Tuesday, September 15, 2026

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College Football

Week 3 Bowl Projections: Full list of matchups, playoff predictions

College football always delivers. Every week: up is down, down is up. For the second straight week, a lopsided underdog delivered a signature upset, with Oklahoma State knocking off Oregon on Saturday.

That kind of chaos doesn't stay contained to Saturday. It reshapes the postseason picture, and Brett McMurphy's Week 3 College Football Playoff and bowl projections now include seven new teams that weren't there a week ago. The playoff field moved too, with the SEC climbing to five projected teams while the Big Ten slipped to just two.

Some of the most intriguing matchups in the new projections: Clemson battling Navy in the Military Bowl, Auburn vs. Colorado squaring off in the Birmingham Bowl, South Carolina vs. SMU in the Gator Bowl, Mississippi State vs. Oklahoma State in the Texas Bowl, and Alabama vs. Penn State in the Citrus Bowl.

McMurphy has the full 12-team bracket, all 41 bowl matchups, and his semifinal and championship predictions below.

PROJECTIONS FROM BRETT MCMURPHY →

College Football

Unfiltered Takes after Week 2: Steve Sarkisian’s victory, Dan Lanning’s failure & more

Steve Sarkisian, Dan Lanning, Brent Venables

A lot happens on college football Saturdays, so Ari Wasserman is back with 15 takeaways from Week Two and what they mean for the rest of the season.
He dives into the mystery behind Oregon's ugly loss, makes the case for scheduling tough nonconference games (and the case against scheduling lowly FCS teams), and calls out Kansas for its hype video before the Missouri game.
The rest of Wasserman's takes, including his read on several other top programs, are waiting below.

TAKES FROM ARI WASSERMAN →

College Football

Lane Kiffin’s return to Ole Miss with stakes, storylines and spite galore

Lane Kiffin has never been good at exits, and Saturday's return to Oxford as LSU's coach is unlike anything else he's been through, or anything else college football has seen.
Chris Low talked to Ole Miss administrators, coaches, players, and even the town's most prominent voices to capture just how deep the bitterness runs less than a year after Kiffin's messy departure.
From a lawsuit over unpaid buyouts to a leaked halftime rant, the full story behind the most anticipated grudge match of the season is below.