OK, so it wasn’t the most ridiculous Rivalry Week we’ve ever seen. Thirteen of the top 14 teams in the College Football Playoff rankings won, and the one that didn’t (Texas A&M) was already guaranteed a CFP spot. Chalk has reigned over the past couple of weeks, but as with pizza among other things, Rivalry Week is great even when it’s not great.

We still got a dramatic Iron Bowl, we still got one last silly plot twist in the ACC title race (the silliest yet, perhaps), we still got all the intense environments we could possibly want — plus some snow! — and we still got an all-time comeback in the smaller-school ranks.

(We also got whatever continued to go down in Oxford, Mississippi, which wasn’t even slightly enjoyable but certainly created buzz.)

The conference title game pairings are set, and we’ll soon know how a big load of chalk might impact the CFP rankings. In the meantime, here’s what we learned during an anxious-as-ever Rivalry Week.

(This is for ESPN’s Marty Smith in particular, since he was forced to spend most of Saturday doing live reports about nothing happening in the Ole Miss football building instead of watching the games.)

Ohio State is the most relaxed team on the planet

In Friday’s preview, I wrote about how Ohio State found itself in a strange position: The Buckeyes were unbeaten and No. 1 in the country and faced far less pressure than Michigan heading into The Game. Ohio State fans online assured me this wasn’t actually true — that they were super nervous, and that the pressure was on the Buckeyes to end the losing streak against their hated rival.

Those things were certainly true enough, but Saturday in Michigan, in the face of increasingly Michigan weather, Ohio State was relaxed, sound and just as good as it has been all season. The Wolverines landed some early shots, getting a big run from Jordan Marshall on the first play of the game and picking off Julian Sayin‘s second pass. But they could turn those blows into only field goals – Ohio State ranks second nationally in red zone TD rate allowed – and field goals aren’t going to get the job done against OSU in 2025.

Sayin began the game 2-for-5 but went 17-for-21 from there, and while Michigan was able to limit big plays somewhat, freshman running back Bo Jackson gained 166 yards from scrimmage, and Sayin connected on long touchdown passes to Jeremiah Smith (35 yards, and I guess it was a TD) and Carnell Tate (50).

Total yards over the last three quarters: Ohio State 334 (5.9 per play), Michigan 78 (2.7). The Wolverines were never going to be able to keep up, and unlike last year, the Buckeyes were never going to panic. Instead, they treated Michigan like any other opponent in this machine-like run to 12-0. Ohio State has scored between 34 and 48 points in eight of its past 10 games and has allowed more than 10 points just twice all year. Even with a work-in-progress run game that hasn’t dominated as much as usual — and even when facing the pressure of a nearly 2,200-day streak of not beating Michigan — this team just grounds the opposition into paste.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve found myself thinking that this CFP might end up being an “Ohio State vs. the field” situation. Georgia looked spectacular for a couple of weeks in November but shifted into cruise control against Charlotte last week and could never get its offense humming against a weak Georgia Tech defense Friday. Kirby Smart’s Dawgs are such brawlers that I would still probably give them the best chance of getting the job done, but there’s still reason to wonder about their upside.

Elsewhere, Indiana is, at second in both SP+ and FPI, the computers’ pick for giving the Buckeyes the most to handle. And it might help the Hoosiers that they basically get a practice shot at OSU in the Big Ten championship game next week. I’m sure they want to win their first league title since 1967, but if they lose, they might learn lessons they could apply in a CFP rematch.

Texas Tech has a relentless pass rush and an even better run defense and could put Sayin in increasingly uncomfortable situations. Alabama is 4-1 in one-score finishes in 2025 and, with Saturday night’s late fourth-and-2 touchdown against Auburn, has proved it has the boldness that might be required to beat the Buckeyes. Notre Dame has played like a top-three or so team since its two losses that began the year and, after last season’s national title game loss, would bring a fun revenge storyline to the table. Oregon is the only team not named Michigan to have beaten the Buckeyes in the past 23 months.

This isn’t a slam dunk by any means. But damn, it is hard to pick anyone but Ohio State as the clear title favorite.

