The Department of War said Friday that it will end all professional military education, fellowships and certificate programs with Harvard University.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth slammed the university in a video announcement posted on X, saying the department would be cutting ties with Harvard for active-duty service members beginning in the 2026–27 school year — a move he said was “long overdue.”
“Harvard is woke; The War Department is not,” Hegseth stated.
While Hegseth, who has a master’s degree from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, said the U.S. military has had a “rich tradition” with the Ivy League school, he argued that Harvard has become one of the “red-hot centers of Hate America activism.”
War Secretary Pete Hegseth arrives at the U.S. Capitol for a briefing with House and Senate members on Venezuela, in Washington, on Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026.(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“Too many faculty members openly loathe our military. They cast our armed forces in a negative light and squelch anyone who challenges their leftist political leanings, all while charging enormous tuition. It’s not worth it,” he said. ”They’ve replaced open inquiry and honest debate with rigid orthodoxy.”
The announcement comes amid the Trump administration’s ongoing feud with the Ivy League school.
President Donald Trump said Monday he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, which the Trump administration has made a primary target in its effort to leverage federal funding to crack down on antisemitism and “woke” ideology.
Lawyers for the Trump administration have appealed a judge’s order requiring the restoration of $2.7 billion in frozen federal research funding to Harvard. The university sued the administration in April over the funding freeze, arguing in court that the move amounted to an unconstitutional “pressure campaign” aimed at influencing and exerting control over elite academic institutions.
Hegseth also criticized Harvard’s campus environment, alleging that research programs have partnered with the Chinese Communist Party and that university leadership has encouraged an atmosphere that celebrates Hamas, allows attacks on Jews, and prioritizes Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives.
“Why should the War Department support an environment that’s destructive to our nation and the principles that the vast majority of Americans hold dear?” Hegseth said. ”The answer to that question is that we should not, and we will not.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that military education programs with Harvard University will end in the 2026-27 academic year.(Omar Havana/Getty Images)
“For too long, this department has sent our best and brightest officers to Harvard, hoping the university would better understand and appreciate our warrior class,” he continued. “Instead, too many of our officers came back looking too much like Harvard — heads full of globalist and radical ideologies that do not improve our fighting ranks.”
In addition to Harvard, Hegseth took aim at much of the Ivy League, saying the schools have a “pervasive institutional bias” and a lack of viewpoint diversity, including the “coddling of toxic ideologies,” that he said undercuts the military’s mission.
He said that in the coming weeks, all departments at the Pentagon will evaluate existing graduate programs for active-duty service members at Ivy League schools and other civilian universities.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth described Harvard as one of the “red-hot centers of Hate America activism.”(Associated Press)
“The goal is to determine whether or not they actually deliver cost effective strategic education for future senior leaders, when compared to, say, public universities and our military graduate programs,” he said. “At the War Department, we will strive to maximize taxpayer value in building lethality to establish deterrence. It’s that simple. That no longer includes spending millions of dollars on expensive universities that actively undercut our mission and undercut our country.”
Hegseth concluded his message, saying, “We train warriors, not wokesters. Harvard, good riddance.”
President Donald Trump said Monday that he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University.
Harvard has been a main target of the Trump administration’s attempt to leverage federal funding in order to crack down on antisemitism and “woke” ideology. The New York Times published a Monday report headlined, “Trump Is Said to Have Dropped Demand for Cash From Harvard,” that suggested the president was no longer seeking a $200 million payment to the government. Trump took to social media, blasting the Times and saying he now wants the prestigious university to shell out even more cash.
“Strongly Antisemitic Harvard University has been feeding a lot of ‘nonsense’ to The Failing New York Times. Harvard has been, for a long time, behaving very badly! They wanted to do a convoluted job training concept, but it was turned down in that it was wholly inadequate and would not have been, in our opinion, successful. It was merely a way of Harvard getting out of a large cash settlement of more than 500 Million Dollars, a number that should be much higher for the serious and heinous illegalities that they have committed. This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event, and Harvard will have to live with the consequences of their wrongdoings,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
President Donald Trump said Monday that he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University.(Getty Images)
“In any event, this case will continue until justice is served,” Trump continued. “We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University.”
