As anyone who has ever played Mario Kart has learned, we don't really know much about how things will turn out after one of three laps.
Four weeks into last season, Penn State was unbeaten and ranked third in the country, Florida State was unbeaten and eighth, and Oklahoma's John Mateer was getting Heisman love and had the Sooners earning first-place poll votes. All of those teams ranked ahead of the eventual national champion. Oh, and Notre Dame had a losing record.
All of those developments turned out to be severely misleading, just as some of this season's early plot twists undoubtedly will, too. But we still know more than we did a month ago.
Four weeks in, the ground has shifted for a lot of teams, and that has altered the stakes of a lot of games in the coming weeks.
While acknowledging all the twists and turns to come in October and beyond, let's look at the biggest changes that September brought.
Georgia is making big plays
I felt like a broken record this offseason: It seemed like in every piece I wrote for months, I slipped in a reference to Alabama needing Keelon Russell to be amazing and a remark about Georgia desperately needing to make more big plays. I used "blue-chip service academy offense" to describe the Bulldogs' attack multiple times, and while Dawgs fans took that as more of an insult than I really had intended -- service academy offenses are delightful in their relentless efficiency -- it still painted a pretty clear picture: For the past couple of seasons in particular, Georgia just hasn't created enough easy points for itself and has been forced to grind out long drives to score points. The Bulldogs were good (and talented) enough to win the past two SEC titles with that approach, but it still rendered them a bit less than national title worthy.
Through four weeks in 2026, one team ranks in the top 10 in both success rate (efficiency) and yards per successful play (explosiveness). You can probably guess where I'm going with this.
In Saturday's strange 41-13 win over Oklahoma, Georgia managed only 53 snaps and one drive of more than five plays. The Dawgs scored a defensive touchdown and benefited significantly from Sooners turnovers, but they got a 54-yard touchdown run from Dwight Phillips Jr., and Gunner Stockton completed passes of 41, 35 and 30 yards to sophomore Talyn Taylor, who already has more touchdowns this season (three) than he had catches last year (two). While the Dawgs benefited from an early run of cupcake opponents, they still have an excellent defense, and averaged 5.8 yards per play on Saturday, the most by any Sooners opponent since 2024.
The Dawgs' raw averages will fall as they face more excellent teams and defenses moving forward, but right now they might be the most statistically well-rounded team in the country, dominating in terms of efficiency, explosiveness, field position, red zone effectiveness and turnovers. They must still face unbeaten Alabama and Florida, both away from Athens, but their SEC schedule isn't as hard as others' -- in part because they don't have to play Georgia! -- and per SP+, they have emerged as a clear favorite in the SEC.
SEC title odds, per SP+
Georgia 44.7% (+29.9% since the preseason)
Texas 15.6% (+3.5%)
Alabama 15.1% (+8.0%)
Florida 7.1% (+2.4%)
LSU 6.9% (-3.6%)
Everyone else under 4.0%
Explosiveness was basically the only thing keeping the Bulldogs from elite status in 2024 and '25. They sure seem to have it now. And while no one can truly claim to be a national title favorite at this point -- it's too early, and the presence of a three- or four-round knockout tournament at the end of the season would keep even a heavy favorite's odds tamped down -- Georgia is as well positioned as anyone.
National title odds, per SP+
Georgia 18.8% (+12.5% since the preseason)
Notre Dame 14.4% (+7.1%)
Indiana 10.7% (+5.9%)
Ohio State 10.5% (+1.3%)
Miami 9.5% (+6.4%)
Everyone else under 5.0%
Miami, JMU and Liberty have taken control of conference races
Conference play has just begun, and we haven't seen all that many conference games impact races yet. But the combination of a few impactful results and pure surges in quality has produced some clear front-runners. Here are the odds for each conference outside of the SEC. I'm listing everyone with title odds over 3%.
