Nobody entered the poll and nobody dropped out
All 25 teams in this week’s ballot were in last week’s ballot. Only the order changed, which is unusual enough in the third week of a season to be worth saying plainly. Alabama lost to Kentucky in overtime and fell twelve. Michigan lost by 32 in its own stadium and fell ten. Miami stays No. 1.
Big Ten: 29-6
Michigan State: 2-0
Four ranked teams lost badly and the poll absorbed all of it without changing its membership. That does not happen often. Every team in the Week 2 Top 25 is in the Week 3 Top 25, reordered.
Kentucky beat Alabama 46-43 in overtime, one of the largest wins in that program’s modern history. Oklahoma won 49-17 at Michigan. Arizona beat BYU by 27. Ohio State beat Texas 24-21 in Columbus in the only game of the weekend between two teams ranked in the top ten.
Notre Dame beat Rice 52-10 and remains 1-2. Michigan State goes to South Bend on Saturday.
Michigan State beat Eastern Michigan 41-13 and is 2-0.
The Top 25, Week 3
A ballot with no additions and no subtractions in Week 3 is rare and it happened for a specific reason: the four teams that lost badly all lost to opponents outside the Top 25 who were not close enough to voting position to be lifted in by one result. Kentucky, Arizona and Duke all won by wide margins and none of them appear on either list.
Arizona is 3-0 and is receiving votes. Kentucky is not.
The results that rearranged the poll
What Notre Dame is now
Two weeks ago the Irish had lost 42-6 to Miami and 38-10 at home to an unranked Wisconsin team and had fallen out of the Top 25 from a preseason No. 3. This week they scored 52 on Rice.
There is no honest way to grade that. A team that has been humiliated twice and then beats a bad opponent by 42 has produced exactly the result it was supposed to produce, and it has produced it in a way that looks like a program that has decided something about itself. Both readings are available and the tape supports either one.
The argument this created around Michigan State is unresolved and is going to stay unresolved until Saturday afternoon. One version says the Spartans are walking into a stadium where a wounded blue blood has spent two weeks being told what it is. The other says Notre Dame has lost two of three by a combined 64 points and has beaten nobody. Nobody who is certain about it has produced a reason that holds up for longer than a paragraph.
The Michigan State connection
Michigan State plays at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday at 3:30. The Spartans have not won in South Bend since 2016.
Mansour was asked about Notre Dame three times on Sunday and answered the football question each time without characterizing the opponent’s state of mind. He said he had watched the Rice game twice and that he was not going to guess at what a team he has never played is feeling.
Players of the week
Sellers ran for four touchdowns and 110 yards on 14 carries and threw for 203 more on 17 attempts. South Carolina is receiving votes and is not ranked.
Twelve tackles, a sack, two balls knocked down and two forced fumbles in the same afternoon. The two forced fumbles are what separated him from the field.
Four total touchdowns and 389 total yards. Minnesota is 2-0 and receiving votes. The Gophers are not on Michigan State’s 2026 schedule.
Kreutz forced a fumble, recovered a different one and returned it for a touchdown, and knocked down three passes. Illinois lost the game 45-14 and is 0-2.
No Michigan State player won anything
Michigan State scored 41 points, gained 495 yards, took the ball away twice and committed no penalties, and no Spartan received a national or Big Ten weekly award.
Tre Bell returned an interception 71 yards for a touchdown, had two tackles for loss and broke up two passes. Cam Edwards ran 22 times for 158. KK Smith caught seven balls for 136 and two scores. Weekly awards are graded against opponent, and the opponent was a MAC team that finished 3-9 last season.
The board after Week 3
Nine touchdowns in Week 1 and then a 49-17 win in Ann Arbor. Oklahoma is 3-0 and has moved up to No. 6, and Mateer has been the reason both times the Sooners have been on national television.
Leads the country in rushing with 453 yards. Miami is 3-0 and No. 1, and Fletcher is carrying it more than anyone expected he would in an offense built to throw.
The quarterback of the No. 1 team in the country, which is most of the case and is not a small part of it. Miami has not trailed in the second half of a game this season.
Leads the country in receiving touchdowns with five. A wide receiver has not won this award since 1991 and Barkate is the fourth name on a board that has three of his teammates on it.
