Alabama hadn't lost to Vanderbilt in 40 years and hadn't lost in Nashville in 55 years. The Crimson Tide were coming off of a win in the game of the year, an incredible back-and-forth affair with Georgia that bumped them to No. 1 in the AP poll. The Commodores were three weeks removed from losing to Georgia State.
As players have been given more rights in recent years -- fewer transfer restrictions, the ability to get paid legally -- a countless number of critics railed against the progress, declaring that it would wreck competitive balance, that the best players would gravitate toward the best schools and that the also-rans would get left in the dust. This was always terribly disingenuous, of course, because college football has never had competitive balance and because the best players have always chosen the most historically awesome schools.
College football has almost never been a sport that allowed Vanderbilts to beat Alabamas. But because of Vanderbilt's deft use of the transfer portal and some perfect bounces from a pointy ball, the Commodores turned the sport on its head Saturday. They got 308 combined passing and rushing yards from former New Mexico State quarterback Diego Pavia, who seamlessly segued from talking about "God's plan" to dropping an F-bomb on live television during his postgame interview and has now beaten both Alabama and Auburn.
While Vanderbilt definitely needed said perfect bounces -- a high deflection of an early Jalen Milroe pass that turned into a Randon Fontenette pick-six, a glorious Miles Capers sack-and-strip that fell into Yilanan Ouattara's hands to set up a late touchdown -- the Dores always came up with the answers they needed. When Alabama cut an early 23-7 lead to 23-21, Pavia threw a 36-yard touchdown to Junior Sherrill. When Bama's amazing Ryan Williams scored yet another physically improbable touchdown to make it 30-28, the Commodores kicked a field goal, forced the aforementioned fumble and scored again. And when Bama made it 40-35 with 2:46 left, it was easy to assume the Tide would force a punt, and score late to win. Instead, Vandy calmly moved the chains three times to run out the clock. And then Vandy students tore down the goalposts and marched them into the Cumberland River.
We've now had a pair of particularly monumental top-10 upsets this season: Northern Illinois over Notre Dame and Vandy over Bama. But Week 6 gave us even more. The teams ranked fourth (Tennessee), ninth (Missouri), 10th (Michigan) and 11th (USC) also lost to conference foes, and No. 8 Miami had to rally from 25 points down in the final 20 minutes to avoid falling as well. If you're a chaos seeker and wishcaster, I should mention that we've already seen eight top-10 teams upset by unranked opponents this season, only one behind the pace set in the first six weeks by the 2007 season, aka the granddaddy of all chaos seasons.
While we attempt to collectively will the chaos to continue, we should take stock. The SEC race certainly got flipped all around Saturday, but we also saw potentially impactful upsets in the ACC (SMU over Louisville), Big Ten (Washington over Michigan, Minnesota over USC) and Sun Belt (Louisiana-Monroe over James Madison), plus the race for the Group of 5's playoff bid (Syracuse over UNLV). Week 6 scrambled both odds and expectations. Using SP+ projected conference title odds, let's check in with each of FBS' nine conferences and see where each race stands, at least until Week 7 scrambles everything all over again.
Jump to a section:
SEC | Big Ten
ACC | Big 12
Group of 5 conferences
Week's biggest surprises
Heisman of week
10 favorite games
SEC
Favorites (teams with a title chance over 20%): Texas 40.4% (up 13.6% from last week)
Still in contention (others over 10%): Alabama 14.9% (down 12.2%), Georgia 11.5% (up 6.2%), Ole Miss 11.3% (up 5.1%)
Long shots (anyone else over 1%): Texas A&M 7.5% (up 4.9%), LSU 6.3% (up 2.0%), Tennessee 4.1% (down 13.7%), Missouri 1.7% (down 6.9%)
You could make a legitimate case that Texas had the greatest bye week in the history of bye weeks. The Longhorns sat at home while No. 1 Alabama and No. 4 Tennessee suffered shocking upsets, and the Horns' status moved from "one of the SEC's favorites" to "the SEC favorite." Not only are they the lone remaining unbeaten team in the league, but they also have the most manageable slate of the main contenders: They face only one team currently better than 15th in SP+, while Alabama and Georgia each face three. If they're still unbeaten two weeks from now, after Saturday's Red River Rivalry game in Dallas and Week 8's visit from Georgia, it will be awfully tempting to go ahead and pencil in a first-ever Texas trip to the SEC championship game.
