Texas' defense? The Big Ten? The SEC?? What we can trust in CFB after Week 8

Last week, in reaction to an unprecedented run of high-level college football upsets (five of the top seven teams in the AP poll lost), I wrote that if we're making references to vintage chaos years such as 1996, 1990 or 1984, it means some wild things are happening. Well, here's a reference to the vintage chaos year: For three straight weeks now, a team in the AP top two has lost to an unranked opponent -- No. 1 Texas (to Oklahoma) in Week 6, No. 1 Georgia (to Auburn) in Week 7 and now No. 2 BYU (to UCF) in Week 8. The only other time that has happened? The glorious 2007 season, the role model for all chaos years. Granted, it nearly happened for nine straight weeks that year, but October has been so wild and disorienting that we're making 2007 comparisons now. I would say we should batten down the hatches, but it's too late. The storm is here. After throttling Alabama in Week 7, Tennessee lost to a team Alabama beat by 31. In Week 7, BYU beat Notre Dame, and Texas Tech played its most complete game of the season; in Week 8, both lost to teams that had lost back-to-back Big 12 games. Ole Miss had blown out Missouri, which had blown out Florida, which had beaten Texas; naturally, Texas soared to a huge early advantage over Ole Miss and secured a season-saving win. In all, the Nos. 2, 8, 11, 15 and 16 teams all lost to unranked opponents Saturday. No. 6 seriously flirted with the idea. No. 7 lost to a lower-ranked opponent, and No. 10 nearly did too. With five weeks to go in the regular season, we've already had 19 teams lose as double-digit favorites in conference play; we had 25 all of last season. According to The Athletic's Jason Kirk, we're approaching Halloween with only three FBS unbeatens for the first time since 2003. None of this makes much sense, and if you're developing some serious trust issues, I understand. So let's walk through who you can trust, who you can't and what the heck happened in Week 8. Trustworthy: Texas' defense I was a little conflicted about Texas' hire of Will Muschamp as defensive coordinator. For one thing, I felt it was a bit of misdirection for Steve Sarkisian to address his defense (average SP+ ranking the last three years: 11.0) while continuing to serve as his own offensive coordinator despite two years of diminishing returns. For another, it had been nine seasons since Muschamp was either the head coach or coordinator for a top-20 defense. I wasn't nearly as shaky about the hire as I was about USC hiring another unproven-of-late veteran (Gary Patterson) -- more or less serving as Kirby Smart's consigliere for the last five seasons certainly suggested Muschamp still knows a thing or two about high-level defense -- but I wasn't completely sold. At the moment, Muschamp is the only reason Texas is still in the College Football Playoff picture. The Longhorns' defense has allowed more than 5.0 yards per play only once this season, and even in that one game (against Ohio State), it allowed only three points after halftime. With the Longhorns' season potentially on the line Saturday night in Austin, they completely erased Ole Miss' offense in the first half, giving up just three points. The Rebels gained 70 yards in two first-half snaps and 68 in 35 other plays. After Ole Miss charged back in the second half, turning a 24-3 deficit into a 24-24 tie, Texas locked everything back down. In their last four drives, the Rebels scored just three points and averaged 4.4 yards per play. Trinidad Chambliss completed just 10 of 23 passes in that span for 104 yards and an interception. He finished with his worst Total QBR in an Ole Miss start (60.3). This was vital because, once again, the Texas offense proved ridiculously untrustworthy. The Longhorns scored 10 points in their first two drives against Florida and scored TDs on three consecutive first-half drives against Ole Miss. But they also went 47 minutes between offensive scores in the collapse against the Gators, and 31 minutes between scores against the Rebels. Arch Manning once again began forcing the issue and turning the ball over -- the major cause of Texas' failures against both Oklahoma and Florida -- and only Muschamp's defense and the running of Raleek Brown (23 carries, 157 yards) saved them Saturday night. With road trips to Missouri (59% win probability) and LSU (32%) remaining, plus a rivalry game at Texas A&M (70%), Texas still has only a 12% chance of finishing 10-2 and a 37% chance of ending up 9-3. The Longhorns would be at or near the top of a CFP pile of 9-3 teams thanks to their Week 2 win over Ohio State, but the road to even 9-3 is a bumpy one. If they get there, thank Muschamp. He probably