Conference play is off and running in NCAA college football, and Saturday’s slate might just be the best of the entire season.
There’s a top-10 “prove-it” matchup in Happy Valley, and a pair of can’t-miss SEC rivalries – both of which set indelible standards in last year’s iterations.
Here’s a look at five storylines to follow in Week 5:
Can this year’s meeting between Alabama and Georgia be even better than the last?
They’re not foes in a traditional sense, but that doesn’t mean this isn’t the greatest high-stakes rivalry in recent college football history. Alabama and Georgia have met three times in the past seven SEC title games, and twice in the National Championship since 2018 — each winning one over the other.
You don’t have to search far and long for signature moments, either.
Last September, it was Ryan Williams, and the catch and spin, in what turned out to be the Game of the Year – as well as the first chapter in one of the most storied seasons in SEC history. From there, it was downhill for then-top-seeded Alabama – a loss the following week to then-doormat Vanderbilt, and with its season on the line in Week 13, an unfathomable 24-3 loss to dead-in-the-water Oklahoma.
This season’s best game might’ve come already, in Georgia’s 44-41 overtime win over Tennessee at Rocky Top two weeks ago. Any questions about Gunner Stockton were put to rest in that two-score comeback, punctuated by a fourth-and-six, 28-yard game-saving touchdown strike and two-point conversion to help set up the extra period. In all, Stockton went for 332 total yards and three touchdowns, entrenched himself in program lore and delivered a simple reminder to anyone that may have forgotten: The SEC still runs through Athens.
In Tuscaloosa, tensions have eased slightly since the Tide’s Week 1 disaster against Florida State thanks to a scheduled beatdown of UL Monroe and an easy win over Wisconsin, but you get the feeling their season is already at stake on Saturday night.
There’s a path – albeit, an unlikely one – to another conference championship berth even with two losses, but things don’t get much easier from next week onward, with ranked opponents like Missouri, Tennessee, LSU and a now-competitive Oklahoma still awaiting.
And if Alabama does beat Georgia, does it dare look past Vanderbilt next week?
Penn State gets another chance to flip its big-game narrative
By now, we’re all familiar with the book on James Franklin and Penn State. The Nittany Lions roll through the Big Ten every year, but wilt and die when Ohio State and Michigan come knocking.
And now they have to worry about Oregon, as well.
Penn State lost at home to the Buckeyes last year, then fell to the Ducks in the conference championship game. After a generous waltz through the first two rounds of the playoffs against SMU and Boise State, it had its fate sealed by Notre Dame in the Orange Bowl after Drew Allar’s ill-advised, cross-field throw was intercepted to set up a season-ending field goal.
This year is supposed to be different.
Penn State lost generational edge rusher Abdul Carter and star tight end Tyler Warren to the NFL, but retained much of its core – following Michigan and Ohio State’s blueprint en route to winning national titles each of the past two years, and Franklin even nabbed Buckeyes’ defensive coordinator Jim Knowles for good measure.
To this point, Penn State has won easily, albeit against three teams without a pulse – pummeling Nevada, FIU and Villanova by a combined score of 132-17. But what looks simple hasn’t exactly been as such, at least not for Allar, who has just four touchdown passes and ranks 107th amongst FBS passers in QBR (38.8).
This weekend, we’ll find out everything we need to know. Oregon comes in looking like a juggernaut, and unlike his counterpart, quarterback Dante Moore has been a revelation. After transferring in two winters ago and waiting his turn for a year behind Dillon Gabriel, Moore has thrown for 962 yards and 11 touchdowns, looking more and more like the five-star prospect he was before a wayward start to his college career at UCLA.
Both quarterbacks are worth watching in LSU’s visit to Ole Miss
Garrett Nussmeier is firmly planted on the NFL radar, but Ole Miss’ Trinidad Chambliss might be the biggest headliner coming into this one. The Folk Hero from Ferris State makes his third straight start in place of banged-up Austin Simmons, and gets his biggest test yet against an LSU defence that allowed a combined 20 points and had six interceptions in wins – which, albeit, at this point, you can evaluate with discretion – over Clemson and Florida.
