College football Week 3 highlights - Top plays, games and takeaways

It's a product of college football's uniquely meaningful regular season that, as each Saturday's slate draws to a close, we assume we've learned something significant. Through two weeks, we had learned that Oregon was overrated, that Notre Dame was toast, that LSU was no better under Brian Kelly than it was under Ed Orgeron, that Texas A&M couldn't score enough to win a big game.

But to paraphrase the great Scottish philosopher Sir Roddy Piper, just when you think you have all the answers, college football changes the questions.

And so it was in Week 3 that Bo Nix emerged from the abyss — for the 106th time in his career — to deliver an emphatic Ducks win over BYU. After Oregon was demolished by Georgia in Week 1, the Ducks felt like an afterthought, but Saturday's win was a sharp shift in perspective. Welcome to the Bo Nix Experience, Ducks fans. So few Auburn fans lived to tell of it.

And so it was that LSU scored 21 points in the fourth quarter to knock off one of the SEC's presumed power players in Mississippi State. Jayden Daniels threw for 210 yards, ran for 93 more and accounted for two touchdowns. Oh, sure, it'd be less stressful if he could play well prior to the fourth quarter at some point this season, but LSU fans will take what they can get.

And so it was that Notre Dame's offense flickered to life in the waning moments of Saturday's win over Cal, then managed to fend off a ridiculous Hail Mary try — and no, not the most ridiculous Hail Mary of the day — to earn win No. 1 for Marcus Freeman. It's still probably best not to dig too deep into this one. A win is a win.

And so it was that Texas A&M rebounded from last week's miserable loss to Appalachian State by looking nearly as inept on offense, yet still