isn't the only coordinator Sarkisian should have hired, but he has been great. Untrustworthy: The SEC Two weeks ago, the top three contenders in the SEC (per SP+) after Georgia were Alabama (15% title chance), Texas (13%) and Missouri (6%). Last week, after Week 7's wild shakeup, they were Tennessee (12%), LSU (12%) and Ole Miss (10%). Now, with Ole Miss losing to Texas and Tennessee getting upset by South Carolina, they're LSU (16%), Alabama (8%) and Kentucky (5%). Even with Georgia remaining in the top spot despite Week 7's loss to Auburn, that's eight teams -- half the conference! -- occupying a top-four spot in the odds in a three-week span. That's absurd. Above, I mentioned that 19 teams had lost conference games as double-digit favorites; the SEC has 12% of the teams in FBS but has been responsible for 21% of those results. It isn't producing one-score finishes at the same rate as last season (we'll get to that below), but it's producing more absolute surprises than ever. And I'm really curious what that will do for the conference's playoff prospects. Right now, only three teams have a 60% chance of even reaching 9-3 -- Georgia (97.5%), Alabama (86.3%) and LSU (73.5%) -- with four more between 45% and 58%. Raise that bar to 10 wins, and only Georgia has a greater than 35% chance. November is going to be The Month of SEC Coaches Yelling About Strength of Schedule (and the month of me yelling "That's what the money's for!"). Trustworthy: Miami The fact that I'm starting this out by saying that a team that nearly lost to Florida State last week is trustworthy probably says a lot. But at the moment, there's power in simply handling your business, and FSU is the only team to have stayed within 12 points of the Hurricanes. Miami's 13-point win over Wake Forest looks better by the week -- granted, Wake is the only SP+ top-30 team the Canes have faced (and there's only one more on the schedule) - and the offense is just absurd. Against a Pitt defense that came into their Saturday matchup ranked 20th in points allowed per possession and ninth in three-and-out rate, Miami gained 506 yards (451 in the first three quarters), never went three-and-out and got another run of extreme efficiency from Darian Mensah (22-for-26 for 274 yards and three TDs) and Malachi Toney (12 targets, 12 catches, 159 yards, two scores). The Canes scored TDs on six of their first eight drives, led 38-7 two minutes into the second half and cruised. There was a single moment in which Pitt looked like it might catch Miami napping: The Panthers scored late in the second quarter to cut their deficit to 17-7 and forced a third-and-18 on Miami's next possession. Quick stop, followed by a score to trim the lead to three at half? Nope. Mensah and Toney connected for 21 yards on third-and-18, then for 53 yards and a TD on the next snap. I'm still not entirely trusting of Miami's defense, if we're being honest. Florida State averaged 6.9 yards per play last week, and Pitt averaged 6.6 Saturday, a pretty scary number considering the Panthers' QB situation. But the bar's pretty low in the trust department this year, and "You're giving up a lot of yards after going up two touchdowns" is better than a lot of other teams' problems. They have Mensah and Toney, and no one else does - that's worth some trust. Untrustworthy: Texas Tech's offense Every week, a brand new team takes the field in your school's uniforms. No one knows that better than Texas Tech fans at the moment. The Red Raiders began the season 6-0 for the second straight year, but while the defense appeared to be rounding into solid form, the offense seemed to be losing steam. After winning their first five games by an average of 37.4 points last year, their average was almost exactly half that (18.6) this time around. After a bye week, however, Tech absolutely pummeled Arizona State 53-25 in Week 7. The Red Raiders rushed for 260 yards, threw for 242 and allowed a season-low three tackles for loss. Quarterback Will Hammond (90.2 Total QBR) was efficient and smart with the ball, and the score was 43-10 at halftime. So everything was right with the world? Not even close. Against a Cincinnati team that gave up 45 points and 598 yards against West Virginia a week earlier, Tech face-planted. Its first 11 drives: fumble, field goal, field goal, punt, punt, interception, field goal, missed field goal, punt, field goal, fumble. Hammond (41.8 Total QBR) suffered a pair of turnovers, and Tech went 3-for-15 on third downs. The Red Raiders trailed 24-6 at halftime, and while a Peyton Morgan pick-six allowed them to briefly cut Cincy's lead to 9, that was the closest they would get. They finally scored an offensive touchdown in the final minute and lost 