🏆 CFP tiers, title odds and a simulated champ

Two top-10 teams fell on the road to unranked opponents. A third fell to a lower-ranked team. No. 5 Georgia flirted with disaster, as always, and just because nothing is allowed to make total sense in the ACC, No. 15 Virginia and No. 16 Louisville also thought hard about face-planting before rallying.

Week 10 didn't give us quite as many absolute disasters as it could have, and the damage was mostly contained to the increasingly chaotic ACC. And with two-thirds of the 2025 college football season done, we now shift into Playoff Hyperdrive.

Let's look back on Week 10 with help from the construct I used for the Week 10 preview: Playoff Tiers.

Updated playoff tiers

The first College Football Playoff rankings of the season come out Tuesday, and using a combination of the Allstate Playoff Predictor and odds driven by my SP+ rankings, we can pretty easily bunch teams into groups of playoff likelihood. The tiers didn't change all that much this weekend, though conveniently, each team that lost fell into the tier below.

Tier 1

Indiana (9-0, 99.5% average playoff odds) -- def. Maryland 55-10 Saturday
Ohio State (8-0, 99.3%) -- def. Ohio State 38-14
Texas A&M (8-0, 95.7%)

With A&M off and Indiana and Ohio State winning by a combined 93-24, nothing changed here. These are the three most likely teams to make the CFP, and while the playoff committee could overthink and try to talk itself into ranking Alabama ahead of A&M or something because of ranked wins, the Aggies deserve the edge to me, both because of their road win over Tier 3's Notre Dame and the extremely important fact that they didn't lose to a 4-4 Florida State team like the Tide did.

Tier 2

Ole Miss (8-1, 83.6%) -- def. South Carolina 30-14
Oregon (7-1, 75.6%)
Alabama (7-1, 74.0%)
BYU (8-0, 69.3%)
Texas Tech (8-1, 68.5%) -- def. Kansas State 43-20
Georgia (7-1, 54.1%) -- def. Florida 24-20

With Georgia Tech's loss to NC State on Saturday, the Yellow Jackets dropped from Tier 2 to Tier 3, but with a surprisingly comfortable road win over a smoking hot Kansas State, Texas Tech jumped from Tier 3 to 2. I'm curious how the CFP committee might view the Red Raiders, a team with eight wins by at least 23 points and a lone loss coming without starting quarterback Behren Morton. Their strength-of-schedule numbers aren't very good, but they ace the eye test, and if "best" is supposed to matter over "most deserving," well, they're fourth in SP+.

Georgia, meanwhile, is uninterested in passing "eye tests." The Bulldogs once again painted themselves into a corner, this time spotting rival Florida a 20-17 lead and letting them drive into field goal range midway through the fourth quarter. But they rallied once again, stuffing Jadan Baugh on fourth-and-1, immediately driving for a touchdown, then forcing a four-and-out and winning the game. They look impressive for about one quarter per game, but they're 7-1 with a Tier 2 win over Ole Miss and a lone loss to Tier 2 Bama. The road still features games against Texas and Georgia Tech, however.

Tier 3

Notre Dame (6-2, 41.1%) -- def. Boston College 25-10
Virginia (8-1, 37.6%) -- def. California 31-21
Louisville (7-1, 37.1%) -- def. Virginia Tech 28-16
Texas (7-2, 33.5%) -- def. Vanderbilt 34-31
Georgia Tech (8-1, 30.2%) -- lost to NC State 48-36

Tier 3 is evidently the transition tier. Of last week's four Tier 3 teams, one moved up with a win (Texas Tech), and two moved down with losses (Miami, Vanderbilt). Meanwhile, it caught Georgia Tech on the way down and Texas on the way up. And with all the other chaos in the ACC, two one-loss teams that won as favorites Saturday (Virginia and Louisville) saw their conference title odds rise by solid amounts. They also moved up from Tier 4.