---

Intricate tiebreakers and the ACC’s “8-5 conference champion” destiny

It was John Isner Week in college football — lots of talk about extended tiebreakers.

The ACC had five teams tied for second place at 6-2 (Duke, Georgia Tech, Miami, Pitt and SMU). Those teams played exactly four games among each other, and they shared only one common opponent (Syracuse). Duke, with the worst overall record of the bunch, stole an ACC championship game berth because of its conference opponents’ win percentage.

The Mountain West had four teams tied for first at 6-2 (Boise State, New Mexico, San Diego State and UNLV). They almost played a complete round-robin — we were missing only SDSU-UNLV – but because it was incomplete, the conference had to break the tie with a blend of computer rankings, including SP+. That gave us the Rebels at Boise State even though UNLV was 0-2 against its 6-2 brethren.

The SEC ended up with a four-way tie for first at 7-1 among Alabama, Georgia, Ole Miss and Texas A&M. They played just two games against each other — Bama over Georgia, Georgia over Ole Miss — and A&M got to the finish line without having played any of the other three. Alabama and Georgia got in because of superior conference opponent win percentages.

The MAC had three teams tied for second at 6-2, and while Miami lost to both of the others (Ohio and Toledo), the Redhawks got the MAC championship bid because, since there wasn’t a full round-robin between them, they won the next tiebreaker (record against common opponents).

The American Conference ended up with three teams tied at 7-1 in conference play: Navy, North Texas and Tulane. They shared only one common opponent (Temple), and there was only one head-to-head matchup between the teams. Tulane got in because of its CFP ranking (No. 24), and UNT got in because of a head-to-head win (a rarity in tiebreakers!) over Navy.

The extended playoff is, to me, an undeniably great thing for the sport in terms of both representation and the amount of football that means something late in the season. Conference realignment, however, has given us leagues so utterly enormous that we have ended up with all sorts of messy tiebreakers to determine championship game participants. Granted, it helps immensely when you play nine conference games — as the SEC and ACC soon will — but with everyone moving away from divisions, this is what we get instead.

Granted, divisions stunk. There’s a reason conferences got rid of them in the first place (and why I wanted them to). They were usually quite unbalanced from a quality perspective, meaning we rarely got a conference’s two best teams playing for the crown. Plus, with a divisional structure it would take forever to play all of your conference mates in these enormous conferences. (The classic example: Texas A&M has been in the SEC for 14 seasons, and Georgia still hasn’t played in College Station.)

Obviously, conferences aren’t looking to voluntarily get smaller, so is there a solution here? Is it either faulty divisions or terrible tiebreakers? If someone’s in the mood to get silly, I certainly have ideas.

What about two-tiered conferences with promotion and relegation between them? That would ensure that the teams most likely to make title runs are playing each other, though it would prevent a sudden rise like that of 2024 Indiana (since the Hoosiers would have most certainly started the year in the Big Ten’s second tier).

What about temporary divisions that are established based solely on recent quality and are redrawn every few years to avoid permanent imbalance?

Maybe it’s as simple as what the American Conference did: putting “highest CFP ranking” pretty high up the tiebreaker list (and maybe shifting to the AP poll or computer averages if no one is ranked by the CFP committee). The ACC would probably love that right about now; its best team (Miami) will quite possibly end up missing out on a CFP slot that goes to either a lesser ACC champion (Virginia) or, if 7-5 Duke upsets the Cavaliers, perhaps a second Group of 5 champion instead.

---

My CFP rankings prediction

In previous seasons, I shared a BCS-like formula that I maintain — essentially, half AP poll, half computer ratings (mostly résumé SP+ and strength of record) — that does a decent job of approximating how the CFP committee will think. Based on both that formula and who the committee has to this point favored (Texas Tech, Oklahoma) and disfavored (Vanderbilt, any Group of 5 team) compared to the formula this season, here’s my best guess for what the top 25 will look like Tuesday night:

