Bill ConnellySep 28, 2025, 09:53 PM ETCloseBill Connelly is a writer for ESPN. He covers college football, soccer and tennis. He has been at ESPN since 2019.Follow on X
play0:49Fans rush the field after UVA upsets No. 8 FSUFlorida State is unable to convert on fourth down in double overtime against Virginia, and fans storm the field.
play0:31Houston blocks Oregon State’s winning FG attempt to force OTMultiple Houston defenders break through to block Cameron Smith’s winning field goal attempt for Oregon State.
Finebaum: ‘Hard to take Penn State seriously’ as CFP contender (0:55)Paul Finebaum joins “SportsCenter” to critique Drew Allar, James Franklin and Penn State after another loss in a big game to an AP top-10 team. (0:55)
Fans rush the field after UVA upsets No. 8 FSUFlorida State is unable to convert on fourth down in double overtime against Virginia, and fans storm the field.
Florida State is unable to convert on fourth down in double overtime against Virginia, and fans storm the field.
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele throws 51-yard touchdown pass pass to Mason MiniJaron-Keawe Sagapolutele throws 51-yard touchdown pass pass to Mason Mini
Houston blocks Oregon State’s winning FG attempt to force OTMultiple Houston defenders break through to block Cameron Smith’s winning field goal attempt for Oregon State.
Multiple Houston defenders break through to block Cameron Smith’s winning field goal attempt for Oregon State.
play0:25Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele throws 51-yard touchdown pass pass to Mason MiniJaron-Keawe Sagapolutele throws 51-yard touchdown pass pass to Mason Mini
Oregon and Penn State went to overtime. Alabama and Georgia nearly did. Tennessee went to overtime for a second time in three weeks. Illinois watched a two-score lead vanish against unbeaten USC and then won anyway. Georgia Tech pulled off a magic act to avoid an upset in Wake Forest.
What looked to be a great Friday night was one of the best Friday nights in memory, with Virginia pulling off a stirring overtime upset of Florida State, Arizona State unearthing some more close-game magic and Houston coming back to win in overtime in Corvallis. Indiana survived Iowa City. Cincinnati and Kansas put on a Big 12 track meet. Central Washington scored 91 points!
There aren’t many things in the world better than a huge college football Saturday that lives up to its hype. We had been looking forward to Week 5 since the preseason, and it delivered. So instead of compiling a “My Favorite Games of the Week” list at the bottom of this week’s recap column, we’re going to build the whole column out of My Favorite Games!
With Florida State facing its first road test of the season and TCU and Arizona State facing off in a key Big 12 battle, Friday night looked like it was going to be awesome. It was more than that. Arizona State and TCU went down to the wire, Houston-Oregon State was surprisingly awesome, and the game between YAC kings in Charlottesville exceeded all expectations.
Thanks in part to an early fumble from FSU’s Gavin Sawchuk and an acrobatic red zone interception from UVA’s Ja’son Prevard, Virginia led 14-0 early in the second quarter. When FSU scored on three straight drives, however, this game looked as if it would belong to the “Underdog lands some shots early, then fades” category. We see a lot of those games.
The win was big because every fan base deserves moments like this. It was also big because it upended the ACC title race a bit. We head into October with Miami at the top of the pecking order, but lots of teams pretty close behind.
The winner of this coming Saturday’s Virginia-Louisville game is going to be awfully well-positioned to nab one of the slots in the ACC championship game. (Of course, knowing this conference’s history, we’ve got 26 more plot twists to go between now and then.)
That included the night’s big headliner in Happy Valley, though it certainly took its time reaching a boil. In fact early in the fourth quarter it looked as if this would end up a blowout. After 47:35, Oregon led 17-3, having outgained Penn State by a 352-109 margin. (Yards per play to that point: 5.9 to 2.9.)
Out of nowhere, however, Drew Allar led two pristine touchdown drives, one quick and one languid; a lovely touchdown lob to Devonte Ross made it 17-10 Ducks, and a gorgeously designed pitch to Ross tied the game with 30 seconds left.
Penn State needed only three plays to score in overtime, and Oregon had to gut out a response, converting a fourth-and-1 and then scoring on a cluttered shovel pass up the middle to Jamari Johnson. Penn State still looked like the steadier team heading into the second OT, but two plays later, the game was over. Dante Moore connected with Gary Bryant Jr. for a 25-yard score, and Dillon Thieneman appeared out of nowhere to pick off an Allar sideline pass. That was that.
If someone says someone “can’t win the big one,” my natural instinct is to roll my eyes and assume the tables will turn pretty soon. But it’s hard to maintain that faith, in either Allar or Penn State, at the moment, not when it feels as if we’re watching reruns.
