The last week of September is when college football is really starting to go off the rails. Each team is in the middle of conference play and the first big games of the league are appearing on our radars.

Luckily, No. 2 Georgia and No. 4 Alabama gave us one of the most entertaining regular season games in recent years as the Tide shocked the ‘Dawgs 41-34. In fact, six ranked teams fell in Week 5.

Despite all the chaos, here are some of the biggest winners and losers of college football’s Week 5, including a coach elevating himself to the elite level, a receiver joining the Biletnikoff race and a staff pulling yet another defeat from the jaws of the victory draws in a truly unprecedented fashion.

Winner: Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer

SEC fans are skeptical of outsiders, and for good reason. There were a few questions for Kalen DeBoer, a man who had never coached closer to the Southeast than Carbondale, Illinois. Consider all these questions answered after the Tide raced to a 28-0 lead and held on to defeat the mighty Georgia Bulldogs 41-34 in the game of the year so far.

DeBoer is an elite quarterback coach, but Jalen Milroe exceeded his expectations. He is the first quarterback in the history of the AP Polls to have 300 yards passing, 100 yards rushing and two rushing scores against a top 5 opponent. While Georgia managed to get back on track in the second half, Kane Wommack’s defense held the Bulldogs to 3.1 yards per carry and Carson Beck forced three interceptions, including a game-clincher in the end zone by freshman Zabien Brown.

Granted, DeBoer will have to learn some lessons from this game. He tends to take his foot off the gas early and let teams get back into the game. That won’t work in the SEC. It almost cost them on Saturday. But now DeBoer is a cool 30-3 as a power conference coach and 6-0 against Kirby Smart, Steve Sarkisian and Dan Lanning. Welcome to the elite coaching level, Kalen.

After losing to Arkansas last week, Auburn coach Hugh Freeze claimed that if the game were played nine more times, he believes they would win every time. Maybe he’ll feel the same way after an astonishing 27-21 loss to Oklahoma, in which the Tigers took a 21-10 lead at home in the fourth quarter. Auburn outgained Oklahoma by nearly 200 yards, but squandered the game thanks to a Payton Thorne pick-six in the fourth quarter.

Under Freeze, Auburn has put together a masterclass in dropping winning games over the past two years. So far this year, the Tigers have defeated California, Arkansas and Oklahoma, but lost. A year earlier, the Tigers had a fourth-and-31 against Alabama and suffered a three-touchdown loss to New Mexico State. Auburn is already a bad team. The last thing they need is to lose games where they are actually playing well. Finding two more wins on the schedule is terribly difficult. The worst season since the firing of Gene Chizik is on the table.

Oh, and by the way, it doesn’t help that Alabama replaced the greatest coach of all time with another legend in the making. Freeze is on pace to become the first Auburn coach to post three straight losing seasons since Earl Brown from 1948-50.

The Running Rebels were the talk of the town for the strangest of reasons after starting quarterback Matthew Sluka opted out of the rest of the season days before a big game against Fresno State. It turns out that UNLV backup Hajj-Malik Williams was more than ready for his close-up.

UNLV took out all its frustrations against the Bulldogs, destroying FSU 59-14 behind 300 yards and four touchdowns from a near-perfect Williams. The Rebels led 21-0 at halftime and never looked back to re-establish themselves as the top contender for Boise State in the Mountain West. More importantly, they’ve put to rest the question of whether the program is ready to stay in the College Football Playoff race after a quarterback change.

The Rebels made a huge investment in their 2024 roster and were rewarded with a No. 6 national ranking as a result. It took one match against a capable opponent for everything to collapse. The Rebels erased a fourth-quarter lead and sniffed a makeable field goal that would have forced overtime to snap a 10-game home streak dating back to Nov. 24, 2022.

While the team performance was disappointing, the path it charts is much worse. Suddenly, road trips to South Carolina and No. 14 LSU feel much harder. A home game against No. 2 Georgia won’t be a cakewalk. The Rebels have a very small margin for error to stay in the conversation of elite teams.

Expectations for Smith were off the charts entering his freshman season at Ohio State. In his first Big Ten game, a 38-7 win over Michigan State, Smith exceeded those expectations. The freshman and former No. 1 recruit had his way with the Spartans, catching a pair of one-handed highlight catches and also adding a 19-yard rush for a touchdown. Ohio State entered the season with a hole next to Emeka Egbuka at receiver and Smith has already stepped in. His next game against Iowa will be a real test to see if he can compete in the Biletnikoff or Heisman race.

Loser: Baylor coach Dave Aranda

The Bears lost a real heartbreaker in overtime against Colorado in Week 4. Unfortunately, the emotional hangover cost them a must-win game against No. 22 BYU. The Cougars led 21-0 in the first quarter, which ultimately proved to be too much of a deficit in a 34-28 home loss. The Bears had two chances to take the lead in the final minutes, but they ended with turnovers on downs and interceptions. While the Bears have certainly improved from last season, the same bad trends continue to emerge in big moments for Aranda teams. With a 2-3 start, the Bears are well behind the eight ball when it comes to reaching a bowl game. A road trip to No. 18 Iowa State next week could be a low point for Aranda’s tenure.

Indiana coach Curt Cignetti spoke up every time he took the job, but the results came faster than anyone could have imagined. The Hoosiers shocked Maryland 42-28 to reach 5-0 for the first time since 1967. While the list of opponents doesn’t jump off the page, Indiana’s dominance does. With a two-touchdown win against the Terrapins, Indiana tops the FBS league by 26.3 points per game. With games against Northwestern, Nebraska, Washington and Michigan State coming up, the Hoosiers have a chance to add to the win column before big games against No. 12 Michigan and No. 3 Ohio State late in the year. Calling this effort a best-case scenario understates it. Indiana breaks the shell.

Winner: SMU

The Mustangs’ first-ever ACC conference game at Gerald Ford Stadium against league power Florida State went smoothly. SMU tight end RJ Maryland caught a pair of second-half touchdowns from Kevin Jennings as the Mustangs pulled away for a 42-16 win to start their power conference 1-0. Since Brashard Smith took over at running back, the Mustangs have run the ball with much more consistency. Smith cleared 129 yards and a touchdown in the win as part of a rushing effort of over 200 yards against a solid FSU front. Perhaps just as encouraging is that BYU’s 2-0 start in the Big 12 makes SMU’s only non-conference loss look a little more palatable. If Louisville falls out of the rankings, the Mustangs will be without a single ranked opponent on the schedule and have a clean shot to compete with Miami and Clemson for a spot in the ACC Championship Game.

Winner: the troops

Don’t look now, but Army and Navy did well to play in the same conference for the first time in history. The last time both programs started 4-0 was in 1945, the final years of World War II. Navy crushed UAB to move to 3-0 in AAC play, while Army achieved the goal with a 42-14 win over Temple on Friday. Both have very manageable schedules ahead. Can we get it? two unexpected iterations of Army-Navy in successive weeks?