In Week 8, college football officially got cranky. Georgia emerged from its 30-15 statement win over Texas raging at officials and leaning as hard as ever into “No one believes in us” nonsense. Alabama and Tennessee could only fight the officials to a draw during a penalty festival in Knoxville, one that put Bama’s playoff hopes in at least a little bit of danger. Oklahoma suffered its worst home loss since 2014. Michigan lost to Illinois for the first time since 2009. East Carolina became the first school of the season to fire its head coach.

We’re just over two weeks away from the first College Football Playoff rankings of the season — obviously the only intense and important thing happening Nov. 5 — and everyone is a little fired up. But after a recent run of huge top-five matchups and wild results, what has actually changed? Critics of the expanded playoff talked a lot about how the regular season would be diminished in intensity and importance, and while the former has been laughably untrue, how much have 2024’s upsets and big games actually shifted the odds when it comes to making the 12-team playoff or winning the national title? With Georgia’s win over Texas officially giving us zero unbeaten SEC teams, now seems like as good a time as any to compare current odds to those from back when everyone was 0-0.

Jump to a section:
Preseason favorites’ outlook
Playoff stock worst fallers
Playoff stock top risers
Week’s biggest surprises
Heisman of week
10 favorite games

What’s changed for the preseason favorites?

Heading into the season, the Allstate Playoff Predictor gave seven teams at least a 40% chance of reaching the first 12-team CFP: Georgia, Oregon, Texas, Ohio State, Alabama, Penn State and Notre Dame. Those teams boasted a combined 76% chance of winning the national title; eight weeks in, they’re at 69% combined. That’s not a huge difference. But each team’s outlook has shifted in at least semi-meaningful ways.

(Note: The below odds come from the Allstate Playoff Predictor.)

Current odds of reaching the CFP: 86.6% (up from 79.1% in the preseason)

Current odds of winning the title: 10.9% (down from 21.3%)

No team seems to reflect the change in CFP stakes more than the ever-so-disrespected winner of two of the past three national titles. Disrespect king Kirby Smart got his team to play its best game of the season against the No. 1 Longhorns in Austin on Saturday night; the Dawgs roared to a 23-0 halftime lead, weathered a third-quarter charge, then suffocated the game in the late stages.

It was a nice reminder of the way the New England Patriots used to work through an NFL season in third gear, collecting information and occasionally suffering frustrating results, only to shift into fifth gear in the playoffs. Georgia has basically looked like a top-five team for four of 14 halves this season, but those four were the second half against Clemson, the second half against Alabama and both halves against Texas. The Dawgs won two of those games by a combined 46 points and nearly pulled off a record comeback against Bama too. Their ceiling is still immense. But they show us that ceiling only when they must.

Still, while the Dawgs’ playoff chances have risen despite the loss to Bama, the loss made them vulnerable, dropping their odds of getting a first-round bye from 33.0% in the preseason to 18.6% and therefore lowering their title odds from 21.3% to 10.9%. Those odds might be artificially low because predictive metrics count every game, not just the important ones, and noticed Georgia’s mediocre performances against Kentucky and Mississippi State. Regardless, the first-round bye is a huge deal, and Georgia still has a lot of work to do to procure one.

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Current odds of reaching the CFP: 86.6% (up from 74.8%)

Current odds of winning the title: 7.0% (down from 12.8%)

Despite playing with fire in the first two weeks against Idaho and Boise State, Oregon emerged from an early-season slumber still unbeaten and shifted into gear in October. The Ducks beat Ohio State in a mammoth Week 7 contest and have won their last four non-Buckeyes games by an average of 37-9.

Like Georgia, however, their chances of making the playoff have gone up while their chances of winning it have gone down. That primarily appears to be because (A) both the FPI and SP+ are still indeed counting those narrow early-season wins and (B) both the FPI and SP+ still really like Ohio State and would favor the Buckeyes in a Big Ten championship game rematch.

