Week 4 of the college football season is in the books.
Each week in this piece, I break down 5 prevailing narratives from the weekend and see if they match up with lessons we can learn from various advanced metrics. Last week, topics included LSU‘s Playoff hopes, Miami’s competition in the ACC, UCLA’s burgeoning offense and the next generation of SEC quarterbacks.
Let’s break down 5 more ideas:
Buying: Alabama is underrated
Alabama slotted in at No. 7 in this week’s AP Top 25. That’s a fair ranking in theory, though I think it undersells what the Crimson Tide have done so far this season against largely P4 opponents.
After adjusting for opponent strength, Alabama is in the top 10 nationally in EPA on both sides of the ball. Keelon Russell seemingly gets better with each passing week and the Crimson Tide seem to have completely fixed their rushing offense woes from a season ago. They are currently averaging 4.9 yards per carry after gaining just 3.4 yards per attempt in 2025.
More on Russell — he’s been absolutely elite this season. He’s running a completion percentage over expected of nearly 15%, which puts him among the top quarterbacks in the nation in that category. He’s pushing the ball down field aggressively (nearly 29% of his throws travel 15+ yards beyond the line of scrimmage). He also has a rushing success rate of nearly 70% on 23 rush attempts.
Russell, like most of Alabama’s other important offensive playmakers, is also extremely young. Born in 2007, he’s only 19 years old. Ryan Coleman-Williams is also just 19 years old, as is Lotzeir Brooks. Running backs EJ Crowell and Trae’shawn Brown have also yet to turn 20. Leading rusher Daniel Hill is the veteran of the group as a true junior.
Even with all of that youth, Alabama is averaging over 7 yards per play and is 4th in the nation in scoring average — results that are backed up by elite EPA-per-play and success rate marks. Why can’t this Alabama team win the SEC? This looks to be a vastly better version of the team that made the conference title game last year. I’d probably still have Georgia or Texas as the favorites, but I think the market is too low on Alabama’s chances to win the SEC.
Pick: Alabama to win the SEC (12% on Kalshi)
Selling: Jeremiah Smith should be the Heisman Trophy favorite
Jeremiah Smith had a massive game on Saturday against Illinois, going for 217 yards and 4 touchdowns. He’s already cleared the 600-yard threshold through 4 games and is currently leading the nation in total receiving yards.
That said, I don’t agree with the market’s move to make him the clear Heisman Trophy favorite this week. Per Kalshi, he now has a 25% chance to win the award, comfortably above Darian Mensah, Trinidad Chambliss and Kamario Taylor.
Smith is an unbelievable player, but it’s just so rare to see a wide receiver take home the honor. The only primary WR to do it this century was Alabama’s DeVonta Smith, who did so in what was a down year for quarterbacks. His primary competition that year was Trevor Lawrence, who had a passer efficiency rating of under 170 and only threw 22 touchdown passes in 9 games due to the COVID-shortened season.
That QB-light environment is not what exists in 2026. Mensah is currently running a passer efficiency rating of 228, which would blow the all-time record out of the water if he sustains it. Gunner Stockton and Josh Hoover both play for contenders and have efficiency ratings north of 200, which puts them in rare air as well.
That’s to say nothing of Taylor, CJ Carr, Keelon Russell or even Smith’s teammate, Julian Sayin, who could lead their teams to top 4 seeds while posting ridiculous efficiency numbers. Smith may be the favorite as the calendar flips to October, but there’s still a long way to go for him to actually hoist the Heisman Trophy in December.
Buying: The Lincoln Riley experiment has failed
It’s been said before, but Lincoln Riley’s decision to leave Oklahoma for USC appears to be a disaster for both programs.
Given the shortcomings in recent years, Saturday’s home game against Oregon could reasonably be described as a must-win affair for the Trojans. Then, Oregon quarterback Dante Moore was sidelined with a concussion, giving USC what should have been a big break.
Instead, the Trojans were absolutely torn apart by backup quarterback Dylan Raiola, who led the Ducks to a 14-point win on USC’s home field. With the loss, USC moves to just 3-9 straight up as an underdog under Riley.
The fact that USC has been an underdog 12 times in 4+ years is bad enough. At Oklahoma, Riley’s Sooners were regular-season underdogs just 3 times in 4 seasons (twice in Stillwater and once in Columbus).