Trump did not specify what specific damages Harvard caused, but suggested he agrees with at least one part of the Gray Lady report.
“As The Failing New York Times clearly stated, ‘Some connected to the University, however, think Harvard has no option but to eventually cut a deal. The Administration has repeatedly attempted to cut off research grants, which would be an untenable crises. Like many major research universities, Harvard relies on federal funding for its financial model,’” Trump wrote.
Harvard University did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to blast The New York Times and Harvard University.(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The Times updated its report following Trump’s reaction.
“Trump administration officials have indicated in recent days that the president no longer expects such a payment, according to the Harvard and Trump officials briefed on the matter, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations,” the Times reported. “But shortly before midnight, six hours after The Times reported that Mr. Trump had backtracked, he claimed the story was wrong and attacked The Times and Harvard.”
In December, lawyers for the Trump administration appealed a judge’s order to restore $2.7 billion in frozen federal research funding to Harvard University.
Demonstrators gather on Cambridge Common to protest Harvard’s stance on the war in Gaza and show support for the Palestinian people, outside Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 25, 2025. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images)
Harvard sued the Trump administration in April over its attempt to freeze the federal funding and argued in court that the actions amounted to an unconstitutional “pressure campaign” to influence and exert control over elite academic institutions.
The Trump administration accused Harvard of “fostering violence, antisemitism, and coordinating with the Chinese Communist Party on its campus,” but Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman said in a radio interview that the move is “about Trump trying to impose his view of the world on everybody else.”
Lawyers for the Justice Department argued it had “every right” to cancel the funding for Harvard after it failed to comply with its demands.
A spokesperson for Harvard previously told Fox News Digital that the court’s September order reinstated “critical research funding that advances science and life-saving medical breakthroughs, strengthens national security, and enhances our nation’s competitiveness and economic priorities.”
“We remain confident in our legal position,” the spokesperson added.
Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch contributed to this report.
Brian Flood is a media editor/reporter for FOX News Digital. Story tips can be sent to brian.flood@fox.com and on Twitter: @briansflood.
When it came to Lehigh vs. Villanova on Saturday at Goodman Stadium in the second round of the NCAA FCS Championship , one team with a Philly connection had to lose.
Lehigh had opened the scoring early in the third quarter. Villanova then tied the game with a one-yard plunge by Ja’briel Mace.
Credit: Villanova Football-Twitter/X
After a scoreless first half and a 7–7 deadlock through the 3rd quarter , Villanova would take the lead with a 28-yard connection between Pat McQuaide and Braden Reed with just over three minutes left in the contest. On the very next possession, Villanova’s defense came up big again, stopping a Lehigh drive when Obinna Nwobodo stripped Mountain Hawks Quarterback Hayden Johnson to preserve the upset of #5 Lehigh.
In the season finale against Scared Heart on Saturday, that included a mesmerizing performance on the ground from Ja’briel Mace, including 165 yards and two scores on nine carries, including an 80-yard scamper and a receiving touchdown in the 34–10 win. A week before, in an overtime win against Stony Brook with David Avit out due to a knee injury , Isaiah Ragland ran the ball for nearly 100 yards.
And once again — across America’s nearly 136 collegiate programs — talent from the Philly region can be felt from coast to coast.
At the head of that list are the Villanova Wildcats (9–2), who learned on Sunday afternoon that they would be the #12 seed in the Football Championship Subdivision and would face Harvard in the first round.
For Villanova , it’s another chance to highlight a great rushing attack.
Credit: Villanova Football-Twitter/X
Villanova’s football program has had plenty of great talent over the years. Perhaps it’s finest — running back Brian Westbrook — whose career as an all-purpose player led him to a 1,000-yard rushing and receiving year in the same season (the first player in college to do so), the Walter Payton Award, and FCS Player of the Year. His contributions would land him in the Villanova Hall of Fame before playing six seasons with the Eagles.
Former Villanova running back Kevin Monangai earned All-CAA Honors while a Wildcat and went on to play in the NFL for the Eagles and the Vikings. In the 1960s — running back Billy Joe was the only Villanova athlete ever inducted into the Varsity Club Hall of Fame for two sports — and would go on to play professionally for the Miami Dolphins, Denver Broncos, Buffalo Bills, and was a World Champion with the New York Jets.
