Week 3 Stock Report: Conner Weigman's future as Texas A&M starting QB, fun Group of 5 contenders, is Notre Dame offense actually fixed?
Week 3 featured just two ranked teams going down — and neither were upsets as they lost to higher-ranked foes. But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of other volatility within college football as we hit the quarter-mark of the 2024 season.
What was among the more interesting movement for the Week 3 stock report?
Read on.
The 2024 Week 3 Stock Report:
📈STOCK UP — Group of 5 contenders
In the inaugural season of the 12-team College Football Playoff, it looks like we’ve hit the jackpot on a collection of fun, frisky Group of 5 contenders.
UNLV has upset Houston and Kansas so far this season, and the Rebels’ GO-GO offense continues to be charming with dual-threat quarterback Matthew Sluka. Barry Odom’s team certainly benefited from some fumble luck against the Jayhawks, but they’re playing decent defense, too (two picks vs. KU).
Boise State, which has one of the early Heisman Trophy frontrunners in tailback Ashton Jeanty, nearly won at Oregon and will battle UNLV for the Mountain West crown.
Northern Illinois shocked Notre Dame as 28-point underdogs, while Memphis just officially knifed Florida State’s season, going into Tallahassee and getting a win. Elsewhere in the MAC, Toledo smashed Mississippi State 41-17 in Starkville to move to 3-0.
The battle for the (likely) No. 12-seed looks fun as hell here in mid-September.
📉STOCK DOWN — Conner Weigman’s longterm future as Texas A&M’s starting QB
Conner Weigman was a late scratch in Texas A&M’s rout over Florida, as the junior quarterback has battled a shoulder injury since the opener against Notre Dame. Weigman has been plagued by various injuries throughout his Aggies’ career, and the latest setback has opened the door for a real quarterback controversy in College Station.
Marcel Reed made his first career start in Weigman’s place, and the redshirt freshman torched a crappy Florida defense to the tune of 250 passing yards and two scores, as well as 126 rushing yards and one touchdown. Reed teased similar electric ability in TAMU’s bowl game against Oklahoma State last season (over 425 total yards, two touchdowns), too.
Reed is super raw. He’s a one-read, and go guy for sure right now. We don’t really know what his potential is when opponents have a week or two to prepare for his skill set. And yet, Marcel Reed is absolutely a better fit for Collin Klein’s offense.
He has real mobility where he can run quarterback power, do the boot legs and true zone reads. He challenges defenses on every snap.
That’s not Weigman’s strength, and aside from traits and pure arm talent, it’s difficult to determine what is the former 5-star prospect’s greatest attribute.
Due to a lack of durability and productivity, Weigman has just eight career starts (completing less than 60% of his passes in half of them). He was clearly hurt against Notre Dame, but still graded out as the worst QB in the country against the Irish.
He’s likely to miss the next game or two, so what if Reed leads the Aggies to wins over Bowling Green and Arkansas? Is Mike Elko really going to go back to Conner Weigman when the Aggies tangle with a Top-10 Missouri team?
STOCK HOLDING — Is Notre Dame’s offense fixed?
The Irish pulled a Clemson last weekend, delivering an out-of-body, exorcise-the-demons offensive performance that no one saw coming —dropping 66 points at Purdue. Notre Dame’s offensive line got back on track and tailback Jeremiyah Love (109 yards) and quarterback Riley Leonard (100 yards, three scores) led a rushing attack that finished with 364 yards (8.5 per clip) and six touchdowns.
The Irish were gashing the Boilermakers so badly that they ran a halfback dive on the final play of the first half with the simple intention of running out the clock — and Jadarian Price took the rock 70 yards to the house for a touchdown.
So all is well after such a horrifying performance against Northern Illinois?
Not exactly.
Notre Dame did end its streak of zero passing touchdowns, but both throws came from backup quarterback Steve Angeli.
Leonard was 11 of 16 passing for 112 yards — with all 11 completions coming within five yards of the LOS. He still doesn’t have a single explosive pass (zero completions over 20 yards), and that lack of a vertical passing game will continue to hand-cuff Notre Dame’s offense against better opponents.
📉STOCK DOWN — Teams’ whose bowl hopes took a big hit in Week 3
We’re just three games into the 2024 season, and yet that means most teams have already played a quarter of their schedule.
And welp, the path to six wins — aka bowl eligibility — looks like an uphill slog for several programs that suffered bad losses in Week 3.
After losing to Memphis, Florida State, a preseason Top 10 team with ACC title aspirations, is now 0-3 and is projected to win just four games the rest of the season.
Kansas, which entered the season with Big 12 title aspirations, has suffered consecutive upsets — first against Illinois and then Friday to UNLV. Now 1-2 before a stretch of nine-straight conference games, the Jayhawks are essentially a coin-flip (per ESPN FPI) to get to six wins.
Is Neal Brown suddenly going to find himself on the hot seat once again? For the second time in three years, West Virginia squander a sizable lead at Pitt to lose the Backyard Brawl. The Mountaineers are now 1-2, and projected to win no more than five games.
A couple of other teams’ whose bowl hopes took a dent over the weekend: Vanderbilt, which already was a bit of a long shot to get to six wins now has very little runway after losing to Georgia State. Wisconsin was not expected to upset Alabama, but the Badgers lost starting quarterback Tyler Van Dyke to a significant injury (UPDATE: He’s now ruled out for the season) — and they were already staring at around 40% odds to get to bowl eligibility.
Lastly, South Carolina still has a path here, but the Gamecocks missed a golden opportunity to bank an extra win when they coughed up a 17-0 lead against LSU.