Nothing good lasts forever, and that includes the college football season, which approaches its midway point this week.
The 2023 season feels particularly puzzling so far. No one has really separated from the pack, and while some top teams struggled during Week 5 on Saturday in USC, Georgia and Notre Dame, all ultimately escaped with wins.
Other top teams like Michigan and Oregon haven’t really faced significant tests, at all.
We’re still trying to make sense of it all, and it feels like we could be heading toward a College Football Playoff race filled with chaos, chalk or anything in between.
For now, here are the winners and losers from Week 5 of the college football season.
Winner: Texas' quiet, welcome competence
We’re through five weeks, and the Texas Longhorns are 5-0. That isn’t a particularly impressive statement, at least on its face. After all, coach Steve Sarkisian’s team has faced Alabama and four opponents it was a hefty favorite against.
And yet, this is the first time the program has been perfect through five games since 2009, the last time it reached the national championship. That’s almost impossible to believe given the talent on the roster in Austin in any given season, but it speaks to the most impressive aspect of Sarkisian’s rebuild: This team is competent.
Beating Alabama was impressive, don’t get me wrong. It was the kind of proof of concept win Sarkisian badly needed. But it also wasn’t untrodden territory for the Longhorns during their so-called dark age.
Texas has won big games since it was last nationally relevant. There’s a reason that “Texas is back” has become sarcastic shorthand for early-season overreactions that don’t pan out.
In many ways, I’m more impressed that the team hasn’t slipped up against a team it’s supposed to beat, especially when the schedule includes a plucky Kansas team that had won its last game in Austin and a Wyoming team that knocked off a Big 12 team from Texas the prior week.
We’ll see what happens in Red River next week against an Oklahoma team that has taken tremendous strides in Year 2 under Brent Venables. But win that game, and Texas will have a pretty strong claim as the most impressive team in the country with no signs of slowing down.
That’s what being “back” truly means.
Loser: UCF's all-time collapse
It’s still early in the season, but I have a hard time believing we’ll see a more comprehensive choke job than what happened in Orlando on Saturday night.
UCF appeared poised to hand a spiraling Baylor team another bad loss in conference play while in the process claiming its first win as a Big 12 conference member in front of its home crowd. With a 35-7 lead midway through the third quarter and a 35-10 lead entering the fourth, everything was going smoothly.
But the Bears started the fourth quarter with back-to-back touchdown drives and successful two-point conversions in just over five minutes of game time, and a 72-yard fumble return touchdown by Caden Jenkins ultimately brought the score within two.
With 1:21 to play, Isaiah Hankins hit what would become the game-winning kick, giving Baylor a 36-35 lead that ultimately held.
It was an absolutely brutal loss for Gus Malzahn, whose team was coming off a tough defeat at Kansas State in Week 4. Malzahn is now just 4-5 in his last nine games, and this team doesn’t look like it will be particularly competitive in the Big 12 in Year 1.
Winner: Notre Dame, Ole Miss and the art of the bounce back
Both Notre Dame’s Marcus Freeman and Ole Miss’ Lane Kiffin entered the weekend desperate for wins after Week 4 losses that were supremely disappointing in unique ways.
For Freeman, the Fighting Irish wasted an opportunity for a huge win against Ohio State, which was headlined by a coaching gaffe on what proved to be the decisive play. For Kiffin, a 24-10 loss to Alabama confirmed the priors of many that his Ole Miss teams don’t get up for the big games.
Both coaches silenced critics on Saturday. Notre Dame faced a challenge on the road against Duke that was almost poetically similar to last weekend’s game. But the script flipped this time with the Fighting Irish fending off a rally to come back and win in the final minutes.
Ole Miss, meanwhile, went shot-for-shot against LSU and ultimately prevailed in a shootout that featured 104 combined points and more than 1,300 combined yards of offense. The fans stormed the field at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, and Kiffin had his signature win.
Both outcomes are an interesting case study of why seasons should be judged by the sum of the parts rather than any individual game.
Loser: LSU shows why defense still wins championships
LSU boasts its best offense since Joe Burrow, Ja’Marr Chase and Justin Jefferson were walking the grounds of Tiger Stadium on Saturdays. Jayden Daniels, who has 16 passing touchdowns to just two interceptions, is having a Heisman-caliber campaign, and he’s aided by two receivers in Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas Jr. who will be playing on Sundays.
None of that matters, because it’s Week 6, and LSU is already all but eliminated in the College Football Playoff race. It’s not complicated, either; even your run-of-the-mill box-score checker could tell you why.
This defense is a major problem. It was a concern when Johnny Wilson and Keon Coleman torched the Tigers in a Week 1 loss to Florida State, it was outright worrying when Arkansas gave the Tigers a scare at home last weekend, and against Ole Miss, that unit was downright horrific.
It allowed 706 yards of offense — 389 through the air to Jaxson Dart and 317 on the ground to Quinshon Judkins, Ulysses Bentley IV and Dart — and 55 points in a totally lifeless showing.
According to coach Brian Kelly, the team missed 34 tackles, allowing an additional 288 yards of offense.
It’s a puzzling fatal flaw for this team to have because for much of the 2022 season, this defense was a strength under coordinator Matt House. But Kelly has opted to plug much of the defense’s holes through the portal — a strategy he has repeatedly admitted has its pitfalls.
It worked pretty well last fall, but it clearly hasn’t been nearly as successful this time, particularly when it comes to the secondary.
The problems seem to be a mix of personnel and coaching, and we’ll have to wait and see if significant changes are made when it comes to either, whether before or after the season.
