Other titles considered for the headline:
PANDEMONIUM!
MAYHEM!
EVERYBODY IS BAD AT FOOTBALL
Point is: Pretty fun Saturday!
– Rodger Sherman
Today’s Lineup
Carnage in the top 10
Why, exactly, are we changing this all up?
Beavers are so back
🤯🤯🤯 Everybody can lose 🤯🤯🤯
Saturday was one of the most chaotic days in college football history, the first time five of the top seven teams in the AP poll have all lost on the same day.
The season has been flipped on its head. There are no undefeated teams remaining in the SEC. Only one team in the Big Ten remains undefeated, and that’s UCLA, which was ranked 13th in the conference’s preseason media poll.
This was a Blood Week, as declared by Jason Kirk of The Athletic and Shutdown Fullcast, the first in two years. (Jason is the only person allowed to declare Blood Weeks; he knows them when he sees them.)
Normally, I like to focus on one game here — but Saturday was so chaotic that I’m just going to group all the destruction in one place.
🔫🦅🪖 Auburn 27 🔫🦅🪖
🐶🐶🐶 No. 1 Georgia 24 🐶🐶🐶
The the first time a No. 1 team has lost at home to an unranked opponent since the mythically chaotic 2007 season, when it happened twice in the same month.
Georgia had built itself into a juggernaut incapable of losing games like this; it had won 53 games against unranked opponents dating back to 2019. Auburn, trickster god as always, broke the curse, winning this unwinnable game with a 3.3 percent postgame win probability.
Between this and last week’s loss by then-No. 1 Texas, it’s the first time since 2012 that the No. 1 team in the AP Poll has lost in back-to-back weeks — and it’s the first time since 1990 that the No. 1 team in the AP poll has lost to unranked opponents in back-to-back weeks. (1990 was all pretty chaotic, by the way — they ended up having to split the championship between Colorado and Georgia Tech, in case you’re wondering how weird it got.)
🙅🍻🙅 No. 8 BYU 28 🙅🍻🙅
☘️☘️☘️ No. 2 Notre Dame 24 ☘️☘️☘️
The Cougars won the biggest home game in BYU history; linebacker-playing-QB Bear Bachmeier had a passing touchdown, two rushing TDs, and a receiving TD on a trick play and talked about how Notre Dame “disrespected me and my family” in the recruiting process. (He’s Catholic, believe it or not; he and his brother drive to church in the next town over from Provo.)
Notre Dame pretty clearly should have had one more second to run another play, a scenario which somehow keeps popping up over and over and over again in the 2026 season.
it’s the first time that the No. 1 and No. 2 teams have lost on the same day (during the regular season) since 2012. (Believe it or not, one of those top-two ranked teams was Kansas State.) With the win, BYU will probably be ranked in the top three for the first time since 1984.
🙌🙌🙌 No. 3 Miami 43 🙌🙌🙌
🍢🍢🍢 Florida State 35 🍢🍢🍢
Third-ranked Miami …. who did NOT lose!
If the Canes had lost, it would’ve been the first day in college football history where the top three teams in the AP poll all lost on the same day. Miami will almost definitely be the top team in the poll by default; it hasn’t been ranked No. 1 since 2002, the midst of The U era.
🌰🌰🌰 No. 4 Ohio State 19 🌰🌰🌰
𝚿𝚿𝚿 No. 5 Indiana 14 𝚿𝚿𝚿
Indiana was a few inches from Nick Marsh scoring a go-ahead touchdown in the final minute. The receiver lost track of where he was on the field and couldn’t keep both feet inbounds. (The blame isn’t all on Marsh; he could’ve gotten a better throw from QB Josh Hoover.) It felt like the reverse of Indiana’s unbelievable game-winning, toe-tapping TD against Penn State last year.
🙋🙋🙋 No. 12 Tennessee 26 🙋🙋🙋
🐘🐘🐘 No. 6 Alabama 10 🐘🐘🐘
The Vols iced this one with a 15-play, 9-minute drive that ended with six straight runs by DeSean Bishop scored out of the Maryland I formation. Bama knew what was coming and couldn’t stop it.
After losing 15 straight to the Tide from 2007 to 2021, Tennessee has now beaten Alabama each of the last three times this game has been played in Knoxville. It’s the first time Alabama has lost back-to-back regular-season games since Nick Saban’s first year in 2007, when the Tide lost to ULM and Auburn to close the year. (Again, you’re gonna keep seeing 2007 come.)
🐊🐊🐊 Florida 27 🐊🐊🐊
🤘🤘🤘 No. 7 Texas 24 🤘🤘🤘
Texas followed up last week’s loss to unranked Oklahoma with a loss to unranked Florida; it’s the first time a team has gone from No. 1 in the AP poll to back-to-back losses to unranked opponents since 1961. (That Michigan State team somehow remained in the top 10 after that; I don’t think Texas will be viewed as favorably.)
Arch Manning, hailed since high school as God’s gift to quarterback play, was outplayed by Florida’s backup QB, Tramell Jones Jr.; the discourse around Manning’s career is going to go nuclear in the coming days.
This remarkable week of college football comes on the heels of a potentially massive change to the shape of the sport: On Friday, ESPN reported that it had reached a deal with the College Football Playoff that will expand the championship format to 24 teams. It’s a decision so unpopular that multiple ESPN personalities went on ESPN networks and talked openly about how ESPN’s decision was bad. (Believe it or not, you can watch some of these videos on ESPN.)
