College football players of the week: Week 10, 2026
Texas Tech quarterback Thomas Castellanos, Tennessee linebacker Arion Carter and Vanderbilt kicker Brock Taylor are the Week 10 players of the week. Castellanos threw five touchdown passes, the last one with 2:44 left, as No. 13 Texas Tech came back to beat West Virginia 53-48; Carter had 13 tackles and two sacks as No. 16 Tennessee held No. 8 Kentucky to two field goals in a 34-6 win; and Taylor made a school-record six field goals, the last from 55 yards with 1:46 left, in a 25-23 win at Mississippi State.
W Texas Tech 53, West Virginia 48 · vs West Virginia
18 of 27, 362 yards, 5 TD, 0 INT; 23 rushes, 102 yards; touchdown passes of 30 and 29 yards to Terrance Carter Jr., 1 to Jett Carpenter, and 38 and 5 to Kenny Johnson
Five touchdown passes, 464 yards of offense and the drive that won it. Texas Tech led 41-27 at halftime, then punted on its first four possessions of the second half while West Virginia scored three straight touchdowns to go ahead 48-41. After a field goal made it 48-44, Tech took over at its own 31 with 6:25 left. Castellanos hit Micah Hudson for 26 yards on fourth-and-3 from the Tech 48, ran 16 yards to the West Virginia 7, and threw the 5-yard touchdown to Kenny Johnson with 2:44 left. Notre Dame's CJ Carr had the bigger opponent, No. 1 Miami, and no turnovers, but 142 fewer yards and two fewer touchdowns, and after Miami got within 24-10 the Irish went three-and-out twice. Utah's Devon Dampier accounted for four touchdowns against No. 7 BYU, and Texas's Arch Manning threw the go-ahead touchdown at No. 19 Missouri.
Runner-up: CJ Carr, Notre Dame: 29 of 40, 319 yards, 3 TD, 0 INT in a 31-24 win over No. 1 Miami
13 tackles (10 solo), 2 sacks, 4 tackles for loss, 1 QB hurry; his second sack came on fourth-and-1 at midfield for an 11-yard loss
Thirteen tackles, two sacks and four tackles for loss against a top-10 team, and No. 8 Kentucky scored six points. Carter's hurry on third-and-goal from the Tennessee 7 with 12 seconds left in the first half forced an incompletion, and Kentucky kicked a field goal to trail 10-6. With Tennessee up 20-6 and 10:41 left, he sacked Kenny Minchey for 11 yards on fourth-and-1 at midfield, and the Vols scored on the next possession to make it 27-6. Auburn freshman Shadarius Toodle had more sacks, three, and 4.5 tackles for loss in a 26-23 win over Arkansas, but against a team that fell to 3-6. TCU's Hudson Hooper returned an interception 93 yards for a touchdown at No. 24 Arizona, but TCU lost 29-28.
Runner-up: Shadarius Toodle, Auburn: 11 tackles (10 solo), 3 sacks, 4.5 tackles for loss, 1 pass breakup in a 26-23 win over Arkansas
W Vanderbilt 25, Mississippi State 23 · at Mississippi State
6 of 6 field goals (38, 36, 22, 54, 34 and 55 yards), 1 of 1 extra points, 19 points; the 55-yarder on fourth-and-4 made it 25-17 with 1:46 left
Six field goals without a miss, a Vanderbilt record, and the last one decided it. Mississippi State scored two touchdowns 52 seconds apart in the third quarter to cut a 16-0 halftime lead to 16-14, and Taylor answered from 54 and 34 yards. Up 22-17 and facing fourth-and-4 at the State 37, he made a 55-yarder with 1:46 left. That meant the Bulldogs' 30-yard touchdown with 32 seconds left only got them to 25-23, and the two-point pass failed. Michigan State's Liam Boyd was 5 of 5 and scored all 15 of the Spartans' points in a 15-6 win at Michigan, but he made one fewer kick and his longest was 49 yards. Arizona's Michael Salgado-Medina beat TCU 29-28 with a 37-yarder in the final minute after the Wildcats recovered an onside pooch kick.
Runner-up: Liam Boyd, Michigan State: 5 of 5 field goals (21, 37, 38, 24 and 49 yards), all 15 points in a 15-6 win at Michigan
One player per slot, judged the way the power rankings judge teams: what happened on the field, against whom and where. Production counts, and so does the opponent. A big game against a good defense or on the road beats the same numbers at home against a bad one, and a play that decided the game beats one that padded a lead. A great game in a loss can still win if nothing else comes close.
NFL awards follow the league's format, AFC and NFC, and go up on Tuesday morning, a day before the league names its own. College awards are national and go up on Sunday morning. Where there's an official pick (the NFL's, or Walter Camp's for college offense and defense), it's listed under ours, agree or not.
The NFL page also goes position by position: a player of the week and a season top 5 at each of 14 spots, from quarterback to punter. Players are filed by the job they do, so an edge rusher is anyone who rushes from the line, whether he's called an end or an outside linebacker, and a linebacker plays off the ball. The top 5 is the whole season's body of work, not a count of weekly wins, and a player needs to have played real snaps to make it. Offensive linemen have no box score, so they're judged on pressures and sacks allowed, penalties and what the offense did around them; that's noted on those cards.