The first month of the 2026 college football season is in the books.
As the calendar flips to October, it’s a good time to take stock of what we saw over the first 4 weeks of the campaign. Here are 3 observations from September in the SEC:
Faizon Brandon’s start to the season has been worrisome
A few weeks ago, Faizon Brandon and Keelon Russell looked like they were on relatively equal footing as far as their status in the SEC. That’s no longer the case. Russell might finish the season as the SEC’s best quarterback and I’m not sure Brandon will still be Tennessee’s starter by the end of the year.
The reason is that Brandon’s advanced metrics against P4 competition look incredibly bleak. Here’s what his peripherals look like for all 4 games so far:
Notice the immense drop-off against Georgia Tech and Texas? His CPOE and passing success rate both fall off a cliff against better athletes.
Brandon is a true freshman, so no one expected he’d immediately be a top-level SEC quarterback. But these numbers suggest he’s on track to finish the year as one of the worst starting quarterbacks in the nation.
At a minimum, Brandon has to improve his pocket mobility and sack avoidance. He’s taken sacks on over 11% of his drop-backs this year. Tennessee’s O-Line shares some culpability in that, but a large chunk of the responsibility lies with Brandon.
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Jadan Baugh is every bit the monster you think he is
Sometimes, especially early in a season, high-volume playmakers like Jadan Baugh get lionized into something they’re not.
Rest assured, Baugh is every bit as good as you think. He’s rushed for an SEC-best 600 yards and 11 touchdowns so far this season and the advanced metrics are even more impressed than those gaudy surface stats would suggest.
No running back in the nation marries volume and efficiency better than Baugh did in September. Here’s a graph showing how much of an outlier he is:
Who’s getting the ball, and who’s doing something with it?
FBS running backs with 40+ rushes. Dashed lines mark the medians. Dot size shows total rushes.
Usage rate = share of all team plays. PPA = predicted points added. Data: CollegeFootballData.com
Among qualifiers, Baugh is 3rd in the nation in EPA-per-rush and 8th in usage rate at 29%. The 2 running backs who are above Baugh in EPA-per-play, Duke’s Nate Sheppard and South Florida’s DJ Crowther, have faced much, much easier schedules to this point in the season.
If Baugh stays healthy, he looks likely to run away with the Doak Walker Award.
Oklahoma has an elite TE … and nothing else on offense
For the third consecutive season, Oklahoma’s offense looks to be broken. The Sooners’ latest offensive catastrophe was a 41-13 loss to Georgia that featured multiple back-breaking turnovers from John Mateer.
If there’s a silver lining, it’s that OU has unlocked a genuinely elite weapon in tight end Rocky Beers. The Colorado State standout arrived rather unceremoniously in Norman but has been the lone bright spot in an otherwise-putrid offense.
Beers is 4th among tight ends nationally at 0.61 EPA per target this season. He’s caught 82% of his targets overall and has an impressive 68% targeted success rate. Compare his numbers with the rest of Oklahoma’s receiving corps and you can see just how much of an outlier he is:
John Mateer
Oklahoma: 2026 targets by receiver
Receiver
Tgt
Rec
Yds
Success %
EPA/Tgt
Isaiah Sategna
31
20
267
41.9%
+0.48
Rocky Beers
22
18
255
68.2%
+0.61
Trell Harris
11
7
116
63.6%
+0.79
Elijah Thomas
9
4
38
22.2%
-0.20
Mackenzie Alleyne
8
4
40
25.0%
+0.21
Lloyd Avant
6
6
31
50.0%
+0.33
Hayden Hansen
5
4
64
80.0%
+1.60
Parker Livingstone
5
5
45
80.0%
+0.27
Tgt = targets. EPA/Tgt = expected points added per target. Green = above FBS average, red = below. FBS average success rate on targeted throws is 48%; FBS average EPA/Tgt is +0.43. Data: CollegeFootballData.com
Trell Harris, the only other player there in green, has been limited this season due to injury and isn’t expected to be back for quite some time. Isaiah Sategna has a high volume of targets but a very low success rate. Tight end Hayden Hansen has been efficient with his opportunities, but not at a high enough volume to matter.
If Oklahoma is going to get anything going offensively this season, Beers is likely to be the biggest reason why.
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