David HaleOct 25, 2025, 11:41 PM ETCloseCollege football reporter.Joined ESPN in 2012.Graduate of the University of Delaware.Follow on X
play0:43Germie Bernard’s late TD wins it for AlabamaGermie Bernard takes it to the house for a 25-yard rushing touchdown to seal a 29-22 win over South Carolina.
play0:43Ryan Niblett takes 79-yard punt return to the houseRyan Niblett scores on a 79-yard punt return late in the 4th quarter to tie things up for Texas vs. Mississippi State.
play0:39Auburn’s Cam Coleman reels in a spectacular one-handed TDJackson Arnold connects with Cam Coleman for a 23-yard Auburn touchdown.
play0:22Jamarion Morrow spins in for another Texas A&M TDJamarion Morrow gets around a defender and into the end zone for another Texas A&M touchdown vs. LSU.
play1:57BYU Cougars vs. Iowa State Cyclones: Full HighlightsBYU Cougars vs. Iowa State Cyclones: Full Highlights
play0:28Byrum Brown leaps over a defender and runs in a 44-yard TD for USFByrum Brown avoids several tackles, making defenders fall at his feet and takes it into the end zone for a 44 yard touchdown.
play0:26Connor Calvert’s career-long 50-yard FG wins it for Wake ForestConnor Calvert sinks a 50-yard field goal as time expires to improbably lift Wake Forest past SMU.
Diego Pavia takes it himself to give Vanderbilt late lead (0:40)Diego Pavia keeps it himself and dives into the end zone to score late in the 4th quarter. (0:40)
Germie Bernard’s late TD wins it for AlabamaGermie Bernard takes it to the house for a 25-yard rushing touchdown to seal a 29-22 win over South Carolina.
Germie Bernard takes it to the house for a 25-yard rushing touchdown to seal a 29-22 win over South Carolina.
Ryan Niblett takes 79-yard punt return to the houseRyan Niblett scores on a 79-yard punt return late in the 4th quarter to tie things up for Texas vs. Mississippi State.
Ryan Niblett scores on a 79-yard punt return late in the 4th quarter to tie things up for Texas vs. Mississippi State.
Auburn’s Cam Coleman reels in a spectacular one-handed TDJackson Arnold connects with Cam Coleman for a 23-yard Auburn touchdown.
Jamarion Morrow spins in for another Texas A&M TDJamarion Morrow gets around a defender and into the end zone for another Texas A&M touchdown vs. LSU.
Jamarion Morrow gets around a defender and into the end zone for another Texas A&M touchdown vs. LSU.
BYU Cougars vs. Iowa State Cyclones: Full HighlightsBYU Cougars vs. Iowa State Cyclones: Full Highlights
Byrum Brown leaps over a defender and runs in a 44-yard TD for USFByrum Brown avoids several tackles, making defenders fall at his feet and takes it into the end zone for a 44 yard touchdown.
Byrum Brown avoids several tackles, making defenders fall at his feet and takes it into the end zone for a 44 yard touchdown.
Connor Calvert’s career-long 50-yard FG wins it for Wake ForestConnor Calvert sinks a 50-yard field goal as time expires to improbably lift Wake Forest past SMU.
It is human nature to assume that every trend line points endlessly in the same direction, off to some far horizon that looks, more or less, just like our current view.
Amid an infinite universe filled with mystery, there are some hard truths that are impossible to escape.
On Saturday, Nashville, Tennessee, was the center of the college football universe, as Vanderbilt took another step toward the playoff. Week 9 gave us another Virginia escape act, another Texas Tech blowout, another line on Fernando Mendoza’s Heisman Trophy résumé at Indiana. This season, the meek have inherited the college football world, and it’s as fun as it is unexpected.
It used to be that Vanderbilt was the doormat of the SEC, the team whose job was simply to keep the Butch Joneses and Will Muschamps of the world bowl eligible.
It used to be that Virginia was the least invested school in the ACC, a place where the locker room served as a Jamba Juice during open dates.
It used to be that Indiana’s place in the Big Ten was to keep Rutgers company at the bottom of the standings.
It used to be that Texas Tech used all its oil money on brisket and Cadillacs and Kliff Kingsbury’s hair gel.
These were truths we knew to be self-evident. These were teams whose struggles you could set a watch by. These were the standard by which all other awfulness was judged.
A school that several Big Ten ADs kept confusing with Iowa’s JV team for the better part of the 2010s is now in line for the playoff.
A job that Bronco Mendenhall once quit because he wanted to go fly-fishing is now one of the best in the ACC.
A place where buskers playing country songs on the sidewalk garnered more respect than the local team’s QB1 is now a true college football town.