It’s plainly clear how this change would dull the impact of a day like this one. Saturday’s losses put teams like Texas and Alabama on life support; in a 24-team format, they’ll probably need to lose two or three more games to get eliminated.
There’s a little Chicken Little here. This sport used to have a two-team championship game, then it expanded to a four-team playoff, which then tripled to 12 teams. Each expansion was met with cries that the regular season was being devalued, and I can confirm: The regular season still kicks ass.
But it does feel like each expansion takes a little bit of the kick out of America’s spiciest sport. How long until we’re eating flavorless slop?
🦫🦫🦫 Dam it! 🦫🦫🦫
🦫🦫🦫 Oregon State 48 🦫🦫🦫
🍎🍎🍎 Washington State 30 🍎🍎🍎
Another week, another bucket of Beaver points. Oregon State has won five in a row — putting up 52, 33, 56, 66, and 48 points — and got another massive touchdown from superstar freshman Jesse Legree. Ninety of those yards came on this score:
The Beavs were discarded by the power structure of college football, left behind in the 2022-23 round of realignment that saw the Pac-12 collapse and leave OSU homeless. But they’ve quickly put together the most exciting offense in college football
Everything in college football revolves around what conference you’re in. If you’re in a power conference, you get a lot of money and people pay attention to you. If you’re not, well, sorry, they’re not looking for new members.
Oregon State used to be in a power conference. When the Pac-12 fell apart, it couldn’t find a new league. For two years, the conference had just two teams in it — Oregon State and Washington State — watching from the sidelines of the sport. while everybody else had something to play for.
Things looked bleak. Last year, the Beavers went 2-10 against a bizarre hodgepodge of opponents and fired their coach, Trent Bray. Their first choice to replace him, Montana State’s Brent Vigen, turned down the Beavers to coach his team in the FCS playoffs. (The Bobcats won the title — not a bad call.)
They turned to some folks who weren’t getting a lot of attention elsewhere. They hired Alabama’s co-offensive coordinator, JaMarcus Shephard, who recruited quarterback Braden Atkinson from FCS Mercer — and an undersized receiver from Maryland named Jesse Legree, who literally had no other college scholarship offers. (There were some reports that schools like Temple were interested in Legree as a defensive back; it’s unclear how serious these offers were.)
It’s all clicking. Shephard has put together a blistering pass-first, pass-second, pass-third attack. Atkinson leads the nation in passing yardage and passing touchdowns.
And oh boy: Jesse Legree. Like Atkinson, Legree leads the nation in receiving touchdowns and receiving yardage. He’s won Pac-12 Freshman of the Week in back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back weeks. (No word on whether he won Week 7 yet.) Last week, Legree became the first Oregon State receiver with six straight 100-yard games; he did it in the first six games of his freshman season.
And nobody was recruiting this guy. At all.
For a fuller breakdown of the Beavs and their return from college football oblivion: Here’s the Week 7 episode of my weekly series at Split Zone Duo, Team of the Week, about OSU.
I’m trying not to do too much overlap between this weekly column and that weekly podcast episode … but my love for the Beavs is so thorough that I couldn’t resist.
🎱🏉🥎 Ball State 32 🔮🎾🏐
🎳🌱 Bowling Green 31 🎳🌱
Game of the week, tbh. (Besides all the thrilling upsets mentioned up there, I guess.) Ball State hit on a last-second touchdown …
Then in overtime, the Cardinals went for two and the win. The play got blown up, with QB Keldric Luster going farther and farther and farther back … and then he threw a dime for the W.
⛰ West Virginia 45 ⛰
🐻🐈⬛ Cincinnati 42 🐻🐈⬛
There have been two 45-42 football games this season — West Virginia’s win over Cincinnati and its loss to Iowa State. Salute to the Mountaineers, forever scoring and allowing a lot of points.
🦆 Oregon 17 🦆
🌽 Nebraska 14 🌽
Oregon started walk-on QB Brock Thomas, but benched him for former Nebraska star Dylan Raiola after three quarters (at approximately 2 a.m. Eastern time); it was a good call for the Ducks and for the drama, as Oregon’s offense immediately perked up with the former 5-star at QB.
〽️ Michigan 21 〽️
🖋️ Penn State 18 🖋️
Another entry in the “backup QB completely transforms the offense” chronicles: After a scoreless first half, Michigan benched Bryce Underwood, the disappointing No. 1 prospect in the 2025 recruiting class, for Tommy Carr, who led Michigan on all three scoring drives. The good news is Underwood can transfer to Oregon, where he can back up Raiola next year.
🐈 Ohio 48 🐈
🐝 Sacramento State 7 🐝
A few weeks ago, I used my spot on the SZD Team Of The Week to identify the Charlotte 49ers as the worst team in college football. I was wrong. It’s Sacramento State. Apologies for the confusion.
😈 Northwestern 27 😈
🇬🇷 Michigan State 24 🇬🇷
Honestly, you guys are lucky. I could have devoted this entire newsletter to former Michigan State QB Aidan Chiles leading Northwestern to a win over Michigan State, led by former Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald, thanks to a last-minute blocked field goal.
Instead I’m putting it all the way at the bottom, mainly to make up for the number of newsletters that begin and end with me talking about the 2026 NBA champion New York Knicks.
