A chaotic Week 6 unfolded with Penn State falling to previously winless UCLA, Alabama getting back into the SEC and College Football Playoff race with a win over Vanderbilt and Miami making its case for the top playoff seed. Here’s everything you need to know about the current CFP race:
Update at 11 p.m. ET Saturday:
Until we really know the matchups further down the bracket, the debate between Ohio State and Miami as to who the No. 1 team in the country is doesn’t really mean a ton. The Buckeyes will still be locked into the Rose Bowl and the Hurricanes will assuredly notch a home game in the Orange Bowl.
But as things stand exiting Week 6, the résumés say the debate between the two will lean heavily in favor of Miami. The Hurricanes have more quality wins—Notre Dame, USF, Florida and now Florida State—than anything the Buckeyes can throw out there. The latter has been incredibly dominant so far in 2025, but their marquee victory over Texas looks worse by the passing week. If you want to project out in the Big Ten schedule after Saturday, they may wind up with only one or two wins over opponents who will finish ranked. That’s going to be an intriguing debate come November for the selection committee.
Elsewhere, Oklahoma and Texas A&M continued to solidify their cases for some top seeds while Alabama probably gets a slight edge over Texas Tech for the No. 6 seed thanks to back-to-back wins over quality opponents.
One thing to keep an eye on is that with Penn State, Texas and others mostly dropping out from the playoff chase after Week 6, Michigan and Notre Dame could stand to benefit quite a bit when it comes to sneaking into the field.
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Update at 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday:
Well then.
The preseason top two teams (Texas and Penn State) are 6–4 as of Oct. 4 with near-lifeless hopes to get to the playoff, Alabama might be back and Oklahoma’s backup quarterback might be the best signal-caller on the field for Red River next week. Who had that on their 2025 bingo card?
Nobody. Not one soul on this planet.
But that’s why you have to love college football. O.K. maybe not at the moment if you’re the selection committee trying to sort it all out, but at least you have some more data points to consider after the 3:30 p.m. ET kickoffs ended in dramatic fashion.
The biggest winner from today might be Alabama, which seems like the national contender some had pegged the Tide as before that loss to Florida State. It looks more and more like that was just a one-off loss and quite survivable, but adding another Top 25 win to the résumé over Vanderbilt sure helps them when it comes to the jumbled SEC pecking order for the playoff. They slide ahead of Texas A&M for now going into the prime-time games, but it’s possible that Kalen DeBoer’s team ends up with a quarterfinal bye if further chaos arrives across the country.
Update at 5 p.m. ET Saturday:
We’re bordering on an all-time chaotic set of 3:30 p.m. ET kickoff games between UCLA shocking Penn State at the Rose Bowl, Florida thumping Texas in the Swamp and Vanderbilt more than going toe-to-toe with Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala. It’s still a little bit early to fully shake up the CFP field after the first half of those games, but we’ve seen enough from the Longhorns to take them out of the field in favor of Michigan even if they were to storm back to beat the Gators.
Update at 10 p.m. ET Friday:
We’re still a month out from the selection committee meeting in the Dallas area, but they already have plenty to sort out. All eyes will be on the SEC and ACC this weekend with games such as Texas-Florida, Vanderbilt-Alabama, Virginia-Louisville, Miami-Florida State and several others all carrying significant implications on Saturday that could shake up these live standings.
- Miami
- Ohio State
- Oregon
- Oklahoma
- Texas A&M
- Alabama
- Texas Tech
- Ole Miss
- Indiana
- Georgia
- Michigan
- Tulane
The Green Wave are still the slight favorite over USF, Navy and Memphis to emerge from the American, plus they have two Power 4 wins already on the résumé.
It was an effective victory for Michigan over a pesky Wisconsin team at the Big House on Saturday afternoon and you can start to see a potential run brewing for Sherrone Moore’s team now. If Michigan can survive the trip to USC next week, it will likely be favored to win out the rest of the way until facing a certain Ohio State team at home for what figures to be a play-in for the Big Ten title game. If the Wolverines meet the Crimson Tide in a rematch of last year’s bowl game, you can bet the TV networks will make this the prime-time Saturday night game during the opening weekend of the playoff.
Another solid road win for Texas Tech at Houston as the Red Raiders continue to look excellent on defense. Not only are they the prohibitive favorite in the Big 12 right now, but results around the country probably allow them to remain in the CFP bracket even with a loss along the way.
What a sport it is where pregame shows like ESPN’s College GameDay can go from a Vanderbilt game to an Indiana one. The Hoosiers have one of the biggest games in school history next Saturday at Oregon, while potential opponent Ole Miss really benefited from sitting at home and watching a ton of chaos unfold during Week 6.
How wild is it to think that the Sooners, even with backup Michael Hawkins Jr. and not starter John Mateer, have the better quarterback going into next week’s Red River game against Texas? Nobody on either side of the border could have predicted that during the preseason.
Beyond the Penn State fans, there’s nobody more unhappy with that Nittany Lions loss to UCLA than Oregon. That could take away a Top 25 win on the Ducks’ résumé, but at least they can make up for it by beating Indiana at Autzen Stadium in a week.
The best modern Ohio State defense was the 1973 unit which allowed 43 points in 10 games. This season’s group has given up only 25 after five games after topping Minnesota on Saturday. As utterly dominant as they have been though, they might not get tested until Michigan at the end of the regular season.
It’s not foolish to think the Hurricanes could make it all the way to the title game (in their backyard) by playing just a single game outside of their time zone. When cross-country travel is commonplace, the toughest away trip left for Miami is going to Dallas to play SMU.
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