Now the Villanova Wildcats have a sophomore running back named David Avit. And they almost lost him.
After a freshman season with 923 yards rushing and nine touchdowns, Avit has followed up so far this year by breaking out against Monmouth with 135 yards. He followed up that performance with 102 yards against the University of New Hampshire and 63 yards against Elon.
But that isn’t all of the talent. In the season finale against Scared Heart on Saturday, that included a mesmerizing performance on the ground from Ja’briel Mace, including 165 yards and two scores on nine carries, including an 80-yard scamper and a receiving touchdown in the 34–10 win.
A week before, in an overtime win against Stony Brook with David Avit out due to a knee injury , Isaiah Ragland ran the ball for nearly 100 yards.
For Villanova , late-season playoff football is bolstered by an elite running game.
Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard University, has announced that he will step back from public commitments, according to the Ivy League college’s student newspaper.
In a statement released Monday to The Harvard Crimson, Summers said it was part of an effort “to rebuild trust and repair relationships with the people closest to me.”
The announcement follows the release of seven years’ worth of correspondence between Summers and the disgraced financier Jeffrey E. Epstein by the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Harvard’s former president, Larry Summers withdrawing from public commitments amid revelations of continued communication with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.(Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
The documents showed the two men continued to exchange messages as late as July 5, 2019, which was just one day before Epstein’s arrest on new sex-trafficking charges.
In the hundreds of messages released, Summers also appeared to place trust in Epstein and confided to him about his pursuit of a romantic relationship with a woman he described as a mentee.
Among the released messages was one from November 2018 in which Epstein describes himself as Summers’ “wing man,” as he continued advising Summers on the relationship for months.
Billionaire Jeffrey Epstein in Cambridge, MA on 9/8/04. Epstein is connected with several prominent people, including politicians, actors and academics. Epstein was convicted of having sex with an underaged woman. (Photo by Rick Friedman/Rick Friedman Photography/Corbis via Getty Images)
“I am deeply ashamed of my actions and recognize the pain they have caused,” Summers wrote in his statement to the Crimson.
“I take full responsibility for my misguided decision to continue communicating with Mr. Epstein,” he added.
Summers holds several roles in his professional life. He is a senior fellow at the think tank Center for American Progress, a paid columnist with Bloomberg News, and a board member at OpenAI.
Larry Summers, president emeritus and professor at Harvard University, at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025.(Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
He also remains a University Professor at Harvard and serves as director of the Mossavar‑Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, which he will continue to oversee, his spokesman said, according to the outlet.
In Monday’s statement, the former Harvard president added: “While continuing to fulfill my teaching obligations, I will be stepping back from public commitments as one part of my broader effort.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to Harvard University for comment.
Emma Bussey is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox, she worked at The Telegraph with the U.S. overnight team, across desks including foreign, politics, news, sport and culture.
For close to 15 minutes Saturday afternoon, it seemed like Alabama was doomed. Bryce Young was hurt. Arkansas had all but erased a huge Crimson Tide lead. The college football world held its collective breath.
For more than three quarters of action Saturday night, it seemed as if the kings had been dethroned. Georgia‘s offense sputtered. Missouri built a double-digit lead. The foundation of the college football world began to crumble.
For five plays Saturday, Rutgers led Ohio State. No one really panicked here. It’s still Rutgers, and there was only so much stress to go around.
In the end, college football’s Big Three of 2022 — the Buckeyes, Bulldogs and Tide — all survived. Ohio State rolled, Alabama used a pair of long runs to assert its dominance even without Young, and Stetson Bennett rallied Georgia to a 26-22 come-from-behind win. Order had been restored.
It was a reminder that the Big Three are worthy of their place atop the sport, but also served notice that no one has a playoff berth carved into stone after just five weeks.
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Jamon Dumas-Johnson is frustrated with Georgia’s defense as the Bulldogs give up a touchdown to go down by 10 in the second quarter to Missouri.