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Current odds of reaching the CFP: 78.0% (up from 67.9%)

Current odds of winning the title: 18.7% (up from 11.6%)

From over 90% a week ago, Texas’ playoff odds slid following the loss to Georgia, but only so much. The Longhorns are still in great shape, even in a crowded SEC race, and both the FPI and SP+ think the Longhorns would have a solid chance in a rematch with Georgia (or against anyone else) in the SEC championship game. It will be interesting to see how the Horns respond to Saturday’s setback, especially in this coming weekend’s trip to Nashville to face Vanderbilt, aka the trap game team of 2024. But everything is still pointed in the right direction here.

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Current odds of reaching the CFP: 78.6% (up from 67.0%)

Current odds of winning the title: 18.3% (up from 10.5%)

Ohio State moved back up to No. 1 in SP+ and the FPI this week without playing. The Buckeyes could have made themselves the resounding Big Ten favorites with a win in Eugene and couldn’t get it done, but they’re still in great position … as long as they win in State College in a couple of weeks. Ohio State at Penn State is the Big Ten’s next Game of the Century of the Week, and Ryan Day’s squad will have a very different outlook if it comes away from that one with a second loss.

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Current odds of reaching the CFP: 44.3% (down from 57.2%)

Current odds of winning the title: 5.1% (down from 8.3%)

Just three weeks ago, Bama was in the catbird seat after a classic win over Georgia. The Tide have not looked like a playoff team since. They have underachieved against SP+ projections by an average of 18.2 points in their past three games, suffering losses to Vandy and Tennessee and nearly falling to South Carolina in between. They’ll host Missouri this weekend as the No. 15 team in the AP poll — the last time they played ranked that low was in the final game of the 2010 season, when an angry three-loss Bama mauled Michigan State in the Capital One Bowl.

And yet, Alabama’s playoff odds are still quite healthy. Playoff odds are as much art as math right now — we don’t know for sure how the CFP committee will judge or react to the newly superpowered SEC and Big Ten until we see them do it — and I wouldn’t advise Bama to suffer a third loss. But their odds of winning out and finishing 10-2 are still pretty solid, and that’s driving a good portion of their playoff odds.

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Current odds of reaching the CFP: 72.7% (up from 58.8%)

Current odds of winning the title: 4.5% (down from 6.4%)

James Franklin’s Nittany Lions have raised their playoff odds the old-fashioned way: by grinding out wins. They have yet to face an opponent in the SP+ top 25 — a run that will end with games against Wisconsin and Ohio State in the next two weeks — but they handed Illinois its only loss and came back from a poor start to win at USC. They’re sixth in SP+ and ninth in the FPI, which relegates them to “secondary contender” status, but they are still in great shape to land in the field of 12.

Now really isn’t the best time to travel to Madison, though. Wisconsin has surged from 66th to 30th in SP+ after outscoring its past three opponents by a combined 121-16. If the Nittany Lions fall to both the Badgers and Buckeyes, their playoff odds will look very, very different in two weeks.

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Current odds of reaching the CFP: 56.1% (down from 58.8%)

Current odds of winning the title: 4.8% (down from 5.0%)

Heading into 2024, Notre Dame appeared to have two major games in the first eight weeks: at Texas A&M in Week 1 and vs. Louisville in Week 5. The Fighting Irish won both, but their playoff odds are basically the same as when the season began. Why? The Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois, of course.

Combined with the fact that upcoming opponents Florida State and USC are a combined 4-10, the upset loss eliminated basically all margin for error from the Irish’s schedule. They still have solid playoff odds primarily because they have a decent chance of winning out, but neutral-site games against both Navy (Week 9) and Army (Week 13) look infinitely trickier than they did at the start of the season. The Irish have looked the part of late, but another slipup could be devastating.

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Whose playoff stock has fallen the most?

