Week 8 winners and losers: Heisman candidate Bo Nix has Oregon back in playoff hunt after blowout win over UCLA

Free from the gauntlet of the SEC West, it was reasonable to assume that Bo Nix would find a good deal of success as a senior playing at Oregon.

But playing like a legitimate Heisman candidate for a College Football Playoff contender? You won’t find many who had that in their preseason prognostications.

Nix, a transfer from Auburn in his fourth season as a starting quarterback, was the best player on the field in No. 10 Oregon’s resounding 45-30 victory over No. 9 UCLA on Saturday. The Bruins entered the game as the last remaining unbeaten team in the Pac-12, but Nix and the Ducks jumped them from the start.

After settling for a field goal on its first drive, Oregon scored touchdowns on its next six offensive possessions. Nix was at the center of it all. He completed 22-of-28 passes for 283 yards and five touchdowns. He also rushed for 51 yards in the win.

Oregon was aggressive and confident. Nix was in complete control of the offense as he and his teammates made the UCLA defense look totally helpless. In the second quarter, Nix threw a gorgeous 49-yard touchdown pass to Troy Franklin to put the Ducks ahead 17-10.

And on the ensuing kickoff, Dan Lanning decided that he wanted his offense back on the field. Oregon successfully recovered an onside kick, catching UCLA flat-footed. Six plays later, Oregon was in the end zone once again and ahead 24-10.

It was off to the races from there. Oregon’s lead was 31-13 at halftime and a bruising 15-play, 82-yard touchdown drive gave the Ducks a 38-16 lead entering the fourth. UCLA kept scoring, but just had no answers for Nix and the Ducks. With the score 38-23, UCLA had a chance to get off the field on a fourth-down play from the Bruins’ 37.

Oregon kept its offense on the field and Nix delivered a strike to Bucky Irving for a 37-yard touchdown.

It was the final dagger as Nix and Oregon delivered a statement victory.

This change of scenery has done him a load of good. Reunited with Kenny Dillingham, who was his offensive coordinator as a freshman at Auburn, Nix is playing the best football of his career by a significant margin.

Nix made his fair share of highlights, but was just as known for his questionable decision-making at Auburn. Nix and the Ducks were embarrassed by Georgia back in Week 1. Since then, those miscues have rarely surfaced and Nix has been able to pick apart Pac-12 defenses. The UCLA defense was no different.

Through seven games in an Oregon

uniform, Nix has thrown for 1,809 yards and 17 touchdowns with just three interceptions. He also has rushed for 382 yards on the year. What Nix has faced in the Pac-12 is a step down from what he would see in the SEC, but it’s still impressive to see how well he is playing with the Ducks.

And a performance like Saturday’s should vault Nix into the Heisman conversation.

On top of that, Oregon is going to make sure it stays in the College Football Playoff picture. The Ducks, now 6-1 and 4-0 in Pac-12 play, have had an excellent turnaround after the ugly loss to Georgia.

And Oregon will almost certainly be the

 favorite in every game it plays for the rest of the regular season. The Ducks have road games at Cal and Colorado the next two weeks before hosting Washington and Utah and finishing the year at rival Oregon State. The visit from Utah is the most challenging on that slate, but there’s a very clear path to the Pac-12 title game.

If the Ducks can roll through the Pac-12 without a loss, they will be knocking on the door of the top four into December.

– Sam Cooper

Here are Week 8’s winners and losers:

WINNERS

TCU: TCU just keeps on winning. For a second straight week, TCU rallied from a double-digit deficit in a come-from-behind victory. This week, TCU trailed Kansas State 28-10 late in the first half but stormed back to win 38-28. Kansas State being down to its third-string quarterback at various points in the game certainly helped, but the Horned Frogs still deserve a world of credit for getting another win. TCU is now 7-0 on the year and 4-0 in Big 12 play. Next on the schedule is a trip to West Virginia.

LSU: All of a sudden, LSU is cruising. The Tigers had a convincing 45-20 victory over No. 7 Ole Miss on Saturday to improve to 6-2 overall and 4-1 in SEC play in Brian Kelly’s first season as the team’s head coach. LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels threw for 248 yards, rushed for 121 yards and had five total touchdowns in the win. The Tigers actually fell behind 17-7 in the second quarter but scored 38 of the game’s final 41 points. LSU has a bye next week before it hosts Alabama. That game will have legitimate SEC West implications.

