Winners, losers from College Football Week 5: Deion Sanders, Lane Kiffin, Navy, Notre Dame and more

There’s a home for everyone and former Ohio State Buckeyes quarterback Kyle McCord is fitting in nicely with the Syracuse Orange. The senior signal-caller hasn’t been perfect, he threw his fourth and fifth interception of the season on Saturday. However, he also recorded his fourth consecutive game with 339-plus passing yards and recorded 4 touchdown passes for the third time in four contests. McCord probably isn’t attracting much NFL attention, but he’s proven to be a great fit in Syracuse’s offense and playing a big role in the team’s 3-1 start.

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It turns out, a Heisman Trophy campaign and playoff resume built iff blowing out vastly inferior teams can only last so long when you reside in the SEC. Led by Jaxson Dart, the Ole Miss Rebels offense entered Week 5 averaging the most passing yards per game (422.8) and the most points per game (55). In the first test of the season against an SEC defense, lane Kiffin and Co. managed just 17 points with an alarming 10% third-down success rate. It certainly doesn’t help that the Rebels defense couldn’t generate a takeaway and let Kentucky methodically chew up the clock (40 minutes of possession). This is a season-altering loss for Ole Miss and they still have to face South Carolina, LSU, Oklahoma and Georgia.

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Even after dominating Kansas State last week in a 38-9 thrashing, the BYU Cougars still entered Week 5 as an underdog on the road against Baylor. BYU responded immediately, jumping out to a 21-0 lead in the first quarter and leading 28-7 late in the second quarter. Things did spiral a bit out of control, with the Bears cutting it to 34-28 early in the fourth quarter. With their undefeated season at stake, quarterback Jake Retzlaff helped put this game away to push the Cougars to a 5-0 start. BYU gets a well-deserved bye to open October before facing Arizona (Oct. 12) and Oklahoma State (Oct. 18). Hopefully, the college football world won’t be sleeping on the Cougars anymore.

Alex Orji has been good enough for the Michigan Wolverines to win their last two games, but it remains pretty evident that this is still a glaring hole on the roster. In two starts, Orju has posted a 1-1 TD-INT line with 3 sacks taken and 118 passing yards on 30 attempts (3.93 yards per attempt). If Michigan doesn’t have an elite defense and is dominating with its ground attack, the lack of a passing game will kill this team. The game will eventually have to be on Orji’s shoulders and right now, he doesn’t look like a quarterback ready for those situations.

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A year ago, the Navy Midshipmen had one of the worst offenses in college football in averaging just 17.1 points (125th nationally) per game. Following Saturday’s 41-18 victory over UAB, the Midshipmen have already scored 184 points this season (46 PPG). The star here is junior quarterback Blake Horvath, who threw for a season-high 225 passing yards a week after he rushed for 211 and 4 touchdowns against Memphis. Navy is now 4-0 on the year with one of the best offenses in the nation statistically. We’ll all have a chance to see Horvath and this offense next week against Air Force on CBS and it should be a good one.

Just a few weeks ago, the Oklahoma State Cowboys were being talked up as a potential playoff team. Two games later, Mike Gundy is riding a losing streak with defeats at home against the Utah Utes backup quarterback followed by a blowout loss (42-20) at Kansas State. This was always going to be reality for the Cowboys, though, we didn’t expect the defense to be this bad. An even bigger surprise is the relative ease opponents are having in stopping Ollie Gordon, who hasn’t eclipsed 77 scrimmage yards since the season-opener against South Dakota State.

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At this point, the biggest concern for the James Madison Dukes has to be another team trying to poach Alonza Barnett. A week after the sophomore quarterback lit up the North Carolina Tar Heels for 7 total touchdowns and over 480 total yards, he scored 6 total touchdowns with 340 yards against Ball State. The 6-foot signal-caller, once a 247 Sports three-star recruit, has now thrown 10 touchdown passes with 159 rushing yards and 3 scores in the last two games. James Madison is also 4-0 right now.