If you were a critic of playoff expansion, the fact that the seven above teams have six combined losses but are all still at least reasonably healthy in the playoff hunt is probably a major reason. But the games themselves — and the environments they’ve been played in — have been as intense and incredible as ever, even if the stakes have been more, “If we lose, we might not get a playoff bye” instead of, “If we lose, our season might be over.”

Make no mistake, however: The playoff outlook has changed for a lot of teams. Quite a few that entered 2024 with a puncher’s chance at a run are now pretty much done for the season.

Ten largest decreases in playoff odds

1. Oklahoma (4-3): down 36.2 percentage points, from 36.5% in preseason to 0.3% now

2. Florida State (1-6): down 36.2 percentage points, from 36.2% to 0.0%

3. Michigan (4-3): down 28.1 percentage points, from 28.1% to 0.0%

4. Kansas (2-5): down 24.6 percentage points, from 24.6% to 0.0%

5. Missouri (6-1): down 21.5 percentage points, from 37.2% to 15.7%

6. Louisville (4-3): down 17.6 percentage points, from 18.2% to 0.6%

7. Arizona (3-4): down 16.0 percentage points, from 16.0% to 0.0%

8. UTSA (3-4): down 14.8 percentage points, from 14.8% to 0.0%

9. James Madison (5-2): down 14.5 percentage points, from 14.5% to 0.0%

10. NC State (4-4): down 13.8 percentage points, from 13.8% to 0.0%

This is a solid list of the most disappointing teams in the sport. A couple just haven’t gotten the breaks they needed in close games: Kansas and Louisville, for instance, are a combined 1-7 in one-score finishes, proving they can compete with just about anybody but are also unable to finish. Kansas ended a five-game losing streak with a blowout of Houston on Saturday; the Jayhawks have won two games by 73 combined points while losing five by a combined 28. That’s hard to do. Louisville, meanwhile, landed plenty of shots against Notre Dame, SMU and Miami (combined record: 18-2) and lost to all three by seven points each. There’s still a “win out and hope that one of the ACC favorites falls apart” scenario that the Cardinals can cling to for a bit longer, but they’re all but done in the CFP and ACC races.

Other teams just failed to show up in 2024. Oklahoma entered the SEC with its worst offensive line of the 21st century, then watched a large portion of its receiving corps get hurt. Michigan won the national title, then forgot it needed a new quarterback. Florida State got outrageously snubbed from last year’s CFP, then evidently decided to stop playing football. Arizona has put out major “one-hit wonder” vibes, quickly falling back to earth after last year’s shocking 10-win run. And even with Saturday’s rousing comeback win at Cal — another team snakebitten in close games — NC State has been disappointing on both offense and defense. The Wolfpack thought they had dark-horse ACC title potential but instead fell to the only two strong teams they’ve played (Tennessee and Clemson) by a combined 110-45 and lost at home to Wake Forest and Syracuse as well.

The one odd duck on this list: Missouri. The Tigers are 6-1 and still technically in the playoff running after saving themselves with a late comeback win over Auburn on Saturday. But their level of play just hasn’t been playoff-worthy; they needed late heroics to beat Vanderbilt, Boston College and Auburn, all at home, and their only currently ranked opponent to date, Texas A&M, handled them in College Station. If they don’t start playing like a CFP contender, they will cease to be one after this Saturday’s trip to Tuscaloosa.

That said, if they were looking for a shot in the arm, Brady Cook might have given it to them Saturday. After injuring an ankle on the first drive of the game, he was taken to the hospital for an MRI, then suited back up, took the field and led Mizzou back from a 17-6 fourth-quarter deficit. Jamal Roberts’ 4-yard touchdown run with 46 seconds left capped a 17-play, 95-yard drive and gave the home Tigers the win.

