What we think we know and what's true after Week 2 in college football — SkimNews
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- Texas stunned Ohio State 24-23 in Austin after Arch Manning hit tight ends and Emmett Mosley V on three comeback touchdown drives, capping the rally with a third-and-goal score 25 seconds left after a 19-yard Mosley catch to the Ohio State 1.
- Ohio State has now lost four of their past five games decided by 10 or fewer points per the analysis, while winning the other 17 games in that span by an average score of 38-10—suggesting a repeatability problem in clutch moments.
- Ryan Day's ultra-conservative tempo—28.5 seconds per snap, designed to limit snaps over a potential 17-game season—left the Buckeyes with just four first-half possessions despite generating 6.5 yards per play to Texas's 3.1.
- Oklahoma State upset #6 Oregon as a 24.5-point underdog, outgaining the Ducks 353-101 in the first half with a 65% rushing success rate and two sacks of Dante Moore, becoming the fifth team to both over- and under-achieve against SP+ projections by 20+ points in one game.
- Oregon's offensive line—dominated in each of their past two CFP losses—was again overpowered in Stillwater, making the Ducks' October visit to USC and November trip to Ohio State look considerably more dangerous.
Why it matters: Two likely College Football Playoff contenders just lost games that exposed structural problems—Ohio State's slow-tempo, close-game urgency gap and Oregon's chronically beat offensive line—right before a brutal late-season stretch where each faces the other plus USC. Buckeyes are double-digit favorites in their next four games but must win two of three against Indiana, USC, and Oregon to feel secure about the CFP, and the Texas loss shows that margin-of-victory math does not yet translate to clutch execution.
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