37-24. Until proven otherwise, the great Arizona State performance was the proverbial dead cat bounce, a brief recovery in the middle of a decline. In a week of change in the Big 12, Tech saw both its Big 12 title and CFP chances plummet. Big 12 title odds, per SP+ (change from last week in parentheses) Utah 33.4% (up 13.8 percentage points) Texas Tech 18.9% (down 16.2 percentage points) BYU 18.5% (down 12.7 percentage points) Arizona 14.7% (up 9.7 percentage points) Oklahoma State 7.0% (up 4.8 percentage points) Houston 6.3% (up 0.6 percentage points) The fall from Tech and BYU was significant enough that Houston's title odds crept up slightly despite its loss to Utah. Meanwhile, Tech now has only a 58.9% chance of reaching 10-2, which would be a minimum requirement for a CFP bid. BYU's loss to UCF was nearly as damaging as Tech's, but it came about in a reasonably funky way -- sloppy weather, wild end-game scenarios and a sudden collapse from a defense that had been excellent of late. Tech's, meanwhile, provided some confirmation (or, admittedly, confirmation bias) about an offense that just hasn't looked the part. Trustworthy: The Big Ten In terms of week-to-week predictability, somehow the conference that has gotten seemingly all of its quarterbacks hurt -- and has watched a preseason top-five team start 4-3 (with three different QBs) -- might be the most stable power conference to date. Figure that one out. Thus far, SP+ projections have been within a touchdown of the final margin in 40% of the Big Ten's games, with only about 18% of games skewing far (20-plus points) from projections; among power conferences, that's the second-most great projections and the fewest bad projections. The SEC, meanwhile, has had far less quarterback shuffling, but SP+ has been within a touchdown on only 34% of games, with 22% major surprises. Of course, we'll see how much that remains the case moving forward. After all, the overwhelming Big Ten favorite at the moment -- Ohio State, at 60% -- will be without quarterback Julian Sayin for the foreseeable future, and at the moment freshman Luke Fahey and sophomore Tavien St. Clair will battle for playing time. SP+ has crushed Ohio State projections thus far (every result has been within 7.4 points of the projection), and I'm doubting that remains the case. Will the Buckeyes pull a 2014 and grow more dominant with every QB injury? Unlikely. But Jeremiah Smith and a top-five defense will still give the Buckeyes a chance of doing damage. Untrustworthy (for now): Josh Hoover During the second half of Indiana's loss to Ohio State last week, quarterback Josh Hoover was visibly wincing after some throws. Saturday morning on "College GameDay," Pete Thamel reported Hoover was dealing with an arm and/or wrist issue, but instead of going with backup quarterback Grant Wilson, Hoosiers coach Curt Cignetti elected to not only start Hoover against Michigan but also keep him in the game when he struggled. And he struggled. Michigan freshman Tommy Carr made his first college start against an Indiana defense currently ranked second in SP+; he took four sacks and suffered a couple of terrible turnovers (as one might expect from a freshman), but he was pretty definitively the better quarterback of the two. Carr: 20-for-32 passing, 167 yards, one INT, four sacks, 3.9 yards per dropback, 11 non-sack rushes for 42 yards, 48.1 Total QBR Hoover: 8-for-18 passing, 81 yards, one INT, one sack, 4.1 yards per dropback, three non-sack rushes for 10 yards, 22.6 Total QBR Michigan's defense is excellent and Indiana still had by far the more effective run game: Turbo Richard and Lee Beebe Jr. combined for 31 rushes and 124 yards, while UM's Jordan Marshall, Savion Hiter and Bryson Kuzdzal had 26 carries for 52. But Cignetti was clearly taking a calculated risk, assuming Hoover would make fewer mistakes than Wilson and that conservative playcalling was fine since Michigan might need two full games to score double-digit points against them. Hoover was picked off by Zeke Berry in the third quarter, setting up a Michigan field goal, and Indiana had to make another huge stop in the final minute of regulation, when Michigan had a third-and-goal from the IU 3. (Rolijah Hardy came up with a huge sack to force a game-tying field goal.) Hoover stepped up big time in OT, firing his best pass of the day to Brock Schott for 21 yards, then scoring from 4 yards out. That was enough to secure a 13-6 win. But if you told Cignetti beforehand that things would play out that way, I'm wondering if he might think a lot harder about giving Wilson a shot. Because injuries are state secrets at this point, we have no idea how serious Hoover's injury is or how long it will affect him. IU still