Week 7 Stock Report: Michael Penix Jr. is the new Heisman frontrunner, QB2s shining, bad vibes for Shane Beamer

Week 7 was something, huh? A classic in Oregon-Washington, some crazy comebacks and two walk-off Hail Marys. Oh, and Michigan body-bagged another team. 

Each Monday, I take note of whose stock — be it team, head coach, player, assistant, unit, Heisman candidacy, preseason narrative, etc. — is trending upward, whose is down and whose is holding.

Here’s the Week 7 Stock Report:

📈 Stock Up: Michael Penix Jr.’s Heisman campaign 

We have a new Heisman Trophy frontrunner, and until someone beats Washington, and I’m not sure anyone can knock Michael Penix off the top spot. He’s been too good. 

The Huskies’ quarterback was marvelous once again, needing all of two plays and 55 seconds to rally Wazzu to a thrilling comeback win over Oregon to remain as the lone undefeated team in the Pac-12. Penix is a maestro, and he conducts the Huskies’ offense to the perfect tune. He’s perfectly in sync with his receivers and he sliced up Oregon’s secondary with precision shots — oftentimes while under major duress while battling injuries and cramps. He finished the win with four touchdowns and 300 yards. 

On the season, Penix ranks No. 1 nationally in passing and No. 3 in passing efficiency. 

📉 Stock Down: CFP pretenders 

I’ve long maintained my opinion that USC is an unserious national championship contender in 2023, but the Trojans went full pumpkin against Notre Dame on Saturday. 

After needing triple-overtime to beat Arizona last weekend, USC got totally exposed by the Irish in a 48-20 loss — and their Swiss cheese defense wasn’t even the biggest problem. The Trojans couldn’t block the Irish, as Caleb Williams was harassed all evening — getting pressured on nearly half of his 45 drop-backs, per PFF. He was sacked six times and uncharacteristically tossed three ugly INTs. 

At this point, USC is nothing more than a fun collection of playmakers and Superman at QB. The rest of the roster is meh, they lack any sort of identity and they still have major defensive (and special teams) concerns. They’re more likely to go 8-4 than find their footing and reach the Pac-12 Championship Game. 

Louisville proved similarly fraudulent, building up all that goodwill have beating Notre Dame last week in primetime, only to turn around and choke away a lead at 1-4 Pitt. The Cardinals were blanked 24-0 in the second half, desperately missing top tailback Jawhar Jordan, who went down with a hamstring injury. 

The Cards were probably never going to go undefeated, but now they probably played their way out of any sort of ACC contender possibilities. Maybe we should’ve seen it coming. 

The 6-0 start was fun, but with Jack Plummer at QB, Louisville’s season was going to go up in smoke at some point. Outside of an outlier game against Boston College (388 yards, five touchdowns), Plummer has five games with at least one pick (three with two). He turned the ball over multiple times in the loss to Pitt, including a back-breaking pick-six that basically ended the game. 

📈 Stock Up: Backup QBs

Several QB2s led their teams to big wins on Saturday, headlined by Noah Fifita’s performance in Arizona’s 44-6 shellacking of No. 19 Washington State in Pullman. 

Starting in place of the injured Jayden de Laura for the third-straight game, Fifita, threw for a career-high 342 yards in the upset win. The Wildcats are now 4-3 with a bye date upcoming, and de Laura looks like he might be Wally Pipp’d as Fifita has been much more effective (293 yards per game, eight touchdowns to two picks) against better competition. 

Elsewhere, TCU was forced to turn to Josh Hoover with Chandler Morris out, and all the redshirt freshman did was throw for 439 yards in his first-career start in a 44-11 win over BYU — the most of any QB in the country Saturday. Hoover had four touchdowns and a couple of picks on a whopping 58 attempts. Staying in the Big 12, Chris Klieman benched Will Howard against Texas Tech, turning to 5-star freshman Avery Johnson because the Red Raiders refused to adjust defensively to the Wildcats’ QB run game. The electric freshman had just 77 yards passing on 8 of 9 attempts, but he became the first FBS player in the country to rush for five touchdowns in a single game — torching TTU on the ground. Johnson is the future for Kansas State, and the only question now is if that timeline will be expedited. 

In the ACC, Christian Veilleux replaced the benched Phil Jurkovec, and beat Louisville in just his second career start. The ex-Penn State quarterback completed just 46.2% of his passes in gross weather, but the Pitt QB2 did throw two touchdowns with zero turnovers in 200 yards. Kyron Drones has come into his own as Va. Tech’s new starting quarterback this season, too. He replaced Grant Wells, and has now led the Hokies to two wins in the last three weeks, including a 30-13 romp over Wake Forest where he had a career-high 321 yards (on 11.1 yards per attempt) with two touchdowns and 59 rushing yards. 

Finally, Jason Bean deserves a quick mention in this space as well. Starting in place of the injured Jalon Daniels, Kansas’ backup threw for a career-high 410 yards and five touchdowns before a couple of poor fourth-quarter interceptions did in the Jayhawks in a 34-23 loss at Oklahoma State.

📉 Stock Down: Vibes at South Carolina 

Shane Beamer is the ultimate vibes head coach, and the mood has soured significantly after a third loss in four games — this time blowing a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter to a Florida team that was also reeling. 

Not great. 

I like Shane but Beamer is playing with fire here. pic.twitter.com/Q60FYXBfCx

— Jesse Simonton (@JesseReSimonton) October 15, 2023

Beamer vented his frustrations Saturday postgame, and while he took some accountability (“We’ve got to do a better job of coaching them”) for the loss, his “perfect call” rant might not sit too well in the locker room. He didn’t quite back the bus over his team, but he certainly threw some players under it. 

I was skeptical that the Gamecocks would continue to exceed expectations in Year 3 under Beamer, believing a regression season was in store. Still, Beamer and South Carolina were very optimistic about their team this offseason, believing they could continue to climb up the SEC East standings. 

Instead, the ‘Cocks are 2-4 and looking like they may miss a bowl game. In Saturday’s 41-39 loss, USC allowed nearly 500 yards — including 423 through to the air to Graham Mertz!!! 

After this weekend, the Gamecocks now have the worst pass defense in the country, allowing 321.7 yards per game. 

Also concerning? Beamer Ball has disappeared. South Carolina has just one blocked kick all season, and in Saturday’s loss to Florida, it made a couple of critical special teams errors (a missed PAT, jumping offsides to give UF an easy 2-point conversion) that resulted in three points — which was the difference in the game. 

Late in the 2022 season, South Carolina fans were ready to give Beamer a lifetime contract after he upset Top 10 Tennessee and Clemson in back-to-back weeks, but after a slew of offseason departures in the transfer portal and a rough start this fall, ‘Cocks faithful are now comparing Beamer’s record (17-15, 8-12 SEC) to his predecessor Will Muschamp (18-14, 10-11 SEC) at the same point in their tenures. 

Again, not great.