Tier 4

Oklahoma (7-2, 27.0%) -- def. Tennessee 33-27
Vanderbilt (7-2, 26.8%) -- lost to Texas 34-31
Utah (7-2, 24.2%) -- def. Cincinnati 45-14
Miami (6-2, 17.9%) -- lost to SMU 26-20
USC (6-2, 14.0%) -- def. Nebraska 21-17
Washington (6-2, 13.6%)
Missouri (6-2, 10.7%)
Michigan (7-2, 10.5%) -- def. Purdue 21-16
Pitt (7-2, 6.9%) -- def. Stanford 35-20
Duke (5-3, 6.4%) -- def. Clemson 46-45
Iowa (6-2, 6.0%)
SMU (6-3, 5.7%) -- def. Miami 26-20

Oklahoma and Vanderbilt both have decent enough odds that I could have slipped them into Tier 3, but since they've both lost to Tier 3 Texas, and head-to-head matchups between two-loss SEC teams could matter a lot, we'll go ahead and put them here. At this point, Tier 4 is a mix of two-loss Big Ten and SEC teams (OU, Vandy, USC, Washington, Mizzou, Michigan, Iowa), two-loss Big 12 and ACC teams that either have impressive wins (Miami) or are simply smoking hot (Utah, Pitt) and three-loss ACC teams that still have a puncher's chance at the conference title (Duke, SMU).

Tier (Group of) 5

James Madison (7-1, 27.7%) -- def. Texas State 52-20
North Texas (8-1, 26.4%) -- def. Navy 31-17
Memphis (8-1, 15.9%) -- def. Rice 38-14
USF (6-2, 13.9%)
San Diego State (7-1, 8.9%) -- def. Wyoming 24-7

There's still a scenario in which, say, SMU wins the ACC at 10-3 but ranks behind a pair of one-loss Group of 5 champions, and the G5 ends up with multiple bids. That said, one G5 bid is still far and away the most likely scenario, and that race remains awfully interesting. JMU impressed enough in San Marcos last Tuesday that the Dukes jumped from 50th to 36th in SP+. They aren't going to finish with a great résumé -- their most impressive performance was a loss to Louisville in which they were tied in the fourth quarter before a fumble recovery touchdown put them behind -- but they look the part enough that they should feel good about their chances if they finish 12-1 to win the Sun Belt, and the American Conference champ is 11-2.

Still, it's clear the American winner, whoever it ends up being, is most likely to score the bid even if JMU's odds are better than any single team.

What Tuesday's rankings should look like

For the past couple of years, I've been fiddling with what amounts to a BCS-ish formula, derived half from the AP poll and half from a combination of both computer power ratings (SP+ and FPI) and computer résumé ratings (Résumé SP+ and Strength of Record). With a few exceptions -- Alabama over Florida State in 2023, SMU over Alabama in 2024 -- it tends to adhere pretty closely to what the committee ends up deciding.

Tuesday's rankings will be the first since the CFP committee began using "enhanced metrics to help evaluate schedule strength," however. What does that mean in practice? I have no idea. So in anticipation of Tuesday's release, let's look at four rankings for the teams most likely to be ranked by the committee: 1) their AP poll ranking; 2) their ranking in this BCS-ish formula; 3) their Strength of Record ranking and 4) their Résumé SP+ ranking.

This obviously adheres pretty closely to the tiers above, but it gives us a good idea of what to look for Tuesday night. If the committee really is taking strength of schedule or strength of record further into account -- and for the record, I really don't think it needed to -- then we might expect teams that are more well regarded by the computers to win some arguments. Texas A&M would definitely rank ahead of Alabama in this case, and BYU might rank higher as well. Also, two-loss Texas and Vanderbilt would likely trump one-loss Louisville and Georgia Tech.

All in all, I think the top 11 on Tuesday should end up looking almost identical to the AP poll, while the spots from No. 12 to No. 21 could end up in pretty much any order.

A hypothetical playoff simulation, because why not?

Based on where teams are most likely to rank this week (via the BCS-ish rankings above) and which teams are currently most likely to win their conferences (per SP+), here's what I'm going to call Week 11's playoff bracket.

