The top of the AP Top 25 is holding steady, but everything behind No. 1 Miami is getting shaken up after a wild Saturday that delivered five ranked teams losing to unranked opponents.
Miami won’t budge from the top spot, but the rest of the poll is primed for a major reset after No. 2 BYU and No.
8 Texas Tech both went down. Both teams also took their first loss of the season, leaving just three undefeated Power Four teams: Miami, No.
9 UCLA and No. 10 Utah.
The Cougars nearly survived in regulation before UCF turned the game into chaos. A blocked field goal and a 10-second runoff sent it to overtime, where UCF finally finished the job. The Golden Knights scored and converted a two-point try in the second overtime, then stopped BYU on its second chance to seal the upset.
South Carolina needed its own late surge to knock off No. 11 Tennessee. LaNorris Sellers pushed his way into the end zone to tie the game inside the final two minutes, then Dylan Stewart forced a fumble that opened the door for Malik Orsan’s 48-yard game-winning field goal.
Texas Tech, meanwhile, had no answer for Cincinnati. The Bearcats grabbed a 10-6 lead in the first quarter and controlled the night from there in a 37-24 win. Cincinnati ran the ball 40 times for 255 yards and scored the first rushing touchdown against the Red Raiders’ defense this season, but the damage also came through the air, where JC French IV threw for 172 yards and four touchdowns.
Another ranked team got pushed off the road as No. 16 USC fell 24-7 to Wisconsin in prime time.
Maiava completed 62 percent of his passes for 258 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions, but he was also sacked five times and hit with multiple intentional grounding penalties. The Trojans’ ground game never gave him much support, either, with freshman running back Shahn Alston leading the team with just 28 yards on seven carries.
No. 15 Iowa also came up short in a rivalry game, dropping to unranked Minnesota with the Floyd of Rosedale on the line.
The Golden Gophers won it on a field goal at the buzzer, and they held Iowa to its lowest point total of the season, even lower than the Hawkeyes’ loss to No. 3 Ohio State.
Minnesota’s offense pieced together a successful two-minute drill to set up the winner.
There were also a pair of ranked-vs.-ranked matchups that mattered in the middle of the poll. No.
19 Texas jumped out early on No. 7 Ole Miss and managed to survive the Rebels’ second-half push, keeping the SEC’s messy middle as unsettled as ever.
At the same time, then-No. 10 Utah escaped with a 21-13 win over No.
14 Houston after trailing through the first three quarters.
No. 6 Indiana also had to grind for its win, needing overtime to get its first touchdown against Michigan and put the Wolverines away. Curt Cignetti later said quarterback Josh Hoover was not playing at 100 percent health.
The projected changes at the top reflect all that movement. One version of the new AP Top 25 keeps Miami at No. 1 with Ohio State second, followed by Georgia, Notre Dame and Indiana.
Another has BYU moving up to No. 2 behind Miami, with Ohio State third and Notre Dame fourth. Both projections feature major shifts for teams like Texas Tech, UCLA, Utah, Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Houston, Iowa and USC.
Oregon, which did not enter the week in the AP top 25, was the 27th-most voted team in the country. But after suffering a third loss before Halloween, the Ducks are unlikely to receive any votes in the latest poll.
Their offense has continued to struggle with starting quarterback Dante Moore sidelined, and the schedule does not get easier with No. 24 Northwestern and No.
3 Ohio State next before Michigan, Michigan State and Washington finish the regular season.
With three losses already, Oregon’s College Football Playoff chances are essentially gone. Still, the Ducks could have a role left to play down the stretch if they can spoil somebody else’s run.
In Other News...
Former Trojan Helped Expose A USC Problem Fans Will Hate
USCs trip to Wisconsin turned into the kind of night that can linger with a fan base, especially when a familiar face was part of the damage. Former Trojan Bryan Jackson, now with the Badgers, scored a first-half touchdown against his old team as Wisconsin rolled past No. 16 Southern California 24-7, while Colton Joseph added a touchdown pass and the defense kept piling on with takeaways and a blocked field goal attempt.
The performance exposed an issue USC supporters have seen before and probably did not want to revisit on the road: a running game that never got going and a passing attack that helped dig the Trojans into a hole with two first-half interceptions. Against a Wisconsin team that controlled the game on both sides, USC never found enough answers to keep pace, and the loss left more questions than comfort for a program trying to steady itself in a tough conference race. [Read more 🡒]
USC's Wisconsin Loss Brought Back Familiar Problems Fans Feared
The bye week was supposed to help USC reset, but the trip to Wisconsin instead brought back the same frustrations that have lingered through too many uneven stretches this season. For a half, the defense gave the Trojans a chance, mixing in sacks and tackles for loss while holding down the Badgers on the ground, and it looked like USC might be able to turn a rugged road game into the kind of grind-out win it has often struggled to find.
Instead, the offense never offered enough support. Turnovers and an ineffective running game kept USC from building momentum, and once the defense started to wear down in the second half, Wisconsin took control and pulled away to a 24-7 win. It was the sort of loss that leaves the Trojans not just disappointed with the result, but uneasy about how familiar the script felt once the game started to slip away. [Read more 🡒]
Lincoln Riley Just Put USC In A Brutal New Conversation
USCs latest setback in Madison only sharpened the questions already hanging over the program. The Trojans were handled 24-7 at Wisconsin in a game defined by an offense that never found its rhythm, and with two losses already on the season, the margin for error is disappearing fast as the schedule turns toward a brutal stretch against ranked opponents.
Lincoln Riley brought a playoff reputation to USC, but the conversation around his tenure has shifted in an uncomfortable direction. His 5-15 record against top-25 teams is becoming a talking point again, and if the Trojans cannot climb back into College Football Playoff contention, the speculation about his job security figures to get louder rather than fade. [Read more 🡒]