I feel as though the Big 12 should sue the SEC for copyright infringement. An utterly nutty conference title race, loaded with close games and unexpected plot twists, is supposed to be the Big 12’s domain. But with Texas Tech’s early 2025 star turn and high-quality, unbeaten starts for Iowa State and BYU, the Big 12 race is looking pretty straight forward at the moment. Following these two huge Saturday games, however, the SEC’s title race leaves September in a place of glorious disarray.
To put that another way, the six above teams that have won a national title in the past 30 years (Oklahoma, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, Georgia and LSU) have a combined 48.3% chance of winning the SEC. The other four teams above — which have combined for a single outright conference title in the past 50 years (Texas A&M’s 1998 Big 12 crown) — are at 45.1%.
(Other teams have tiny chances that bring the total to 100%. And no, Oklahoma’s odds aren’t affected by quarterback John Mateer’s recent hand injury.)
Brilliant early play from Missouri and Vanderbilt has certainly juiced these odds in their favor a bit, and after last year’s No. 2 finish in SP+, we shouldn’t be all that surprised Ole Miss has a puncher’s shot at a conference crown. But I literally laughed out loud when I saw the list above. The SEC is in an incredibly strange place at the moment, and I’m here for it.
On Saturday evening in Athens, Alabama did what it did early against Georgia last season but changed the script for how things played out late. The Crimson Tide scored on four of their five first-half possessions, racking up 262 yards and a 24-14 halftime lead. Ty Simpson was 11-for-16 for 132 yards, Bama was 5-for-8 on third downs (Georgia was 0-for-3), and everything was working.
By the way, if you’re a fan of the transitive property, I do have to point out that Old Dominion beat Virginia Tech, which beat NC State, which beat Virginia, which beat Florida State, which beat Alabama, which beat Georgia. ODU for the CFP???
Tennessee’s DeSean Bishop scored on the first play of overtime, then Arion Carter broke up a fourth-down pass from Blake Shapen to Anthony Evans III.
Arizona State has won nine straight Big 12 games going back to last season, and four of them were decided by five or fewer points. The past two were decided by 27-24 scores.
This Friday night result seemed rather unlikely. TCU, unbeaten and confident, dominated on the way to a 17-0 lead late in the first half, and after the Sun Devils charged back to tie, Josh Hoover’s 1-yard touchdown gave the Horned Frogs another lead that they held with two minutes left. But a pair of defensive penalties and a fourth-and-goal touchdown pass from Sam Leavitt to Jordyn Tyson tied the game. And then Prince Dorbah made maybe the best play of the entire weekend.
Dorbah’s strip sack set up a go-ahead field goal for Jesus Gomez, and Martell Hughes’ interception 25 seconds later clinched the win.
It was fair to assume that, with such an experienced squad, Illinois was going to respond with physicality and quality after last week’s humiliating loss to Indiana. The Illini ended up needing an extra reserve of resilience too.
They led 31-17 with 10 minutes left, but two Makai Lemon touchdowns (and a 2-point conversion from Lemon), combined with an Illinois fumble deep in Trojan territory, gave USC a sudden 32-31 lead with 1:55 remaining. With help from a pass interference penalty, though, Illinois was able to drive to the USC 24 in the closing seconds, and David Olano’s 41-yard field goal saved the day.
In a game neither team led by more than 7 points, Central Connecticut looked to have forced overtime with a short Michael Trovarelli touchdown with 58 seconds left. But unfortunately for the Blue Devils, they, um, forgot to cover Ky’Dric Fisher.
I can’t really say Kansas did a ton wrong here — the Jayhawks got a huge day from Jalon Daniels (445 passing yards and four TDs) and Emmanuel Henderson (214 receiving yards and two of those scores) and basically split third downs with the Bearcats and committed far fewer penalties. But Cincy’s Brendan Sorsby completed passes to nine different receivers and threw two touchdown passes to Cyrus Allen.
When Levi Wentz gave KU its first lead in nearly 55 minutes with a short touchdown reception with 1:45 left, the Jayhawks left too much time on the clock. Sorsby completed a fourth-and-10 pass to Noah Jennings, and Tawee Walker plunged in with the game-winning points with 29 seconds on the clock.
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele throws 51-yard touchdown pass pass to Mason Mini
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele throws 51-yard touchdown pass pass to Mason Mini
BC drove the length of the field, but Luke Ferrelli stepped in front of a Dylan Lonergan pass and the Golden Bears prevailed.
Oregon State can’t catch a break. After watching a late lead against Fresno State disappear earlier in the season, the winless Beavers played their best game of the season and led 24-10 with six minutes left. But Conner Weigman threw touchdown passes to Stephon Johnson and Tanner Koziol, and when a late Maalik Murphy-to-Trent Walker completion set up a shot at a game-winning field goal for OSU, basically the entire Cougar lineup broke into the backfield to block it.