1. Ohio State (12-0)
2. Indiana (12-0)
3. Georgia (11-1)
4. Texas Tech (11-1)
5. Oregon (11-1)
6. Ole Miss (11-1)
7. Texas A&M (11-1)
8. Oklahoma (10-2)
9. Notre Dame (10-2)
10. Alabama (10-2)
11. BYU (11-1)
12. Miami (10-2)
13. Vanderbilt (10-2)
14. Utah (10-2)
15. Texas (9-3)
16. USC (9-3)
17. Virginia (10-2)
18. Michigan (9-3)
19. Arizona (9-3)
20. Tulane (10-2)
21. Iowa (8-4)
22. Tennessee (8-4)
23. Missouri (8-4)
24. Georgia Tech (9-3)
25. James Madison (11-1)

We don’t know how far Texas A&M will fall, but my guess is that its résumé doesn’t quite stand up to those of Oregon or Ole Miss. Those three teams are somewhat interchangeable, though. And at the bottom of the list, the committee has been going out of its way not to rank either James Madison (17th in my formula) or North Texas (20th) and might continue that. But with last week’s Nos. 19, 20, 21, 22 and 23 teams losing, there’s an open door. Maybe the committee will deign to notice just how impressive the Dukes and/or Mean Green have been at some point. (Yes, their schedules have been weak. Yes, they would accept a power conference invitation if offered. Their weak schedules are not their fault.)

The most interesting rankings, of course, will be those in the No. 8-14 range. If we just assume that any two-loss SEC or Big Ten team and any one-loss Big 12 or ACC team is in, we have more teams in than we have slots available. And this extremely chalky weekend did nothing to help with that. Recent weeks suggest an Oklahoma-Notre Dame-Alabama-BYU-Miami-Utah-Vandy hierarchy, but with Utah looking shaky again and Vandy scoring a win over Tennessee, I’m guessing the Commodores will jump the Utes.

The most interesting team, however, is Texas. Granted, the Longhorn buzz grew quieter when all the favorites won Saturday, but we’ll see if Steve Sarkisian’s campaigning after Friday night’s win over Texas A&M moves the needle. Many have pointed out that, had Texas scheduled a weak nonconference opponent instead of Ohio State, the Longhorns would quite likely be in the field of 12, and that’s fine.

My counterpoint, however, is simple: How many times did they actually look like a playoff team this year? Three? Four? They needed overtime to beat Kentucky and barely got past Mississippi State, and their offense didn’t really show up until late October. And no one in about the No. 11-19 range above has suffered a loss as egregious as Texas’ dreadful 29-21 defeat at Florida. Their best wins are strong, but they have both more losses than others in this range and the worst loss of anyone in this range. That more than offsets wins over OU and Vandy in my eyes. Maybe the committee will spring a surprise, but if the Horns don’t make it, it’s their own damn fault.

---

Lane Kiffin’s legacy

It sure is fun thinking back to the September “E60” feature on Lane Kiffin. You know, the one where he talked about how much he’s thinking about his legacy and rethinking the balance between raw ambition and happiness? Well, as of Sunday, that legacy officially includes deciding to ditch a playoff team (Ole Miss) in favor of one of its more bitter conference rivals (LSU), stretching the saga out for weeks, casting a huge cloud over all of Rivalry Week and attempting to play the victim, picking one last round of fights with local media and — despite having once been canned by Nick Saban a week before the national title game because of his failure to properly multitask — seemingly using public pressure to try to force Ole Miss to allow him to coach both schools at the same time until the Rebels’ stay in the CFP is over.

That works if you’re North Texas coach Eric Morris, agreeing to jump to a power conference gig. How in the hell was that supposed to work when jumping from one job to another within the loudest and messiest conference in the country, while potentially getting ready to poach a lot of his old players for his new job?

Kiffin is an awesome — and, potentially, still improving — head coach who will probably win big at LSU, one of the most well-resourced, built-to-win programs in the country. I know why LSU wanted him so badly and offered him such a lucrative deal, even despite the irony of the Louisiana governor signing off on the deal weeks after complaining about egregious coach contracts and saying, “It’s really time for the NCAA to put on some guardrails in college sports.”