Georgia rebounded from last week's loss to Alabama with a workmanlike win over an explosive and implosive Auburn, but maybe the second-most-interesting move of the week came from the league's other Texas team. A&M welcomed quarterback Conner Weigman back into the starting lineup Saturday against Missouri. Weigman had struggled to start the season, and the simple fact that A&M both won games and was more explosive with backup Marcel Reed in the game made it at least a hair surprising that Weigman was immediately reinserted when healthy. But then he and the Aggies went out and played a nearly perfect game against the (previously) top-10 Tigers.
Texas A&M is now 5-1 overall and 3-0 in conference play, and the only two SP+ top-25 opponents the Aggies have left on the schedule are LSU in Week 9 and Texas in Week 14. Both games are in College Station. Color me intrigued.
Big Ten
Favorites: Ohio State 43.9% (up 2.9%), Penn State 23.0% (down 1.3%), Oregon 22.0% (up 1.6%)
Still in contention: none
Long shots: Indiana 6.1% (up from 3.4%), Washington 1.6% (up 0.6%)
The Big Ten has in no way produced the same shakeups as the SEC. Ohio State continues to cruise up top, and the only three teams with a greater than 7% title chance won their games by a combined 93-28 in Week 6. Oregon and Penn State were both a hair disappointing -- Oregon left points on the board with a couple of red zone interceptions against Michigan State, while PSU let UCLA control the ball a bit more than expected and couldn't quite pull away -- but both still won comfortably.
Ohio State, meanwhile, simply absorbed Iowa's best shots and then delivered a knockout blow. The Buckeyes scored on just one of five first-half drives, turning the ball over on downs once and losing both a fumble and an interception against what SP+ says is the No. 2 defense in the country. But unfortunately for the Hawkeyes, Ohio State has the No. 1 defense; the Buckeyes forced three consecutive second-half turnovers and scored a run of easy points in a 35-7 romp.
The favorites remained the favorites after Week 6, but the list of long shots got pared down considerably. Michigan entered the week with a 4.4% title shot, per SP+, while Iowa was at 3.3% and USC was at 1.0%. But while Iowa got pummeled by Ohio State, Michigan lost as a slight underdog at Washington, and USC fell as a nearly 10-point favorite at Minnesota. The Trojans' loss dropped Lincoln Riley to 22-10 in his first 32 games at USC; at first glance you could spin that in either of two ways -- Riley's eventually fired predecessor, Clay Helton, started 23-9, but then again, so did eventual two-time national champion coach Pete Carroll -- but considering Riley started out 11-1 and has gone 11-9 since, the positive spin is awfully hard to pull off.
ACC
Favorites: Miami 39.0% (up 7.7%), Clemson 24.8% (up 4.7%)
Still in contention: SMU 16.2% (up 5.6%)
Long shots: Louisville 7.5% (down 12.3%), Pitt 5.5% (up 0.9%), Virginia Tech 1.9% (up 0.1%), Virginia 1.7% (up 0.5%), Duke 1.6% (down 2.7%)
Bless Miami for its commitment to entertainment. In the Hurricanes' past two games, their in-game win probability, per ESPN Analytics, was under 11% with 11:10 left against Virginia Tech and under 6% with two minutes left against Cal. Cam Ward & Co. somehow wriggled out of both situations with their unbeaten record intact, and their offensive numbers remain outstanding: They're third in points per drive and fourth in success rate, and Ward is third in Total QBR. But big-play breakdowns are becoming a major issue. Virginia Tech enjoyed more gains of 20-plus against Miami (six) than against Marshall (four) or Stanford (four), and seven of Cal's 23 gains of 20-plus for the season came Saturday night, including four gains of 50-plus.
