College football winners and losers: Savor the significance of Week 7's chaos, because it disappears with the 24-team playoff

There’s usually a Saturday during the middle of every college football season where we can start to separate the contenders from the pretenders.

That did not happen in Week 7. This Saturday was the opposite of separation Saturday.

The chaos in the SEC and Ohio State’s win over Indiana exemplified what looks to be an incredibly wide-open season as we’re officially at the halfway point. If you want to reliably pick an SEC champion, good luck. You might have a better chance of being right by drawing a team name out of a hat.

Texas entered Week 6 as the No. 1 team in the country. The Longhorns then lost to arch-rival Oklahoma thanks to two fourth-quarter Arch Manning picks. After falling six spots to No. 7, the Longhorns went and lost to an unranked team again on Saturday, as Florida scored 24 straight to take down Texas.

It’s the first time since 1961 that a No. 1 team has lost back-to-back games to unranked opponents.

Georgia was the beneficiary of Texas’ first loss, as the Bulldogs took down Alabama to move into the top spot. The win was one of the finest performances of Georgia QB Gunner Stockton’s career. He positioned himself as a legitimate Heisman contender in the group of quarterbacks behind Ohio State’s Jeremiah Smith.

Saturday, Stockton threw two interceptions and then fumbled away Georgia’s chance to beat Auburn when he simply ran into the back of an offensive lineman and lost the ball. The Tigers recovered and then kicked a field goal as time expired for a 27-24 win.

It’s the first time since 1990 that the No. 1 team in the country has been taken down by unranked opponents in consecutive weeks.

Alabama didn’t bounce back, either. The Tide stayed at No. 6 after their three-point loss to Georgia and went out and played a sloppy and erroneous game against No. 14 Tennessee. The Vols kicked four field goals before they finally scored a touchdown, but those four field goals would have been enough anyway in the 26-10 win.

Every team in the SEC now has at least one conference loss, and all but four of the league’s 16 teams are within a game of first place.

In the Big Ten, things don’t seem nearly as fraught. Though Indiana might have retained favorite status even though it lost to Ohio State on Saturday.

The Buckeyes lost QB Julian Sayin for “several weeks” because of an apparent right arm and shoulder injury sustained on a fourth-quarter sack. Freshman Luke Fahey is in line to start in two weeks against No. 19 USC. How much will Ryan Day have to lean on the run game for the rest of the season?

Given the way the first six weeks of the season unfolded, Week 7 arrived with a lot of expectations. And it somehow exceeded them to set up a fascinating final six weeks of the season.

Savor it. Because a weekend like this isn’t going to be nearly as pivotal going forward.

Saturday’s games came just days after it became apparent that the 12-team College Football Playoff was going to expand to 24 teams in 2027. As college football has struggled to find the balance between making every game in the regular season relevant while also having an inclusive postseason, 12 teams seemed to strike the right balance. Especially after teams like Ohio State in 2024 and Miami in 2025 went from the first round to the title game.

But the only people clamoring for 24 teams in the postseason field were the power conference schools looking to maximize every single revenue source they can. The expanded playoff is worth millions in ESPN TV money, even when you consider that conference title games will likely disappear.

Money has always run college football. Nothing is new on that front. But there’s also a cost to chasing every last dollar. And the significance of days like Saturday is going to be an upfront charge in 2027.

Here are this week’s winners and losers.

Winners

Tulane: The Green Wave scored 23 second-quarter points in a 31-17 upset win over Memphis on Friday night. Tulane entered the game at 2-3 but got a pick-6 from TJ Smith as part of three interceptions of Memphis QB Marcus Stokes. Despite being .500 overall, Tulane’s hopes of winning the American Conference in back-to-back seasons are very much alive after the win and the Green Wave get UTSA at home in Week 8.

Boston College: The Eagles have now surpassed last season’s win total. Boston College moved to 3-3 with a 27-21 home win over a Pitt team that badly misses QB Mason Heintschel. QB Mason McKenzie was 17-of-28 passing for 295 yards and two touchdowns with two interceptions. One of those TDs was a 69-yard pass to Landon Wright, as Wright had two grabs for 122 yards. A bowl is still probably out of reach for BC this season though. It has games remaining against Duke, Notre Dame and Miami.

Army QB Cale Hellums: The Army QB posted the perfect service academy stat line in the Black Knights’ 56-24 win over Florida Atlantic. Hellums was 1-of-2 passing for two yards and rushed 25 times for 195 yards and five touchdowns as Army had 60 carries for 479 yards and eight rushing TDs as a team. The win moved Army to 3-1 in the American ahead of back-to-back trips to Tulsa and Memphis.

James Madison: The Dukes are lurking in the College Football Playoff race if Boise State slips up again. James Madison is now 7-0 after a 49-22 win over Georgia State. George Pettaway rushed for two scores, while JC Evans had a passing TD and two rushing TDs and Camden Coleman threw two touchdowns. A short week lurks with a Thursday trip to Appalachian State, before another mid-week game against Troy to conclude October. But JMU has as good a shot as anyone to run the table in the regular season.

Losers

Pat Fitzgerald: The former Northwestern coach had a great opportunity to steal a win over his former employer and alma mater. Instead, Northwestern’s Jackson Kleather kicked a 34-yard field goal with two seconds left to give the Wildcats a 24-21 win. Northwestern blocked a go-ahead field goal attempt by Liam Boyd with a minute to go before driving 64 yards in eight plays for the win.

Fitzgerald was hired at Michigan State after the 2025 season and his rebuild is not progressing quickly. The Spartans are now 0-4 in Big Ten play and just 2-5 overall with a trip to No. 12 UCLA on the horizon in Week 8.

East Carolina: The Pirates lost 30-17 at UAB on Thursday night. And that loss happened in overtime.

After UAB scored to take a 24-17 lead, ECU had a chance to send the game to a second OT or win on a 2-point conversion. Instead, Deivon Gulley intercepted Emory Williams and returned the pass 80 yards for a game-clinching pick-6. The loss dropped ECU to 3-3 as UAB went to 4-3.

Purdue: It’s exceptionally hard to lose to a team that commits five turnovers, yet Purdue apparently wanted to make things complicated Friday night. Washington got its first Big Ten win of the season in West Lafayette with a 38-26 win over the Boilermakers. Backup QB Elijah Brown started in place of an injured Demond Williams and threw three interceptions while the Huskies also had two fumbles. Yet Purdue couldn’t capitalize.

Maryland: It’s getting incredibly difficult to see how Mike Locksley’s tenure lasts much longer in College Park. The Terrapins lost 37-30 at home to Rutgers on Saturday to fall to 2-5 overall and 0-4 in the Big Ten. Rutgers outscored Maryland 24-7 in the second half and all of the Scarlet Knights’ points came before Maryland scored with just over two minutes to go.

This is the same Rutgers program that fell to UMass to start the season. And Maryland is going to be an underdog in each of its final five games of the season too.