But he’s such a good coach that he was already winning big at another school and didn’t need to leave to build an elite program. He already had one mostly built, and by all accounts Ole Miss was prepared to lay down lots of cash (for both him and playing talent) if he stayed. The college football calendar stinks, and there’s really no clean and easy way to fix it, but once again, this didn’t happen to Lane Kiffin. It happened because he was willing to leave a CFP team before the CFP. Now, his legacy is all but assured to start with the way he left schools, not how many games he won at them.

---

Congrats to the bowl-eligible teams

Bowls might not mean what they used to, but they can mean quite a bit to a 5-6 team desperately trying to snag one last win during Rivalry Week. And quite a few needed some drama to get to win No. 6. Penn State needed a huge day from Kaytron Allen and a late fumble recovery score to survive at Rutgers 40-36 in a battle of 5-6 teams. The road team won two other such games as well: Arkansas State scored the winner with 42 seconds left to top Appalachian State 30-29 in Boone, and Georgia Southern kept Marshall at arm’s length in a 24-19 win in Huntington.

Elsewhere, Louisiana needed overtime to put away rival Louisiana-Monroe but eventually secured its sixth win; Texas State earned a bowl showcase for prolific quarterback Brad Jackson thanks to a 49-26 win over South Alabama; Army beat UTSA 27-24 to move to 6-5 with Navy coming up; Kansas State messed around a bit but eventually put Colorado away 24-14; and Washington State avenged an earlier road defeat to Oregon State by pummeling the Beavers at home 32-8. I guess they split the Pac-12 title then? They should play a third game next week just for fun.

Plus, Delaware scored all 20 of the fourth quarter’s points to put away a 61-31 win over UTEP. That became particularly important when only 80 eligible teams ended up with six wins. There are 82 FBS bowl slots, so the Blue Hens and another Conference USA team and FBS newcomer, 7-5 Missouri State, are now eligible and get to bowl as well. Clean and easy.

---

Amazing jobs by Jason Eck, Mark Carney and Jerry Mack

Kent State fielded one of the worst teams imaginable in 2024, and that’s not an exaggeration: Since the FBS/FCS split in the late 1970s (and not including the incomplete 2020 season), the only teams that graded out worse than last year’s Golden Flashes are 2021 UMass, 2019 UMass and 2006 Temple. Kent State was 0-12 that year after going 1-11 the season before. Then Mark Carney was named the school’s interim head coach mid-spring after Kenni Burns’ firing. This seemed like just about the worst job imaginable, but if the Golden Flashes had eked out a win against either Buffalo (a 31-28 loss) or Ball State (17-13), they’d have ended up bowl-eligible.

Carney’s performance was incredible, good enough to get his “interim” tag wiped off, but it’s not even clear that his was the best coaching performance of the season. That honor might need to go to Jerry Mack, who inherited a 2-10 Kennesaw State team, went 9-3 and earned a spot in next week’s Conference USA championship game. Or perhaps you prefer Jason Eck’s performance at New Mexico. Bronco Mendenhall left after one season in Albuquerque, Eck had to flip damn near the entire roster, and yet the Lobos are 9-3 and 66th in SP+; they haven’t finished in the top 70 since 2007.

The portal and the instability of rosters has its obvious drawbacks, but it has produced some pretty tantalizing turnarounds in recent seasons. We got a few in 2025, and I didn’t even mention what Eric Morris has done at North Texas, or Clark Lea at Vanderbilt, or Tony Elliott at Virginia, or Jim Mora at UConn, or Willie Fritz at Houston.

---

A lot of talented teams botched their offensive line

South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers, a sack-prone quarterback by nature who will probably continue to be terribly sack-prone in the pros, got zero help from his run game (107th in rushing success rate) and faced absurd amounts of instant pressure in 2025 (134th in pressure rate).

LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier watched both his trajectory and NFL draft stock plummet when trying to move the ball with no run game (119th in rushing success rate), loads of offensive line penalties and quite a few sacks (70th in sack rate).

Texas’ Arch Manning didn’t get help from his run game until basically the second half of the Longhorns’ 12th game (91st in rushing success rate) and faced constant pressure (119th in pressure rate) with lots of O-line penalties.