has to survive one more test (vs. Minnesota in Bloomington) this coming Saturday before finally getting a bye week. Having an awesome defense in your corner is great, but the Hoosiers might have to grind for 60-plus minutes against the Gophers. Trustworthy: Sam Leavitt Sam Leavitt was a wild man to start the season. He scrambled constantly early in the season and topped at least 50 non-sack rushing yards in each of LSU's first three games, but he also threw five interceptions in those games and went just 16-for-27 for 158 yards in a loss to Ole Miss. He threw a pick in each of the next three games that followed, and he took three sacks in the Tigers' 35-34 loss to Kentucky. Despite solid scoring averages, it was hard to trust either him, his offensive line or the LSU offense as a whole. In his last two games, however, Leavitt has been almost mistake-free. In wins by a combined 69-17 over Mississippi State and Auburn, he has completed 63 of 83 passes (76%) for 676 yards, seven touchdowns, no interceptions, one sack and a Total QBR of 92.8. (For a frame of reference, Darian Mensah leads the nation with an 89.7 Total QBR for the season.) He's still scrambling around at times, but he has averaged just 5.5 carries in these last two games, half of what he averaged in the first three games. Leavitt is settling down, in other words, and amid the chaos of the last two weeks -- in the most chaotic of power conferences -- LSU has looked steady and spectacular. As a 7-point favorite against an Auburn team coming off an upset of Georgia, LSU traded jabs for about 10 minutes, then started landing haymakers. The Tigers scored TDs on four of their last five drives of the first half to open an insurmountable 31-10 lead, then played things safe and ran out the clock for a 38-17 win. The SEC logjam at the moment is amazing, for all the reasons I mentioned above. Of the conference's 16 teams, only two have one conference loss (Georgia and Kentucky), and eight are just one game behind in the loss column. But LSU has moved up to No. 4 in SP+, and while the edge isn't massive, the Tigers have jumped up to the No. 2 favorite in the conference. The home stretch is rough -- home games against Alabama and Texas, followed by trips to Tennessee and Arkansas -- but their odds of success are increasing, and Leavitt's stability is a major reason for it. Untrustworthy (in a very entertaining way): The American Conference The SEC has been ridiculously unpredictable so far, but in its own way the American Conference has been extremely predictable: Just assume every game will be close. UTSA is in first place in the conference at 4-0; three of those wins came by a combined 13 points. Neal Brown's North Texas is 3-0 -- Brown has honestly done an incredible job considering the size of the roster rebuild he undertook -- but the Mean Green barely got by Tulsa, 45-44, in their first conference game. Tulsa is 1-3 in conference play with the losses by a combined 12 points. Army and Navy combined have played in five one-score games in their last six contests. This week alone gave us three incredible finishes -- Memphis' 41-34 overtime win over East Carolina on Thursday (which became the second straight game ECU lost on an overtime interception), Army's last-second 38-35 win over Tulsa on Friday and Florida Atlantic's absurd 51-49 win over Rice in the early window Saturday. None of this sounds like any fun whatsoever if you're a fan of one of these schools. But as a fan of fun football, I thank everyone involved. We appear to basically have a three-way race -- UTSA has a 39% title chance, per SP+, followed by Memphis (29%) and North Texas (18%) -- but if we're basically just flipping coins the rest of the way, just about anything could happen. Trustworthy: New Mexico AGENT ZERO 𝗣𝗜𝗖𝗞 6⃣ 😱 @BrawleyAustin 📺 @TheCW_Sports https://t.co/HcZegkkHz9 — New Mexico Football (@UNMLoboFB) October 25, 2026 Few things in this sport (or any sport, really) are as seductive as the reaction of a fanbase to newfound success. There's a hum in the air and goofy grins everywhere you look, and you start to see all sorts of "largest home crowd since..." stats. On Saturday night in Albuquerque, a crowd of 34,794 -- the largest for a non-New Mexico State game since 2005 -- watched New Mexico take the lead over North Dakota State three minutes in and never hand it back. It was a brawl of a game, and Jason Eck's Lobos, wearing maybe the most gorgeous uniforms in the sport, had to make a late stop to hold on to a 21-16 win. But they got it done, and they're now 6-1, well in the thick of the College Football Playoff hunt. The AP pollsters somehow haven't deigned to rank them yet, but they might be just one more win away from being ranked