ACC: Miami 57.1%, Virginia 11.5%, Pitt 9.2%, SMU 6.9%, Virginia Tech 5.6%, Duke 3.8%, Louisville 3.5%
American: USF 30.0%, Memphis 21.8%, UTSA 12.1%, Florida Atlantic 6.8%, East Carolina 6.5%, Army 6.4%, Tulsa 6.2%, North Texas 5.4%
Big 12: Utah 30.6%, Texas Tech 28.6%, BYU 14.4%, Oklahoma State 5.2%, UCF 4.8%, Kansas State 3.8%, Baylor 3.0%
Big Ten: Ohio State 35.7%, Indiana 26.8%, Oregon 14.6%, Nebraska 4.9%, UCLA 4.8%, Iowa 4.1%
Conference USA: Liberty 51.0%, Jacksonville State 26.9%, Florida International 7.7%, Delaware 5.2%, Kennesaw State 4.2%
MAC: Toledo 42.3%, Miami (Ohio) 19.4%, UMass 15.0%, Western Michigan 12.1%, Ohio 7.2%
Mountain West: North Dakota State 44.2%, New Mexico 41.4%, UNLV 7.5%, Air Force 7.5%
Pac-12: Boise State 47.6%, Oregon State 18.2%, Fresno State 13.1%, Texas State 9.9%, Colorado State 4.5%
Sun Belt: James Madison 62.9%, Louisiana 11.0%, Appalachian State 9.7%, Arkansas State 3.3%
Miami started out as the clear favorite in the ACC, and the Hurricanes' grip has only strengthened thanks to dominant early showings, Clemson's early relative faceplant and the fact that the Canes' two most likely challengers, SMU and Louisville, have both suffered early conference losses.
When James Madison struggled to put away Liberty in Week 1, I initially saw it as a frustrating result for the Dukes against a team that bottomed out last season. Three weeks later, it looks like one awesome Group of 6 team taking down another.
​​JMU has since destroyed Wagner 87-3 and scored comfortable road wins over San Diego State and Old Dominion, two of last year's top mid-major teams. The Dukes have surged from 70th to 36th in SP+, easily the top mark in the G6. They currently have the nation's best odds of reaching 12-0 (41.3%), making them a clear and obvious front-runner for the G6's automatic playoff spot.
Meanwhile, after struggling against Gardner-Webb in Week 2, Liberty finally clicked into place, beating Ball State and Coastal Carolina by a combined margin of 85-32. In just two weeks, the Flames have risen from 102nd to 62nd in SP+, and they're now clear Conference USA favorites.
Granted, when I wrote a similar "What's changed?" piece this time last season, Memphis was the front-runner for the G6's playoff spot. The Tigers went just 3-5 after September. Things change. But JMU in particular couldn't have positioned itself any better at this point.
Out: Texas A&M and Oklahoma (and maybe Ole Miss?)
We are able to give out a few more national title mulligans these days, and aspiring contenders have to try pretty hard to get themselves eliminated in September. Oregon's shocking loss to Oklahoma State, for instance, knocked the Ducks backward, but thanks in part to Saturday's comfortable win over USC, their CFP odds, per SP+, are back to 25%. FPI has them even higher, at 41%. (Granted, neither metric takes injuries into account, and we'll see how long quarterback Dante Moore is out following one of the dirtiest hits you'll see.)
Two preseason top-10 teams, however, have figured out how to get themselves all but knocked out. Texas A&M is 2-2 and has fallen from seventh to 39th in SP+ in just two weeks after losing by 10 to Kentucky and by 29 at LSU. Oklahoma, meanwhile, has fallen to 27th and underachieved significantly on offense for three straight weeks. Two weeks after a 17-10 stumble at Michigan, the Sooners got manhandled 41-13 by Georgia in their first-ever trip to Athens on Saturday. Georgia was powerful and explosive, as mentioned above, but quarterback John Mateer also made a run of slapstick errors in the second quarter as well.