It hit me in recent weeks that, although we knew heading into the season that a lot of highly ranked teams were breaking in new starting quarterbacks, the biggest issue among numerous ambitious teams was a total lack of continuity up front.

Of the teams in the preseason AP top 20, seven returned less than 44% of their offensive line starts from 2024: No. 1 Texas, No. 3 Ohio State, No. 5 Georgia, No. 7 Oregon, No. 9 LSU, No. 13 South Carolina and No. 17 Kansas State. Of those seven, six underachieved against offensive projections this season. Texas was projected 24th and currently ranks 38th. Kansas State was projected 16th and ranks 45th. South Carolina was projected 26th and ranks 85th. LSU was projected second and ranks a ghastly 90th. Texas signed zero O-line transfers, preferring to build from within. South Carolina and Kansas State signed four each, and LSU signed two. Their lines all stank regardless.

Granted, plenty of teams managed to underachieve with experienced lines, and maybe one of the most interesting stories of the season — something to peck around with in the offseason — is the fact that a majority of preseason ranked teams underachieved offensively. But for all the attention that we justifiably give to the QB position, crafting a sturdy and reliable offensive line in the portal era seems as tricky as ever.

---

This week in SP+

The SP+ rankings have been updated for the week. Let’s take a look at the teams that saw the biggest change in their overall ratings. (Note: We’re looking at ratings, not rankings.)

Moving up

Here are the 10 teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week:

Louisville: up 2.5 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 37th to 30th)

Bowling Green: up 2.5 points (from 125th to 115th)

Florida International: up 2.4 points (from 105th to 94th)

Boston College: up 2.3 points (from 113th to 103rd)

Washington State: up 2.3 points (from 65th to 60th)

Fresno State: up 2.3 points (from 75th to 67th)

Florida: up 2.2 points (from 69th to 62nd)

Air Force: up 2.2 points (from 93rd to 86th)

NC State: up 2.2 points (from 66th to 61st)

South Florida: up 2.2 points (from 28th to 23rd)

We saw plenty of “go up big on your rival and keep punching” situations Saturday — Louisville beat Kentucky by 41, Fresno State beat San José State by 27, NC State beat North Carolina by 23, Florida beat Florida State by 19 — and it provided some last-minute ratings shifts.

Moving down

Here are the 10 teams whose ratings fell the most:

Kentucky: down 2.8 adjusted points per game (ranking fell from 57th to 63rd)

Florida State: down 2.7 points (from 34th to 43rd)

Pitt: down 2.7 points (from 29th to 36th)

Coastal Carolina: down 2.4 points (from 112th to 117th)

Tennessee: down 2.3 points (from 14th to 21st)

Nebraska: down 2.2 points (from 39th to 46th)

San José State: down 2.1 points (from 111th to 116th)

Cincinnati: down 2.0 points (from 41st to 49th)

West Virginia: down 2.0 points (from 92nd to 93rd)

North Carolina: down 2.0 points (from 94th to 97th)

Perhaps not surprisingly, the teams that received the poundings referenced above fell by pretty solid amounts, too. And god bless the ACC for continuing to provide surprises and shifts right until the end — six of the 20 teams on these two lists are from that league.

---

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. Drew Mestemaker, North Texas (20-for-24 passing for 366 yards and 3 touchdowns against Temple).

2. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (18-for-28 passing for 268 yards, 1 TD and 2 INTs, plus 168 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Tennessee).

3. Jadan Baugh, Florida (38 carries for 266 yards and 2 touchdowns against Florida State).

4. Brad Jackson, Texas State (20-for-26 passing for 280 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 113 non-sack rushing yards and 3 TDs against South Alabama).

5. Stephen Daley, Indiana (six tackles, 4.5 TFLs, a sack and a forced fumble against Purdue).

6. Kaytron Allen, Penn State (22 carries for 226 yards and a touchdown, plus 12 receiving yards against Rutgers).

7. Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, Cal (31-for-40 passing for 330 yards and 4 touchdowns against SMU).

8. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss (23-for-34 passing for 359 yards and 4 touchdowns, plus 26 non-sack rushing yards against Mississippi State).