9 Texas Tech at 8 BYU
Winner plays 1 Ohio State

12 North Texas at 5 Georgia
Winner plays 4 Alabama

11 Louisville at 6 Oregon
Winner plays 3 Texas A&M

10 Notre Dame at 7 Ole Miss
Winner plays 2 Indiana

We'll see a shakeup following Week 11's Texas Tech-BYU battle in Lubbock, but for now, this gives us Notre Dame's first-ever trip to Oxford, a potential playoff rematch between Indiana and Notre Dame in the quarterfinals and another Alabama-Georgia playoff game (this time in the quarterfinals). Based on current SP+ rankings, it would also give us these national title odds based on 10,000 simulations:

Hypothetical title odds based on the above bracket:
1-seed Ohio State 30.6%
2-seed Indiana 28.2%
6-seed Oregon 12.4%
3-seed Texas A&M 7.4%
4-seed Alabama 6.8%
9-seed Texas Tech 5.6%
5-seed Georgia 3.0%
10-seed Notre Dame 2.4%
7-seed Ole Miss 1.7%
8-seed BYU 1.1%
11-seed Louisville 0.4%
12-seed North Texas 0.2%

And because odds alone aren't very satisfying, I grabbed a random simulation from the batch of 10,000. Here's what's officially going to happen this postseason. You can stop watching now.

(Please don't stop watching.)

FIRST ROUND
Texas Tech over BYU in Provo
Georgia over North Texas in Athens
Oregon over Louisville in Eugene
Notre Dame over Ole Miss in Oxford

QUARTERFINALS
Rose Bowl: Texas Tech over Ohio State
Sugar Bowl: Alabama over Georgia
Cotton Bowl: Texas A&M over Oregon
Orange Bowl: Indiana over Notre Dame

SEMIFINALS
Peach Bowl: Alabama over Texas Tech
Fiesta Bowl: Indiana over Texas A&M

FINALS
Indiana over Alabama in Miami

If you Google Indiana's Curt Cignetti, as he told you to a couple of years ago, it might soon tell you that he's a national title-winning head coach.

5 other random thoughts from Week 10

Damn, Mario. By Mario Cristobal's standards, his late-game management against SMU wasn't a crime against humanity or anything, but after SMU tied the game with 25 seconds left, Miami got the ball back with a timeout in hand and a quarterback Cristobal paid loads of money for ... and the Hurricanes kneeled out the clock to go to overtime. Granted, Carson Beck's dreadful overtime interception, which set up SMU's winning touchdown, certainly didn't help his cause, but it doesn't matter how much money you shell out if you're still going to play by "Three things can happen when you pass, and two are bad" rules in the 2020s.

But since Cristobal took over at Miami in 2022, his Hurricanes have lost five games as double-digit favorites; only Alabama can match that total, and (A) Bama has been a double-digit favorite 50% more often and (B) three of the Tide's five such losses came in a small cluster of games last season. Cristobal has lost at least one such game each year that he's been in charge. Death, taxes and Miami suffering a catastrophic loss it should have put away.

Holy (whistle) smokes (whistle), Arkansas (whistle). Generally speaking, penalties and penalty yards don't correlate to wins and losses as much as you might think. Committing a lot of penalties can often signify that you're properly pushing the limits from an aggressiveness standpoint, and of the 66 teams to have suffered more than 100 penalty yards in a game this season, 38 ended up winning the game.

It's nice to know there are limits, however. Arkansas committed 18 penalties for 193 yards against Mississippi State on Saturday, the third most for any FBS team in any game over the last 10 seasons. Only Kansas (216 yards in a win over UNLV in 2023) and Northern Illinois (194 in a win over Eastern Illinois in 2017) can top that number. But while those teams still managed to win, Arkansas' discipline ran out late. Mississippi State scored 17 points in the game's final 11 minutes to overcome a 14-point deficit and win 38-35. If Sam Pittman hadn't already been fired, he probably would be now. (And it probably goes without saying that interim coach Bobby Petrino hasn't shined enough to justify hiring him full time, though I'm sure you can still find an Arkansas booster advocating for it.)