Young’s injury served notice of how tenuous title hopes can be, even at a place like Alabama. And Ohio State has its own injury woes at the moment, with a trio of solid defenses awaiting on the schedule. Georgia has delivered back-to-back stinkers against the likes of Kent State and Missouri. After the game, Kirby Smart shrugged off the struggles by noting, “There’s nothing easy in the SEC.” Kansas State, which beat Missouri by 28 two weeks ago, might disagree, but who are we to argue with the coach who won last year’s national championship?
So what happens if, one of these Saturdays, the Big Three don’t survive? Who’s next in the playoff pecking order?
If Week 5 didn’t deliver the shocking upsets, it did offer some separation between the pretenders and contenders behind the Big Three.
In Oxford, Ole Miss was decked out in helmets made of the same material used for those Coors Lite cans that turn blue when they’re cold, then delivered a silver bullet to Kentucky’ Wildcats playoff hopes. That the Rebels won with defense was an emphatic statement that Lane Kiffin’s team isn’t a one-dimensional attack. Kirby Smart and Jimbo Fisher each earned wins over Alabama last year, and Kiffin might now be the former Saban assistant with the best shot to upend his old boss.
After NC State beat Clemson in double overtime last year in Raleigh, Dave Doeren celebrated with a red Solo cup and a cigar. We doubt Dabo Swinney will do the same after Clemson’s impressive 30-20 win over the 10th-ranked Wolfpack Saturday (though, perhaps he’ll indulge in a tall glass of milk and some wheat toast?), but the win was a statement that the Tigers are back in the playoff hunt in 2022. DJ Uiagalelei accounted for three total touchdowns, and the Clemson defense turned in a vintage performance, all but paying rent for the amount of time it spent in the NC State backfield.
Baylor thwarted Oklahoma State twice last season, but on Saturday, the Cowboys delivered their response with a 36-25 win. Spencer Sanders, who struggled mightily in last year’s two losses, threw for 181 yards, ran for 75 more and accounted for two touchdowns. Mike Gundy’s team hasn’t gotten much love so far, but the Cowboys have won all four of their games by double digits and, if not for Big 12 power Kansas, would be a clear favorite to win the league.
Iowa‘s plan to lull Michigan to sleep by playing offense failed miserably, too. The Hawkeyes punted on each of their first five full drives, which is usually a winning formula, but not against Blake Corum, who carried 29 times for 133 yards and a touchdown in Michigan’s 27-14 win.
Meanwhile, Kentucky and NC State are likely to tumble out of the top 10. Penn State won, but served up five turnovers in an ugly performance against Northwestern. Minnesota couldn’t move the ball in a loss to the Purdue Owls with star tailback Mohamed Ibrahim sidelined. Oklahoma, Florida State and Washington all fell by the wayside in Week 5, too.
We’re just one Saturday into October. We’re still farther from the finish line than the starting blocks. There’s little point in making sweeping declarations about the contenders at this point, but Week 5 did offer a clearer picture than we’ve had before.
Alabama, Georgia and Ohio State keep winning — even if it hasn’t always been pretty.
But Clemson, Michigan, Oklahoma State and others offered their own reminder that, while only four playoff invites will go out at year’s end, the Big Three don’t need to check their mailboxes just yet.
It’s time to believe in TCU
It’s just like we’ve been saying for weeks: It’s time the rest of the country started paying attention to the upstart Big 12 team that’s opened the season 4-0 and deserves to be ranked.
After finishing last season 5-7 and firing Gary Patterson, the Horned Frogs were hardly considered contenders in the Big 12 this season, but Sonny Dykes has clearly injected some life into the offense, and Max Duggan has emerged as one of the nation’s most productive QBs.
If you weren’t a believer before Saturday, the 27 points TCU hung on Oklahoma in the first quarter should’ve had you convinced. And if you’ve ever wondered how many big plays are needed before Brent Venables’ head explodes, well, this game certainly took a swing at providing an answer.
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Taye Barber has no one anywhere near him downfield as he hauls in the 73-yard touchdown.
TCU racked up 668 yards in the 55-24 win, including four plays of 60 yards or more.
