ATHENS, Ga.
College football has had chaotic Saturdays before. It has never had one quite like this. Five of the top eight teams in the country lost on the same day — the first time that has happened in the 90-year history of the AP Poll, according to ESPN Insights — as No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Notre Dame, No. 4 Indiana, No. 6 Texas and No. 7 Alabama all went down within hours of each other. By the time the last late game ended in Provo, the top of the sport had been completely rearranged, one national champion's 22-game winning streak was over, and the only unbeaten heavyweight left standing had needed double overtime and two overturned touchdowns to survive.
Auburn ends the drought at Sanford Stadium
The day's loudest result came between the hedges. Unranked Auburn beat No. 1 Georgia 27-24, ending a nine-game losing streak to the Bulldogs and beating a top-ranked team for the first time since 2017. Georgia still had a chance to rip the game away late: trailing by three, the Bulldogs took over with 1:12 to play needing 56 yards. Instead, Auburn defensive lineman Cody Sigler stripped quarterback Gunner Stockton, Jared Smith recovered the fumble with 58 seconds left, and Auburn marched 40 yards to set up Alex McPherson, whose 34-yard field goal as time expired silenced Sanford Stadium.
Auburn quarterback Byrum Brown did a little of everything — 15-of-26 passing for 150 yards and a touchdown, plus 26 carries for 115 yards and another score — and McPherson finished 2-for-2, including a 49-yarder. Georgia, 6-0 entering the day, walked off its own field with its first loss and a playoff race suddenly crowded around it.
BYU finishes what Notre Dame started
In Provo, No. 8 BYU beat No. 2 Notre Dame 28-24 in a game the Irish nearly stole. Notre Dame trailed 21-10 at halftime, then scored the first 14 points of the second half to take the lead. BYU answered with a 10-play, 55-yard drive capped by Bear Bachmeier's 6-yard touchdown pass to Walker Lyons with 1:47 remaining. Notre Dame drove back down the field in the final minute and reached first-and-goal, but CJ Carr's final pass, intended for Jaden Greathouse, fell incomplete with four seconds left. It was Notre Dame's first loss of the season, in its first real test of the year.
Indiana's streak dies by inches in Bloomington
The most heartbreaking finish belonged to the defending national champions. No. 5 Ohio State beat No. 4 Indiana 19-15 at Memorial Stadium, snapping the Hoosiers' 22-game winning streak — the longest active run in the FBS, a stretch that included last season's 16-0 national title run. It was Indiana's first loss since the first round of the 2024 playoff and its first home defeat since November 2023.
Indiana had the winning touchdown in its hands. Trailing by four with just over a minute left, Josh Hoover — playing through a right arm injury — found Nick Marsh wide open in the end zone on fourth-and-4 from the Ohio State 27. Marsh caught it. His left foot came down out of bounds. The Hoosiers' season of perfection ended by the width of a chalk line.
Ohio State's win came at a cost the Buckeyes will feel for weeks. Quarterback Julian Sayin left in the fourth quarter after a strip-sack by Mario Landino pinned his throwing arm; he returned to the sideline in a sling, and coach Ryan Day said afterward that he expects Sayin to miss multiple weeks. Before the injury, Sayin threw for 235 yards and two touchdowns, including a 38-yard strike to Jeremiah Smith on fourth-and-1 early in the fourth quarter. True freshman Luke Fahey finished the game under center. Ohio State's road ahead without its starter is a hard one: at USC, then Oregon and Northwestern at home, then a trip to Nebraska.
Tennessee owns the Third Saturday, Florida owns Texas
No. 14 Tennessee beat No. 7 Alabama 26-10 in Knoxville in the rivalry played on the Third Saturday in October, and it was a defensive performance that will live in program memory. The Volunteers held Alabama to 201 total yards, sacked quarterback Keelon Russell five times and forced four takeaways. Alabama, a 7½-point favourite playing without leading receiver Ryan Coleman-Williams, lost its second straight game and fell to 5-2, its playoff hopes suddenly in genuine peril. Tennessee did it without its own starting quarterback, too: with Faizon Brandon out with a shoulder injury, George MacIntyre managed the game while DeSean Bishop ran for 159 yards and two touchdowns. The goalposts survived; the fans who rushed the field, and the fine the SEC will send, were treated as the cost of a third straight cigar in the series.
Florida, meanwhile, beat Texas 27-24 for its second top-10 win of the season, sacking the Longhorns' quarterback five times. Texas, the preseason No. 1 in the Coaches Poll, has now lost to Oklahoma and Florida, and a season that began with championship talk has narrowed to survival talk.
Miami survives — barely — and the poll gets a new king
No. 3 Miami very nearly became the sixth casualty. The Hurricanes beat rival Florida State 43-35 in double overtime at Hard Rock Stadium, in a finish that will be argued about in Tallahassee all winter. Miami led 28-21 with 2:49 left in regulation before Ashton Daniels hit Duce Robinson for a 75-yard touchdown to force overtime. The teams traded scores in the first extra period — Robinson again for Florida State, a 25-yard Javian Mallory run for Miami — before Darian Mensah found Malachi Toney for a 3-yard go-ahead touchdown in the second overtime, with Toney then throwing the two-point conversion. Florida State then put the ball in the end zone twice: a fourth-and-21 heave to Micahi Danzy was wiped out by a holding penalty, and a final throw to Robinson was ruled an interception by Bryce Fitzgerald, upheld on review. Mensah finished with 326 passing yards and three touchdowns; Toney caught 11 passes for 154 yards.
Elsewhere, the undercard kept the theme: Kentucky went into Norman and beat Oklahoma 21-13 behind three second-half interceptions of John Mateer, two of them by Ty Bryant, while LSU routed Mississippi State 31-3 and Ole Miss thumped Missouri by the same score. Texas Tech and Texas A&M's fellow contenders mostly held serve — the carnage was concentrated exactly where it hurt most, at the very top.
So who is No. 1 on Sunday? Miami, the highest-ranked unbeaten team left, has the strongest case for its first top ranking since the 2002 season. Ohio State and BYU will both get long looks. It was also the first day Georgia, Alabama and Texas all lost on the same afternoon since October 26, 1996 — a neat piece of symmetry for a Saturday that felt, from noon to midnight, like the sport tipping over. The polls will sort out the order. The wreckage is the story. Follow our sports coverage for Sunday's new rankings and what the chaos means for the playoff bracket.