So many close SEC games. We can question whether the SEC has a team the caliber of Ohio State or Indiana this season, but we cannot question its commitment to competitiveness. The league featured six games Saturday, five were decided by one score -- including both of its ranked-versus-ranked encounters -- and the sixth was within one score with 12 minutes left. For the season, the league has had 43 conference games to date, with 26 decided by one touchdown or less. It's been close enough overall that Arkansas somehow (A) ranks first in the league in points per drive in conference play and (B) is 0-5 in conference play.

Close games will define the rest of November, too. Texas A&M (5-0 in SEC play) has two road games with a projected margin of less than two points, and despite being pretty close to the finish line the Aggies have higher odds of losing two or more in November (27%) than reaching 12-0 (25%).

Alabama (5-0) has three conference games remaining, and all three are projected within single digits, two within one score. SP+ gives the Tide only a 25% chance of winning its four remaining games, with 26% odds of losing at least twice.

Georgia's odds, meanwhile, are almost identical -- the Bulldogs (5-1) have two projected one-score SEC games remaining (at Mississippi State, Texas), plus a one-score visit to Georgia Tech. The result: a 25% chance of winning out and a 30% chance of losing at least twice.

Texas (4-1) actually looked the part for most of Saturday's win over Vanderbilt, but the Longhorns are projected underdogs in two of three remaining games (at Georgia, Texas A&M), and Arkansas is not a gimme. Odds of winning out: 15%.

Ole Miss (5-1) has the most navigable path of any major conference contender, with only Florida and Mississippi State remaining in SEC play. Odds of winning out: 54%. Then again, the Rebels lost to Florida last year, and the Egg Bowl lives for nonsense.

Colorado looks done done. Over its last two games against Utah and Arizona, Colorado was projected to lose by a combined 23.1 points. The Buffaloes instead lost by 81. Last week's 53-7 loss to Utah was almost understandable in retrospect (the Utes just walloped Cincinnati, too), but they were equally moribund in Saturday evening's home loss to Arizona. And based on a weighted average of recent performances (where the most recent game carries more weight), they are officially the team that is underachieving the most against current SP+ projections.

There are plenty of other teams staggering and/or falling at the moment - Syracuse, Penn State, Louisiana-Monroe, Delaware, Maryland, Texas State, Bowling Green - but CU leads the pack. And if the Buffs can't beat West Virginia in Morgantown this coming weekend, a 3-9 finish begins to look awfully likely. Would that increase the odds of Deion Sanders stepping down at the end of the season?

DeSean Jackson was a spectacular hire. Remember in the offseason, when Norfolk State (Michael Vick) and Delaware State (DeSean Jackson) went the Deion Sanders/Eddie George route and hired celebrated former players as their head coaches? Vick was the bigger headline-grabber - he's Michael Vick, after all - and he has struggled in year one, as you might expect from a first-time head coach. Norfolk State went 4-8 and finished 101st in FCS SP+ last season; the Spartans are just 1-8 and 115th this season. They have a couple of semi-winnable games left against Morgan State and Howard (they will likely get drubbed by N.C. Central this coming week), but it's been a year of growing pains.

For Jackson and his Hornets, however, it's been the exact opposite story. DSU went 1-11 and finished 123rd in SP+ last season, and they haven't finished higher than 5-6 or 83rd over the past decade. Last Thursday's win over Vick's NSU, however, brought them to 6-3 and 54th overall. They've already upset N.C. Central, and if they can win a tossup game at home against S.C. State in Week 13, they'll win their first MEAC title since 2007 and score their first Celebration Bowl bid. It's looking like Jackson was one of the best hires of last offseason's coaching carousel.

