Three breakout players through the first quarter of the college football season

By Kevin Harrish on September 30, 2026September 30, 2026

Every college football season produces a few players who go from relative unknowns to household names almost overnight. A month into 2026, several of them are already emerging.

This year’s crop includes a safety who didn’t start a game last season, a running back who has already matched his sophomore touchdown total, and a quarterback who opened the season as a 150-to-1 Heisman long shot.

Here are three of the biggest breakout players in college football so far this season.

Cal safety Kingston Lopa barely saw the field last season with the Oregon Ducks. As a redshirt freshman at Oregon in 2025, he came off the bench and finished the season with just 12 tackles, one sack, and no interceptions. He then followed Tosh Lupoi from Oregon to Cal, and he’s instantly become one of the most dangerous defenders in the country.

Through just four games this season, Lopa already has five interceptions, and that included a dominant performance where he almost single-handedly saved the game during Cal’s ACC opener at Syracuse.

With the Golden Bears trailing for most of the game, Lopa picked off Steve Angeli three times in the second half. The first interception set up a go-ahead touchdown, the second was a 24-yard pick-six that gave Cal the lead for good, and the third sealed a 21-18 win with 54 seconds left.

It was the first three-interception game by a Cal player since Jaylinn Hawkins did it in the 2018 Cheez-It Bowl. At 6-foot-5, Lopa has the rare size, speed, and versatility that NFL scouts love, and he’s already landing on 2027 draft watch lists.

Florida has emerged as one of the most surprising teams in the country this season, and Jadan Baugh is a big reason why.

Baugh was a productive running back during his first two seasons at Florida, rushing for 673 yards and seven touchdowns as a freshman and then 1,170 yards and eight touchdowns as a sophomore. This season, though, he’s been on another level.

He entered Week 4 ranked second nationally in rushing yards and first in rushing touchdowns, and then he had his biggest game yet. Against No. 4 Ole Miss, Baugh ran for more than 140 yards and three touchdowns as Florida rushed for 302 yards in a 52-28 rout. Through four games this season, Baugh already has 600 yards and 11 touchdowns, averaging an astounding 7.2 yards per carry.

Baugh is the engine of a Florida offense that has scored at least 44 points in every single game so far this season, and he’s a big reason the Gators have jumped to No. 8 after a 4-8 season. As a result, he’s a legitimate Heisman contender.

Few people outside Starkville knew Kamario Taylor’s name in August. The sophomore opened the season at +15000 in the Heisman odds and was off the board entirely at some sportsbooks. Four weeks later, he’s third in the odds at +480 on DraftKings, behind only Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith and Miami’s Darian Mensah.

Taylor has been dominant from the start of the season. He totaled 413 yards and five touchdowns in a season-opening rout of Louisiana-Monroe, then added 313 yards and three scores in a road win at Minnesota. Through four games, he’s thrown for 1,192 yards with 15 total touchdowns and just two interceptions while completing 69.2 percent of his passes, and he has accounted for at least three touchdowns in every game. He’s also been effective on the ground, rushing for 185 yards and a touchdown on 37 carries.

And he’s delivered in big moments. At South Carolina, he rallied the Bulldogs from a 16-0 deficit for a 41-34 win, throwing four touchdown passes and accounting for 284 of the team’s 393 total yards. Against No. 19 Missouri, he threw for 360 yards and three scores, including a 24-yard go-ahead touchdown to Sanfrisco Magee with 3:57 left in a 31-24 win.

Taylor has helped turn a program that went 2-10 two years ago into a 4-0, top-20 team. The Bulldogs are 4-0 for just the second time since 2014, and Dak Prescott’s eighth-place Heisman finish that year remains the best by a Mississippi State player this century. With No. 7 Alabama coming to Starkville on Saturday, Taylor has a chance to go from breakout star to legitimate Heisman front-runner.