By simply surviving and advancing, the Canes remain the team to beat. But Clemson remains in pursuit. Since tumbling to 31st in SP+ following their second-half collapse against Georgia in Week 1, Dabo Swinney's Tigers have overachieved against SP+ projections by 16.1 points per game and have charged back to 12th overall, ahead of where they were in the preseason. The offense was good but frustrating in Saturday's 29-13 win over Florida State; the Tigers gained 500 yards (6.8 per play) and led by double digits for the game's final 53 minutes in Tallahassee, but they also settled for seven field goal tries, two of which were blocked. That prevented them from pulling away, but they still doubled FSU's total yardage, and they're still on a roll.
SP+ is a bit slow to warm up to unbeaten Pittsburgh -- the Panthers are up to 32nd after a back-and-forth 34-24 win over North Carolina -- and prefers SMU as the No. 3 favorite following the Mustangs' 34-27 road win over Louisville. Regardless, the top two have to slip up before we have a wide-open race.
Big 12
Favorites: Kansas State 23.8% (up 0.5%), Iowa State 21.7% (up 1.5%)
Still in contention: Utah 15.4% (up 0.4%), BYU 10.3% (up 1.6%)
Long shots: West Virginia 7.7% (up 5.2%), Texas Tech 6.9% (up 3.4%), Colorado 5.8% (up 0.1%), UCF 2.6% (down 1.6%), Arizona 1.7% (down 5.2%), Cincinnati 1.5% (up 0.1%), Arizona State 1.4% (up 0.3%), TCU 1.1% (down 4.9%)
Two weeks ago, Utah was emerging as almost the sole favorite in the power conference that has seemed most likely to produce chaos and parity. Then the Utes got thumped by Arizona, opening the door for both the conference's best team on paper (Kansas State, 14th in SP+) and a pair of teams that stubbornly remain unbeaten (Iowa State and BYU).
K-State is a projected favorite in every remaining game but a Week 14 trip to Iowa State, ISU is favored in every game except a Week 13 trip to Utah, BYU is favored in every game except trips to UCF and Utah, and despite a wilting offense that very much misses a healthy Cam Rising -- college football has few phrases that feel less likely than "a healthy Cam Rising" -- Utah is a favorite in every game.
If those four teams remain the title favorites moving forward, one can see how we might have a really interesting back-and-forth race. But damn near everyone else in the conference still has a puncher's chance at making a run, too. Texas Tech is 3-0 in conference play following a road upset of Arizona, while West Virginia moved to 2-0 after pummeling a fading Oklahoma State. (Colorado, on bye in Week 6, is also 2-0.) In fact, only three of 16 teams are more than two games from the league lead, and Arizona State's rousing back-and-forth win over Kansas late Saturday moved the Sun Devils to 4-1 overall and 1-1 in the Big 12. The top two teams in each of the other power conferences have at least a 55% combined chance of winning the title; in the Big Ten it's 67%. In the Big 12, K-State and ISU combine for just 45.5%. It's still the field over the favorites here.
Sun Belt
Favorites: James Madison 32.7% (down 18.4%), Louisiana 20.9% (up 2.9%)
Still in contention: Texas State 16.5% (up 7.1%)
Long shots: Coastal Carolina 9.7% (up 3.7%), Marshall 9.2% (up 6.1%), South Alabama 4.7% (down 1.7%), Georgia Southern 3.2% (up 1.1%)
SP+ is such a hater sometimes. Despite the fact that Louisiana-Monroe is 4-1 overall -- for the first time in 31 years, no less -- and 1-0 in Sun Belt play following Saturday's upset of James Madison, it still ranks the Warhawks 112th and gives them a mere 0.7% chance of winning the league title. After this Saturday's home game against a listless Southern Miss, ULM isn't a projected favorite again.
SP+ does not, however, hate the team ULM just defeated. JMU lost in Monroe on Saturday night despite gaining 142 more yards and generating nine more first downs (and winning the turnover battle), and even though the Dukes tumbled from 33rd to 49th in SP+, they still hold a solid advantage over a flawed East Division field that doesn't feature another team ranked higher than 80th. They still went from basically a 1-in-2 conference favorite to 1-in-3, however. And in the West, it seems most likely to be a race between Louisiana, which has lost only to Tulane, and Texas State. South Alabama damn near looked like the best team on the planet for a couple of weeks but has quickly fallen back to earth following a blowout loss to LSU and an unlikely stumble at Arkansas State.