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:

Fresno State: up 3.7 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 93rd to 78th)

East Carolina: up 3.4 points (from 61st to 48th)

Florida State: up 3.3 points (from 34th to 24th)

Louisiana Tech: up 3.3 points (from 76th to 67th)

Western Kentucky: up 3.1 points (from 88th to 72nd)

Buffalo: up 2.9 points (from 99th to 87th)

James Madison: up 2.8 points (from 50th to 36th)

Arizona: up 2.8 points (from 43rd to 31st)

UTSA: up 2.7 points (from 70th to 65th)

North Carolina: up 2.5 points (from 98th to 89th)

The ACC's oddities didn't stop at the games involving ranked teams. Duke's win over Clemson was the most statistically unlikely result of the week -- Duke somehow won despite a mammoth efficiency disadvantage (success rate: Clemson 58.3%, Duke 37.5%) -- and in Tallahassee, Florida State somehow transferred all of its bad vibes to its opponent. Wake Forest collapsed under the weight of both its own mistakes and the Seminoles' sudden excellence, and the teams basically traded seven points: FSU moved up 3.3 and, as you'll see below, Wake moved down 3.7.

Meanwhile, this is the faintest of praise, but since bottoming out at 103rd in SP+ three weeks ago, North Carolina has rallied to 89th, suffering a pair of gut-wrenching close losses and finally getting off the schneid with a thumping of quarterback-less Syracuse. The Tar Heels will have to pull at least a pair of upsets to have any hope of bowling, but improvement can be encouraging in and of itself.

Moving down

Here are the 10 teams whose ratings fell the most:

Wake Forest: down 3.7 adjusted points per game (ranking fell from 56th to 68th)

Cincinnati: down 3.5 points (from 23rd to 32nd)

Maryland: down 3.3 points (from 37th to 51st)

Georgia Tech: down 3.2 points (from 25th to 34th)

Boise State: down 3.0 points (from 47th to 55th)

Colorado: down 3.0 points (from 68th to 82nd)

UCF: down 2.9 points (from 51st to 56th)

Rutgers: down 2.5 points (from 63rd to 69th)

Sam Houston: down 2.4 points (no change from 135th)

South Carolina: down 2.4 points (from 54th to 61st)

Georgia Tech entered Week 10 as the lowest-ranked unbeaten power-conference team by a comfortable margin. After getting pushed around by NC State, the Yellow Jackets are now lodged between 4-5 Auburn and James Madison in SP+.

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. Jeff Sims, Arizona State (13-for-24 passing for 177 yards, 1 TD and 1 INT, plus 228 non-sack rushing yards and 2 TDs against Iowa State).

2. Julian Sayin, Ohio State (20-for-23 passing for 316 yards and 4 touchdowns against Penn State).

3. CJ Bailey, NC State (24-for-32 passing for 340 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 41 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Georgia Tech).

4. Jordan Marshall, Michigan (25 carries for 185 yards and 3 touchdowns, plus 25 receiving yards against Purdue).

5. Owen McCown, UTSA (31-for-33 passing for 370 yards and 4 touchdowns against Tulane).

6. Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame (17 carries for 136 yards and 2 touchdowns, plus 30 receiving yards against Boston College).

7. Arch Manning, Texas (25-for-33 passing for 328 yards and 3 touchdowns against Vanderbilt).

8. Haynes King, Georgia Tech (25-for-35 passing for 408 yards, 2 TDs and 1 INT, plus 113 non-sack rushing yards and 2 TDs against NC State).

9. Darian Mensah, Duke (27-for-41 passing for 361 yards and 4 touchdowns against Clemson).

10. Melkart Abou Jaoude, North Carolina (6 tackles, 2.5 TFLs, 2 sacks and 1 forced fumble against Syracuse).

Jeff Sims is the journeyman prototype for the transfer portal era. He has started 28 career games at three different schools (Georgia Tech, Nebraska and Arizona State), and in those he has produced some absolute duds -- 10 games with a Total QBR under 30.0, three under 10.0. But he's also thrown for more than 250 yards five times and rushed for 100 or more yards (not including sacks) seven times. And on Saturday in Ames, he painted a Sims-ian masterpiece, throwing the ball reasonably well but ripping off an 88-yard touchdown run in the third quarter and nearly doubling his previous career high in rushing.

Sims is quite obviously not a Heisman contender, but one of the reasons I love this Heisman of the Week approach is that we get to celebrate when guys like Sims do something beautiful. He even managed to top nearly perfect performances from Julian Sayin and Owen McCown and a heroic, hobbled game from CJ Bailey.