Technically, neither 2-2 team is out of it. But both will probably have to win out to feel good about their chances, and A&M has three remaining opponents in the SP+ top 15, while OU faces three in the top 20, all away from home. Their current playoff odds, per SP+, are 0.4% for A&M and 1.1% for OU.
Another SEC team is in a curious position. Due primarily to a defense that just wasn't making enough stops -- even against potentially excellent offenses such as Louisville's and LSU's -- SP+ ranked Ole Miss just 20th heading into Saturday's trip to Florida. Following a 52-28 shellacking by the Gators, the Rebels are 32nd. They're still a healthy 12th on offense, but Trinidad Chambliss & Co. have looked merely solid, not unstoppable, for three straight halves against LSU and Florida. And the defense is down to 75th in defensive SP+ and 120th in points per possession.
The Rebels get a very well-timed week off to figure things out, and they better take full advantage of it because they are projected underdogs in five of their eight remaining games. Chambliss' late-game magic could save them in a few of those, but they might have only one playoff mulligan left. SP+ puts their playoff odds at only 3.1%, down from 19.1% in the preseason.
In: Utah, Mississippi State, UCLA ... and Nebraska?
Last year, four teams overachieved against SP+ projections for each of their first four games. Three of them (Louisiana Tech, Old Dominion and Utah State) ended up winning a combined 24 games (preseason projected win total: 14.9) with an average SP+ ranking of 68.7 (preseason: 109.3). The fourth, Mississippi State, faded but still finished with more wins than expected.
This year, despite SP+ performing about as well as ever in September, we've seen a lot more teams go 4-for-4 in terms of overachieving against projections. Twelve have done so, including four teams that have charged all the way into the SP+ top 25: Utah (from 30th to ninth), Nebraska (from 33rd to 16th), Mississippi State (from 52nd to 18th) and UCLA (from 46th to 24th).
It would be a bit of an insult to call Utah a surprising team this season considering the Utes won 11 games and finished eighth in SP+ in 2025. But following their first coaching change in 20 years -- Morgan Scalley replaced Michigan-bound Kyle Whittingham -- there was plenty of reason to wonder if there might be a brief stumble as Scalley tried to find his way. Nope! The Utes haven't played a top-50 team yet, but they've beaten two power-conference opponents (Arkansas and Iowa State) by a combined 49 points, and both their offense and defense have beaten projections in three of four games. Their early-season power surge has made them slight favorites over Texas Tech in the Big 12 and has given them the fifth-best current odds of making the CFP, per SP+. (The only teams ahead of them: Notre Dame, Georgia, Miami and Indiana.)
The other high-rising overachievers aren't quite that well positioned for a playoff berth, but they're positioned in some way, and that wasn't a given a month ago. Mississippi State, Nebraska and UCLA began the season with SP+ playoff odds of 5.1%, 8.0% and 8.8%, respectively; now they're at 22.3%, 22.3% and 32.4%.
After eking out a win over Missouri, MSU gets an even bigger home game this coming Saturday against Alabama. Nebraska, meanwhile, will host defending national champion Indiana in Week 6. And after traveling across the country and humiliating Maryland 54-3 on Saturday, UCLA, the most well-positioned team of the three, gets a bye week before heading up to Oregon in Week 6 for what might be the Bruins' biggest game since they traveled to Oregon for a top-10 matchup in 2022.
You're beautiful, UMass (you too, Georgia State)
In last week's Ranking the Unbeatens piece, I feared I would sound patronizing when I wrote, "Hell yeah, Minutemen," and "How cool is that?" in talking about UMass' 3-0 start. But it was really cool! And it became even cooler when the Minutemen traveled to California -- incredibly, for a conference game -- and mopped the floor with host Sacramento State 35-6.
Thanks to the way the weight of preseason projections drops considerably after four games, UMass surged from 131st to 93rd in SP+ this week. And even with those preseason numbers still dragging them down a bit, they now rank third among MAC teams, and they have the third-best odds of winning the conference. Their offense is playing mistake-free ball -- they've allowed 12 tackles for loss (sixth fewest in FBS) and committed just one turnover (second) -- and their defense ranks 21st in points allowed per possession thanks to a strong combination of big-play prevention and ball hawking.
