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...
Dylan Stewarts Status Leaves South Carolina Waiting On One Big Answer
South Carolina is still waiting for a clearer picture on Dylan Stewart, whose status remains clouded after his actions in the game against Alabama led to an indefinite suspension. Shane Beamer said Stewart has apologized to the team and to him, but there was no timetable offered for when the defensive standout might be back on the practice field or available again.
Stewart already sat out the recent game against Kentucky because of the suspension and an SEC-imposed ban, and the lack of a firm update leaves one of the Gamecocks more important defensive answers hanging in the balance. For a team trying to settle in and move forward, the uncertainty around Stewart is now part discipline issue, part football issue, and still without a clear resolution. [Read more 🡒]
South Carolina May Be Stuck With Shane Beamer For One Reason
South Carolinas football program appears headed toward another year of continuity, with Shane Beamer likely to stay in place through the 2027 season even as the losses pile up and outside speculation about his future keeps growing. The idea of moving on is complicated by money, and not just the kind tied to a head coachs contract. The Gamecocks are still working through the financial strain of a major stadium renovation, while also living with the lingering costs of previous coaching changes and contracts.
Athletic director Jeremiah Donati has continued to back Beamer, which only strengthens the sense that patience, not panic, is driving the decision for now. For South Carolina, the issue is less about whether questions exist and more about whether the program can realistically afford another reset while so many other expenses are still on the books. The result is a familiar kind of college-football limbo: enough doubt to keep the conversation alive, but not enough financial freedom to make a clean break. [Read more 🡒]
SEC Respect Debate Heats Up After Kentucky's Latest Statement Win
Kentuckys comeback against South Carolina was the kind of win that usually changes the conversation around a program. The Wildcats erased a 17-point halftime deficit and finished off the Gamecocks in overtime, a result that pushed them to 4-1 under head coach Will Stein and gave them another example of the resilience they have shown early in the season.
Still, the AP Top 25 did not budge in Kentuckys favor, and that has become the new point of debate. CBS Sports analyst Brad Crawford took poll voters to task for not giving the Wildcats proper recognition for the way they have played and improved, a reaction that only adds to the feeling that Kentucky is still trying to force its way into the broader SEC conversation. [Read more 🡒]