for the first time ever. Another sweet victory in the 505. #GoLobos https://t.co/PsNZpJmxsD — New Mexico Football (@UNMLoboFB) October 25, 2026 They've been steady as hell, too. They've overachieved against projections in six of seven games, and the only time all season they didn't look the part of a top-40 team or so (at worst) was in a first-half sleepwalk at Hawai'i last week. But they woke up and took care of business, and on Saturday night they enjoyed one of the buzziest wins in their history. Eck knows what he's doing, and while his name is going to be a ridiculously hot one in the coming coaching carousel, the love affair he and the city of Albuquerque have struck up this season is one of my favorite stories in the sport. Obviously maintaining great form when you're achieving unprecedented heights is its own tough battle. Maybe that will make the Lobos less trustworthy moving forward. But they play physical, aggressive defense, they run the hell out of the ball, and they're projected favorites in every remaining game. Untrustworthy: College football I now fully expect Miami to lose to North Carolina, Texas to give up 60 points to Mississippi State, Josh Hoover to complete 95% of his passes for the rest of the year, Sam Leavitt to throw 18 interceptions against Alabama and New Mexico to face-plant. Trust no one, not even the people and teams I just told you to trust. This week in SP+ The SP+ rankings have been updated for the week. Let's take a look at the teams that saw the biggest change in their overall ratings. (Note: We're looking at ratings, not rankings.) Moving up Here are the five teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week: Louisiana-Monroe: up 3.3 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 138th to 133rd) Hawai'i: up 3.0 points (from 119th to 107th) UTSA: up 2.8 points (from 69th to 59th) Kentucky: up 2.8 points (from 45th to 32nd) LSU: up 2.6 points (from sixth to fourth) SP+ has been slow to warm on Kentucky because the Wildcats were statistically unimpressive and winning in ways that appeared unsustainable. On Saturday, they found a more sustainable recipe: just be much better than your opponent. Granted, it was only Vanderbilt, but after a slow start they created a dramatic efficiency advantage and slowly pulled away 34-17. Meanwhile, as nearly all the other top teams again wobbled, LSU dominated once more and rose accordingly. The Tigers obviously don't have a ton of margin for error with two losses, but they look the part. Moving down Here are the five teams whose ratings fell the most: UMass: down 4.6 adjusted points per game (ranking fell from 99th to 113th) BYU: down 3.9 points (from ninth to 13th) Old Dominion: down 3.6 points (from 114th to 124th) Texas Tech: down 3.5 points (from seventh to ninth) Kansas State: down 3.1 points (from 29th to 39th) One narrative emerging from Week 8 is that it was a bad week for the Big 12 because two of its top teams lost and their cumulative CFP odds therefore fell. Granted, conference strength is always in the eye of the beholder: Did your top teams lose because they aren't as good as expected or because your conference is really deep? But SP+ certainly wasn't impressed with either BYU or Texas Tech, and while it has been holding out on the idea of Kansas State still being pretty good, that notion took a hit Saturday as well. My 20 favorite games of the weekend It was another week where 10 favorites just wouldn't do. 1. UCF 39, No. 2 BYU 31 (2OT). This game was a ref's nightmare, with so many strange calls to make (and that roughing-the-kicker call in the second OT was egregiously bad), but through rain and confusion, the Bounce House crowd still lived up to its name. 2. No. 19 Texas 34, No. 7 Ole Miss 27. Saved by Raleek Brown and Will Muschamp. 3. South Carolina 27, No. 11 Tennessee 24. Tennessee was definitely on hangover watch after the Alabama win and quickly fell behind 14-0, but a 24-3 run made it seem like the Vols were safe. Nope! South Carolina's offense reawakened just in time, LaNorris Sellers scored with 1:17 left, and after Tomiwa Durojaiye recovered Dylan Stewart's sack-and-strip, Malik Orsan won it at the buzzer. OK, Sellers didn't just score with 1:17 left. He did THIS: 4. Louisiana-Monroe 21, Troy 14. As I always say, fielding a football team, even a bad one, is really hard, and everyone deserves to celebrate wins every so often. So when ULM ends a 14-game losing streak by scoring two touchdowns in the final three minutes, then ends the game with a defensive TD, you know it's going to rank high here. Hell yeah, Warhawks. 