Since jumping up to the FBS in 2012, UMass has not only never bowled -- the Minutemen have hit even four wins only twice. They were 8-68 over the previous seven years and went 0-12 in Joe Harasymiak's first season. It was not a surprise when they were projected 138th out of 138 teams heading into this year; this was as hopeless a program as you could find in the FBS. But the key word there is "was." UMass is now the projected favorite in six of its last eight games and, in its current form, can expect to not only bowl but contend for the conference title. Hell yeah, Minutemen.
UMass' surge has distracted from what could otherwise be the coolest early-season turnaround story: Georgia State, 4-20 in two years under Dell McGee and projected second from the bottom in SP+ in the preseason, is 3-1 following Saturday's 35-14 blowout of Northern Illinois. The Panthers have overachieved against projections by at least 15 points in every game. They're getting efficiency from quarterback Cameran Brown and big plays from receiver Rodshaun Dorsey and running back Lanear McCrary Jr., and their only loss was to the Big 12's UCF in a game they trailed by only seven with two minutes left. James Madison's rise will likely preclude the Panthers from getting involved in the Sun Belt East race, but if they beat a reeling Old Dominion this coming week, they'll be 4-1 for only the second time since joining the FBS in 2013. For the first time since head coach Shawn Elliott left unexpectedly in February 2024, this program has both hope and momentum.
Indiana, Texas Tech running out of time to shift into gear
Just as it usually means something when teams consistently overachieve against projections early on, the opposite is also meaningful. Last season, seven teams underachieved versus SP+ projections in each of their first four games. Of them, only SMU stabilized. The other six -- Clemson, Liberty, Oklahoma State, Sam Houston, UCLA and Wisconsin -- finished a combined 21-52 (average projected wins in the preseason: 40.3) with an average SP+ ranking of 95.8 (preseason: 56.0).
If you haven't started meeting altered expectations by now, you might not ever get there. That makes this year's list of 0-for-4 underachievers -- Arizona, Buffalo, Hawai'i, Indiana, Old Dominion, Purdue, San Diego State, Texas Tech, Washington and Vanderbilt -- pretty interesting.
Within this group are three teams that finished in the AP top 15 last year (Indiana, Texas Tech and Vanderbilt), plus four more that earned votes in the final poll (Arizona, Hawai'i, ODU and Washington).
Two of these teams in particular -- Indiana and Texas Tech -- entered this season with rich rosters and title hopes. Neither have met the mark yet, but neither have lost yet either. Against Northwestern on Friday night, Indiana nearly fell victim to mistakes, missed opportunities and a brief hot streak from Wildcats quarterback Aidan Chiles. After leading 12-0 at halftime (it should have been far more), the Hoosiers saw their lead shrink to 2 points on two occasions in the fourth quarter. They responded with touchdown drives each time and eventually put the game away 29-23 after narrowly recovering a late onside kick. But they were one bad break away from being in serious trouble.
Tech, meanwhile, had its close calls in Weeks 2 and 3 against Oregon (a 35-24 win) and Houston (28-26) and at least had to put in a longer shift than expected against 4-for-4 overachiever Sam Houston on Saturday. It needed back-to-back pick-sixes from Austin Romaine to lead at halftime (21-14) before finally shifting into gear in the second half. It has alternated between excellence and listlessness all season, and after winning five games by more than 35 points in 2025, it is still waiting for its first in 2026.
Both IU and Tech are still in perfectly solid shape, even if they're slightly missing the mark. They're both projected favorites in every remaining regular-season game -- including Indiana's matchup against Ohio State in Bloomington in Week 7 -- but if they continue underachieving against projections, Indiana could lose back-to-back games to Nebraska and Ohio State, while Tech could be in danger in any of its trips to Cincinnati, Oklahoma State or Baylor.
