Catch up on the FBS happenings across the Lone Star State after an eventful Week 12 in college football. 

1. Can Texas win the title with Quinn Ewers? 

There are three types of quarterbacks in football. Ones that you can win with, ones that get you beat, and ones that win games. Ewers is clearly a quarterback that Texas can win with. He led the Longhorns to a Big 12 championship game last year and has road wins at Alabama and Michigan. He’s in no way holding Texas back. And he proved his meddle by leading Texas on a touchdown drive, including extra effort on a key fourth-down conversion, when Arkansas cut the lead to 13-10 early in the fourth quarter. 

But is Ewers the type of quarterback who leads a team to the title? Is he THE difference in three or four playoff games en route to a national title? I’m not sure. We’ve seen this offense sputter against Oklahoma, get blitzed by Georgia, and turn the ball over at Vanderbilt. In the Arkansas win, it simply felt stagnant for long stretches. 

That’s not all on Ewers, but that’s the point. He’s more bus driver than F1 racer. He needs the run game. He needs an excellent offensive line. He needs a few first round NFL draft picks at wide receiver and tight end. And injuries robbed the offense of star running back C.J. Baxter and wide receiver Isaiah Bond is dealing with an ankle injury. The offensive line isn’t dominating. 

The good news for Texas is that the defense is awesome. Like, elite. They can carry the Horns to the semifinals, or even the championship game. Georgia won titles with Stetson Bennett at quarterback. Eli Manning beat Tom Brady twice. The QB doesn’t need to be the reason a team wins. But the bad news is the running game isn’t explosive, and without it, Ewers is exposed. 

2. North Texas had to make a change at defensive coordinator 

The Mean Green entered Week 12 allowing 34.3 points per game, which is 119th out of 134 FBS programs. The unit ranked 131st in scoring defense last year while allowing 37.1 points per game. The run defense was the main culprit with North Texas allowing 201.4 yards per game in 2024 – 119th nationally. It was the worst run defense in America in 2023 when the Mean Green allowed 255.17 rushing yards per game. 

Allowing a UTSA record 681 yards in a road loss on Friday night was the last straw as North Texas head coach Eric Morris fired defensive coordinator Matt Caponi. North Texas went 5-7 in Morris’ first year in Denton despite an offense that averaged 34.5 points per game. The unit is allowing 35.6 points per game in 2024, but the team is on a four-game losing streak and is 5-5 with two games remaining. 

Potential names for North Texas include current defensive coordinators Brian Knorr (Air Force), Clay Bignell (Southern Miss), Skyler Cassity (Sam Houston), and Lyle Hemphill (James Madison).

3. Dave Aranda safe at Baylor 

Only Sam Pittman at Arkansas entered 2024 on a hotter seat than Aranda at Baylor. His team had finished below .500 in three of his four seasons in charge and the trend lines weren’t pointing upwards. His fate seemed sealed when his Bears dropped to 2-4 after a road loss to Iowa State on Oct. 5. He was seemingly walking the plank when Baylor traveled to Texas Tech on Oct. 19. A loss in Lubbock and his walking papers could’ve been turned in. 

Instead, they thumped the Red Raiders and that jump-started what is now a four-game winning streak after outlasting West Virginia on the road. Baylor is 6-4 and guaranteed a bowl berth. Winnable games against Houston and Kansas remain, giving the Bears a route to eight regular season wins. 

Aranda will be the head coach at Baylor in 2024. The admin wanted a reason to keep him, and this turnaround provided enough proof of concept to turn the temperature down on his chair. 

4. Culture win for UTSA 

UTSA left Historic Rice Stadium in shambles. The Roadrunners allowed a last-second touchdown to lose the game and then were involved in a brawl on the sidelines. They were 2-4 and without the typical discipline and toughness associated with the 2-1-0 Triangle of Toughness instilled by Traylor since his arrival in the Alamo City. 
But that wasn’t even rock bottom. That was two weeks late at Tulsa when UTSA squandered a 42-17 third-quarter lead in a 46-45 loss to fall to 3-5. Culture isn’t tested in the good times, and there were plenty of those in Traylor’s first four seasons. His Roadrunners won all the coin flip games and were in the conference race for three straight years. Culture is tested through adversity, and the Roadrunners were in uncharted territory as the calendar turned to November.

The resurgence started with an eight-point win over Memphis – the program’s first over a ranked opponent. It continued Friday night with the 21-point win over North Texas. The second half started to provide PTSD to the UTSA fans who remembered the Tulsa collapse as the Roadrunners’ 27-7 halftime lead evaporated to 33-27 with 12:27 left in the game. 

UTSA didn’t fold this time, however. The Roadrunners bowed up, scoring the game’s next 15 points to cruise to a victory and pull within a Temple win of reaching a bowl game for the fourth consecutive year. Traylor has never suffered a losing season as a head coach, even in the high school ranks. It looked like that was a certainty a few weeks ago. Now, it feels like a distant memory. 

5. SMU survives and advances 

It looks like the ACC is a one-team bid and that means style points don’t matter. All the Ponies can do to reach the College Football Playoff is to win out and claim the ACC championship. They took a step forward in a close shave at home against Boston College on Saturday afternoon on the Hilltop. Games against Virginia and Cal remain. 

6. Aggies handle business 

Marcel Reed accounted for 309 yards and three total touchdowns in the 38-3 win over New Mexico State. More importantly, it looks like Texas A&M avoided injury and ironed out some kinks ahead of a two-game journey that’ll define the tenor of the Mike Elko tenure. Beat Auburn and Texas and the Aggies are in the SEC championship game and, more than likely, the CFP regardless of result in Atlanta. 

7. Hunter Watson is a dude 

Sam Houston won’t win many beauty contests with its style of play. The Bearkats were in another dog fight in Week 12 with an emotional Kennesaw State team pulling out all the stops. These were the games K.C. Keeler’s team lost in Year 1 as an FBS program. Kennesaw State tied the game with 25 seconds left to force overtime, but it was the Kats who emerged with the victory after Hunter Watson trucked a defender at the goal line for the game-winning score. 

8. Keep buying Houston stock 

Houston will compete for Big 12 titles in the Willie Fritz era – the question is when, not if. The Cougars have shown too much promise in Year 1 to not believe in the process underway in Third Ward. The defense and special teams are already top notch. The offense needs to reload weapons and develop along the offensive line, but that’s one of Fritz’s specialties. Just look at what Tulane became by the end of his tenure. 

9. Wire to wire for Texas State 

Close games have defined the 2024 season for G.J. Kinne’s Bobcats. It started in Week 1 when an 18-0 lead at halftime ended in a 34-27 victory against Lamar in a game that shouldn’t have been that close. They lost by three to Arizona State, by one to Sam Houston, and by six to Louisiana. 

Texas State jumped out to a 28-0 halftime lead over ULM only to let the Warhawks score 14 straight in the third quarter. Kinne’s squad won, but the killer instinct required to eventually compete for conference championships remained allusive. But the 58-3 win over Southern Miss is the step in the right direction. The Bobcats put an overwhelmed opponent to bed early and let the reserves get snaps in the second half. 

That’s how it is done. 

10. A great year for the Great State 

A successful FBS season for the 13 programs in Texas continued in Week 12 with a combined 7-2 record. The only losses were Houston on the road to Arizona and North Texas to intrastate rival UTSA. The Lone Star State is a combined 77-53 on the season and 11 of the 13 teams are still in bowl contention. Eight teams are already at the six-win threshold. North Texas and UTSA sit at five wins each while Houston is 4-6 with two games left. Rice and UTEP are the only teams guaranteed to finish the regular season under .500.