It's that time of year. The MLB and WNBA seasons have wrapped up; the NBA and college basketball have just begun, which leaves football nearing the postseason.
The College Football Playoff Committee has released its first weekly rankings. Three teams remain unbeaten — Miami, Utah and UCLA. Miami is ranked No. 1; Utah is ranked No. 3 and UCLA is ranked No. 8.
Other surprises included Indiana at No.4, Alabama at No.5, BYU at No. 9, Notre Dame at No. 11, Ohio State at No. 12 and Tennessee at No. 13.
Kentucky, a historically basketball-led school, finds itself 7-1 and ranked 6th heading into the month of November, which has been unheard of in my lifetime. The highest ranking the Wildcats have been is No. 3, in 1950.
The coach of that team? Bear Bryant.
Twelve teams make the postseason tournament. Four of the Power Four conference winners receive auto-bids. Seven at-large bids go along with the highest-ranked Power Six conference team holding the last spot. Boise State, ranked 25th, is in the playoff picture for now.
Since 2014, when the College Football Playoffs started, 70 Football Bowl Subdivision teams have started the regular season 8-0; only 24 of them (34.3%) finished the regular season without a loss, and the average 8-0 team added 1.07 losses the rest of the way.
Of the three unbeaten teams, UCLA is the most peculiar. The Bruins were projected to win between six and eight games and finish 12th in the Big Ten. UCLA won three games in all of 2025 at 18.2 points per game; through eight games of 2026, they have scored 33.5 points per game. Since 2014, only two other teams have started the season 8-0 the season after winning three or fewer games: Michigan State in 2021 and Indiana in 2024.
Miami has been steamrolling teams. The Hurricanes are averaging 47.63 points per game, the highest figure by any FBS team in any season since 2014 among teams with 8-plus games. It is comfortably the highest in Miami's own 2014-2026 history, ahead of 44.2 in 2024.
| # | Team | Season | ppg |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Miami | 2026 | 47.63 |
| 2 | Miami | 2024 | 44.17 |
| 3 | Miami | 2016 | 34.58 |
| 4 | Miami | 2025 | 34.08 |
| 5 | Miami | 2021 | 34.08 |
| 6 | Miami | 2020 | 34 |
| 7 | Miami | 2023 | 32.08 |
| 8 | Miami | 2018 | 30.92 |
| 9 | Miami | 2014 | 29.92 |
| 10 | Miami | 2017 | 29.50 |
Methodology
Frozen rows from a deep-dig claim verified server-side on 2026-11-04. The SQL ran read-only in the dig sandbox against the canonical corpus and is recorded for review; it is never re-executed. SELECT team, season, COUNT(*) AS games, ROUND(AVG(points_scored),2) AS ppg, SUM(won) AS wins FROM team_week_stats WHERE season_type='REG' AND division='fbs' AND team='Miami' GROUP BY 1,2 ORDER BY ppg DESC
Miami quarterback Darian Mensah has thrown 23 touchdown passes against just one interception on 234 attempts in 2026. Among all FBS seasons since 2014 with at least 23 passing touchdowns and no more than one interception, his 234 attempts are the fewest of any season. Some of the names on this list are of high caliber.
| # | player name | Season | Pass attempts |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Darian Mensah | 2026 | 234 |
| 2 | Kaidon Salter | 2023 | 255 |
| 3 | Justin Fields | 2019 | 301 |
| 4 | Preston Stone | 2023 | 308 |
| 5 | Jordan McCloud | 2023 | 336 |
| 6 | Kyle McCord | 2023 | 345 |
| 7 | Drew Allar | 2023 | 346 |
| 8 | Kurtis Rourke | 2022 | 347 |
| 9 | Carter Bradley | 2022 | 366 |
| 10 | TJ Finley | 2023 | 375 |
Methodology
Frozen rows from a deep-dig claim verified server-side on 2026-11-04. The SQL ran read-only in the dig sandbox against the canonical corpus and is recorded for review; it is never re-executed. SELECT player_name, team, season, SUM(attempts) AS attempts, SUM(passing_yards) AS passing_yards, SUM(passing_tds) AS passing_tds, SUM(passing_interceptions) AS interceptions FROM player_week_stats WHERE season_type='REG' AND division='fbs' GROUP BY 1,2,3 HAVING SUM(passing_tds)>=23 AND SUM(passing_interceptions)<=1 ORDER BY attempts ASC
Mensah's 10.38 yards per attempt ranks 13th among all FBS seasons since 2014 with 200-plus attempts, in a top 15 otherwise made up of full seasons from Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, Jayden Daniels and Joe Burrow.