“Mizzou means so much to me.” 🥹

An emotional Brady Cook after @MizzouFootball‘s win against Auburn. pic.twitter.com/fXyIBf9Eg2

— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) October 19, 2024

Both Cook and the Mizzou offense have underachieved for the season as a whole, and it’s hard to imagine the Tigers winning in Tuscaloosa with a QB on one good leg. But if nothing else, Saturday proved that motivation hasn’t exactly been the underlying problem.

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Whose playoff stock has risen the most?

It is a zero-sum game of sorts: For every disappointment, there is a thrilling upstart. We have not lacked in that department this season. Miami’s charge to 7-0 wasn’t the most surprising thing in the world — the Hurricanes have not lacked for talent in the Mario Cristobal era — but plenty of other teams began the season with minuscule hopes at best and are now dreaming of a December run.

Ten largest increases in playoff odds

1. Miami (7-0): up 68.6 percentage points, from 17.4% in preseason to 86.0% now

2. Indiana (7-0): up 63.0 percentage points, from 0.6% to 63.6%

3. Iowa State (7-0): up 44.0 percentage points, from 4.7% to 48.7%

4. BYU (7-0): up 40.8 percentage points, from 0.7% to 41.5%

5. Boise State (5-1): up 31.1 percentage points, from 15.4% to 46.5%

6. Tennessee (6-1): up 30.4 percentage points, from 36.4% to 66.8%

7. Army (7-0): up 24.9 percentage points, from 0.2% to 25.1%

8. Kansas State (6-1): up 16.1 percentage points, from 21.2% to 37.3%

9. UNLV (6-1): up 15.8 percentage points, from 1.0% to 16.8%

10. LSU (6-1): up 14.3 percentage points, from 25.4% to 39.7%

Miami, Indiana, Iowa State, BYU, Army and Navy (which nearly made the list) combined to go 33-41 last season; they’re 41-0 this year. All six have either matched or exceeded last year’s win totals, two of them (Miami and Iowa State) have emerged as conference title favorites and, according to the latest projections, an average of 2.7 of them will make the CFP this season.

These are all such cool stories. I spend a good chunk of my offseason attempting to fine-tune the preseason SP+ projections to be as accurate as possible, but nothing makes me happier than when an upstart completely defies those projections. SP+ had an inkling that Miami and Iowa State could be good, but the other four came out of nowhere.

Granted, there has been some good fortune along the way. Miami’s increasingly flawed defense has forced the offense to win three straight track meets by scores of 38-34, 39-38 and 52-45. Iowa State needed last-minute magic to beat both Iowa and UCF, and three of BYU’s past six wins were by one score as well. (That’s how things go in the Big 12: The separation in talent is almost nonexistent, and the teams that win big are the ones kissed by the god of close games.)

Meanwhile, Indiana’s fortune just took a hit. Even as ESPN was announcing that “College GameDay” will make its first-ever appearance in Bloomington this week, word came out that quarterback Kurtis Rourke will miss an undefined amount of time with a thumb injury. Rourke has been borderline Heisman-level good, and his absence will hurt. But you don’t romp to 7-0 — average score: Indiana 49, opponent 14 — if you’re good only at QB.

Also: Hello there, LSU. The Tigers once again lost their first game of the season (this time to USC) and disappeared from the playoff radar a bit, but after six straight wins and a 3-0 start in SEC play, they’re suddenly the No. 2 favorite in the SEC per SP+ and No. 4 per the FPI. We’ll see if that remains the case after their next two games: at Texas A&M in Week 9 and vs. Alabama in Week 11.

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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.

Indiana 56, Nebraska 7 (projection: IU by 5.2). Nebraska had overachieved against SP+ projections in five of six games this season, rising to 22nd in the process. And then the Huskers went to Bloomington. This was one of the more resounding performances we’ve seen this season.

South Carolina 35, Oklahoma 9 (projection: OU by 5.5). Everywhere we look are reminders of how much college football has changed in recent days, weeks, months and years. But just in case we needed one more, “Nebraska and Oklahoma losing to Indiana and South Carolina by a combined 91-16” should suffice.

