Week 5 brings a fresh test for three ranked teams that have already delivered a little drama: No. 8 Florida, No.
14 Iowa and No. 16 Mississippi State.
Each is coming off a stirring win, and each now has to handle a ranked opponent while trying to keep the momentum alive.
Florida heads to No. 25 Missouri after blasting then-No.
4 Mississippi, with first-year coach Jon Sumrall trying to keep the Gators’ turnaround moving in the right direction. The recent history in this series suggests another tight one.
The last three Florida-Missouri games have been decided by a touchdown or less, and Missouri has won the last two in Columbia by a combined three points.
Iowa’s situation is even tougher on paper. The Hawkeyes stunned Michigan on the final play at the Big House, then turned around and landed as big underdogs at home against No.
5 Ohio State. The Buckeyes are stepping into the heart of their schedule, with three of their next four games on the road beginning with this trip to Iowa City.
Mississippi State gets the spotlight in Starkville against No. 7 Alabama, and the Bulldogs are carrying some real offensive juice into the matchup.
They rallied past Missouri last week and now have a shot at their first 3-0 start in Southeastern Conference play since 2014. Alabama will be the first ranked opponent of the year for the Crimson Tide, and the game also puts two sophomore quarterbacks front and center: Mississippi State’s Kamario Taylor and Alabama’s Keelon Russell.
Taylor has been piling up numbers fast. He has completed 69% of his passes for 1,192 yards with 14 touchdowns and two interceptions, and his passing touchdowns are tied for most in the Football Bowl Subdivision. Russell has completed 71% of his throws for 1,129 yards with eight touchdowns and two interceptions.
Mississippi State’s offense has been one of the storylines of the season. The Bulldogs lead the SEC in yards per game at 533.3 and rank fourth in points per game at 43. The one big hurdle still hanging over them: they have lost 11 straight against top-10 opponents.
Iowa’s challenge is the opposite kind of problem. The Hawkeyes will be leaning on the confidence from the Michigan win, but they also gave up six pass plays of 20 yards or more in that game.
That is not the kind of number you want to bring into a matchup with Jeremiah Smith, who looks impossible to ignore every week. Smith had four touchdown catches in Ohio State’s 42-19 win over Illinois, matching a program single-game record, and he leads the FBS with 154.3 receiving yards per game.
The Buckeyes and Hawkeyes have a long recent history, and it has not been kind to Iowa. Iowa’s last win over Ohio State came in 2017, a 55-24 rout. Since then, Ohio State has won the last two meetings, 54-10 in 2022 and 35-7 in 2024.
Saturday night also brings a marquee ACC matchup, with No. 4 Miami visiting Clemson. The Hurricanes are rolling behind quarterback Darian Mensah, who leads the country in completion percentage at 88.7%, and receiver Malachi Toney, who ranks third in the Bowl Subdivision at 141 yards per game.
Clemson has steadied itself since an opening-night loss at LSU. The Tigers have won three straight, including a comeback against North Carolina and a road win at California last week in the program’s first cross-country trip for a league game.
The Big 12 has its own unbeaten chase to watch. Cincinnati goes to Arizona looking to improve to 5-0 for the first time since 2021. Arizona quarterback Noah Fifita has already thrown 11 touchdown passes, pushing his career total to 84, the most among active FBS quarterbacks.
The Wildcats have also shown they can recover from an early punch. Since a 28-17 loss at BYU, Arizona has come back from 10-0 deficits against Northern Illinois and 14-0 at Washington State and won both games by double digits.
In Other News...
Jon Sumrall Just Made Floridas Secondary Concern Even Bigger
Floridas defense left the Missouri game with more questions than answers, and the secondary is right at the center of it. The Gators gave up five touchdowns on drives that began with a punt or kickoff, a jarring jump for a unit that was supposed to have enough talent in the back end to hold up better than that. Instead, explosive plays kept putting the defense in bad spots, and the overall result made the problems look bigger than a single busted coverage or one rough quarter.
Jon Sumrall did not try to dress it up afterward, saying there are multiple issues in the secondary and no simple fix waiting to clean them up. His message was blunt enough to make the concern feel even more real: Florida needs players to win their one-on-one battles. For a defense built with highly rated talent, that is a tough place to be, and it leaves the Gators staring at a problem that goes beyond scheme and into execution. [Read more 🡒]
Floridas Ranking Hit Looks Bad But One Result May Save Them
Floridas latest result did enough damage to raise questions about where the Gators land in the next AP Top 25, especially with several ranked teams around the country also stumbling. The poll is expected to shift only modestly after a weekend in which just three teams in the rankings lost, but Floridas own situation stands out because a rough outing can look worse when the rest of the field largely holds serve.
There is still a chance the Gators avoid a deeper slide, though, because the committee of voters has a few other results to weigh, including Pittsburgh staying unbeaten and teams such as UCLA, Kentucky and Boise State adding their own wrinkles to the picture. Mississippi State and Alabama are part of the same crowded conversation too, which is what makes Floridas place in the next poll so uncertain until the new rankings are revealed. [Read more 🡒]
Jon Sumrall Just Challenged Florida's Maturity After Its First Loss
Floridas first loss of the 2026 season landed hard, and Jon Sumrall did not soften the blow afterward. The No. 8 Gators were thumped by No. 25 Missouri, 45-17, in a game that exposed problems on both sides of the ball, with the head coach pointing directly to defensive breakdowns and an offense that never got its ground game going.
Sumralls criticism went beyond scheme and execution, getting at the bigger-picture issue of maturity after a defeat that had been building for the wrong reasons. With South Carolina, Texas and Georgia next on the schedule, Florida does not have much time to let the sting linger, and the response in the coming weeks will say plenty about how this team handles its first real setback. [Read more 🡒]