| # | player name | Season | ypa |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kyler Murray | 2018 | 11.65 |
| 2 | Grayson McCall | 2021 | 11.61 |
| 3 | Jayden Daniels | 2023 | 11.60 |
| 4 | Baker Mayfield | 2017 | 11.58 |
| 5 | Jalen Hurts | 2019 | 11.23 |
| 6 | Mac Jones | 2020 | 10.76 |
| 7 | Sam Howell | 2020 | 10.57 |
| 8 | Mike White | 2016 | 10.56 |
| 9 | Jaxson Dart | 2024 | 10.52 |
| 10 | Tyler Huntley | 2019 | 10.49 |
Methodology
Frozen rows from a deep-dig claim verified server-side on 2026-11-04. The SQL ran read-only in the dig sandbox against the canonical corpus and is recorded for review; it is never re-executed. WITH q AS (SELECT player_name, team, season, SUM(attempts) AS att, SUM(passing_yards) AS pyd, SUM(passing_tds) AS ptd, SUM(passing_interceptions) AS ints, ROUND(SUM(passing_yards)*1.0/NULLIF(SUM(attempts),0),2) AS ypa FROM player_week_stats WHERE season_type='REG' AND division='fbs' GROUP BY 1,2,3) SELECT player_name, team, season, att, pyd, ptd, ints, ypa FROM q WHERE att>=200 ORDER BY ypa DESC LIMIT 15
Fans and analysts have pointed out the lack of talented schools Miami has faced, and that Mensah has Malachi Toney, one of the best wide receivers in the nation, to throw to.
They have a chance to prove they are the best team in the nation when they travel to South Bend, Indiana, to take on Notre Dame on Saturday night.
Miami leads the ACC, Utah is 5-0 in the Big 12, UCLA is 5-0 in the Big Ten, and the SEC has been beating itself up, with no team better than 5-1 in the conference. Georgia and Kentucky share a lead.
Indiana is 8-1 in 2026, with four of its wins by a single score, the most one-score wins of any team with one loss or fewer; UTSA leads FBS with four one-score wins and no one-score losses.
| # | Team | one score wins |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | UTSA | 4 |
| 2 | Marshall | 4 |
| 3 | App State | 4 |
| 4 | Indiana | 4 |
| 5 | Buffalo | 4 |
| 6 | Michigan | 4 |
| 7 | BYU | 3 |
| 8 | West Virginia | 3 |
Methodology
Frozen rows from a deep-dig claim verified server-side on 2026-11-04. The SQL ran read-only in the dig sandbox against the canonical corpus and is recorded for review; it is never re-executed. SELECT team, conference, SUM(won) AS wins, SUM(CASE WHEN won=0 AND tied=0 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS losses, SUM(points_scored)-SUM(points_allowed) AS point_margin, SUM(CASE WHEN ABS(points_scored-points_allowed)<=7 AND won=1 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS one_score_wins, SUM(CASE WHEN ABS(points_scored-points_allowed)<=7 AND won=0 AND tied=0 THEN 1 ELSE 0 END) AS one_score_losses FROM team_week_stats WHERE season=2026 AND season_type='REG' AND division='fbs' GROUP BY 1,2 ORDER BY one_score_wins DESC, one_score_losses ASC LIMIT 8
It's a hell of a week to be a college football fan. It's arguably the most important week of the season with numerous ranked matchups.
No. 9 BYU @ No. 3 Utah // No. 7 Texas @ No. 18 Missouri // No. 5 Alabama @ No. 14 LSU // No. 6 Kentucky @ No. 13 Tennessee // No. 1 Miami @ No. 11 Notre Dame // No. 2 Georgia @ No. 10 Ole Miss // No. 23 Oregon @ No. 12 Ohio State //
By next Tuesday, there could be major shakeups.