Baylor 59, Texas Tech 35 (projection: Tech by 4.7). My running joke has been that Baylor keeps fighting hard enough to get its heart broken every week. (Well, that’s probably not a joke to Bears fans, but still.) On Saturday in Lubbock, they got on top of Tech and took out weeks of frustration. It was 24-21 with seven minutes left in the third quarter … and 52-21 with about 10 minutes left in the fourth.

Colorado 34, Arizona 7 (projection: Arizona by 1.3). After Week 2’s disappointing performance against Nebraska, Colorado was 1-1 and 79th in SP+. The Buffs have overachieved against projections by 19.0 points per game since and have risen into the top 40. Their Week 7 loss to Kansas State is still keeping them out of the top tier in the Big 12 contenders list, but they’re only a couple of plot twists away at this point.

Georgia Southern 28, James Madison 14 (projection: JMU by 13.1). Since joining the FBS, Georgia Southern has played five games against ranked opponents at home. The Eagles are 3-2 in those games, 2-0 against ranked JMU teams. Paulson Stadium remains a cauldron.

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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. I’m not going to lie: This might be the weirdest top 10 I’ve ever produced — even weirder than last week, when a tight end (Penn State’s Tyler Warren) ranked No. 1.

1. Ethan Garbers, UCLA (32-for-38 passing for 383 yards and four touchdowns, plus 62 non-sack rushing yards and a score against Rutgers).

2. Bhayshul Tuten, Virginia Tech (18 carries for 266 yards and three touchdowns, plus 20 receiving yards and a touchdown against Boston College).

3. Bryson Daily, Army (7-for-10 passing for 147 yards and one touchdown, plus 171 rushing yards and five touchdowns against East Carolina).

4. Cam Ward, Miami (21-for-32 passing for 319 yards and four touchdowns, plus 50 non-sack rushing yards against Louisville).

5. Daylen Everette, Georgia (7 tackles, 1 sack, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery, 1 interception against Texas).

6. Antwaun Powell-Ryland, Virginia Tech (7 tackles, 4 sacks and 1 fumble recovery against Boston College)

7. Billy Edwards Jr., Maryland (39-for-50 passing for 373 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT, plus 23 non-sack rushing yards and a touchdown against USC).

8. Dashaun Peele, Navy (3 tackles, 1 sack, 1 pass breakup and 2 pick-sixes against Charlotte).

9. John Mateer, Washington State (23-for-27 passing for 295 yards and three touchdowns, plus 45 non-sack rushing yards and 2 scores against Hawaii).

10. Ben Wooldridge, Louisiana (27-for-36 for 373 yards and three touchdowns, plus a rushing touchdown against Coastal Carolina).

Eight of this week’s top 10 are making the list for the first time all season; the only repeats: Ward and Powell-Ryland, who now has two four-TFL performances this season.

The week belonged to Garbers. It was impossible to see that one coming. Over the past three games, he had one touchdown pass to five interceptions and had missed UCLA’s first cross-country conference road trip (at Penn State) with injury. Then he flew to New Jersey and played almost perfect ball in an upset. Consider that a fun reminder of the unpredictability of college football players.

Honorable mention:

• Mario Anderson Jr., Memphis (22 carries for 183 yards and four touchdowns, plus 27 receiving yards against North Texas).

• Jalon Daniels, Kansas (16-for-21 passing for 247 yards and three touchdowns, plus 58 non-sack rushing yards and a score against Houston).

• Nick Emmanwori, South Carolina (11 tackles, 1 TFL, 2 interceptions, 1 pick-six against Oklahoma).

• Jayden Jones, Arkansas State (8 tackles, 3 TFLs, 2 sacks, 1 forced fumble and 1 interception against Southern Miss).

• Dylan Sampson, Tennessee (26 carries for 139 yards and 2 touchdowns against Alabama).

