One of the most anticipated weekends on the 2025 college football calendar is upon us.

The headliner comes Saturday night when No. 6 Oregon visits No. 3 Penn State. A potentially season-defining occasion, the clash of Big Ten powers, will test quarterbacks Drew Allar (Penn State) and Dante Moore (Oregon), Nittany Lions coach James Franklin and the Ducks’ backbone as they step into the hostile confines of Beaver Stadium in Week 5.

Elsewhere, eyes will fall on a trio of juicy SEC matchups: Alabama–Georgia, Auburn–Texas A&M and Ole Miss–LSU, all of which could hold significant implications for the conference title race and the College Football Playoff field.

Ahead of a series of high-level games, our college football reporters deliver their insights on keys to the weekend’s biggest matchups, five quarterbacks putting themselves on the map this fall and the best quotes so far from Week 5. — Eli Lederman

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Georgia-Alabama | Quarterbacks to know
Key conference matchups
Quotes of the Week

What does each team need to capitalize on to win?

Georgia: If the Bulldogs are going to defeat the Crimson Tide for only the second time in the past 11 meetings, they’ll have to avoid getting themselves in another big hole — and take advantage of playing Alabama at home for the first time in nearly 10 years.

In last season’s 41-34 loss in Tuscaloosa, the Bulldogs trailed by three touchdowns before the end of the first quarter and by 28 points less than 18 minutes into the game. Georgia put together a furious rally in the fourth quarter, scoring three straight touchdowns to grab a 34-33 lead.

The Crimson Tide won on Jalen Milroe‘s 75-yard scoring pass to Ryan Williams with 2:18 to go.

Georgia had a similar slow start in its 44-41 victory in overtime at Tennessee on Sept. 13. The Volunteers scored touchdowns on their first three possessions to take a 21-7 lead, and the Bulldogs had to come from behind on the road. They were fortunate that Tennessee missed a 43-yard field goal attempt to take the lead near the end of regulation.

The Bulldogs didn’t do a good job of containing Milroe last season. He threw for 374 yards with two touchdowns and ran for 117 yards with two scores, including several long runs to keep drives alive. New Tide quarterback Ty Simpson isn’t as fast as Milroe, but he also isn’t a statue standing in the pocket.

Williams burned Georgia’s secondary on some big plays last season, finishing with six catches for 177 yards. The Bulldogs had similar problems against Tennessee’s fast-paced offense, and they’ll have to shore up those mistakes and play better on the back end. Getting pressure on Simpson would also help; the Bulldogs had only four sacks in their first three games this season.

On offense, Georgia needs to do a better job of protecting quarterback Gunner Stockton, who took too many hits at Tennessee. The Bulldogs need to find more ways to get the ball into the hands of Zachariah Branch, and tight ends Oscar Delp and Lawson Luckie also need to get their share of touches. Shoring up the right side of the offensive line, which has been a trouble spot, will allow them to be more involved in the passing game. — Mark Schlabach

Alabama: It has not been pretty for Alabama on the road under Kalen DeBoer. Alabama is 2-4 since he became head coach, including a 31-17 loss to Florida State to open the season. In that loss, the Crimson Tide looked lethargic at times and ended up being beaten up front on both sides of the ball. So to give themselves any chance against Georgia, their first road game since Week 1, they simply must play better on the offensive and defensive lines. Getting defensive lineman Tim Keenan III back from an ankle injury will be huge in that respect. Alabama has struggled to rush the passer without him, and has only four sacks on the season. Georgia has done a nice job using Gunner Stockton in the run game when needed, so slowing him down is also going to be key. That is also an area in which Alabama struggled against the Seminoles.

On the other side of the ball, offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb said it would continue to rotate its starting offensive line unit to find the right combination. Getting Jam Miller back at running back is also is a big addition, not only because of his running ability but his presence as a pass blocker in the backfield. But more than anything, defensive coordinator Kane Wommack said the team was eager to prove it has learned how to handle adversity in-game, something that cost it in the opener.