Chambliss was a Division-II national champion as a junior last season, and barely created a ripple upon transferring to Oxford in the spring portal window. But he was outstanding in his SEC debut against Arkansas in Week 3 (415 total yards, three touchdowns) and followed it with a dominant, start-to-finish masterpiece (419, two) against Group of Five contender Tulane last Saturday.
Only 4️⃣Ole Miss QBs have ever thrown for 300+ and rushed for 100+ in the same game:
– Archie Manning (1969 vs. Alabama)⁰- Chad Kelly (2015 vs. Arkansas)⁰- Jordan Ta’amu (2018 vs. Arkansas)⁰- Trinidad Chambliss (2025 vs. Tulane)#HottyToddy pic.twitter.com/WPWzUNe1bP
— Ole Miss Football (@OleMissFB) September 24, 2025
So it’s Nussmeier, who’s reliable, having been here before, and Chambliss, the electrifying yet still relative unknown. Last October, it took a furious comeback, but Nussmeier and LSU prevailed over Ole Miss in Death Valley thanks to a fourth-quarter rally and walk-off overtime touchdown pass.
That win was LSU’s sixth straight, and paved a clear path to the playoffs that was derailed by a trio of losses to Texas A&M, Alabama and Florida. Ole Miss recovered with a win over Georgia, but couldn’t overcome an earlier loss to Kentucky and also ended up missing out.
This year, things won’t get any easier in the SEC, and while Saturday is by no means win-and-you’re-in, it’s an important game for both of these programs to add to their resumes.
Can Ohio State snap Washington’s home winning streak?
The defending national champs navigated their Week 1 visit from Texas with relative comfort, and have their first road test of the season on Saturday night when they head to Husky Stadium for a sneaky, under-the-radar meeting with undefeated Washington.
Twenty-two. That’s how many consecutive wins the Huskies have rattled off in college football’s loudest environment, with the last loss coming exactly 1,400 days ago.
Last year, they limped to a 6-6 record in their first year in the Big Ten, but the Huskies still won all five of their games on the shores of Lake Washington and handled both of this season’s non-conference games with ease, outscoring Colorado State and UC Davis by a combined 77 points. And the current generation of weapons is beginning to rival those that stormed all the way to the National Championship just 20 months ago, with Demond Williams Jr. emerging as one of the top dual-threats in the nation and Jonah Coleman currently leading the FBS with nine rushing touchdowns.
In Columbus, Julian Sayin has looked more and more at ease with each passing week, but if we learned anything about Arch Manning’s painstaking visit last month, it’s that playing on the road is a different animal, especially for quarterbacks doing it for the first time.
Buckeyes fans may have circled Texas, Penn State and Michigan as the premiere, must-win games on the schedule, but this visit to the Pacific Northwest could prove to be the biggest challenge of all.
Indiana is back, and might be better than last year
Yes, this feels like a weekly exercise, and no, it doesn’t really matter just yet. And though the Heisman won’t be handed out for another 78 days, it’s hard not to picture Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza at least in attendance in New York City in December.
Over the past two weeks, Mendoza has thrown 10 touchdown passes and just four incompletions. And after cruising through three soft non-conference games to start the season, the Hoosiers put to rest any speculation about their potential playoff pedigree with a 63-10 thrashing of ninth-ranked Illinois last Saturday. In all, Mendoza’s numbers are staggering: 975 passing yards, a 76.8 per cent completion rate and 14 touchdowns without an interception.
Indiana entered the season with an 11% chance of reaching the CFP per ESPN Analytics.
Those chances have improved to 58%, sixth-best in the country 💪 pic.twitter.com/pzrq71MOPL
— ESPN Insights (@ESPNInsights) September 24, 2025
Curt Cignetti wins, and you can Google that. And this year, it really shouldn’t be any surprise. Indiana returned its top two receivers from last season in Elijah Sarratt and Omar Cooper Jr., plus a star at all three levels on defence in edge rusher Mikail Kamara, linebacker Aiden Fisher and cornerback D’Angelo Ponds.
On Saturday, Indiana is in Iowa for another interesting Big Ten battle, against a usually-stout Hawkeyes defence that’s coming off its shakiest performance of the season in a 38-28 win over Rutgers.
For Mendoza, it’s another opportunity to pad his ever-growing Heisman bid, and a chance to inch closer to LaNorris Sellers and Nussmeier in the conversation surrounding next April’s top pick in the NFL Draft.