Honorable mention:

• Luke Altmyer, Illinois (19-for-31 passing for 235 yards, 4 TDs and 1 INT, plus 95 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Rutgers).

• Alonza Barnett III, James Madison (12-for-18 passing for 264 yards, 4 TDs and 1 INT, plus 102 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Texas State).

• Tommy Castellanos, Florida State (12-for-16 passing for 271 yards and a touchdown, plus 18 non-sack rushing yards and a TD against Wake Forest).

• Evan Dickens, Liberty (22 carries for 217 yards and 4 touchdowns against Delaware).

• Caleb Hawkins, North Texas (33 carries for 197 yards and 4 touchdowns, plus 9 receiving yards against Navy).

• Kevin Jennings, SMU (29-for-44 passing for 365 yards and a touchdown, plus a rushing touchdown against Miami).

• Jayden Scott, NC State (24 carries for 196 yards and a touchdown, plus 11 receiving yards against Georgia Tech).

• Danny Scudero, San Jose State (7 catches for 215 yards and 2 touchdowns against Hawai'i).

Through 10 weeks, here are your points leaders. I've bolded the guys who are also in the top 12 in the current Heisman betting odds.

1. Ty Simpson, Alabama (29 points)
2. Taylen Green, Arkansas (27)
3T. Trinidad Chambliss, Ole Miss (25)
3T. Julian Sayin, Ohio State (25)
5. Demond Williams Jr., Washington (21)
6T. Fernando Mendoza, Indiana (19)
6T. Gunner Stockton, Georgia (19)
8. Luke Altmyer, Illinois (16)
9. Diego Pavia, Vanderbilt (14)
10T. Haynes King, Georgia Tech (13)
10T. Jeremiyah Love, Notre Dame (13)

We might be approaching a "Winner takes the No. 1 seed, winning QB takes the Heisman" game between Sayin's Ohio State -- now the current Heisman betting favorite, per ESPN BET -- and Mendoza's Indiana in the Big Ten championship game in four weeks. Simpson, Chambliss and Stockton still have clear paths to impress, however, and with Love shifting into fifth gear over the last two games (a combined 41 carries for 364 yards) he might be able to catch voters' eyes if he keeps ripping off 94-yard touchdown runs.

My 10 favorite games of the weekend

1 and 2. SMU 26, No. 10 Miami 20 (OT) and Duke 46, Clemson 45. Obviously Miami ended up being the main character in Saturday's loss, but what a performance by SMU. Kevin Jennings nearly landed on the Heisman of the Week list with 365 yards, a TD pass and a TD run, and the Mustangs' defense, much improved of late, allowed just one gain of more than 25 yards, forced Miami to go the length of the field and pounced on mistakes. A great performance in a frustrating season.

Meanwhile, since Manny Diaz is a soccer fan, I can confidently say he'll know what I mean when I say Duke pulled an absolute smash-and-grab in Death Valley, overcoming a massive efficiency disadvantage with a kick return score and not only a 5-for-5 performance on fourth down but 29 points scored after a fourth-down conversion. The Blue Devils remain in the ACC title race, and Clemson now has only about a 39% chance of bowling, per SP+.

3. Division II: No. 7 CSU-Pueblo 24, No. 6 Western Colorado 21. I love it when one of the Smaller-School Showcase games in my Friday preview lives up to its billing. Unbeaten WCU bolted to a 21-0 lead in the second quarter, but CSU-Pueblo had tied it by the end of the third quarter, with help from an 88-yard Roman Fuller-to-Marcellus Honeycutt Jr. touchdown pass. In the end, the Thunderwolves won with special teams: First, Jusiah Sampleton blocked a 47-yard field goal attempt with 4:01 left; then, after a 20-yard pass on third-and-16, Jackson Smith knocked in a 32-yarder as time expired.