Illinois and West Virginia hit big on transfer QBs
The current Total QBR top 10 is a combination of proven veterans and super-fun surprises. It can't be too surprising that Miami's Darian Mensah (No. 1), Ohio State's Julian Sayin (No. 2), Georgia's Gunner Stockton (No. 3), Notre Dame's CJ Carr (No. 5), USC's Jayden Maiava (No. 8) and Indiana's Josh Hoover (No. 10) are all in there, and we've known for a while about Keelon Russell's (No. 7) potential at Alabama. But while Mississippi State's Kamario Taylor (No. 9) has earned a lot of headlines as the breakout star of the early season, that leaves two names most of us didn't expect to threaten to become top-10 guys: Illinois' Katin Houser (No. 4) and West Virginia's Michael Hawkins Jr. (No. 6).
Both quarterbacks lost Saturday -- Houser's Illini to Ohio State, Hawkins' Mountaineers to Oklahoma State -- but you can't blame them much for that. In Columbus, Houser threw for 263 yards and a touchdown and rushed four times for 40 yards; the Illini drove at least 40 yards on six of eight full drives, and it certainly wasn't Houser's fault no one on the Illinois defense could come within two zip codes of Jeremiah Smith (12 catches, 217 yards, four touchdowns).
Hawkins rushed for three touchdowns in the game's first 35 minutes in Morgantown, helping the Mountaineers ease out to a 21-13 lead. He finished with 126 non-sack rushing yards and 132 passing yards, and while the offense began to stall out late, the defense, which allowed 609 yards, clearly was the primary issue.
The Illini and Mountaineers are both reasonably flawed teams, with defenses that will likely keep them out of conference title (or CFP) contention. But Illinois' Bret Bielema and WVU's Rich Rodriguez are each getting everything he could have hoped for from first-year transfers.
My 10 favorite games of the weekend
1. Division II: No. 2 Harding 28, Ouachita Baptist 27. I love it when the Smaller-School Showcase games I mention in my Friday preview live up to the billing. Harding revisited the site of its last conference loss -- two years ago, at OBU -- and narrowly avenged it. OBU used a third-quarter run to take a 21-14 lead, but Harding tied the game early in the fourth, then recovered a sack-and-strip fumble to set up the go-ahead score with 1:22 left. On fourth-and-2 from the OBU 33, with 23 seconds remaining, Tre Nichols escaped pressure and dialed up the touchdown of the week, a shocking 67-yarder to Carter McElhany.
THE TIGERS ARE NOT DEAD IN ARKADELPHIA!! 🤯🤯🤯
— #TheGAC (@GACAthletics) September 27, 2026
On fourth down, Tre Nichols escapes pressure before...well, JUST WATCH! 😱😱#theGAC pic.twitter.com/WvHvwI4wAr
Playing with house money, OBU went for two and the win, but the pass fell incomplete, and Harding recovered the onside kick and survived. It was a wild weekend in Division II, with nine ranked teams falling, including No. 5 NW Missouri State. But No. 2 narrowly avoided joining the club.
2. No. 17 Iowa 20, No. 18 Michigan 19. My postgame win expectancy measure takes the key, predictive stats produced in a given game (the stuff that feeds into SP+), tosses them into the air and says, "With these stats, Team A could have expected to win this game X% of the time." Wins always count, but some wins come via a pretty unsustainable formula.
Iowa's postgame win expectancy against Michigan on Saturday: 7.3%. That's the lowest PGWE in a win so far this season. The Hawkeyes were outgained by 144 yards and 1.5 yards per play, and they gave up twice as many red zone trips as they produced, but they allowed only one red zone touchdown, they won the field position battle, they benefited from a very silly Michigan personal foul on their last drive, and in their only two red zone trips of the day, they scored TDs both times.
For those who thought Michigan owed a karmic debt for the Western Michigan win in Week 1, that debt has been paid.