Mountain West
Favorites: Boise State 55.7% (up 9.6%), UNLV 24.6% (down 7.1%)
Still in contention: San José State 10.2% (down 1.2%)
Long shots: Fresno State 4.7% (down 0.3%), Colorado State 1.6% (up 0.3%), San Diego State 1.6% (up 0.6%)
Even when UNLV was unbeaten, SP+ favored Boise State to eventually win the MWC race. With the Rebels slipping up at Syracuse -- and more importantly for our purposes, falling from 54th to 67th -- BSU has become an even greater favorite. Aside from Liberty, no one is more heavily favored to win a conference title at the moment. It makes sense, of course. The offense is an absolute wrecking ball, having risen to 11th in offensive SP+ behind not only Ashton Jeanty's incredible play (we'll get to him below) but also the explosive play of wideout Cam Camper and tight end Matt Lauter. The Broncos are fifth nationally in points per drive, and while the defense comes and goes, Jeanty is the best player in the mid-major universe and maybe beyond.
UNLV remains the favorite to face BSU in the conference title game, but following a last-minute comeback win over Nevada, SJSU still has a decent shot. The Spartans were pretty mediocre against the Wolf Pack, but they survived, and they're 2-0 in MWC play. And despite an absolute no-show against UNLV in Week 5, Fresno State remains favored in all of its remaining conference games. The Bulldogs aren't out of it just yet.
AAC
Favorites: Army 35.2% (up 3.9%), Navy 25.7% (down 5.5%), Tulane 22.7% (up 7.3%)
Still in contention: Memphis 10.2% (down 1.7%)
Long shots: North Texas 4.1% (down 1.0%)
The AAC race boils down to two unbeatens versus a red-hot challenger. Army and Navy each moved to 5-0 with comfortable wins over outmanned opposition -- Navy won 34-7 over Air Force, while Army pummeled Tulsa 49-7 -- and are now 69th and 70th, respectively, in SP+. But Tulane has outscored a pair of AAC opponents (South Florida and UAB) by a combined 116-30 over the past two weeks. The Green Wave lost a pair of nonconference games to big-name opponents (Kansas State and Oklahoma) and might therefore remain a step back in the race for the G5's playoff bid. But they're athletic and marvelous at the moment.
It's not completely over for Memphis just yet, by the way; the Tigers are projected favorites in each of their next six conference games despite underachieving terribly against both Navy (in a loss) and Middle Tennessee (in a closer-than-expected win). They still boast more upside than most G5 teams, the defense has only underachieved against Navy, and the offense won't face another top-100 defense until Tulane in Week 14. They could still make a run, and SP+ hasn't completely given up on explosive North Texas either. But three teams still very much lead the way.
MAC
Favorites: Toledo 35.7% (down 3.8%)
Still in contention: Bowling Green 16.5% (up 4.4%), Ohio 12.6% (down 0.3%)
Long shots: Northern Illinois 9.9% (up 1.1%), Buffalo 7.5% (down 0.1%), Eastern Michigan 6.2% (down 0.5%), Miami (Ohio) 4.7% (down 1.7%), Western Michigan 4.3% (up 1.6%), Central Michigan 2.5% (down 0.5%)
Nine of 12 teams with at least a 1-in-25 chance! We expect nothing less from the MAC, though Toledo still remains the front-runner despite underachieving a bit in Saturday's 30-20 win over a terribly disappointing Miami (Ohio). The Rockets are 4-1 with their only loss coming in a wild finish at Western Kentucky. They're projected favorites in each of their past seven conference games, but they're single-digit favorites in each of their next four (at Buffalo, at NIU, Bowling Green, at EMU), and SP+ gives them only an 18% chance of winning all four.
BGSU, which overachieved dramatically against two ranked teams (Penn State and Texas A&M) but underachieved in all other games, is your vice favorite, but the real vice favorite is chaos. Basically everyone but Akron, Ball State and Kent State still has a chance.