9. Evan Dickens, Liberty (43 carries for 267 yards and 4 touchdowns, plus 16 receiving yards against Kennesaw State).

10. Behren Morton, Texas Tech (25-for-32 passing for 310 yards and 3 touchdowns against West Virginia).

North Texas’ offense has shifted from great to video-game great in recent weeks. The clearest evidence? Drew Mestemaker threw for 366 yards on just 24 passes, and that was a clear step backward from the week before, when he threw for 469 in 19 against Rice.

And speaking of absurd, Diego Pavia just put up 436 combined rushing and passing yards in an enormous rivalry win over Tennessee, Vandy’s first in seven years. That’s a pretty good way to make a final impression to Heisman voters.

Honorable mention:

• Emmett Johnson, Nebraska (29 carries for 217 yards and a touchdown, plus 22 receiving yards against Iowa).

• Parker Kingston, BYU (six catches for 126 yards and a touchdown, plus a punt return TD against UCF).

• Dante Moore, Oregon (20-for-29 passing for 286 yards and a touchdown, plus 20 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Washington).

• T.J. Parker, Clemson (four tackles, three sacks and a fumble recovery against South Carolina).

• Jeremy Payne, TCU (26 carries for 174 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 44 receiving yards against Cincinnati).

• Jordan Pollard, San Jose State (19 tackles, 1 TFL, 1 forced fumble and a 58-yard pick-six against Fresno State).

• Antwan Raymond, Rutgers (29 carries for 189 yards and 2 TDs, plus 62 receiving yards and a TD against Penn State).

• Julian Sayin, Ohio State (19-for-26 passing for 233 yards, 3 TDs and an INT against Michigan).

• Malachi Toney, Miami (13 catches for 126 yards and a touchdown, plus 30 rushing yards and a touchdown pass against Pitt).

Through 14 weeks, here are your points leaders, with the tiebreaker of most points in the past four weeks:

1. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (43 points)
2. Julian Sayin, Ohio State (29 points, 4 in the past four weeks)
3. Ty Simpson, Alabama (29 points, 0 in the past four weeks)
4. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss (28 points)
5. Taylen Green, Arkansas (27 points)
6. Drew Mestemaker, North Texas (26 points, 18 in the past four weeks)
7. Fernando Mendoza, Indiana (26 points, 7 in the past four weeks)
8. Gunner Stockton, Georgia (25 points)
9. Demond Williams Jr., Washington (21 points)
10. Haynes King, Georgia Tech (18 points)

In his past four games, Pavia averaged 374 passing yards, 107 non-sack rushing yards and 4 combined touchdowns. That trounces what Mendoza and Sayin did down the stretch, and it should do more than simply guarantee him a trip to New York — he should win in New York. It blows my mind that Pavia’s current betting odds (+550) are so much worse than either Mendoza’s (even) or Sayin’s (+140).

---

My 20 favorite games of the weekend

1. FCS: No. 21 Yale 43, No. 13 Youngstown State 42. Remember last year, when all the visiting teams in the first round of the CFP looked like deer in headlights out of the gate? We got the FCS version of that Saturday, when the first two Ivy League teams to play in the playoffs both stumbled immediately. Harvard, down 31-0 to Villanova at halftime, never recovered, eventually falling 52-7.

Yale, on the other hand, did more than recover. Trailing 42-14 midway through the third quarter, the Bulldogs pitched a shutout from there: They scored, recovered a fumble, scored again, forced a (missed) field goal, scored again, forced a three-and-out, scored again, hit the 2-point conversion, forced a four-and-out and won the game. It was the cleanest, easiest game-winning 29-0 run you’ll ever see. An absolute stunner.

Yale’s reward, by the way? A cross-country date with No. 2 Montana State. I wouldn’t recommend falling behind by 28 in that one.

2. California 38, No. 21 SMU 35. Indeed, the ACC knows plot twists. Cal led by 17 points with 13 minutes left, then trailed with one minute left, then won anyway. Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele’s freshman year has been up and down, but this was quite the shining moment.

