The favorites fell in Austin and Stillwater, Michigan turned a stolen second into a clean upset, and LSU survived an expulsion threat before its ugliest reunion — a loud week on and off the field.
The favorites couldn't hold
For three quarters in Austin, the sport looked exactly as seeded: top-ranked Ohio State led No. 4 Texas by 20 in the fourth quarter and appeared to be putting away another contender. Then Arch Manning, who had managed just 60 passing yards in a dreary first half, authored three straight scoring drives, and Hollywood Smothers punched in the winner with 25 seconds left. It was the largest fourth-quarter comeback against an AP No. 1 in more than two decades, and the reward was the perch itself — Texas climbed to No. 1 in the new poll, avenging the loss that had knocked it off a year earlier. It didn't happen in a vacuum. The same afternoon, Oklahoma State ended a losing skid by stunning No. 6 Oregon 39-31 in Stillwater, snapping the Ducks' 12-game road winning streak and sending them tumbling 15 spots to No. 21. What's most telling, though, is what didn't change: even after the collapse, oddsmakers still installed Ohio State as the CFP title favorite — a reminder that a September loss to a top-10 team resets a ranking, not a season.
Michigan answers the noise
No program had a stranger fortnight than Michigan. A week after beating Western Michigan on a Hail Mary made possible by a single second controversially put back on the clock, the Wolverines became the subject of a formal appeal, as the Mid-American Conference petitioned the CFP and NCAA to count the Broncos' loss as a win in its rankings, arguing replay officials had botched the protocol. Western Michigan, meanwhile, made a show of moving on, its coach insisting the tape showed his team outplaying a Big Ten program for a full 60 minutes. And through it all, coach Kyle Whittingham spent the week pointedly declining to guarantee Bryce Underwood the starting job. Underwood answered where it counts. He ran for 87 yards and a touchdown as unranked Michigan beat No. 11 Oklahoma 17-10, a clean, physical win that required no officiating help and pushed the Wolverines right back into the poll at No. 19. Two weeks, two escapes from the story — one earned in the courtroom of public opinion, the other on the field.
LSU wins two ways, then braces for a third
LSU has spent the opening weeks winning on two fronts. On the field, Sam Leavitt and the Tigers followed a rout of Clemson by pulling away from Louisiana Tech, climbing to 2-0 and up to No. 7. Off it, the program survived an existential threat: the SEC had gone so far as to sue the school and schedule a vote on expulsion over Lane Kiffin's pursuit of players cut from NFL camps, but LSU filled its 105-man roster without the two disputed ex-pros, and the league's presidents then wrapped their meeting without sanctions. That clears the runway for the fixture the sport has been circling all offseason. Kiffin returns to Oxford on Saturday to face No. 8 Ole Miss and the program he abandoned on the eve of the playoff — a reunion so charged that the Rebels are importing mounted police from Mobile and New Orleans, while coach Pete Golding has taken to publicly imploring fans to keep their composure. LSU has beaten a lawsuit and a schedule; now it has to beat the building.
The part no preview accounts for
The week's most sobering thread had nothing to do with the standings. Two players left the field on stretchers — Boston College linebacker Bodie Kahoun in the Eagles' Red Bandanna Game and Georgia Tech cornerback Jaylen Mbakwe against Tennessee — and both, mercifully, delivered reassuring news afterward, with Kahoun showing movement in all extremities and Mbakwe released from the hospital the following day. The attrition elsewhere was less frightening but more season-shaping. Tennessee lost tight end Ethan Davis to a torn ACL for the year, UCF will be without quarterback Alonza Barnett III for multiple weeks with a hamstring injury, Baylor ruled out DJ Lagway with an ankle, and an already banged-up Washington saw its receiver corps thinned further. Depth charts written in August are being rewritten in real time, and the teams that navigate September's injury ledger cleanest often say more about a season than any single result.
The bracket fight, in the background
Beneath the scores, the sport's machinery kept grinding toward a bigger, richer postseason. CFP officials triggered a 30-day exclusive negotiating window with ESPN to explore a 24-team field, the clearest signal yet that the power brokers are serious about doubling the bracket. But SEC commissioner Greg Sankey spent the week tapping the brakes, insisting expansion is not a given and pointing to unresolved fights over nonconference scheduling and the revenue his league would surrender by scrapping its conference title game. With a December 1 deadline for the Big Ten and SEC to agree in order to reshape the 2027 field, some of the fall's most consequential outcomes won't be decided in stadiums at all — they'll be settled in conference rooms.