5. Appalachian State 34, James Madison 31 (OT). It was almost forgotten amid the Saturday flood of last-second field goals, but App State scored an enormous win Thursday, and sent Boone, North Carolina, into a frenzy, when, after JMU saved itself with a game-tying touchdown with three seconds left, James London knocked in a 40-yard field goal to end the Dukes' unbeaten run. 6. Syracuse 31, North Carolina 30 (OT). Maybe the camera angle is playing with my eyes, but I don't think Calvin Russell III got the ball across the plane on the game-winning 2-point conversion. But there definitely wasn't enough to overturn the call, and after overcoming a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit and a late missed PAT, the Orange definitely deserved a win on resilience alone. 7. Minnesota 13, No. 15 Iowa 10. CHAOS IN MINNESOTA @GopherFootball takes down No. 15 Iowa on a WALK-OFF field goal https://t.co/tLqzTzgmIh — FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 24, 2026 Nailing a game-winning field goal to secure possession of a 98-pound bronze pig. COLLEGE FOOTBALL! 8. FCS: No. 6 South Dakota 26, No. 8 North Dakota 23 (OT). In the biggest FCS game of the day, South Dakota led 17-0 early, but North Dakota pitched a second-half shutout and tied the game with 45 seconds left. In overtime, however, the Fighting Hawks settled for a field goal, and Austyn Modrzewski found Brayden White for the game-winning TD. Why do things the easy way when you can do them the hard way instead? 9. Duke 19, Virginia 16. Nate Sheppard might be the best running back in the country. He's evidently also a clutch passer. DOUBLE PASS FOR THE LEAD https://t.co/BVNgxUQouk — Duke Football (@DukeFOOTBALL) October 24, 2026 10. No. 10 Utah 21, No. 14 Houston 13. If we're trying to replicate 2007, Devon Dampier is our closest thing to a Pat White. His 204 passing yards and 150 rushing yards got the Utes over the line in a game with lots of yards (798 total) and not that many touchdowns. 11. Kansas 25, Baylor 24. Kansas' play has been inconsistent in 2026 (whose hasn't?), but the Jayhawks have been strangely fantastic in the blocked kicks department. And after tipping two kicks earlier in the game, the Jayhawks scored a huge win Saturday afternoon when Blake Herold blocked Rhett Armstrong's 45-yard field goal with 18 seconds left. 12. Toledo 45, Western Michigan 38. Toledo gained 595 yards, won the turnover battle and led 17-0 early, but thanks to random big plays and a kick return score, WMU had the game tied with five minutes left. CJ Miller gave the Rockets one last lead, however, and an Israel Petite interception finally sealed the deal. 13. No. 6 Indiana 13, Michigan 6 (OT). Yes, games can be gripping and gross at the same time. 14. Division III: Lewis and Clark 43, Whitworth 41 (3OT). Triple overtime and matching 28-0 runs? Yes, please! Sam Simril's fourth touchdown pass gave L&C the lead after trailing by 21, but Whitworth's Tyson Hoke sent the game to overtime with a 7-yard score with 20 seconds remaining. After a scoreless first OT, Simril and Logan Lacio each threw TDs in the second, and after Lacio's 2-point pass fell incomplete in the third, Dante Washington plunged in to give the River Otters a wild win. 15. Army 38, Tulsa 35. You know it was a good week when this one, which featured a 14-point comeback, a 50-yard field goal at the buzzer and the win probability chart below, barely lands in the top 15. 16. Memphis 41, East Carolina 34 (OT). There's pain, and there's "losing back-to-back games on overtime interceptions" pain. Ouch, ECU. 17. Division III: Trine 45, Adrian 42. A track meet in the Border Brawl! Trine raced to a 24-7 halftime lead, but a 28-7 run gave Adrian a fourth-quarter lead. The teams traded leads twice more down the stretch, but with nine seconds remaining, Trine's Zack Pillow made his 17th reception of the day, and scored his fourth touchdown, to give the Thunder a rivalry win. 18. New Mexico 21, North Dakota State 16. The people who run this wonderful, frustrating, amazing, stupid sport keep telling fans at schools like New Mexico that they don't matter. And then 35,000 people showed up on a stormy Saturday and showed why they always will. Just an amazing night. — Corey Masisak (@cmasisak22) October 25, 2026 19. Division II: Quincy 34, Missouri S&T 31. Runs of 17-0 and 14-0 gave S&T a 31-10 lead late in the third quarter. But Collin Parsons' second, third and fourth rushing touchdowns of the game allowed Quincy to tie the game late, and when the Hawks got the ball back with 33 seconds left, Bradyn Little completed three quick passes and set up Joe Reif's 36-yard field goal at the buzzer. 20. Florida Atlantic 51, Rice 49. Rice gained 608 yards, got five touchdowns of 50-plus yards from Gael Ochoa (four rushing, one passing), and lost. The weekend's best popcorn flick was glorious nonsense.