ll give him this, though, the USC Trojans only trailed 20-13 early in the fourth quarter with a chance to tie it. Two chances from the Hoosiers 10-yard line went nowhere and Riley settled for the field goal only for the 27-yard attempt to be missed. The Trojans defense forced a stop with quarterback Jayden Maiava leading another potential game-tying drive into the red zone. However, he was picked off on 2nd-and-goal from the 6-yard line. Maiava’s pair of fourth-quarter interceptions and his abysmal passing on third down feel even more responsible for this loss than Riley’s own history of choking in big road games.
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