This is not supposed to be how any of this works. If there was one eternal truth to the college football universe, it was that Charlie Weis would get another $1 million check 30 years after he quit coaching. But if there was a second incontrovertible truth, it’s that the rich stayed rich, and the commoners weren’t supposed to punch above their weight.
Indiana, Virginia, Georgia Tech, Texas Tech and sweet little Vanderbilt were all here to play the part of the Washington Generals. They were supposed to play along while the Alabamas and Ohio States of the world used Velcro and duct tape and an enchanted monkey’s paw to win by 100 each week.
But this is a new era in college football, a time when the field has been leveled, and all we once knew to be true has evaporated like so many UNC revenue share dollars.
Welcome to the new frontier, kings becoming paupers, bums living large, dogs and cats living together. Mass hysteria.
For three-and-a-half quarters, Alabama looked to be teetering on the brink of losing to South Carolina in what would’ve been the week’s biggest upset. It’s not just that the Gamecocks have been struggling and the Tide have looked as good as anyone in the country, but the man calling plays for South Carolina also happens to be the last man to coach an Alabama team that wasn’t any good.
Mike Shula likely holds the title of most embarrassing Alabama coach of the past 75 years who wasn’t fired after visiting a strip club, and he holds the unfortunate title of “the guy who came before Nick Saban.” It’s easy to forget that the Tide were a program in utter tumult back then, just as it was easy to forget Alabama lost to Florida State in Week 1.
On Saturday, Shula arrived with a message, courtesy of his favorite band (we assume): “This is how I remind you.”
LaNorris Sellers threw for 222, ran for 67 and accounted for a pair of touchdowns as the Gamecocks led Alabama 22-14 with less than 3 minutes to play in the game. But for all the chaos of the 2025 season, some upsets are just not meant to be, and Saban didn’t sell a 10% equity stake in the program to Satan at a crossroads in Eutaw just to see his predecessor come in and spoil it all.
Germie Bernard scored twice in the game’s final 136 seconds — first on a 4-yard pass from Ty Simpson and again on a 25-yard run — to seal a 29-22 win.
For a team that was supposed to be a national title contender, nothing has come particularly easy for Texas this year.
Arch Manning is more likely to be named Whataburger’s customer of the month than a Heisman Trophy winner. The Horns have lost games to Ohio State and Florida. A win in the Red River Rivalry buoyed hopes, but that was followed by an overtime win against woeful Kentucky and another ugly performance against a Mississippi State team that hadn’t won an SEC game in two years.
The Bulldogs turned a 14-7 deficit into a 31-14 fourth-quarter lead Saturday, and the Mississippi State faithful were ready to celebrate at Longhorn Steakhouse, not because it’s the best place to get a steak near Starkville, but because it would be the funniest way to taunt Texas.
Manning threw two fourth-quarter touchdown passes, and after a stalled drive with 1:47 to play, Mississippi State’s ensuing punt resulted in the worst Niblett-related disaster since Arby’s ill-fated attempt to sell narwhal nuggets in 2009. Ryan Niblett returned the kick 57 yards for a game-tying touchdown. Sans Manning, who left the game with an injury, Texas went on to win 45-38 in overtime thanks to a touchdown from backup Matthew Caldwell.
Ryan Niblett takes 79-yard punt return to the house
After the game, Texas celebrated with its now beloved Halloween tradition of turning an assistant coach’s pet monkey loose on a bunch of children.
Each week, the marquee games help tell the story of the college football season. But dive a bit deeper, and there are myriad other moments across the college football landscape that might have big ripple effects, too. We try to capture those here.
After a disappointing loss to Georgia, Ole Miss was teetering on the brink of a season-defining second loss against Oklahoma on Saturday, just as Lane Kiffin rumors — or “Krumors” as we’re choosing to call them — reached their apex. Nevertheless, the reports of Kiffin’s impending departure might be premature, as Ole Miss rebounded to topple Oklahoma 34-26.
Trinidad Chambliss threw for 315 yards and a touchdown in the win and appears to have fully secured the starting job over Austin Simmons, who threw his first pass since Sept. 13 but looked primed for a transfer to Ferris State.
The game was a critical point for the Rebels’ playoff hopes, and the loss might have been a death knell for Oklahoma, which has two losses in its past three games and plays its last four against ranked foes. After the loss, head coach Brent Venables called it a “painful way to learn,” not unlike the time he fought that bear he thought insulted Bill Snyder.
It was the Rebels’ first road win vs. a ranked SEC foe since 2016, and it marked one of Kiffin’s most impressive victories, alongside beating No. 4 Oregon in 2011, toppling Penn State in the 2022 Peach Bowl and forcing Al Davis to learn how to use an overhead projector in 2008.
Saturday was different. Coleman did reel in a jaw-dropping touchdown catch, but the rest of the Tigers showed up, too, in a 33-24 win over Arkansas.