• A.J. Turner, Marshall (15 carries for 177 yards and three touchdowns, plus 30 receiving yards and a touchdown against Georgia State).

• Mykel Williams, Georgia (3 tackles, 2 sacks, 1 forced fumble against Texas).

Through eight weeks, here are your points leaders:

1. Ashton Jeanty, Boise State (41 points)
2. Cam Ward, Miami (40)
3T. Jalen Milroe, Alabama (18)
3T. Dillon Gabriel, Oregon (18)
5. Travis Hunter, Colorado (17)
6T. Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss (14)
6T. Kurtis Rourke, Indiana (14)
8. Cam Skattebo, Arizona State (12)
9T. Alonza Barnett III, JMU (10)
9T. Ethan Garbers, UCLA (10)
9T. Blake Horvath, Navy (10)
9T. Cade Klubnik, Clemson (10)
9T. Arch Manning, Texas (10)
9T. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (10)
9T. Antwaun Powell-Ryland, Virginia Tech (10)
9T. Tyler Warren, Penn State (10)

According to ESPN BET’s current Heisman betting odds, we’ve got a three-man race between Jeanty, Ward and Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel. According to our points race, it’s a two-man race. There’s still time for someone to go on a run (including Gabriel), but we know who the two best players in the country have been to date.

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My 10 favorite games of the weekend

1. No. 13 BYU 38, Oklahoma State 35. Friday nights have delivered this season. Oklahoma State entered this game with loads of defensive injuries, lost starting quarterback Garret Rangel, lost star running back Ollie Gordon II for a bit and continued to fight and claw, taking the lead with 73 seconds left. Sixty-three seconds later, Darius Lassiter happened.

ARE U KIDDING!!?

BYU COMES UP CLUTCH IN THE FINAL SECONDS 😳 pic.twitter.com/TVT3xeRivt

— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) October 19, 2024

2. No. 19 Missouri 21, Auburn 17. Fifty years from now, Missouri fans will regale each other with the story of how Brady Cook arose from a coma, sprinted out of the hospital and led two late scoring drives to save Mizzou’s homecoming (and, technically, its CFP hopes).

3. Maryland 29, USC 28. It was the underachiever battle of Week 8: USC vs. October Maryland. The Trojans took a 14-point lead late in the first half and still led by six with two minutes left, when Donnell Brown blocked what would have been a game-clinching 41-yard field goal. Five plays and 47 yards later, Maryland led. (The Terps pulled the “When you’re down 14, go for 2 if you score a touchdown — if you make it, you have a chance to win outright with another TD and PAT, and if you fail, you get another chance to try to tie” gambit perfectly.)

4. No. 9 Iowa State 38, UCF 35. In my Friday preview column, I joked that, since I had officially given up on UCF, the Knights would of course play their best game of the season. They then went up 28-14 on unbeaten ISU in Ames. They still led by eight following a very silly interception return and short TD run, but Iowa State just kept grinding away and scored the game winner with 30 seconds left.

5. Division II: No. 11 Central Oklahoma 64, Northeastern State (Okla.) 57. We’ve had some fun popcorn-flick, track-meet style games in FBS of late, but this was the track meet of the season. Northeastern State took a 40-14 lead in the final minute of the first half, UCO tied the game at 43-43 barely 10 minutes later, NSU went back up 57-43, then UCO scored three touchdowns in the final 12 minutes and made a late stop to win a game that featured 1,153 yards and a whopping eight turnovers.

6. Eastern Michigan 38, Central Michigan 34. This one was like UCO-NSU, only with a more rational number of points. CMU led 34-16 with 11 minutes left, but two long Cole Snyder-to-Terry Lockett touchdown passes got EMU back to within three, then Snyder sneaked in from the 1 with 1:42 remaining to move EMU to 5-2 for the season. You don’t just waltz into The Factory and expect a three-score lead to hold up!