Once again, it’s defense that’s been the issue for USC. New defensive coordinator Gary Patterson has done little to change the fortunes of Riley’s defenses. With Week 4’s loss to Oregon in the books, the Trojans now rank outside of the top 100 in EPA-per-play allowed this season despite their other opponents being lowly G6 programs like San Jose State, Fresno State, Louisiana and the Big Ten’s worst-rated team in Rutgers.
Of course, no one in Norman is smiling at Riley’s demise — they’re all too distracted by their own misery. OU appears to be headed for its third consecutive season of ranking outside the top 95 nationally in yards per play.
Moreover, you can also draw a direct line in the sand at Clemson for when its program fell downhill following Brent Venables’ departure for Oklahoma. The Tigers have cycled through multiple coordinators since Venables left but currently rank 68th in yards per play allowed in 2026.
Riley’s seismic move to USC has single-handedly cratered multiple programs — and he seemingly has nothing to show for it. He certainly doesn’t have strong footing at the program which he once called college football’s “mecca.” USC’s Coliseum was once again sparsely populated in Week 4 despite a top-25 battle with rival Oregon on tap.
Where does this end? My guess is Riley eventually finds his way back to the South — perhaps even his alma mater in West Texas. But in the meantime, it’s clear there are no winners from his decision to jump ship all those years ago.
Selling: Mizzou should be ranked over Wake Forest, others
Allow me to join the chorus of observers who have complained about Mizzou’s presence in the top 25 this week.
The Tigers barely hung on to their place in the rankings after a loss to Mississippi State over the weekend. Mizzou slid 6 spots, but by almost any measure, should have fallen out of the top 25 altogether.
I say “almost” because Mizzou is still a top 25 team by influential power ratings such as SP+. Some have pointed toward a bias in the rankings toward SEC teams or “big brands” both this week and in recent years, but the reality is that “big brands” generally have more talented rosters which is going to keep their power rating high even with a few underwhelming results.
Elsewhere in SP+, USC and Penn State are still in the top 15 despite disastrous losses and underwhelming campaigns to date. Meanwhile, Wake Forest has a close loss to Miami and a ranked win over Louisville, but sits at No. 57 in SP+. Not because of “brand” directly, but because Wake doesn’t have the recruiting pedigree or on-field results history to back up its 3-1 start. To computer models, what Wake, Kentucky, Duke, UCLA and others have done this year looks wholly unsustainable.
The bigger problem here, in my opinion, is that power rating systems have significant influence over the AP Top 25, which for decades has functioned as mostly a résumé ranker. Preseason priors are necessary to build a baseline before Week 1, but by this point in the campaign, AP voters should be looking at results — not trying to predict the future.
Wake may be 57th in SP+, but it’s 17th in FPI’s résumé ranking. Mississippi State is 4th and Iowa is 5th. Do I actually believe the Bulldogs and Hawkeyes are top 5 teams? No, definitely not. But by Week 5, the AP Poll should look more like FPI’s résumé ranking than a forward-looking power rating system (Mizzou’s résumé sits at No. 42 after this week, for what it’s worth).
Selling: Georgia’s offense is elite
Georgia’s offense has quietly been unbelievable this season. The Bulldogs are averaging over 8 yards per play and are second nationally in that category only to Miami.
I don’t quite buy it, though. The Bulldogs have benefitted from an extremely soft nonconference schedule and have played 2 inept SEC teams (Arkansas and Oklahoma) to start SEC play.
On paper, UGA scored 41 points against the Sooners this past week. In reality, Mike Bobo’s bunch scored 34 offensive points, but even that number was buoyed by John Mateer handing Georgia great field position all game long. Georgia’s offense was actually pretty pedestrian in Week 4, albeit against an elite OU defense. Per Game on Paper, the Bulldogs had a success rate of just 35% and its EPA-per-play landed in the 16th percentile.
Looking ahead to Week 5, I wonder if this will cause Georgia to be overvalued in the marketplace. I like Vanderbilt plus the points in Athens.
Pick: Vanderbilt +24.5 (via Kalshi)
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Spenser is a news editor for Saturday Down South and covers college football across all Saturday Football brands.