3. No. 10 Alabama 27, Auburn 20. Tied with your hated (and messy) rival, having blown a 17-point lead? Facing a fourth-and-2 and not wanting to settle for a field goal? Go for it!

And I guess there was only one way for the Hugh Freeze era at Auburn to officially end: with a one-score loss. The Tigers have suffered 12 of them in the past three seasons. The only team to suffer more in that span? Conference mate Arkansas (14).

4. New Mexico 23, San Diego State 17 (2OT). New Mexico will get a shot at just its second ever 10-win season in a bowl game because of this thriller, which included an early 10-0 lead, a couple of long touchdown runs, a pair of overtime turnovers (an interception for UNM, a fumble recovery for SDSU), a one-handed touchdown grab in the second OT, one last stop and a field storming. Best game of Friday.

5. No. 8 Oklahoma 17, LSU 13. There was no way in hell this game was going to be pretty, and it indeed featured more turnovers (four) than touchdowns (three), but after twice falling behind in the second half, OU’s offense showed up, first with a 45-yard screen-and-run from Deion Burks, then with a wide-open, 58-yard John Mateer-to-Isaiah Sategna III bomb that probably sent the Sooners to the CFP.

6. Division II: No. 10 Texas-Permian Basin 21, No. 15 Western Colorado 15 (OT). UTPB keeps going! The Falcons returned to Colorado for the second straight playoff game, spotted their hosts a 15-0 lead with eight minutes remaining, then got to work. Kanon Gibson ran for one touchdown and threw for another to force overtime, then he hit Jaylon Tillman for a 21-yard score in OT. The PAT was blocked, but Caimon Mathis broke up a fourth-down WCU pass, and UTPB advanced to the D-II quarterfinals.

7 and 8. Kennesaw State 48, Liberty 42 (2OT) and Jacksonville State 37, Western Kentucky 34. Conference USA brought the drama this season — 50% of its conference matchups were one-score games, tied with the SEC for the most. Hell, the Big 12 (41.1%) was the only other conference above 39%. It made sense, then, that the conference title game pairings were decided by a couple of thrillers. First, JSU overcame an early 14-point deficit, traded field goals down the stretch and won with a 28-yarder from Garrison Rippa at the buzzer.

The Gamecocks will play Kennesaw State, which blew it but got a second chance. The Owls gave up a game-tying 59-yard touchdown pass with 3:28 left, then let Liberty drive to set up a late field goal attempt, but Jay Billingsley missed from 32 yards. KSU needed only two plays to score twice in overtime, and Liberty went four-and-out in the second OT. In its second year in FBS, Kennesaw will play for its first CUSA title. Hooty hoo!

9. Division III: No. 20 Wheaton 28, No. 5 Wartburg 24. Let it be known that I nailed it in Friday’s preview: Three of the games in my smaller-school showcase were classics. On an increasingly snowy field in Waverly, Iowa, Wheaton trailed host Wartburg on three occasions but struck back each time. Matt Crider’s 4-yard touchdown with 24 seconds left gave the Thunder the lead, and Wheaton defenders Collin Moore and Caleb Coburn teamed up to bat away a Hail Mary in the end zone. The win moves them on to the round of 16 against DePauw.

10. FCS: Southern 28, Grambling 27. I felt strange not mentioning the Bayou Classic in Friday’s preview, but Southern has been so dreadful this season that I passed. Never again. The 1-10 Jaguars fell behind 14-0 early and didn’t lead until midway through the fourth quarter, when Cam’Ron McCoy found Khalil Harris for a 34-yard score. Ckelby Givens recovered a fumble with 32 seconds left, and Southern scored one of the more unlikely recent wins in this wild series.

11. Louisiana 30, Louisiana-Monroe 27

12. Boise State 25, Utah State 24

13. Arkansas State 30, App State 29

14. Illinois 20, Northwestern 13

15. Penn State 40, Rutgers 36

16. Kent State 35, Northern Illinois 31

17. No. 4 Georgia 16, No. 23 Georgia Tech 9

18. Houston 31, Baylor 24

19. D-II: No. 16 Newberry 24, No. 9 West Florida 17

20. UAB 31, Tulsa 24