By The Associated Press<\/p>\n
Week 5 arrives with a dose of suspense: Can No. 8 Florida, No. 14 Iowa and No. 16 Mississippi State avoid letdowns after stirring wins and keep their feel-good seasons rolling?<\/p>\n
Each will face opponents also ranked in the AP Top 25. <\/a><\/p>\n The Gators, after a blowout of then-Nov. 4 Mississippi, visit No. 25 Missouri<\/a> and will try to continue their resurgence under first-year coach Jon Sumrall.<\/a> The last three Florida-Missouri games have been decided by a touchdown or less, and the Tigers have won the past two in Columbia by a combined three points. <\/p>\n The Hawkeyes, after beating Michigan on the final play at the Big House, are big underdogs at home against No. 5 Ohio State. The Bulldogs host No. 7 Alabama with a chance for their first 3-0 start in Southeastern Conference play since 2014 after rallying to beat Missouri.<\/p>\n There are also Heisman Trophy nuances to watch, with Florida quarterback Jadan Baugh, Ohio State wide receiver Jeremiah Smith and and more in the mix.<\/p>\n SEC and Big Ten share the main stage<\/p>\n Mississippi State is the first ranked opponent of the year for Alabama and the cowbells will be out in Starkville for a showcase of sophomore quarterbacks<\/a>: the Bulldogs’ Kamario Taylor and Keelon Russell of the Crimson Tide, both in their first year as starters.<\/a><\/p>\n Russell has completed 71% of his passes for 1,129 yards with eight touchdowns and two interceptions. Taylor has completed 69% for 1,192 yards with 14 TDs and two INTs. His passing touchdowns are tied for most in the Football Bowl Subdivision.<\/p>\n Mississippi State leads the SEC in yards per game (533.3) and ranks fourth in points per game (43). It has lost 11 straight against top-10 opponents. <\/p>\n The Buckeyes enter the teeth of their schedule with three of their next four games on the road, starting with Iowa. <\/p>\n \n The Hawkeyes will be playing with confidence but they gave up six pass plays of 20-plus yards to Michigan and will have their hands full, like every other defense, trying to cover Smith, who had four touchdown catches to match a program single-game record in a 42-19 victory<\/a> over Illinois. He leads the FBS with 154.3 yards receiving per game.<\/p>\n Iowa\u2019s last win over Ohio State was a 55-24 rout in 2017.<\/a> They have met twice since, with Ohio State winning 54-10 in 2022<\/a> and 35-7 in 2024.<\/a><\/p>\n The undercard<\/p>\n No. 4 Miami pays a visit to Clemson on Saturday night. <\/p>\n The Hurricanes are rolling as the league\u2019s preseason favorite behind quarterback Darian Mensah \u2014 leading the country in completion percentage at 88.7% \u2014 and top receiver Malachi Toney (No. 3 in the Bowl Subdivision at 141 yards per game).<\/p>\n The Tigers have won three straight since their opening-night loss<\/a> at LSU, rallying past North Carolina<\/a> and then winning at California last week<\/a> in the program\u2019s first cross-country trip for a league game.<\/p>\n In the Big 12, Cincinnati will try to improve to 5-0 for the first time since 2021 with a visit to Arizona, where Noah Fifita has already thrown for 11 touchdowns to increase his career total to 84, most among active FBS quarterbacks. <\/p>\n Since a 28-17 loss at BYU<\/a>, the Wildcats have come back from early deficits of 10-0 to Northern Illinois and 14-0 at Washington State to win both games by double digits. <\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here<\/a>, visit the Top 25 here<\/a> and see AP\u2019s full college football coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By The Associated Press Week 5 arrives with a dose of suspense: Can No. 8 Florida, No. 14…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-417699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}