Conference USA
Favorites: Liberty 61.9% (down 3.1%)
Still in contention: Sam Houston 16.9% (up 6.2%), Western Kentucky 13.1% (down 3.4%)
Long shots: Jacksonville State 4.9% (up 2.0%), FIU 2.5% (down 1.1%)
Liberty is in an awfully tricky situation. The Flames are the most likely team to finish the regular season unbeaten (31% chance, per SP+), but the best team they've faced so far (East Carolina) is 91st in SP+ and falling, and the best team left on their schedule (Sam Houston) is 88th. They shouldn't be punished for their nonconference game against Appalachian State getting canceled because of a hurricane, but App State isn't good either. Plus, Liberty has underachieved against projections in three of four games. Even at 11-0 (or 12-0 after the CUSA championship game), I'm pretty sure it's going to be difficult for the Flames to get the CFP committee's attention, especially after their blowout loss to Oregon in last year's Fiesta Bowl.
Of course, a 31% chance of going unbeaten is also a 69% chance of being beaten, and a 62% chance of winning the conference title is also a 38% chance of losing it. Sam Houston State and Western Kentucky each have high(ish) upside -- Sam Houston won again Saturday to move to 5-1; the Bearkats have won eight of 10 since starting their FBS life 0-8 -- and Jax State has overachieved against SP+ projections by a combined 60 points over the past two games, wins over Southern Miss and Kennesaw State. We shouldn't crown the Flames just yet.
The five most surprising results
Here are the five results that were furthest away from their respective SP+ projections. Call them either surprises or bad projections, I guess.
Charlotte 55, East Carolina 24 (projection: ECU by 9.8) Two weeks into the season, I thought ECU was putting together a nice rebound year and might be an AAC sleeper. Whoops. On Saturday, the Pirates' fun, aggressive defense got lit up for 517 yards and 55 points.
Tulane 71, UAB 20 (projection: Tulane by 11.1) Two teams have at least slightly overachieved against SP+ projections in every game this season: Indiana and Tulane. Losses to Kansas State and Oklahoma pushed the Green Wave back a bit in the race for the Group of 5's playoff autobid, but as other teams lose, Tulane's odds keep ticking upward. (Also: After six straight winning seasons, first under Bill Clark, then Clark's interim replacement, Bryant Vincent, UAB is 5-12 since passing up Vincent for Trent Dilfer. Vincent, meanwhile, has Louisiana-Monroe at 4-1 for the first time since 1993.)
Texas A&M 41, Missouri 10 (projection: Mizzou by 5.2) In my Week 6 preview, I asked whether Missouri was ready to play like a contender. I'd say we got our answer.
Wisconsin 52, Purdue 6 (projection: Wisconsin by 12.0) In Purdue's first game after the firing of offensive coordinator Graham Harrell, the Boilermakers nearly got tripled in total yardage (589-216). Just imagine how bad this one would have been had Wisconsin not thrown two interceptions.
West Virginia 38, Oklahoma State 14 (projection: OSU by 6.1) In their first three games, Mike Gundy's OSU Cowboys overachieved against SP+ projections by an average of 5.8 points. In their past three, they've underachieved by 3.4, then 19.3, then 30.1. This is going in the wrong direction quickly.
Who won the Heisman this week?
I am once again awarding the Heisman every single week of the season and doling out weekly points, F1-style (in this case, 10 points for first place, 9 for second, and so on). How will this Heisman race play out, and how different will the result be from the actual Heisman voting?
Here is this week's Heisman top 10:
1. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (16-for-20 for 252 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 56 rushing yards against Alabama).
2. Ashton Jeanty, Boise State (13 carries for 186 yards and 3 touchdowns against Utah State).
3. Cam Ward, Miami (35-for-53 for 437 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT, plus 44 non-sack rushing yards and a touchdown against Cal).