Tulane: After being ranked in the Top 25 for the first time since 1998, there was no letdown from Tulane. The Green Wave stormed out to a 35-0 halftime lead over Memphis on Saturday and then held on for a 38-28 victory. With the win, Tulane is now 7-1 on the

 

year and looks like Cincinnati’s main challenger for the American Athletic Conference title. That could mean a spot in a New Year’s Six bowl game when all is said and done. Both UC and Tulane have one non-conference loss this season. The two are also scheduled to meet in the final week of the regular season. Could there be a rematch in the conference title game a week later?

Penn State: PSU got a much-needed bounce-back performance after getting trucked by Michigan in Ann Arbor last weekend. In front of a whiteout crowd at Beaver Stadium, that’s exactly what happened. The Nittany Lions posted a 45-17 blowout win over Minnesota, which was without starting QB Tanner Morgan. PSU’s Sean Clifford threw for 295 yards and four touchdowns in the win. Perhaps this win will give PSU a confidence boost with No. 2 Ohio State visiting Happy Valley next week. PSU is now 6-1 on the year.

Troy: The Trojans are bowl eligible for the first time since 2018 and in great position to win the Sun Belt’s West division. Troy improved to 6-2 after a big 10-6 win over South Alabama on Thursday. Brooks Buce made a career-long 51-yard field goal to extend Troy’s lead to four with 7:35 to go and USA never got close to getting a TD over the final minutes of the quarter. The game wasn’t pretty — Troy was 1-of-12 on third down — but the Trojans converted two fourth downs and forced four South Alabama punts in the second half. At 4-1 in the Sun Belt, Troy’s atop the West division and is the frontrunner to make the conference title game.

Boise State: Boise State has come a long way since that ugly loss at UTEP. After that game, which dropped the Broncos to 2-2, longtime starting QB Hank Bachmeier departed the program and offensive coordinator Tim Plough was fired. Since then, the Broncos have won three straight and are a perfect 4-0 in Mountain West play. The most recent effort was a 19-14 road win over Air Force on Saturday. The Broncos are the only Mountain West team without a loss in conference play.

Rutgers: Rutgers finally broke its streak of Big Ten home losses. Entering Saturday’s game vs. Indiana, the Scarlet Knights had lost 21 consecutive home conference games dating back to Nov. 4, 2017. Early on, it didn’t look like that streak would end. Indiana jumped out to a 14-0 lead, but Rutgers chipped away and ended up winning the game, 24-17. Rutgers took the lead with a Samuel Brown touchdown run late in the third and then put the game away with a pick-six in the fourth. The Scarlet Knights are now 4-3 on the year. The path to a bowl game looks challenging, but at least that home conference losing streak is now a thing of the past.

UTSA: After a 1-2 start to the season, UTSA is once again looking like the class of Conference USA. The Roadrunners have won five consecutive games and are 4-0 in C-USA play after knocking off North Texas 31-27 on Saturday. It was a wild fourth quarter as three touchdowns were scored in the final 2:36. UNT went ahead 27-24 with 1:38 to play but UTSA responded with the winning touchdown with just 15 seconds remaining.

Bowling Green: Don’t look now, but the Falcons are 4-4. Bowling Green forced four turnovers in a 34-18 win over Central Michigan to get to .500 on the year. That’s a big deal. Bowling Green hasn’t won more than four games in a season since Dino Babers’ final season with the team in 2015. The Falcons have won three of their last four games and could be favored at home in its next two games against Western Michigan and Kent State. Snapping a six-season bowl drought would be a big deal.

LOSERS

Miami: Miami has failed to live up to the hype yet again. After canning Manny Diaz and bringing in Mario Cristobal, the Hurricanes were one of the most talked about programs of the offseason. Yet through seven games, the Hurricanes are now 3-4 after an ugly 45-21 home loss to Duke on Saturday. Miami managed to turn the ball over a whopping eight times in the loss. Yes, eight. It was a horrific performance from a program that is now going to have to scratch and claw just to get to a bowl game. Cristobal has a lot of work to do if he’s going to make that 10-year, $80 million contract worthwhile.

Iowa: ​​Iowa’s offense has become a weekly laughingstock. The Hawkeyes dropped to 3-4 with an embarrassing 54-10 loss to Ohio State on Saturday. In the loss, Iowa had just 158 yards of offense and turned it over six times. The only touchdown Iowa scored in the game came courtesy of its defense. This was the effort coming out of a bye week where Brian Ferentz, the son of longtime Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz, was apparently going to make some adjustments to his offense. On the very first offensive snap, Spencer Petras threw an interception right to an OSU defender. You would’t believe it by looking at the scoreboard, but Iowa’s defense actually played pretty well vs. the top offense in the country. But the Iowa offense continually put it in impossible situations. This season has the potential to get very ugly.

