Five of the Top Seven Lost on Saturday, and Miami Is Somehow No. 1

College football rankings are supposed to be a gentle suggestion about who’s good. On Saturday they became a rumor.

Five of the top seven teams in the AP poll lost on the same day, which had never happened before. (Georgia, Alabama and Texas all losing on the same Saturday hadn’t happened since 1996, in case you’d like a smaller record to be impressed by.) Four of the five lost by one score. Alabama lost by 16 and didn’t have an alibi.

The new No. 1 is a Miami team that needed two overtimes to get there.

Saturday

Auburn 27, Georgia 24. Auburn went to Athens as a three-score underdog, trailed 14-0, then scored 24 straight and won on Alex McPherson’s 34-yard field goal as time expired. Georgia was a gracious host. Gunner Stockton threw two interceptions and fumbled with 58 seconds left, and Auburn politely accepted all three. Byrum Brown ran for 115 yards, something no Auburn quarterback had done against Georgia since Cam Newton, and he did it for first-year coach Alex Golesh, who brought him over from USF. It’s Auburn’s first win in Athens since 2005 and it ends a nine-game skid in the series.

Tennessee 26, Alabama 10. Alabama’s offense spent the afternoon looking like a group project nobody had started. The Tide gained 201 yards, went 0-for-7 on third down in the first half, got shut out in the second, and turned it over four times. Tennessee handed the ball to DeSean Bishop 32 times for 159 yards and two touchdowns, and all 26 of its points came from the offense, the most the Vols have scored in an SEC game this season (they had 17, 24 and 24 before). It’s Alabama’s first back-to-back regular-season losses since 2007. Tennessee fans stormed the field afterward.

Florida 27, Texas 24. Tramell Jones Jr. made his first start for a team with the SEC’s lowest-ranked defense, and Florida still came back from 14 down in Austin with 24 straight points. Jones threw two touchdown passes and ran for 41 yards. With about two minutes left, Myles Graham strip-sacked Arch Manning and Kanye Clark fell on it. Texas hasn’t blown a bigger home lead against an unranked team since 1965. This is a Longhorns team that beat Ohio State on September 12, climbed to No. 1, lost to unranked Oklahoma on October 10, and has now lost to Florida too. They’re 4-2 and clinging to No. 19. It’s been the same movie all year: the defense doesn’t show up, the offense can’t bail it out, and Arch Manning’s struggles are a big reason why.

BYU 28, Notre Dame 24. Bear Bachmeier threw a 6-yard touchdown to Walker Lyons with 1:47 left, finished with 224 yards, ran for two touchdowns and caught one, and no BYU quarterback had thrown, run and caught a touchdown in the same game since Steve Young. Notre Dame came in averaging 44 points, looked lackluster against a good BYU defense, and scored 24, while the nation’s top defense by yards allowed gave up 28. The last play probably deserved a pass interference flag, but Notre Dame had the other 59 minutes to make that irrelevant. Bachmeier said afterward that Notre Dame disrespected him and his family out of high school, and added, “We’re tired of being disrespected.” The Cougars are No. 2 in the new poll, their highest ranking since the 1984 title season.

Ohio State 19, Indiana 15. The question going in was what Ohio State could do besides throw to Jeremiah Smith, and the answer was play defense. Smith had four catches for 68 yards and a touchdown (his 39th, tying Braylon Edwards), a quiet day for a guy who averages 153 yards a game. The Buckeyes forced turnovers on Indiana’s first two drives of the third quarter. Same script as the Texas game, except Ohio State didn’t fall apart late. It did get a little help at the end, when Nick Marsh appeared to catch a fourth-and-4 touchdown in the final minute but was out of bounds. Indiana’s 22-game win streak is over. The cost was Julian Sayin, who hurt his right arm in the fourth quarter and will miss several weeks, per Ryan Day. True freshman Luke Fahey is next, and the Buckeyes have a bye before heading to USC.

Miami 43, Florida State 35 (2OT). This was a fun late-night back-and-forth that got Miami to No. 1 in the AP poll for the first time since 2002. Florida State had a Hail Mary touchdown called back for a holding flag I’d politely call iffy, then had its second Hail Mary intercepted. Darian Mensah, who set the ACC record with 35 straight completions this season, has Malachi Toney to throw to, and in my book he’s the No. 2 Heisman candidate right now, behind Jeremiah Smith. As for Florida State, I don’t see Mike Norvell lasting much longer.

Ole Miss 31, Missouri 3. Missouri came in ranked No. 13 after beating Florida 45-17 and Texas A&M 27-6, with people already questioning the ranking, and then laid a stinker (39 rushing yards). Ole Miss did the opposite on the ground. Kewan Lacy ran 16 times for 122 yards, Makhi Frazier went over 100 on 15 carries, and the Rebels rushed for 257 as a team.

LSU 31, Mississippi State 0. LSU already had two losses, to Ole Miss (32-24) and Kentucky (35-34), so it needed a comfortable win and got one. Sam Leavitt went 31 for 38 for 289 yards and four touchdowns. Mississippi State spent the week unsure whether Kamario Taylor would play, never found an offensive identity, and finished with 121 passing yards.

Houston 35, Oklahoma State 32. This would have been the headline on a lighter slate. Conner Weigman threw for 343 yards and five touchdowns, Drew Mestemaker threw for 365 and three, and both defenses got carved up. The difference was that Oklahoma State turned it over twice and once more on downs, and Houston won by three to stay in the Big 12 race at 6-1.

Next Saturday

Ole Miss at Texas. Both teams are fighting for their playoff lives. Texas needs its defense to quiet an Ole Miss offense that averages 433.8 yards a game, because that’s the only way its own offense gets to grind this one out. It’s Ole Miss’s first trip to Austin since 2013.

Houston at Utah. No. 14 Houston visits No. 10 Utah, and the Utes are 6.5-point favorites with the total at 56.5. The draw is the quarterbacks: Conner Weigman has 1,771 yards, 20 touchdowns and two interceptions, and Devon Dampier has 1,412 yards, 15 touchdowns and four. Houston scores 39.3 a game, Utah scores 40.2, and I’m betting the over and treating defense as optional. (Utah allows 14.8 a game, so yes, I’m aware of the evidence against me.) Salt Lake should be a great atmosphere, too.

Indiana at Michigan. This is the one I’m keeping an eye on, with Indiana favored by about a touchdown. The story is Michigan’s offense. Bryce Underwood went 5 for 11 for 43 yards with two interceptions against Penn State, Michigan had 80 total yards at halftime (and still led 3-0), and Kyle Whittingham benched him anyway. True freshman Tommy Carr came in and led back-to-back touchdown drives, and Michigan won to move to 4-2. Carr is CJ Carr’s younger brother, so the Carr family went 1-1 on Saturday. Can he score the points Underwood couldn’t?

Tennessee at South Carolina. South Carolina is at home against a ranked team, No. 11 Tennessee, and the line is basically a coin flip, Tennessee by 1.5. The Vols are 6-1 and the Gamecocks are 3-3.

USC at Wisconsin. USC is only a 3-point favorite on the road, and the matchup is Wisconsin’s defense against USC’s offense, good on good.

The new poll came out Sunday and, with a straight face, put Miami at No. 1. We’ll see how long that rumor holds.