4. Kurtis Rourke, Indiana (25-for-33 for 380 yards and 3 touchdowns against Northwestern).
5. Cam Skattebo, Arizona State (25 carries for 186 yards and a touchdown, plus 19 receiving yards against Kansas).
6. Eli Holstein, Pitt (25-for-42 for 381 yards, 3 TDs and one INT, plus 76 rushing yards and a touchdown against North Carolina).
7. Kevin Jennings, SMU (21-for-27 for 281 yards, plus 113 rushing yards and a touchdown against Louisville).
8. Cameron Whitfield, Louisiana (6 tackles, 4 sacks and 2 forced fumbles against Southern Miss).
9. Conner Weigman, Texas A&M (18-for-22 for 276 yards, plus 37 rushing yards against Missouri).
10. Darius Taylor, Minnesota (25 carries for 144 yards, plus 56 receiving yards against USC).
Note to Boise State: Pad Ashton Jeanty's stats a bit more! The incredible junior scored long touchdowns on his first and sixth carries of the evening against an overmatched Utah State team, and projected over 13 games he's on pace for more than 2,600 rushing yards for the season despite averaging less than 20 carries per game because of a run of blowouts. The Broncos have CFP goals this year, so resting their star when they can makes perfect sense. But he's also a legitimate Heisman contender. Let's make a run at 3,000 yards!
Of course, even if he'd gone for 25 carries and 300 yards Saturday, I still might have given the No. 1 spot to Pavia. He was, after all, college football's main character of the weekend, and in all the right ways.
This week's honorable mentions:
• Eli Heidenreich, Navy (5 catches for 101 yards, plus 6 carries for 100 yards against Air Force).
• Maddux Madsen, Boise State (21-for-25 for 256 yards and 3 touchdowns against Utah State).
• Le'Veon Moss, Texas A&M (12 carries for 138 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 35 receiving yards against Missouri).
• Desmond Reid, Pitt (11 catches for 155 yards and a touchdown, plus 55 rushing yards against North Carolina).
• Xavier Restrepo, Miami (seven catches for 163 yards against Cal).
• Jalen Royals, Utah State (9 catches for 211 yards and 2 touchdowns against Boise State).
Through six weeks, here are your points leaders:
1T. Cam Ward, Miami (33)
1T. Ashton Jeanty, Boise State (33)
3. Jalen Milroe, Alabama (18)
4. Travis Hunter, Colorado (17)
5T. Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss (14)
5T. Kurtis Rourke, Indiana (14)
7T. Alonza Barnett, James Madison (10)
7T. Blake Horvath, Navy (10)
7T. Cade Klubnik, Clemson (10)
7T. Arch Manning, Texas (10)
7T. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (10)
Milroe's Heisman odds, per ESPN BET, fell back a bit after Bama's loss in Nashville, and the top three -- Jeanty (+225), Hunter (+325) and Ward (+550) -- have separated themselves a hair. Granted, Hunter is fourth in our points race, but it definitely seems like the betting odds and the points race are keeping up with each other for the most part.
My 10 favorite games of the weekend
1. Vanderbilt 40, No. 1 Alabama 35. Obviously.
2. No. 8 Miami 39, California 38. Week 6 somehow had a game better than this one. I wouldn't have thought it possible. You don't want to go to the late-game comeback well too many times, but after a 10-point fourth-quarter comeback against Virginia Tech, Miami pulled off a 25-point comeback (17 in the fourth quarter) here. Cal's defense held on as long as possible and forced the Hurricanes' offense to a "You must be perfect from this point forward" precipice. But Miami scored touchdowns on four straight length-of-the-field drives and survived.
3. Arkansas 19, No. 4 Tennessee 14. Two games better than this one?? That can't be right. Arkansas' defense made a ton of heroic stops, and even with starting QB Taylen Green suffering a fourth-quarter injury, the Razorbacks' offense managed a late TD drive. Nico Iamaleava couldn't quite engineer a last-minute drive to counter, and we had ourselves the second unranked-over-top-five upset of the day in the SEC.
4. Syracuse 44, No. 25 UNLV 41 (OT) (Friday). Before Saturday's chaos, we got this amazing game of runs: 14-0 Syracuse, then 21-0 UNLV, then 17-0 Syracuse, then 17-0 UNLV. Syracuse forced OT with a Jackson Meeks touchdown with 23 seconds left, and after a UNLV field goal to start overtime, LeQuint Allen's 1-yard plunge sealed the (slight) upset.