Duggan was sublime, throwing for 302 yards and three touchdowns and rushing for 116 yards and two more scores. If the stat line looked familiar for Sooners fans, it should. In the playoff era, the only other Big 12 QB with 300 pass yards, 100 rush yards, three pass TDs and two on the ground in the same game was Oklahoma’s Jalen Hurts in 2019. Duggan is just the eighth player in the playoff era from any conference to hit those marks against a Power 5 foe.
So, if Oklahoma can officially be scratched off the list of playoff contenders, is it time to start thinking about TCU as a possible Big 12 champ?
This is the Horned Frogs’ first 4-0 start since 2017 and they now have notable wins vs. the Sooners and SMU. They’ve put up 38 points in each of their first four games and, according to ESPN Stats & Information research, the 55 points vs. Oklahoma marked the most allowed by the Sooners since the 2019 Peach Bowl. That one came against Joe Burrow and LSU. The last time Oklahoma allowed 55 or more against an unranked foe was 2016. That one came against Patrick Mahomes. Yikes.
Still, for all the deserved attention TCU’s big win will get, it’s worth noting the Horned Frogs couldn’t deliver on their mid-game trolling. The family of Roger Maris will now need to attend every TCU game until the Horned Frogs score 62.
Rebels dunk UK, but hoops schools still flying high
The Ole Miss defense delivered a brutal blow to Kentucky‘s SEC hopes Saturday with a 22-19 win, then the Ole Miss social media team delivered an even more brutal blow after the win.
Somewhere, John Calipari is sipping a bourbon, throwing darts at a photo of Shaheen Holloway he keeps pinned to his wall and laughing. Yes, Kentucky remains a basketball school.
The Wildcats had their chances to pull off a road win, but an early safety left Will Levis‘ finger looking like he was trying to use his hands to do long division and was left with a remainder.
But all is not lost for the basketball schools.
Kansas had a message to those cowards voting in the AP poll, holding Iowa State cyclones to just 26 yards on the ground in a 14-11 win. Jalen Daniels‘ Heisman campaign took a bit of a hit as he completed just seven passes for 93 yards (we’re assuming he got in early foul trouble), but the defense more than made up for the offensive shortcomings.
Syracuse, too, moved to 5-0. The Orange played Wagner, which may or may not have been a bunch of elementary school kids standing on each others shoulders, wearing trench coats and jerseys.
And UCLA toppled Washington in a statement win Friday night, moving the Bruins to 5-0, too.
Add in 4-1 starts by North Carolina and Maryland, and the basketball schools are looking awfully good on the gridiron — even if Kentucky didn’t get its one shining moment at Ole Miss.
Auburn’s luck runs out
The Bryan Harsin Experience just keeps getting weirder.
Last week, Harsin was down to his fourth-string QB and just inches away from a loss to Missouri that seemed sure to be the final nail in his coffin — and he survived.
Then this week, former Alabama QB A.J. McCarron made the unsubstantiated comment that Auburn had actually already fired Harsin, but was allowing him to keep coaching for a while longer, undoubtedly following the “Office Space” principle of simply fixing the glitch in payroll and assuming Harsin would eventually realize he was no longer employed.
Nevertheless, Harsin was back on the sideline Saturday as Auburn hosted LSU, and for the first 20 minutes of action, it looked like he might find another escape hatch as Auburn jumped out to a 17-0 lead with 9:38 left in the first half.
Then LSU figured out its offense, and Auburn never scored again. Its second-half drives: punt, turnover on downs, interception, punt, fumbled punt return, interception.
— CJ Fogler AKA Perc70 #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) October 2, 2022
Auburn will now be moving Harsin’s office downstairs to Storage B. They’ve got a lot of new people coming in, and they really need all the space they can get.
The Huskies engineered a 94-yard drive to score a go-ahead TD with 2:20 to play and finished with a shocking 19-14 win over Fresno State.
It had been 1,050 days since UConn last won a game against an FBS opponent. In the interim, 23 teams have announced they’re changing conferences (including UConn, which went independent), Miami has been back — then not back — eight times, and James Madison, which was an FCS team a month ago, has won three games vs. FBS foes.