Three Miami players occupy three of the four spots, which is what happens when the No. 1 team scores a great deal and nobody else has separated. Jeremiah Smith and Julian Sayin of Ohio State, who held the top two spots a week ago, are off this board entirely.
The conference after three weekends
Beat Texas 24-21 in Columbus in the only top-ten game of the weekend. The Buckeyes lost both of their Heisman-board spots in the same week they beat a top-ten team.
Holds third without playing a ranked opponent yet. Oregon plays at Michigan State in Week 12.
Holds fifth. Indiana is not on Michigan State’s 2026 schedule and is competing with the Spartans for at least four recruits on their board, including the No. 1 player in the country and an in-state quarterback.
Up four to ninth without beating anybody ranked, which is what happens when four teams above you lose on the same afternoon.
Up four. The program is in its first season after the dismissal of James Franklin, who is now at Virginia Tech, and Virginia Tech is receiving votes.
Beat Iowa State 25-24 on a blocked punt returned for a touchdown in the final seconds. Iowa is up three and has scored 25 points or fewer in both games.
Lost 49-17 to Oklahoma at home and fell ten spots. Michigan’s two home games this season have produced a 17-9 win over Western Michigan and a 32-point loss.
Michigan State plays at Michigan in Week 10.
Quarterback Drake Lindsey accounted for four touchdowns and 389 yards and took the conference offensive award. Minnesota is receiving votes and is recruiting against Michigan State for an edge rusher in its own state.
Illinois lost 45-14 to Duke and has now lost both of its games at home. Its linebacker James Kreutz won the Big Ten defensive award in the loss. Purdue is also 0-2. Michigan State hosts Illinois in Week 6.
Washington is ranked 19th at 2-0 and plays at Michigan State in Week 11. UCLA is 2-0 and unranked. Michigan State plays at UCLA in Week 8.
Where Michigan State sits
Michigan State beat Eastern Michigan 41-13 at home. The Spartans gained 495 yards at 8.3 a play, ran it 39 times for 209, converted eight of ten third downs, did not punt, did not turn the ball over and were not penalized. They have one accepted penalty in two games.
Eastern Michigan ran for 111 yards through Braydon Bennett in a first half Michigan State spent losing individual tackles, and scored three points after halftime.
Leo Hannan completed 16 of 21 for 286 with two touchdowns and a rating of 222, nearly all of it before the break. KK Smith caught seven for 136 and two scores. Cam Edwards ran 22 times for 158. Tre Bell returned an interception 71 yards for a touchdown in the fourth quarter.
Saturday is at Notre Dame Stadium at 3:30. It is the first game this season that will tell anybody outside Michigan anything.
Where the sport stands
Poll. Nobody entered and nobody dropped out. Miami holds No. 1. Alabama down 12 to 23, BYU and Michigan down 10 to 20 and 22, Texas down 7 to 13. USC, Louisville, Texas Tech and Penn State each up 4.
Results. Kentucky 46, Alabama 43 in overtime. Oklahoma 49, Michigan 17 in Ann Arbor. Ohio State 24, Texas 21. Arizona 41, BYU 14. Iowa 25, Iowa State 24 on a blocked punt. Duke 45, Illinois 14. Notre Dame 52, Rice 10.
Awards. LaNorris Sellers of South Carolina and Da’Kaari Nelson of NC State took the national awards. Drake Lindsey of Minnesota and James Kreutz of Illinois took the Big Ten awards. No Michigan State player won anything.
Heisman. John Mateer first. Mark Fletcher Jr., Darian Mensah and Cooper Barkate of Miami hold the next three.
Big Ten. Thirteen of 18 are 2-0. Michigan and Maryland are 1-1, Illinois and Purdue 0-2, Northwestern 1-0. Eight members are ranked and no conference games have been played.
Michigan State. 2-0, 0-0 in the Big Ten. At Notre Dame on Saturday at 3:30.
This page is part of a fictional media archive produced for a college-football dynasty simulation (CFB27). Outlets, writers, quotes and analysis are invented. Real programs and public figures appear as fictionalized in-universe references and nothing here represents a real statement, ranking or result.