“There’s a difference when you have to go on the road, particularly in the SEC and in a hostile environment and respond to adversity,” Wommack said. “At times, we have been a team that has been reactionary to adversity, and we’ve got to be more responsive. It’s at the forefront of our minds, and I expect to see a very responsive football team on Saturday.” — Andrea Adelson

Fernando Mendoza

Curt Cignetti found a gem via the transfer portal yet again. Mendoza was solid at Cal the past two years, but he was surrounded with little talent and playing in an offense that probably didn’t maximize his skill set. Turned loose at Indiana, he has looked like a genuine Heisman Trophy candidate, including a dominant five-touchdown performance in a win over Illinois. For the season, Mendoza has 14 touchdown passes without an interception.

Tommy Castellanos

When Castellanos talked smack about Alabama this summer, it became a national punchline. When he backed it up with a win over the Tide in Week 1, he had the last laugh. Through three games, Castellanos’ 91.6 Total QBR ranks third nationally, though he’ll be in for a test the next two weeks — a road trip to Virginia on Friday for what could be a shootout and then a showdown against rival Miami. If Castellanos takes down another top-five team, the Heisman might be his to lose.

Beau Pribula

A part of the same class as Drew Allar, Pribula wasn’t able to get onto the field with any regularity at Penn State. He entered the portal and landed at Missouri, but he didn’t win the starting job there until just before the opener. And yet, once he was given his chance to shine, Pribula has looked like a star. He has racked up 11 TDs so far this season and has the Tigers undefeated and trending up in the rankings.

Brendon Lewis

The sixth-year senior has been through his share of growing pains. He was a well-regarded recruit at Colorado but was part of the brutal 2021 season that led to the arrival of coach Deion Sanders, then transferred to Nevada, where his team struggled again. Now he has found the right fit at Memphis, where he has the Tigers 4-0 and well positioned to snag the Group of 6’s playoff spot.

Drew Mestemaker

North Texas is 4-0 and Mestemaker has 10 TD passes and no picks. It’d be a great story if that was all there was to it. But this rags-to-riches tale goes much deeper. Mestemaker wasn’t even the starter at his high school and arrived at UNT as a walk-on. He got the start in last year’s bowl game after Chandler Morris entered the portal, then beat out Reese Poffenbarger for the starting job this fall. He has rewarded the Mean Green’s belief with a red-hot start to the season. — David Hale

Biggest things that need to happen in these matchups

Auburn-Texas A&M: This series has been a strange one since 2021. The Aggies won twice at home, both times by 17 points. Auburn won twice at home, by three in 2022 and then two last year, in a 43-41 upset in four overtimes. This game, in College Station, will be another interesting one. The Aggies are coming off a bye week after their upset of Notre Dame, their first nonconference road win against an AP top-10 team since 1979. Auburn lost 24-17 at Oklahoma and is 0-5 under Hugh Freeze against ranked teams on the road. For the Tigers, they’ll first need to shore up an offensive line that gave up eight sacks on Jackson Arnold from a standard pass rush. But Auburn will look to move the ball with its rushing attack (198 yards per game, 5.0 yards per carry) against the Aggies, who are giving up 139 yards per game on the ground and are 102nd nationally in scoring defense at 28.7 points. But if the Aggies can get Arnold into being one-dimensional and having to play from behind, that will give them an advantage. They can do so by utilizing the dynamic duo of Mario Craver, the SEC’s leading receiver with 443 yards, even with the bye week (he had seven catches for 207 yards against Notre Dame), and KC Concepcion, who had four catches for 82 yards against the Irish. — Dave Wilson

LSU-Ole Miss: Last season’s showdown went to overtime in Baton Rouge. Expect another tight battle that comes down to details and who capitalizes on opportunities. Third-down conversions are going to be essential. Ole Miss’ offense is 5-of-17 on third and medium (3 to 7 yards) this season, and LSU’s defense is getting stops on 14 of 22 chances in that spot. This is where Lane Kiffin’s decision at QB becomes even more critical. Trinidad Chambliss is averaging 12.3 yards per carry on third downs and has yet to take a third-down sack. Can he be efficient in those high-pressure moments against the best defense he has faced? For LSU’s offense, the big question is injured running back Caden Durham‘s availability and finding answers in the run game so Garrett Nussmeier isn’t frequently stuck in third-and-long. The Tigers’ average third-down distance this season has been 7.9 yards, which ranks 114th in FBS, according to ESPN Research. — Max Olson