Even that undersells just how long it’s been since UConn did something as unexpected as Saturday’s win. UConn had been a 19.5-point underdog — the money line for a UConn win was +1050 — and yet the Huskies pulled off a win. The last win was actually at home against equally woeful UMass in a game UConn was favored to win. To find UConn’s last FBS upset, you’d need to go all the way back to 2017. This was, like, five Taylor Swift albums ago.
This is the beauty of UConn football. It serves as a time capsule for the rest of us, a means by which we can measure not the struggles of the Huskies, but rather how far the rest of us have come.
Heisman Five
Nearly every week this season, we’ve gotten an email from a reader accusing us of being a “Georgia homer.” It’s not true. We’re simply biased in favor of teams that win national championships. Still, last week, he noted Stetson Bennett‘s No. 2 ranking here and asked, “Do you even watch football? How do they let you get away with this stuff?”
Well, dear reader, we’d like to let you know we flipped over to the Georgia-Missouri game several times this week during commercials in the big ULM-Arkansas State tilt, and we must admit — you’re right. Bennett did throw for 312 yards, but it was hardly a Heisman-worthy performance against woeful Missouri.
So, we’re retiring Bennett from the Heisman Five and simply awarding him a Lifetime Achievement Award, which he can put on his trophy case next to his national championship trophy and his “World’s Greatest Dad” coffee mug Alabama’s defense gave him for Father’s Day this year.
Nick Saban said Young’s shoulder injury isn’t serious, which is great news. Well, not for Jimbo Fisher and Texas A&M Aggies, who’ll now lose by 30 next week, but for Alabama fans, it’s great news.
It was hardly Stroud’s best game — 13-of-22 for 154, two touchdowns and a pick — but Ohio State won easily and not it was actually a very sportsmanlike move to not pad his stats against Rutgers, as so many Ohio State QBs have done before.
Tennessee was off this week, but we assume Hooker at least got in a game of NCAA Football ’14, downloaded new rosters and threw for 600 yards and nine touchdowns against Florida, then sent some taunting text messages to dudes from the 2014 Gators just for fun.
Williams shrugged off last week’s struggles against Oregon State Beavers, accounting for TDs on each of USC’s first three drives against Arizona State on Saturday.
Maye threw for 363 and three touchdowns, ran for 73 and two more scores, and UNC dominated Virginia Tech Hokies 41-10. Maye has thrown for 300 yards and three TDs in four of his five games so far this season. And given that UNC’s defense has played horribly for most of the season, Maye’s going to have plenty of chances to keep putting up big numbers.
Break up the Illini
We’re five weeks into the season, and it feels like an appropriate moment for the college football world to take a quick step back, peruse the standings, and ask a question that has frustrated even the most renowned philosophers, scientists and scholars: Hey, is Illinois good?
The Illini are 4-1 for the first time since 2015 after throttling Wisconsin 34-10 on Saturday, led by a Syracuse cast-off and an absolutely dominant run defense. It was Illinois’ biggest road win since 2015, according to ESPN Stats & Information research, and it snapped an eight-game losing streak at Camp Randall.
On Saturday, QB Tommy DeVito pulled off a pretty neat trick: He ran for minus-2 yards in the game, but he also had three rushing touchdowns. It’s a rare feat to have five fewer rushing yards than rushing TDs, but at Illinois, DeVito has managed to combine a new-found scoring touch to go with his long established ability to serve as a tackling dummy. From 2019-21, DeVito was sacked 70 times at Syracuse, despite starting just 18 games. He’s been dumped in the backfield 11 more times this season, but he’s also racked up 12 touchdowns and just two interceptions.
The big key to Illinois’ success thus far has been the defense, which has been a brick wall against the run. Wisconsin managed just 2 rushing yards on 24 carries Saturday, marking the worst output on the ground by the Badgers since 2015 against Northwestern. For the season, Illinois has allowed just 351 yards on the ground, and has held four straight opponents to less than 100 yards rushing.
The most college football thing to happen Saturday
Phil Jurkovec led Boston College to a 34-33 win over Louisville on Saturday, throwing for 304 yards and three touchdowns, including completions of 50, 57 and 69.