4. FCS: No. 25 Abilene Christian 31, No. 2 Tarleton State 28. Tarleton State was the best FCS team not named North Dakota State heading into the weekend, and after entering the fourth quarter down 28-10, the Texans rallied to tie it with 56 seconds left. But a 38-yard pass from Stone Earle to Bryan Henry set up Brandon Perez's 47-yard buzzer beater. TSU is unbeaten no more.

5. No. 5 Georgia 24, Florida 20. Honestly, this game would rank higher if Georgia hadn't been involved, but the Bulldogs have pulled the football version of the "Call the ambulance ... but not for me" meme too many times now, falling behind then winning with perfect late execution. Regardless, it was a fun, tense way to spend an afternoon even if I didn't for a second doubt the final outcome.

6 and 7. FCS: Idaho 35, Northern Arizona 32 (OT) (Friday) and Idaho State 38, No. 6 UC Davis 36. Drama in the Big Sky! On Friday night in Flagstaff, Idaho watched a 26-7 lead turn into a 29-26 fourth-quarter deficit, but Owen Adams nailed a 42-yard field goal at the buzzer, and after forcing an overtime field goal, the Vandals walked it off with a short ​​Hayden Kincheloe touchdown.

On Saturday in Davis, Idaho State, which has felt pretty close to a lovely upset all season, got one thanks to a 219-yard rushing performance from Dason Brooks and a 50-yard, final-minute field goal from Trajan Sinatra, the best-named kicker this side of Florida's Trey Smack.

play

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Trajan Sinatra makes 50-yard field goal

Trajan Sinatra makes 50-yard field goal

8. Mississippi State 38, Arkansas 35. After heart-breaking losses to Texas and Florida extended MSU's SEC losing streak to 16 games (and more than two calendar years), it was going to take something special to end the streak. Like a game-ending 17-0 run, 193 penalty yards from Arkansas and a monstrous 18-yard catch and touchdown run from Anthony Evans III.

9. New Mexico 40, UNLV 35. If you watched this one as I advised, you were rewarded. New Mexico played catch-and-release, losing leads of 21-0 and 34-21, but with the game on the line, the Lobos executed a perfect, eight-play, 75-yard touchdown drive, taking the lead on a 13-yard D.J. McKinney run, then making two late stops to move to 6-2 and secure bowl eligibility. It's hard to say enough about the job Jason Eck has done there in year one.

10. Division II: West Texas A&M 53, Texas A&M-Kingsville 48. There should always be room for a nutty track meet on this list, and if you missed the first eight minutes of this one, you missed 1) a 74-yard return on the opening kickoff, 2) a 26-yard touchdown on the first offensive play, 3) a sack-and-strip fumble, 4) a 99-yard kick return, 5) two turnovers on downs and 6) a 43-yard touchdown pass. West Texas A&M took a 22-6 lead from all of that, Kingsville responded with a 22-3 run to charge ahead, and we got six more lead changes from there. Goodness.

11. NAIA: No. 14 Indiana Wesleyan 56, Taylor 48.

12. No. 20 Texas 34, No. 9 Vanderbilt 31.

13. No. 18 Oklahoma 33, No. 14 Tennessee 27.

14. Oregon State 10, Washington State 7.

15. FCS: Central Connecticut 10, Long Island 7.

16. NAIA: Cumberland 40, Cumberlands 37.

17. Minnesota 23, Michigan State 20 (OT).

18. Army 20, Air Force 17.

19. Division II: Chowan 34, Erskine 30.

20. Division III: Wesleyan 34, Williams 28 (OT).

The midweek playlist

Here's your quick reminder that the CFP rankings are only the second-biggest landmark of the coming week. That's right: IT'S MIDWEEK MACTION TIME. And we start out with a doozy.

Miami (Ohio) at Ohio (Tuesday, 7 p.m., ESPN2). Miami's won five straight since an 0-3 start, and Ohio, the defending champ, has won four of five. The winner of this one will be your odds-on MAC favorite.

UTSA at USF (Thursday, 7:30 p.m., ESPN). USF needs to win out to keep AAC title (and playoff) hopes alive, and UTSA is coming off of by far its best performance of the season.