Oregon-Penn State: Quarterback Drew Allar needs to be a reason — perhaps the reason — why the Nittany Lions notch a signature win in a game in which they have most of the advantages. Allar wasn’t overly sharp in his past two performances, completing fewer than 58% of his passes against both Villanova and Florida International. He will need to be sharper against a talented but quite young Oregon defense, and start to change his big-game rep. Oregon must show it can handle one of the toughest environments in college football, Beaver Stadium at night in a White Out. The game marks a big growth opportunity for Ducks quarterback Dante Moore, a first-year starter, and also promising young players such as wide receiver Dakorien Moore and defensive backs Brandon Finney Jr. and Aaron Flowers. The Ducks visited Michigan and Wisconsin in 2024, but they haven’t faced an elite Big Ten opponent on the road until now. — Adam Rittenberg

Quotes of the Week

“We need this place rocking,” Penn State coach James Franklin said ahead of the Nittany Lions’ White Out game against No. 6 Oregon. “Need to have a distinct home-field advantage. We always do, but I’m expecting this to be an environment like no one has ever seen.”

“We’ll do everything we can to be prepared for that environment for sure,” said Oregon’s Dan Lanning, who was also asked about the song “Mo Bamba”, which has become a fixture of No. 3 Penn State home games. “I don’t love that song.”

“I would say he’s probably the hottest quarterback right now in all of college football,” Georgia’s Kirby Smart said of Alabama’s Ty Simpson ahead of the Bulldogs’ Week 5 visit from the No. 17 Crimson Tide. “His two last outings, I don’t know [if] I’ve seen an incompletion. The ball does not hit the ground. He’s been accurate. He’s been quick with the ball. They’re really hard to defend because of their skill. They’ve got tremendous skill — receivers, backs, tight ends. But you got to have a trigger guy that can get those guys the ball and they do.”

“We ain’t with that get-back stuff,” Colorado’s Deion Sanders said as his team prepares to face No. 25 BYU nine months after the Cougars blew out the Buffaloes in the 2024 Valero Alamo Bowl. “I ain’t with that get-back stuff. I’m with that let’s-get-them stuff. They played their butts off, kicked our butts in the bowl game. Now we have a whole new team.”

“I always love when you guys say that, like, ‘Oh, OK, now we’ll go actually, like, try and game-plan really hard,” Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin said with the Rebels set to host No. 4 LSU on Saturday. “It’s OK. My boss says the same things when we play Arkansas. ‘Hey, I really need this one.’ Oh, OK, well then we’ll actually, like, try this week. We were just going to not try.”

“Is it hot in here or is it just me every week?” Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy speaking to reporters three days after the Cowboys 19-12 loss to Tulsa and less than 24 hours before he was fired Tuesday morning after his 21st season in charge of the program.

Small firms reliant on the production-halted British car maker Jaguar Land Rover, “may have at best a week of cashflow left to support themselves” with “urgent” action needed to support businesses.

Liam Byrne, the head of the influential Business and Trade Committee of MPs, wrote to Chancellor Rachel Reeves with the warning after meeting with the car maker’s suppliers.

“Larger firms, we heard, may begin to seriously struggle within a fortnight – and many are simply unclear how they will pay payroll costs at the end of October,” he said

“In short, many firms have merely “weeks left” before the financial impact on them becomes untenable and causes critical damage to key elements of the automotive supply chain.”

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Since 31 August, production has been halted across the car-making supply chain, with staff off work as a result of the attack.

More than 33,000 people work directly for JLR in the UK, many of them on assembly lines in the West Midlands, the largest of which is in Solihull, and a plant at Halewood on Merseyside.

An estimated 200,000 more are employed by several hundred companies in the supply chain, who have faced business interruption with their largest client out of action.

Calls for government financial support had been growing, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday afternoon said, “I haven’t got an outcome here to give to you today”.