Unfortunately, the throw that’ll likely show up most on SportsCenter this week wasn’t one to remember. Jurkovec was essentially in a full-on Neo-in-The Matrix position as he tossed the ball backward in the general direction of running back Pat Garwo III. From there, it got silly.
This was ugly. Like real ugly.
Trying to avoid the sack, BC QB Phil Jurkovec threw the ball away, but it went backwards.
BC RB Pat Garwo III tried to recover the now-fumble. Instead, though, Louisville’s YaYa Diaby hopped on it.
But hey, all’s well that ends well. Malik Cunningham scored two plays later to give Louisville the lead, but the Cardinals couldn’t hold on, as Boston College earned its first ACC win of the season.
Under-the-radar play of the day
Jaivian Lofton‘s catch to open the scoring in Liberty‘s game against Old Dominion would warrant its inclusion here regardless. It’s a ridiculous one-handed snag on a 34-yard TD. But what truly puts this one over the top is the reaction.
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Liberty QB Kaidon Salter lofts a ball into the end zone, where Jaivian Lofton makes a one-handed catch for the score.
Lofton basically treated the catch like he was picking up a DoorDash order at Arby’s. Zero emotion. We hope Lofton is like this in every aspect of life. Ace a test? No biggie. Win the lottery? Cool, he’ll send you his routing number in the morning. Finds out Kansas is 5-0? OK, no one could take that in stride.
Under-the-radar game of the day
Holy Cross toppled Harvard 30-21 on Saturday to move to 5-0 and, perhaps, put in its claim as the best team in Massachusetts this season.
Crusaders QB Matthew Sluka threw for 300 yards and two TDs, while Jalen Coker caught 10 balls for 166 yards in the win. It marked the first time Harvard lost a game by more than one possession since its 2019 opener.
Holy Cross is now 5-0, including a road win against FBS Buffalo last month, giving the Crusaders a pretty good case as the Commonwealth’s top team. Holy Cross has head-to-head wins over Merrimack and Harvard now, and both BC and UMass are below .500 for the season. That leaves Stonehill (3-0) as the only other contender, and frankly, we just learned that Stonehill was in Massachusetts.
Big bets and bad beats
Syracuse was cruising toward an easy cover over FCS Wagner on Saturday, but it turns out, it was a little *too* easy.
The line closed at Syracuse -54, which seemed about right given that Wagner is 1-27 since 2019 and had already lost to Rutgers by 59 this season. And, as expected, Syracuse rolled early, jumping out to a 49-0 lead at the half.
Easy cover, right?
Well, no. Wagner waved the white flag, and sports books waived the bets.
Syracuse went on to win 59-0 — a cover for the Orange and the under, but due to the shortened quarters, the bets didn’t count. Kudos to Caesars for having the courage to say what the rest of us were thinking.
There’s no such thing as easy money, but the service academies at least offer something close. Air Force hosted Navy on Saturday in the first Commander’s Cup matchup of the season, and that means it’s time to throw some money on the under. What was the total? Doesn’t matter. Whatever the total is, bet the under. In the playoff era, the under in Commander’s Cup games is 22-2-1, and it’s hit 77% of the time.
In this case, the the total closed at 38. It’s a low number. Low enough to worry about the under? Heck, no.
OK, so you bet the under, then Air Force found the end zone on its opening drive on a 67-yard pass play. Now you’re worried, right? Ah, still no.
Of the remaining 19 drives in the game, 10 ended with punts. The others: a Navy touchdown, two field goals (including one after Navy got the ball deep in Air Force territory), a turnover on downs, two fumbles (including one in the red zone), a missed field goal and a seven-play drive that chewed up the final 3:49 of the game.
That, friends, is a recipe for another under. Final score: Air Force 13, Navy 10.
The under has now covered in nine straight games that featured two of the three service academies, and 14 of the last 15.
Oklahoma State jumped out to a big lead and cruised to a 36-25 win over Baylor. The Cowboys had been a 2.5-point favorite, which is hallowed ground for head coach Mike Gundy. As ESPN’s Chris Fallica noted, since 2016, Oklahoma State is now 14-3 in games when the spread is +/- 3.5 points, including a ridiculous 13-2 in those situations on the road.
