Time flies when you’re having fun.
With Week 10 now in the rearview, there are only 3 Saturdays remaining in the 2026 regular season. Some CFP hopefuls are hanging on for dear life while others suffered mightily across a Saturday slate that featured elite matchup after elite matchup.
Before we stamp it and send it on its way, let’s take a look at the biggest winners and losers from an exceptional Week 10.
Winners: CJ Carr & Notre Dame
CJ Carr’s Heisman Trophy stock is flying in the aftermath of Notre Dame’s crucial 31-24 win over Miami in South Bend.
The Fighting Irish star is now the frontrunner to win the Heisman Trophy according to DraftKings, coming in well ahead of Darian Mensah (+300), Jeremiah Smith (+410) and Utah’s Devon Dampier (+1500) with +140 odds. Carr has been the model of consistency this season, and he lifted Notre Dame to a win over the No. 1 team in the country in a had-to-have-it scenario.
Carr completed 29 of his 40 passing attempts against a stout Miami defense, collecting 319 yards with 3 touchdowns and 0 turnovers. In doing so, he helped capture Notre Dame’s best win of the season and effectively stamped the Fighting Irish’s ticket to the College Football Playoff.
If you rolled your eyes at that last bit there, I don’t blame you. That’s the reality of the situation, though. Notre Dame doesn’t have to play a conference championship game and is guaranteed a spot if it places within the top 12 of the CFP rankings by season’s end. The Irish entered this weekend No. 11 and will receive a major boon from beating Miami, now sitting at 8-1 on the season.
So long as Notre Dame beats Boston College and Syracuse — it may not even have to beat SMU assuming the Irish keep it close — it’ll be among those looking to take Curt Cignetti and Indiana’s crown in December.
Loser: BYU
At some point, you have to admire BYU’s commitment to gaslighting its fans into thinking this year is the year, every year.
We’ve all seen this movie before: The Cougars start strong and enter the national discussion before flopping and wasting a perfect opportunity in the back half of the season.
This year’s humiliation ritual has been particularly brutal to watch unfold. BYU started 6-0 with wins over Notre Dame and Arizona, but has since lost 2 of its last 3, dropping games at UCF and — somehow more revolting — at rival Utah. The Utes started and finished strong, leaping to a 14-0 lead and ending the game on a 14-0 run to snap BYU’s 3-game Holy War win streak, 28-20.
BYU’s CFP hopes are on life support. The Cougars’ only shot is to win the Big 12 Championship Game, and they’ll need some help to get it done. Obviously, BYU needs to win out. It also needs Texas Tech to lose at least once. The Red Raiders are set to end the season with games at Oklahoma State, at Baylor and vs. TCU.
Best of luck, Mormons.
Winner: Arion Carter
Tennessee linebacker Arion Carter contributed $6,551 to cancer research Saturday night as the Vols spanked No. 6 Kentucky, 34-6.
For those unfamiliar, Carter pledged to donate $427 for every tackle he collects this season — plus increased amounts for sacks, turnovers and so on. The $427 number was measured, the same amount that kept him out of the first game of Tennessee‘s season after the NCAA ruled his $427 flight was an impermissible benefit this past offseason. You can read more about that here.
For now, though, let’s focus on Carter’s stellar outing against the Wildcats.
The Vols’ senior captain set the tone from the jump. Check out the intensity as he fired up the rest of the Volunteer defense pregame:
Carter carried that intensity to the Wildcats. He finished as Tennessee’s leading tackler (13) and collected 4 tackles for loss with 2 sacks — all season highs. That doesn’t even tell the full story, though — Carter was everywhere Saturday evening inside Neyland Stadium, and Kentucky suffered for it.
The Wildcats have now lost 6 straight to Tennessee, which is 38-3 against Kentucky across their last 41 matchups. Kinda one-sided, isn’t it?
Loser: Ole Miss
Speaking of one-sided…
For all intents and purposes, Ole Miss‘s season ended Saturday night in Oxford. Gunner Stockton and the Georgia Bulldogs absolutely trounced Trinidad Chambliss and the Rebels, dropping them to 6-3 on the season with a 42-7 beatdown of epic proportions. It’s not outside the realm of possibility for a 9-3 SEC team to reach the CFP this December, but several teams will be ahead of Ole Miss in the pecking order if they get that far.
The weak link for Ole Miss has always been its defense, and the Bulldogs exposed that weakness Saturday night. Georgia collected 481 yards of total offense and fared 8-for-13 on 3rd and 4th down. The game was never competitive. Georgia led 28-0 entering halftime, and Ole Miss didn’t score until there were 10 minutes remaining in the contest.
Ole Miss doesn’t have many opportunities remaining to add to its résumé, either. The Rebels are set to close the season against Oklahoma, Wofford and Mississippi State.
Winners: The Undefeated U’s (UCLA and Utah)
Two undefeated college football teams remain: Utah and UCLA. Find me someone, anyone, who would’ve believed that sentence back in August.
First-year head coaches Morgan Scalley and Bob Chesney have been fantastic for their respective programs, and they’re both eyeing spots in the College Football Playoff.
Let’s start with UCLA, which pulled away from Minnesota late to secure its 9th straight win. Bruins quarterback Ty Dieffenbach was superb against the Golden Gophers, tallying 303 yards and 3 touchdowns despite completing just 8 passes. Dieffenbach, as you can probably tell, wasn’t afraid to let it rip against a Minnesota squad that had a tough time staying in front of former Florida WR Aidan Mizell, who caught 2 75-yard touchdown passes.
UCLA didn’t look back after Mizell’s first TD gave the Bruins a 7-point lead in the 4th quarter:
We went over Utah’s win over BYU briefly above. The Utes are on the precipice of a College Football Playoff berth and have multiple different avenues they can take to get there.
The “easiest” path is also the most obvious one: Win out. Utah is set to finish the season with matchups at Arizona, at TCU and vs. West Virginia. Arizona is no walk in the park, nor is the trip to Fort Worth, but Utah should be favored in every game mentioned. Win out and the outcome of the Big 12 title game is irrelevant — there’s no shot 12-1 Utah misses the field if that lone loss is to Texas Tech or BYU in Arlington.
… Right? Yeah, I’m pretty sure. Probably.
The Utes are guaranteed a spot in the Big 12 Championship Game should they drop one of the games aforementioned. If they do lose before the end of the regular season, however, they’ll want to win the Big 12 title game to feel good about securing their spot.
Loser: Jon Sumrall
Question for the Florida fans in the audience: Are y’all sick of Jon Sumrall‘s “we’re going to adjust, we’re going to make this right” schtick yet?
The Gators lost the 4th game in their last 5 attempts on Saturday, and Week 10’s was the worst performance of the bunch. Florida struggled to get any offense going while Oklahoma posted the best rushing game it’s played in the SEC this season. The Sooners sustained long, backbreaking drives to dispatch the No. 24 Gators, 23-7.
Yuck.
A quick reminder: Florida started the season 4-0 with a win over Ole Miss. They’re now 5-4 and spiraling, undoing much of the momentum that had Florida fans on Cloud 9 entering the month of October.
There’s always basketball, Gators. Cherish Thomas Haugh, Rueben Chinyelu and Alex Condon while you can.
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Ethan Stone is a Saturday Down South News Editor and an advocate for the return of the Seattle Supersonics.