A partial restart

It comes as JLR announced some of its IT systems are back online after being hit by a cyber attack late last month though production is still not expected to start again until 1 October at the earliest.

“The foundational work of our recovery programme is firmly underway,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.

As part of the partial restart, supplier payments can begin again.

“We have significantly increased IT processing capacity for invoicing,” the statement said. “We are now working to clear the backlog of payments to our suppliers as quickly as we can.”

The supply of parts to customers across the world can also now recommence.

After a workaround was reached on Tuesday to allow cars to move to buyers without the usual online registration, the financial system to process wholesale vehicles is back online.

“We are able to sell and register vehicles for our clients faster, delivering important cash flow”, the company said.

“Our focus remains on supporting our customers, suppliers, colleagues and our retailers. We fully recognise this is a difficult time for all connected with JLR and we thank everyone for their continued support and patience.”

Every adult in Britain will require a digital ID under plans to tackle illegal immigration.

Sky News understands that Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer could announce his backing for the scheme in a speech as early as Friday.

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The so-called “Brit card” would verify a citizen’s right to live and work in the UK.

The plans would require anyone starting a new job or renting a home to show the card on a smartphone app, which would then be checked against a central database of those entitled to work and live here.

It is hoped this would reduce the attraction of working in the UK illegally, including for delivery companies.

At the moment, workers have to show at least one form of physical ID in the form of documents, but there are concerns within government that these can be faked.

French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly warned that the lack of ID cards in the UK acts as a major pull factor for Channel crossings, as migrants feel they are able to find work in the black economy.

Sir Keir is due to speak at the Global Progress Action Summit in London on Friday, alongside Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

The plan represents a shift in the government’s position, as last year ministers ruled out the idea following an intervention from Sir Tony Blair just days after Labour won the general election.

The former Labour prime minister has long been an advocate of ID cards and took steps to introduce a system that would begin as voluntary and could later become compulsory while in office.

The rollout was scrapped after Labour was ejected from power in 2010, having been opposed by the Liberal Democrats and the Tories at the time.

Last July, then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said of the idea: “It’s not in our manifesto. That’s not our approach.”

The UK has only previously had mandatory ID cards during wartime, with the last tranche scrapped in 1952.

The idea has long been opposed by civil liberty and privacy groups in the UK.

Sir Keir is said to have shared their concerns but came round to the idea amid record high levels of small boat crossings.

A report by the Tony Blair Institute published on Wednesday said digital ID can “help close loopholes that trafficking gangs and unscrupulous employers currently exploit, reducing pull factors driving illegal migration to Britain and restoring control over borders”.

Labour Together, a Starmer-backed thinktank, published a report in June which said digital ID could play a role in right-to-work and right-to-rent checks, supporting “better enforcement of migration rules”.

How would digital ID work?

There is no unique regime for identity cards, but decisions the government would have to make include who is required to register, how much information they should hold, and whether physical forms of the ID should also be made available.

Pat McFadden, now the work and pensions secretary, started a cross-government unit to look at how it could work while he was in charge of the cabinet office.

He visited Estonia last month, before the cabinet reshuffle, where he said the Baltic country’s model could be used as an example.

In Estonia, citizens are given a unique number at birth which they use to register marriages, access bank accounts, vote, book GP appointments, file their tax return and even collect supermarket loyalty points, among hundreds of other services.

Mr McFadden told The Times digital ID could be applied “to the immigration system, to the benefit system, to a number of areas”.

‘Checkpoint society’

The government’s plan will be subject to a consultation and would require legislation to be passed, before being rolled out.

Labour MPs on the left of the party have already hit out at the idea.

Nadia Whittome labelled the policy “divisive, authoritarian nonsense”, adding: “If we’re going to reheat Blair-era policies, can we please focus on lifting children out of poverty?”

Reform UK and the Tories are also against the proposal, arguing it will not stop small boat crossings.

The Lib Dems meanwhile said they were against the principle of people being “forced to turn over their private data just to go about their daily lives”.

The civil liberty group Big Brother Watch said: “Plans for a mandatory digital ID would make us all reliant on a digital pass to go about our daily lives, turning us into a checkpoint society that is wholly unBritish.”