Three top-10 teams went down on Saturday, and in each case there was a sterling individual performance on the other side leading the way and earning spots on our Week 10 Game Balls list.
To repeat the weekly disclaimer, this is not just a straight list of the gaudiest stat lines — many of them are represented here, for sure, but that in itself doesn’t guarantee inclusion. With only 10 “game balls” to dish out, tough decisions have to be made. The weight of the game and individual impact on the outcome of the game matter just as much.
There are more than 10 deserving players, but again, only 10 spots. So if you think we overlooked someone, we didn’t — they just got snubbed by even more deserving performances.
Here are the 10 who earned the spotlight from Week 10 (in alphabetical order).
San Jose State QB Walker Eget
Eget leads all FBS quarterbacks in passing yards per game (325.9) so it’s no surprise when he fills up the box score, but even by his standards this was an exemplary performance.
Eget passed for 458 yards, 2 touchdowns and 0 interceptions in a 45-38 win over Hawaii that snapped a two-game losing skid for the Spartans. His touchdown passes went for 50 and 62 yards — both to star receiver Danny Scudero, who doesn’t make the list individually but warrants special mention here for his 7 catches for 215 yards and 2 TDs. But Eget spread it around as three SJSU wide receivers topped 100 yards.
The 458 passing yards were the fourth-highest total in the FBS this year — he also had one of the others on that list with 473 yards vs. Stanford — but a more impressive stat may be that Eget extended his streak of pass attempts without an interception to 268 — the third-longest in Mountain West history.
North Texas S Quinton Hammonds
North Texas knocked off one of the remaining unbeatens in college football with a 31-17 win over Navy. That also puts the Mean Green in a crowded tie for first place atop the AAC at 8-1 overall and 4-1 in the conference, as it stays in the hunt for a potential CFP berth (awarded to the highest-ranked Group of Five conference champion).
Hammonds had his fingerprints all over that big win, nabbing a pair of pivotal second-half interceptions while also making 4 tackles.
Hammonds picked off Navy QB Blake Horvath at midfield late in the third quarter when the Midshipmen were driving while down 7 points. Hammonds then intercepted Horvath again in the end zone with a little more than 4 minutes remaining as Navy looked to cut its deficit to one score.
North Texas RB Caleb Hawkins
It’s highly rare that two players from the same team would make our ever-exclusive Game Balls list in the same week, but how could we overlook Hawkins carrying the ball 33 times for 197 yards (6.0 yards per carry) and scoring all four of the Mean Green’s touchdowns in that win over Navy?
It was a career-best rushing day for the true freshman, who now has three 100-yard games in his first college season. Overall, Hawkins has rushed for 744 yards (6.1 YPC) and 11 TDs while adding 273 yards and 3 TDs receiving.
Texas QB Arch Manning
Manning has taken his fair share of deserved criticism during this rollercoaster season for Texas, but he deserves his share of the credit for leading the Longhorns to a huge 34-31 win over then-No. 9 Vanderbilt on Saturday.
Manning completed 25-of-33 passes for 328 yards, 3 TDs and 0 INTs, staking Texas to a 34-10 lead through three quarters.
Manning’s two best SEC games of the season have come in consecutive weeks, after he passed for 346 yards, 3 TDs and 1 INT last week in an overtime win at Mississippi State.
With its second top-10 win over the season, Texas jumped seven spots in the AP poll to No. 13 and is now firmly back in the CFP chase.
UTSA QB Owen McCown
One of the most stunning results of the weekend was UTSA blowing out Tulane 48-26 as a 4.5-point underdog. The Green Wave looked to be one of the favorites in the AAC while the Roadrunners came into the game with a losing record.
So give a lot of credit to McCown, the redshirt junior, for his impact in the upset. He completed a remarkable 31-of-33 passes for 370 yards and 4 TDs. The 93.9-percent completion rate is the best by any FBS QB this season with at least 20 completions and tied for the second-best in AAC history, while his 16 straight completions to start the game set a UTSA record.
Incredibly, McCown hadn’t passed for 250 yards in a game all season — though he had several big performances last year — and only had a 70-percent completion rate in two other games this fall.
Duke QB Darian Mensah
Duke is now the betting favorite to win the ACC, per FanDuel, after improving to 4-1 in the conference after a thrilling 46-45 win at Clemson. Mensah deserves a big part of the credit for delivering his best game (of what has been a steadily impressive season) when the Blue Devils really needed it.
Mensah threw or 361 yards and 4 TDs, with an incredible 94-yard game-winning drive in which he completed 6-of-8 passes for 83 yards that included a 56-yard catch-and-run completion on third-and-7 from the Duke 9 and a conversion on fourth-and-1. For that matter, Duke was 5 for 5 on fourth-down attempts with Mensah passing for conversions on four of them.
That was Duke’s first win at Clemson since 1980 and has the Blue Devils in the hunt for their first ACC championship since 1989.
Mensah, the Tulane transfer, has passed for 2,572 yards, 21 TDs and 2 INTs this season and has not thrown an interception in his last 209 pass attempts — a program record, the longest active streak in the ACC and third-longest active streak across the FBS.
SMU DB Ahmaad Moses
SMU scored a huge 26-20 overtime win over then-No. 10 Miami with a major helping hand from senior safety Ahmaad Moses.
Moses had two interceptions, including picking off a pass at the goal line from Miami QB Carson Beck in overtime that set up the Mustangs to be able to win with a score.
That’s not all, though. In addition to the 2 INTs, Moses had a career-high 15 tackles, including 2 tackles for loss.
Oklahoma K Tate Sandell
It takes a lot to get a special teams star on the Game Balls list, but Sandell earned it. The Oklahoma kicker was 4 of 4 on field goals from 55, 51, 40 and 55 yards in the Sooners’ 33-27 road win over then-No. 14 Tennessee.
Sandell went viral for his incredibly short pants (shorts?), but he deserves a big spotlight on his performance as well.
The two 55-yard field goals matched his career-high and tied for the longest makes in the history of Neyland Stadium.
The four made field goals also tied a single-game program record, he became the first kicker nationally since the 2021 season with three field goal makes of at least 50 yards in a game and the first kicker nationally since 2011 with two field goal makes of at least 55 yards in a road game.
Sandell has made 18 straight field goals (tied for the longest streak in Sooners history) and is 18 of 19 overall this season.
NC State RB Jayden Scott
NC State pulled one of the biggest upsets of the week with a 48-36 win over then-No. 8-ranked and previously unbeaten Georgia Tech, with Scott leading the way.
The redshirt freshman rushed for 196 yards (207 all-purpose yards) and a TD on 24 carries, averaging 8.2 yards per carry. Scott had a 69-yard run early in the third quarter down to the Georgia Tech 6 that set up a Wolfpack TD two plays later to make it a 31-20 lead, and his 30-yard TD run in the fourth quarter effectively put the game out of reach at 48-30 with 4:07 to play.
Scott was making his first start of the season in place of injured RB Hollywood Smothers.
Arizona State QB Jeff Sims
How’s this for a stat? Sims became the first Big 12 quarterback to pass for at least 175 yards and rush for over 200 yards since Texas’ Vince Young in the 2006 Rose Bowl.
Sims, the Sun Devils’ backup QB who has taken over with Sam Leavitt now out for the rest of the season, completed 13-of-24 passes for 177 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT and carried the ball 29 times for 228 yards and 2 TDs in a 24-19 win at Iowa State.
That included an 88-yard touchdown run in the third quarter that pushed the lead to 24-16 and ultimately proved to be the decisive score.
Sims was named the AP national player of the week.