Syracuse: The Orange’s undefeated season disappeared in the second half of their 27-21 loss to Clemson on Saturday. Syracuse had a 21-10 lead at halftime and even at the start of the fourth quarter. But the Orange punted on their first six drives of the first half and then Garrett Shrader was intercepted on Syracuse’s final drive. Yes, Syracuse fans will point out the inconsistent officiating on late hits out of bounds, but it’s hard to complain about the officiating when you can’t get anything done on offense for an entire half.

Texas: The Longhorns had a golden opportunity

 to stay in the thick of the Big 12 race and now find themselves in fourth after blowing a second-half lead in a 41-34 loss to Oklahoma State. Texas gave up 17 consecutive points to the Cowboys to end the game as the UT passing game struggled on a windy day in Stillwater. Quinn Ewers completed less than half his passes and threw three interceptions as just one of Texas’ nine second-half possessions ended in punts. The Longhorns are 5-3 entering their bye week and need wins over Kansas State and TCU across its next two games to have a real chance of making the Big 12 title game.

Texas A&M: Things keep getting worse for Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M. The Aggies dropped too 3-4 with a 30-24 loss to South Carolina on Saturday night. They dug themselves a hole early. Thanks to a kick return touchdown and two A&M turnovers, South Carolina was up 17-0 just 5:09 into the ballgame. A&M would twice cut the South Carolina lead to three points — 17-14 at halftime and 24-21 entering the fourth quarter. That was as close as the Aggies would get and the Gamecocks put the game away with 80-yard drive late in the fourth. It’s going to be a struggle for Texas A&M to get to a bowl game, leaving Fisher with an array of questions to answer.

Purdue: Purdue’s losing streak to Wisconsin will continue and the Boilermakers’ Big Ten West dreams have taken a hit as a result. Purdue has now lost 16 consecutive times to the Badgers after falling 35-24 on Saturday in Madison. Purdue had won four straight and Wisconsin was coming off an ugly loss to Michigan State. But Wisconsin quickly jumped out to a 21-0 lead thanks in part to a pick-six thrown by Purdue QB Aidan O’Connell. It was one of three interceptions thrown by O’Connell on the day. Purdue actually out-gained the Badgers on the day, but those turnovers were too much to overcome. Purdue had a chance to keep pace with Illinois in the division with a win.

UCF: It was an ugly Saturday night for the Knights in a 34-13 loss to East Carolina. UCF trailed 17-3 at halftime and things didn’t get any better in the second half as John Rhys Plumlee threw three interceptions among four UCF turnovers. ECU was 9-of-14 on third downs and also converted its only fourth down attempt and averaged nearly nine yards a pass attempt. UCF entered the game as one of three undefeated teams in AAC play and now finds itself behind both Tulane and Cincinnati in the chase to make the conference title game.

BYU: BYU is dealing with a lot of injuries and traveling across the country after physically demanding losses to Notre Dame and Arkansas is a tough ask. But you still can’t lose 41-14 to Liberty. Liberty was playing with its third-string quarterback and had just a one-point win over Gardner-Webb, an FCS program, last weekend. Nonetheless, the Flames trounced Kalani Sitake’s Cougars. BYU was gashed for 214 yards by Liberty RB Dae Dae Hunter. BYU rushed for only 71 yards and was outgained 547-258 in the loss.

UAB: UAB was doomed by four turnovers in a loss to Western Kentucky on Friday night. The Blazers saw quarterback Dylan Hopkins go down with an injury and it affected the Blazers in a big way. UAB had just 96 passing yards in the 20-17 loss. But the turnovers were the bigger story. UAB fumbled three times in its own territory, two of which led directly to WKU touchdowns. And then, late in the fourth, UAB backup QB Jacob Zeno threw an interception in the end zone when the Blazers were down 20-17. Instead of having a chance to tie the game or take a lead, WKU got the turnover and was able to run out the clock and get the win.

Toledo: Toledo had a chance to take a commanding lead in the MAC West on Saturday but it blew a 27-10 fourth-quarter lead in a 34-27 loss to Buffalo. Buffalo scored 24 fourth-quarter points to surge past the Rockets, who dropped to 5-3 overall and 3-1 in MAC play. On top of that, quarterback Dequan Finn was injured in the loss. It seems like the Rockets have the most talented team in the division, yet they fall short. They’re still in first place, but the race just got a whole lot tighter.

Charlotte: Will Healy was hailed as one of the top up-and-comers in the coaching profession based on what he did at Austin Peay. His work there vaulted him to Charlotte and he led the 49ers to a bowl game in 2019, his first season. It’s been downhill since then. Charlotte went 2-4 in 2020 and 5-7 in 2021. In 2022, the 49ers are now 1-7 after losing to Florida International 34-15 at home. Charlotte had five turnovers in the loss.