7. FCS: Sacramento State 51, Weber State 48 (2OT). Why do things the easy way when you can do them the hard way? Sacramento State was leading 41-24 early in the fourth quarter and had driven to the WSU 8, but Frankie Edwards’ 95-yard pick-six triggered a 17-0 run for the visiting Wildcats, and the game went to OT. Sac State took another lead in OT1, and WSU tied it again. But after a 36-yard Zach Schreiner field goal gave the Hornets yet another lead, WSU’s Kyle Thompson couldn’t match it. He missed a 27-yarder and SSU somehow won after all.

Weber State misses the FG! Hornets win in double OT! #StingersUp pic.twitter.com/0n4wTxXlS5

— Sac State Football (@SacHornetsFB) October 20, 2024

8. No. 6 Miami 52, Louisville 45. All this game was missing was a great final act. Louisville charged back from 14 down to tie the game at 38-38 early in the fourth quarter, but Miami drove 80 yards for a score, forced a punt, drove 80 yards again and basically put it away. The Hurricanes’ defense isn’t even remotely trustworthy right now, but they made just enough plays in Louisville.

9. Division III: No. 11 Wisconsin-River Falls 40, Wisconsin-Stout 37 (OT). What would a column of mine be without a trip to the WIAC? Division III’s deepest and wildest conference produced another classic Saturday when Wisconsin-Stout, fresh off of its first win over Wisconsin-Whitewater in 23 years, nearly pulled off another stunner. The Blue Devils led 27-6 at halftime, but UWRF tied the game with a pick-six early in the fourth quarter, then tied it again with seven minutes left. The teams traded missed field goals late, but down three in OT, Cade Fitzgerald’s 2-yard sneak sealed UWRF’s comeback win.

Falcons win it in OT 🥳🏈

No. 10-ranked @UWRFFootball was down 27-6 at halftime before storming back to win 40-37 over UW-Stout with a Cade Fitzgerald rushing touchdown!#FFT #d3fb pic.twitter.com/vplXCZbb2y

— UW-River Falls Athletics (@UWRFFalcons) October 19, 2024

10. New Mexico 50, Utah State 45. Bronco Mendenhall’s first UNM team might not be very good, but the Lobos fight. And after an 0-4 start, the Lobos have won three in a row, scoring at least 50 points each time. They trailed USU 17-0 early in the second quarter and 38-23 midway through the third, but they scored TDs on seven of their last nine drives. Eli Sanders’ second TD run gave them the lead, and Dimitri Johnson’s interception sealed the deal.

Some honorable mentions for you:

FCS: Harvard 35, Holy Cross 34
NC State 24, Cal 23
New Mexico State 33, Louisiana Tech 30 (2OT)
FCS: No. 2 North Dakota State 13, No. 1 South Dakota State 9
D-II: No. 9 Ouachita Baptist 17, No. 1 Harding 13
No. 11 Tennessee 24, No. 7 Alabama 17

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The midweek playlist

We’ve got football on every single day now, and before my Friday preview we’ll have seen a very intriguing Thursday doubleheader.

Syracuse at No. 19 Pitt (Thursday, 7:30 p.m., ESPN). Just as we all predicted, these old Big East rivals are a combined 11-1, and while Pitt has a brutal homestretch — at SMU in Week 10, Clemson in Week 12, at Louisville in Week 13 — the unbeaten Panthers are, well, unbeaten! They’re contenders until they’re not. This one’s going to be a tussle, though.

Georgia Southern at Old Dominion (Thursday, 7 p.m., ESPN2). Clay Helton and Georgia Southern have positioned themselves as Sun Belt East favorites following Saturday’s win over James Madison, and per SP+, only Louisiana has a better shot at the conference title. But after an 0-3 start, ODU has won three of four and is coming off a surprisingly easy win over Texas State. The Monarchs haven’t finished in the SP+ top 100 since 2016, but they’re now up to 97th.