But with Daniels, Nabers and many others set to move on after this season, it’s hard to escape the feeling that defensive woes have squandered a championship-level window on offense.
Quick Hitters - Winners
Oregon State: The Beavers bounced back nicely from a loss to Washington State, handing Utah its first loss of the year despite another up-and-down outing from DJ Uiagalelei.
Louisville: Despite some success, the vibes never felt great during the Scott Satterfield era. Jeff Brohm has this team at 5-0 with an opportunity for an early statement win against Notre Dame next weekend.
BYU: The Cougars felt like the afterthought among new Big 12 additions, but they look like the best of the bunch right now. They’re 4-1 after a win over fellow newcomer Cincinnati, and they also boast a road win over an SEC opponent in Arkansas.
Kentucky: Florida was the bane of Kentucky’s existence for a while, but Mark Stoops has flipped that series on its head. The Wildcats have won three in a row against the Gators and four of the last six.
Clemson: The Tigers looked pretty good in a loss to Florida State, and they maintained that in a pretty decisive win over Syracuse. Cade Klubnik continues to develop, and this team feels like it could be much improved by the season’s end.
Purdue: Ryan Walters got a big conference win over Illinois, winning 44-19 against a division rival. The fact that it happened to come against the head coach he worked under last season makes it even sweeter.
Arkansas State: It looked like things were about to spiral for Butch Jones and the Red Wolves, but they’re now 3-2 and could have a legit quarterback in Jaylen Raynor, who had six passing touchdowns in a 52-28 win over UMass.
Troy: The Trojans aren’t as good as they were in 2022, but we saw glimpses of the defense that was elite by Group of Five standards last fall as Troy gave up just seven points while handing Georgia State its first loss of the year.
Virginia Tech: The Hokies still have a long way to go if Brent Pry is going to right the ship, but a convincing win over Pittsburgh felt like a desperately needed outcome in Blacksburg.
Air Force: How about some love for academy football? The Falcons remain perfect after a blowout win over San Diego State, and they may be the best team in the Mountain West. The race for the G5’s New Year’s Six spot feels wide open, and this could be a sneaky contender.
Quick Hitters - Losers
Utah: This team really missed Cam Rising for the first time this season. The defense is fantastic, but Utah is legitimately bad on offense and doesn’t look like a legitimate Pac-12 contender right now. I’m willing to reevaluate that take when or if Rising returns.
Sam Houston State: The Bearkats took a late eight-point lead over Jacksonville State but couldn’t hang on and lost in overtime. Sam Houston State is still looking for its first victory since transitioning to the FBS level this season.
NC State: This team was lucky to beat Virginia in Week 4, and its issues caught up with it against Louisville. Transfer quarterback Brennan Armstrong has now been benched, and this looks like a disappointing season for Dave Doeren.
Florida: The Gators looked like a bad offensive team with an elite defense for the first four weeks of the year. After giving up 280 rushing yards to Kentucky’s Ray Davis, it’s unclear what (if anything) this team does particularly well.
USC’s Defense: The Trojans got the win against Colorado, but it was way more stressful than it should have been. In a 35-7 game, the offense went on autopilot while USC’s suspect defense allowed the Buffaloes to cut the lead to just seven in the final minutes. Looking at what’s on tap for Lincoln Riley’s team, it’s hard to imagine this team wins the Pac-12 without significant defensive improvement.
Arkansas: It turns out that last week’s promising performance may have had more to do with LSU’s sieve masquerading as a defense. The Razorbacks were much less successful in a loss to Texas A&M, and in an important year for Sam Pittman’s tenure, the Hogs have now dropped three in a row.
Virginia: The Cavaliers missed a big opportunity for a win against a bad Boston College team and fell to 0-5 on the year. Tony Elliott deserves a lot of credit for the leadership he’s shown through tragedy since taking this job, but there will come a day when he will be judged in football terms.
Georgia: The Bulldogs’ nation-long 22-game win streak was extended on Saturday, but it’s hard to imagine Georgia feels particularly good about it after needing to overcome a second-half deficit against a pretty bad Auburn team.
Georgia Tech: Brent Key got this job full-time in large part thanks to the life he injected into the team during the 2022 season. Losing by 11 points at home to Bowling Green and subsequently demoting your defensive coordinator feels like the opposite of “showing life.”
Houston: It’s really starting to look like Dana Holgersen isn’t going to survive after a loss to previously 1-3 Texas Tech on Saturday. A game against his former team in West Virginia, which is 3-1 and playing pretty well, could provide the final nail in the coffin.
Boise State: After a loss to Memphis, 2-3 Boise State doesn’t look like a real contender in a Mountain West that’s pretty good at the top. That’s a concern for Andy Avalos, who is just 19-12 with a Broncos program that has justifiably high expectations.
Coastal Carolina: The Chanticleers have clearly regressed significantly under Tim Beck after a loss to Georgia Southern. Jamey Chadwell is a good coach, but it’s hard to believe this team hasn’t had any continuity when it comes to success on offense given that Grayson McCall stuck around for his final season.
Duke: The Blue Devils looked like a legitimate ACC contender despite the loss to Notre Dame, but this team’s ceiling may hinge on the health of quarterback Riley Leonard, who was helped off the field late in the game with what appeared to be an ankle injury and was later spotted on crutches.
Pittsburgh: I’m not sure what else to say about this team, which is 1-4, abysmal on offense and yet still has a coach in Pat Narduzzi who is apparently in the mix for the Michigan State job.