3. Wisconsin 24, No. 13 Penn State 20. It was a weekend for hockey stick charts in the Big Ten.
That's what it looks like when you fall behind 17-0 but score twice in the last 3:31 and get a go-ahead 72-yard catch and run -- featuring the nastiest stiff-arm of the weekend -- from tight end Jacob Harris and hold on for your biggest road comeback in 25 years.
4. FCS: Alcorn State 43, Texas Southern 40 (OT). This one seemed all but done when Carl McDonald Jr. scored to give Alcorn State a 34-12 lead midway through the third quarter. But Cam'Ron McCoy led TSU on a 22-0 run to tie the game, and when Alcorn went ahead on a field goal with 27 seconds left, McCoy hit Fatu Mukuba on a 54-yard pass to set up the game-tying field goal at the buzzer. But in OT, TSU settled for a field goal, Fredrick Robertson scored a touchdown, and after all that, Alcorn State prevailed.
5. No. 24 Mississippi State 31, No. 19 Missouri 24. Missouri won the middle two quarters by a 24-3 margin, but MSU scored the first two and last two touchdowns of the game. Kamario Taylor's second touchdown pass of the evening to Sanfrisco Magee gave the Bulldogs the lead with 3:57 left, and while Mizzou drove into MSU territory twice in the last two minutes, MSU stopped both forays short of the end zone.
6. Marshall 36, Gardner-Webb 35. The Runnin' Bulldogs of Gardner-Webb were primed for their first upset of an FBS opponent in 16 years when Marshall missed a late 2-point conversion and Christian Vann ripped off a 59-yard run to set up a goal-to-go situation with less than three minutes remaining. But Aidan Bonde missed a 27-yard field goal, and with one last shot Marshall drove to the GWU 14, and Jorge Diaz Nicolas knocked in a 32-yard winner.
7. No. 1 Texas 20, No. 14 Tennessee 17. Texas' postgame win expectancy in this one was 96.5%. Raleek Brown's 4-yard score gave the Longhorns a seemingly insurmountable 10-point lead in this defensive battle, but Tennessee nearly stole it: Faizon Brandon, harassed all day, threw a 30-yard touchdown pass with 1:22 left, and the Vols recovered a wicked onside kick. But Brandon couldn't conjure any further magic, and Texas survived.
8. FCS: Portland State 44, Weber State 41. Portland State had lost 15 of its last 16 games, but the Vikings bolted to an early 28-7 lead and still led 38-21 midway through the third quarter. Weber State charged back to tie the game at 41-41 with three Nate Dahle touchdown passes and was driving to take the lead in the closing seconds, but Terahiti Wolfe picked off a Dahle pass and returned it to the WSU 45. After two runs by Deion Thompson, Joshua Hossmann Lees nailed a game-winning FG from 41 yards.
9. Air Force 36, Nevada 33 (2OT). Another comeback in vain. Nevada trailed 27-17 with less than four minutes remaining, but a Joe McFadden field goal and a 57-yard Herschel Turner run tied the game up. The teams exchanged field goals over the first three possessions of overtime, but a third-down touchdown from Rocco Conti moved Air Force to 2-1.
10. Wake Forest 30, No. 16 Louisville 27. After a back-and-forth first half featuring four lead changes, this one became a kicking competition in the second half. Connor Calvert's 32-yarder with 6:20 left gave Wake its fifth lead, but Louisville got multiple opportunities to even it up. Carson Hilbert missed a 42-yarder with 2:29 left, and Gabe Kirschke blocked a 57-yarder in the closing seconds.
Honorable mention:
• Edward Waters 46, Morehouse 38
• Franklin Pierce 35, Bentley 28
• No. 5 Indiana 29, Northwestern 23
• Portland State 44, Weber State 41
• Tennessee Tech 42, Wofford 38
• Texas Lutheran 61, East Texas Baptist 54
• Tulane 24, Southern Miss 21