Upsets Shake Top of College Football Rankings

Five of the top seven teams in the Associated Press Top 25 lost on the same regular-season day, a first in the poll’s history, which dates to 1936. No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 5 Indiana, No. 6 Alabama and No. 7 Texas all fell. Eight ranked teams lost overall. The Nos. 1 and 2 teams hadn’t both lost on the same regular-season day since 2012.

The damage stretched across the country. Miami, 6-0, survived a double-overtime game against rival Florida State, winning 43-35, and stood to take the poll’s top spot for the first time since 2002. Ohio State, 6-1, beat Indiana 19-15. BYU, 6-0, beat Notre Dame 28-24. Mississippi, 5-1, routed No. 13 Missouri 31-3. Texas Tech, 6-0, beat Arizona State 53-25, while Utah, 6-0, held off Colorado 27-24. Georgia, Notre Dame and Indiana could all slide after close losses. Tennessee, 6-1, was poised to climb after beating Alabama 26-10.

The Georgia Collapse

Georgia’s loss stood out. The Bulldogs fell 27-24 at home to unranked Auburn, which won on Alex McPherson’s 34-yard field goal. Auburn beat a No. 1 team on the road for the first time since 2007, according to Fox. It was also the first time since 1990 that the top-ranked team lost to an unranked opponent in consecutive weeks, after Texas lost to Oklahoma the previous week. Georgia had beaten unranked opponents 53 straight times before Saturday.

Auburn’s Gunner Stockton threw two interceptions and lost a fumble, but the Tigers still came through. The score stood at 24-24 with 58 seconds left when Auburn drove 40 yards, helped in part by a Georgia penalty, before McPherson made the winning kick. Close losses can punish a team in the rankings, and Georgia must now answer for a result its own offense did little to prevent.

The Final Play in Provo

BYU’s 28-24 win over Notre Dame ended in a dispute that won't fade quietly. With one second left, Notre Dame quarterback CJ Carr threw into the end zone; the pass was deflected and fell incomplete. The Athletic said the play should have drawn a pass-interference flag against BYU. The Big 12 later conceded that one more second should’ve remained on the clock, saying in a statement that the play “was incorrectly cleared by the replay officiating crew.” The conference said it would conduct a complete review of its end-of-game officiating process before next week’s games. Fox reported the ruling would have given Notre Dame one final play from the BYU 8-yard line. Thousands of fans rushed the field after the final whistle. Now the conference has to explain itself.

Playoff Picture and the SEC

The Southeastern Conference had no unbeaten teams in conference play, and 11 SEC teams have one or two losses. The Athletic noted the SEC was 38-2 in nonconference play, including 10-2 against other power conferences, making the league’s struggles in conference play harder to explain away. This was the first season with a nine-game SEC schedule. The Athletic also pointed out that no 9-3 team has ever reached the 12-team College Football Playoff as an at-large selection, and those losses could cost the SEC playoff places.

The conference’s own ranking, described as one of “vibes” that reflects momentum rather than pure team quality, put Kentucky first after a 21-13 win at Oklahoma, followed by Tennessee, Auburn and Florida. Kentucky, 6-1 overall and 4-1 in the SEC, has a remaining schedule that could make it a test case for a 9-3 playoff bid. Florida has several possible paths forward, while LSU would need road wins at Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas to make a playoff run.

Why This Matters:

The Associated Press poll and the College Football Playoff are about to carry more weight than ever. This weekend showed how fast that weight can shift. Georgia, Texas and Alabama were all expected to stay near the top, and each has now lost to a team it was expected to beat. Texas dropped its second straight game, 27-24 at home to Florida, where a backup quarterback made his first career start. Florida’s backup quarterback’s emergence and Steve Sarkisian’s vow to “evaluate everything,” without ruling out benching Arch Manning, point to a Longhorns program searching for answers. Fox also reported that officials had agreed before the weekend to expand the College Football Playoff to 24 teams next season, raising questions about whether a larger bracket could change what the regular season means. Teams have spent more than $35 million assembling rosters in the revenue-sharing era, and results that grow harder to predict each week will measure that investment. A bigger playoff rewards more teams, but it can also dilute the value of finishing near the top. Whether that trade-off serves fans, schools and the sport’s competitive balance remains an open question.