Another week of College Football has passed, and yet more marquee games that will end up shaping the fate of many teams have been played. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t have that same chaos factor we had last week, but still, a couple of notable games were played. And within the polls, we have ourselves some more groups of five schools storming in. Add in a couple of game-of-the-year type matchups, extremely close finishes, and a few notable upsets, this week of College Football still did not disappoint.

The Red River Rivalry Ends In a Blowout, as Texas Fully Routes Oklahoma With Quinn Ewers Back Under Center

It seems that Quinn Ewers managed to re-enter back under center at the best time, as the Texas Longhorns routed the Sooners 34-3. It seemed at the beginning that Quinn may not be his original self, throwing an interception in his first drive. But he would do just enough to be able to fully dismantle the Sooners Defense. Multiple players got through the Sooners’ Defense with a rushing touchdown, while the Defense held the Sooners offense to only a field goal all game, in the first quarter. Texas gets to keep its number one spot for now their next opponent will end up being the original #1 team at the start of this year, the Georgia Bulldogs. As for the Sooners, no longer being ranked and having multiple questions on offense is really going to make them question if a rebuilding era will begin once again.

Welcome to the Big 10 Oregon, The Ducks Survive a Desperate Comeback Against The Buckeyes in Another Game of the Year Candidate

As for the #2 spot, The Oregon Ducks finally managed to put their name as the next-best team in the country. In a close game, the Ducks would end up beating the Ohio State Buckeyes 32-31 in an almost comeback from the Buckeyes. A total of seven lead changes made this match-up between #2 and #3 a must-watch. It had come down to the final seconds as Ohio State QB Will Howard had the ball with six seconds left and one timeout. One might start chucking it or maybe attempt a field goal when down by one. Instead? A flashback to the 2021 Wild Card Game when Cowboys QB Dak Prescott ran a QB draw on the final play of the game. It was the same exact play, as Will Howard ended up sealing the game with his own QB draw…winning the game for Oregon. For the Ducks, they would end up in the #2 spot, just behind #1 Texas, waiting for them to slip up to take control of the AP Polls (The Longhorns do have The Bulldogs next week and a possible upset alert against Vanderbilt so…the Ducks are sitting in a good spot).

As for the Buckeyes, this loss would only send them down to #4. They’re still in a good spot to make the playoffs as their next biggest opponents are against newly #3 Penn State, #16 Indiana, and the Big Game against Michigan. As long as they don’t slip up against any of those teams, they should have a good shot to reach the playoffs.

Multiple Upsets And Multiple Close Calls

Unlike the Buckeyes, some teams this week would end up getting upset or nearly upset, causing major shifts in the polls. So many teams went up by at least one, along with a couple of newcomers. Others, let’s just say, didn’t have the best of their opponents

• #13 LSU defeats #9 Ole Miss in Overtime: All it took on the first play of overtime was a single touchdown for the Tigers to get the upset over Ole Miss in Death Valley. LSU makes its way up to #8, putting them back into playoff consideration. Ole Miss gets the biggest drop, however, falling down nine spots to #18.
• Friday Night Lights Did Not Disappoint as Arizona State Upsets Utah, Knocking Them Straight Off the Polls: Unfortunately for Cam Rising, he would experience the chaos that is the Big 12. A devastating 27-19 loss was enough to knock off the Utes from #16 to out of the polls. Unfortunately for Arizona State, it wouldn’t be enough for them to be ranked, but a marquee upset still led to another storming of the field. The team that now holds the lead in the Big 12? The #9 Iowa State Cyclones, with BYU right up there at #13.
• #7 Alabama Also Hold On For Dear Life, Preventing Another Upset Against South Carolina: It’s been a rough couple of weeks for the Tide, just barely managing to hold off another comeback against South Carolina. An interception coming off an onside kick was enough for them to stay at #7 and for them to fight another day
• Not One, Not Two, But Three Overtimes To Be Able To Prevent An Upset: Penn State, Tennessee, and Illinois must be extremely lucky this week, as they managed to hold off more unranked upsets, having to send their games into overtime to do so. Their matchups with USC, Florida, and Purdue, respectively, had to be ended during overtime in which they would all end up holding their opponents to not score, and either kick the game-winning FG or score a touchdown. 

Group of Five Watch: Army and Navy Are Officially Ranked And Undefeated, Possible AAC Championship Game Against These Historic Rivals

In other news, both Army and Navy are now officially ranked in the polls, while still remaining undefeated. Newly #25 Navy edges out Vanderbilt, who had a great win against Kentucky, on their bye week. As for Army, a blowout 44-10 win against UAB was enough to rank them at #23. Their schedules from now on are going to be very important in the AAC, with their biggest matchups both being current #12 Notre Dame. Because this is a non-conference game, it wouldn’t impact their ranking in the AAC, which could possibly lead to an AAC championship matchup, before their official Army-Navy Game. If this ends up being true, imagine telling someone back in 2020, that the Army-Navy game would not only end up being for the AAC championship but even have massive playoff implications. The only thing standing in their way from that guaranteed #12 G5 spot is Boise State who are currently ranked 15th with Ashton Jeanty making a name for the Heisman. Yet all it takes is one slip-up, and we could see that dream implication become a reality.