There were plenty of eye-opening results in Week 5, but a few performances stood above the rest for all the right - and wrong - reasons.
Jeremiah Smith keeps making Ohio State history look routine. In the Buckeyes’ win over Iowa at Kinnick Stadium, the wideout broke or tied three program records in one night.
He moved past Chris Olave for Ohio State’s all-time receiving touchdowns mark with 36, then passed Emeka Egbuka for the career receptions lead on his 207th catch against the Hawkeyes. Smith finished with 11 grabs for 206 yards and two scores.
For the season, he now has 33 receptions for 617 yards and seven touchdowns, and both of those numbers lead the country. The hype has been loud since he arrived, and through the first stretch of 2026, he’s backed it up.
On the other end of the spectrum, South Carolina’s season keeps slipping further away from Shane Beamer. The Gamecocks wasted a 17-point lead in a frustrating loss to No.
24 Kentucky, coming just weeks after they also gave away a 16-0 advantage against Mississippi State. According to CBS Sports’ Brad Crawford, South Carolina has now lost seven games after leading by 10 or more points, with three of those setbacks coming in its last four SEC games.
Beamer is 29-33 against FBS teams and 16-27 against the rest of the SEC, and the Gamecocks are off to an 0-3 start this year. Since the start of 2025, South Carolina is 1-11 against SEC opponents.
Any talk of a CFP run is gone by the first week of October.
Alabama’s Keelon Russell was every bit as explosive as Smith, and maybe even the most electric player on the field in the Crimson Tide’s 56-23 rout of No. 16 Mississippi State.
Russell piled up more than 300 yards of total offense, threw four touchdowns and didn’t turn it over once. Over his last three games, the numbers are absurd: 60-of-79 passing for 970 yards, 10 touchdowns and no interceptions, plus 16 carries for 106 yards and three more scores.
He’s 5-0 in 2026, and Alabama’s offense has now produced five straight games with 45 points or more. His Heisman stock has taken off, with most sportsbooks listing him just behind Jeremiah Smith.
Still, the biggest test is coming fast, with No. 2 Georgia heading to town next weekend.
Pitt’s Mason Heintschel lands on the wrong side of the ledger for a brutal reason. The Panthers improved to 5-0 after a controversial win over Virginia Tech on Friday night, but their star quarterback tore his ACL while scrambling out of bounds and will miss the rest of the season.
Heintschel entered Week 5 ranked among the top five nationally in passing touchdowns, and his injury is a crushing loss for Pitt. The Panthers have two major road tests still ahead, at Miami in Week 8 and at Louisville in Week 12, and former Auburn quarterback Holden Geriner is expected to take over.
Pitt remains in the ACC title picture, and its next step is North Carolina next weekend.
Missouri also made a loud statement, and it came against a team plenty of people expected to handle the Tigers. Instead, Eli Drinkwitz’s group flattened No.
8 Florida in a 45-17 win. Missouri’s plan was simple and ruthless: slow down Jadan Baugh and make Aaron Philo beat them through the air with Vernell Brown III limited by injury.
That approach worked to perfection. Drinkwitz and defensive coordinator Corey Batoon deserve credit, but so does Austin Simmons.
The Ole Miss transfer delivered his best game as a Tiger, throwing for 340 yards and two touchdowns on 23-of-30 passing. He’s the only starting quarterback in the SEC without an interception this season, and his line now sits at 1,287 passing yards, 13 touchdowns and zero picks.
Missouri gets Texas A&M next before heading to Oxford for a Week 7 matchup with Ole Miss.
And then there’s UMass, which had been one of the season’s feel-good stories before crashing hard on Saturday. After stunning Rutgers in Week 1 and opening 4-0, the Minutemen finally came back to earth in a 38-14 home loss to Eastern Michigan.
The crowd was sold out, the first such turnout for the program since 2014, but the result quickly wiped out any dream of a 0-12 to 12-0 run. Even so, UMass still has something tangible in front of it: two more wins would give the program its first bowl berth ever.
In Other News...
Georgia Still Has One Ranking Problem Heading Into Alabama
Danny Kanells latest Week 5 top 12 brought a fresh jolt to the SEC pecking order, with Alabama climbing to No. 1 after its decisive win over Mississippi State. The updated list also included Texas, Georgia and Ole Miss, giving the conference four teams in the mix, while Alabamas rise was fueled in part by the play of quarterback Keelon Russell.
Georgia checked in at No. 5 after its win over Vanderbilt, which leaves the Bulldogs with some ground to make up compared with the Tide at the top. Texas and Ole Miss both had byes in Week 5, so their standing stayed in place for now, but the bigger storyline from an Alabama perspective is clear: the Tide have the top spot, and the SEC race still has plenty of movement left. [Read more 🡒]
Alabama May Have A New Wrinkle Georgia Can't Ignore
Alabamas offense showed a different look in its 56-23 win over Mississippi State, and it was enough to spark some real curiosity about where Ryan Grubb may want to take things next. The Crimson Tide used the I formation in the game, a wrinkle that stood out because it put more emphasis on running the ball from under center and gave the attack a more physical edge than usual.
Grubb addressed the approach in Mondays press conference and pointed to the offensive line and tight ends for the way they handled the assignment, even with a fumble on the first play out of the formation. He also said the staff could lean on it more in the 2026 season, which makes the look worth tracking now as Alabama keeps shaping answers that could matter later in the year and beyond. [Read more 🡒]
Alabamas Backfield Debate Is Getting Harder To Ignore
Alabamas backfield has become one of the more interesting depth-chart conversations around the program, and freshman EJ Crowell is right in the middle of it. Through his first stretch of work, he has piled up 204 yards and three touchdowns on just 26 carries, flashing the kind of efficiency that tends to make fans notice, especially when a young back is turning limited touches into steady production.
Even with that kind of return, Crowell has not been getting a heavy workload lately, which has only sharpened the debate about how the Crimson Tide should divide carries. Alabama has other backs involved too, with Daniel Hill and Trae'shawn Brown also factoring in, but the question now is whether Crowell has done enough to earn a bigger role as the season moves along. [Read more 🡒]