5. UConn 29, Temple 20. We don't end up with many 9-point games on this list. But that's because most 9-point games don't end with a 96-yard fumble return on fourth-and-goal.
UCONN UCONN UCONN!!!
— UConn Football (@UConnFootball) October 5, 2024
Fumble recovered and returned for 96 yards to seal the deal! pic.twitter.com/c8QrFPRSeM
6. Division III: No. 24 Wisconsin-Platteville 30, No. 3 Wisconsin-La Crosse 27 (OT). I included this game in Friday's "Smaller School Showcase," and these WIAC rivals put on a show.
In front of 4,662* in La Crosse, UWP spotted the home team a 24-9 lead over the game's first 53 minutes, then charged back with a 42-yard TD pass from Michael Priami to Brandt Stare and a 40-yarder from Priami to Carter Olson. After catching two TD passes, it was time for Stare to throw the game winner.
FOR THE WIN ⛏️
— UW-Platteville Athletics (@uwp_pioneers) October 5, 2024
The double pass from Priami ➡️ Stare ➡️ Doherty!
...Could not have called a better play for overtime. #d3fb #swingtheaxe #wiac pic.twitter.com/m0FprhhPo0
(* A crowd of nearly 5,000 for a D3 game is solid, but I should also mention that mighty Wisconsin-Whitewater set the division's on-campus attendance record Saturday, drawing 21,233 for a 21-14 win over No. 17 Wisconsin-Oshkosh! Good gracious.)
7. Arizona State 35, Kansas 31. Syracuse-UNLV was a game of runs. ASU-Kansas was a game of lead changes. We had five of them in the fourth quarter! Thanks to a season-opening blowout of FCS' Lindenwood and a run of gut-wrenchingly tight losses, Kansas has produced a fascinating combination this year: The Jayhawks have a plus-15 point differential for the season ... and are currently 1-5. Ouch.
8. Louisiana-Monroe 21, James Madison 19. At one of the hardest jobs in FBS, Bryant Vincent is soaring. Like Vandy, the Warhawks got some breaks Saturday -- among other things, they took the lead on an 82-yard fumble return as JMU was driving to go up 10 -- but who cares? ULM is 4-1!
9. Oregon State 39, Colorado State 31 (2OT). Two future Pac-12 rivals put on a show. Oregon State looked poised to pull away after going up 21-10 early in the fourth quarter, but CSU scored twice to charge ahead. Everett Hayes' last-second field goal forced overtime for the Beavers, where CSU benefited from a controversial pass interference penalty to go up 7. But touchdowns by Gevani McCoy and Anthony Hankerson, and a fourth-down pass breakup by Andre Jordan Jr. sealed the win.
10. FCS: Weber State 55, No. 9 Montana 48 (OT). WSU went 1-3 in nonconference play but moved to 2-0 in Big Sky play with this wild road win in one of college football's most beautiful locales. The Wildcats surged to a 28-10 lead before a 23-3 Montana run gave the Grizzlies the advantage with 10 minutes left. We got five lead changes in nine minutes before WSU scored the game's final 10 points -- 3 on a 43-yard field goal at the buzzer and 7 more in OT.
And because this week was far too nutty for just 10 games, these games probably deserved a place on the list as well:
• FCS: No. 8 UC Davis 27, Portland State 26
• Minnesota 24, USC 17
• San José State 35, Nevada 31
• D2: No. 10 Slippery Rock 33, No. 24 Indiana (Pa.) 32
• SMU 34, No. 22 Louisville 27
Oh yeah, and here's how San Diego beat Presbyterian in overtime:
RUBEN LOPEZ 87 YARDS TO THE HOUSE TO WIN THE BALL GAME IN OVERTIME 🤯🤯🤯#GoToreros pic.twitter.com/TgEGpiLf3p
— San Diego Football (@USDFootball) October 5, 2024
I think I say this every week, but ... what a week.