Close wins over unranked opponents generate a little skepticism of the best teams in college football. Even more questions are raised when a highly controversial replay review sparks conspiracy theories. The Miami Hurricanes don’t have to worry about their playoff resume if they finish undefeated and win the ACC, but what the nation saw on Friday night didn’t look like a team that can run the table. If the Hurricanes do lose, considering their relatively weak schedule, there will be even bigger doubts.

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Not only were the Colorado Buffaloes expected to lose to Central Florida in Week 5, they were a double-digit underdog. The previously unbeaten Knights kept it fairly close early, trailing 21-14 midway through the third quarter. Colorado took control after that. The Buffaloes’ defense stuffed one of the best rushing attacks, holding a UCF offense that averaged 336.5 rushing yards per game to under 190 rushing yards. Meanwhile, Shedeur Sanders looked better with Colorado’s offense finally able to run the football. That’s consecutive huge wins for Deion Sanders, quieting a lot of outside criticism that got very loud just two weeks ago.

The Wisconsin Badgers bailed on Paul Chryst early in the 2022 season, firing him amid a 2-3 start after he posted a combined 13-7 record in the previous two seasons. Thus far, the Luke Fickell era isn’t looking any better. The Badgers went 7-6 in Fickell’s first year at the helm, the same win total as they had in 2022 under Chryst and Jim Leonhard. Now, Wisconsin is coming off an ugly loss that saw it blow a two-score lead against the Trojans, being outscored 28-0 in the second half.

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Saturday was a must-win game for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. If Marcus Freeman and Riley Leonard lost at home to No. 15 Louisville, Notre Dame’s playoff chances were doomed and there would be calls for Freeman to be replaced. Instead, the Fighting Irish delivered their best all-around performance of the season. Leonard set season-highs in completion rate (73.9 percent), passing touchdowns (2) and yards per attempt (7.1). Meanwhile, Notre Dame’s defense didn’t allow Louisville to find the end zone for most of the second half. This is a potential season-changing win.

The UNLV Rebels made headlines earlier this week following quarterback Matthew Sluka’s abrupt departure, a cloud that hung over a 3-0 start to the season. On Saturday, senior quarterback Hajj-Malik Williams helped fans forget all about Sluka. In his first action with UNLV, Williams led the Rebels in rushing yards (119) and completed 13-of-16 passes for 182 yards through the air. Four total touchdowns in a blowout 59-14 win over Fresno State, Williams is one of the biggest Week 5 winners.

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NFL scouts wanted to see Carson Beck be more aggressive on Saturday, while the Georgia Bulldogs were banking on their star quarterback outdueling Jalen Milroe in Tuscaloosa. Instead, Beck threw a pair of first-half interceptions that made him look like a true freshman and it was just one of the many reasons he was abysmal in the first half. Once viewed as a candidate to be the first pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, Beck dealt a significant blow to Georgia’s playoff chances and a far bigger hit to his draft stock in Week 5.

Jalen Milroe looked like an NFL star on Saturday night with the nation watching. There were flashes from the Alabama Crimson Tide quarterback last season, but he looks like the best player in college football with the assistance of Kalen DeBoer. For one thing, rushing for over 100 yards with multiple touchdowns against this once-vaunted Bulldogs defense is impressive enough. The fact that Milroe was so accurate as a passer, to every level of the field, strongly suggests Alabama is the clear-cut No. 1 team in the nation right now.

It’s been quite the September for freshmen in college football. LSU Tigers running back Caden Durham, a 247 Sports four-star recruit, delivered one of the most efficient 200-yard games you’ll ever see in Week 5 against South Alabama. The 5-foot-9 running back turned 10 touches into 217 scrimmage yards and 2 touchdowns before LSU took its foot off the break. That was easily one of the most jaw-dropping individual performances on Saturday.