The 12 biggest College Football Playoff takeaways from Week 4

Week 4 boasted the most ranked-on-ranked matchups in college football since 2023. Was that largely a product of conference play opening after soft non-conference schedules yielded plenty of power-conference 3-0 teams? Yes. But did those ranked-on-ranked games deliver? Well, in a few cases. 

The Big Ten and SEC finally dove fully into conference play this week, so we’re finally getting the clarity we’ve been after. That’s not just who the contenders are, but who the pretenders are, as this week we have three teams paying their check and leaving our CFP dinner party because they won’t be around when the committee starts taking playoff reservations in November. 

1. Arch Manning isn’t a finished product, but he’s more polished than Faizon Brandon

• First course: Texas’s suffocating defense
• Tasting note: A sloppy SEC road win in Uncle Peyton’s old stomping grounds
• The takeaway: No. 1 Texas hasn’t looked like the best team in college football, and Arch Manning hasn’t quite made the leap most expected, but the redshirt junior is better equipped to manage a mess than his freshman counterpart for No. 14 Tennessee, Faizon Brandon, who took 10 sacks in Texas’s 20-17 win. 

Arch Manning was sacked six times and threw an interception; the Texas run game averaged 3.1 yards per attempt, even when you stripped out the sack yardage, and Manning looked perplexed by Tennessee defensive coordinator Jim Knowles’ coverage disguises and post-snap rotations, but that hardly mattered because the Texas defense had Faizon Brandon in a chokehold all afternoon. 

The Vols kept it close with a punt-return touchdown and an 80-yard touchdown drive late, which gave them a chance to win the game after a successful onside kick, but it came once Texas DC Will Muschamp adopted a far too passive approach. 

Between the 60-yard field goal drive on the first possession and the 80-yard touchdown against prevent defense, Tennessee gained 121 yards, averaging 2.2 yards per play with 7 punts and two turnovers on downs. Brandon was sacked 10 times, five by star edge rusher Colin Simmons, who had 10 of Texas’s 42 total pressures. 

When pressured, Brandon went 4/10 for 27 yards with a 43.6% pressure-to-sack rate. Brandon averaged -0.37 EPA/dropback. He cost his team over a third of a point every time he dropped back. Simmons and his running mate, Lance Jackson, were terrors off the edge, and Brandon simply wasn’t ready to handle this defense. Yes, his offensive line struggled, but he also dropped his eyes and held onto the ball too long. Remember, sacks are a quarterback stat. 

Texas needs Manning to take a step as a processor and hope that a healthy Hollywood Smothers, who missed the game, returning to the backfield boosts the ground game, but Manning isn’t the only first-round talent on this team. This week Simmons carried the Longhorns, and that’s just fine. 

2. Florida is for real and better win big before Buster Faulkner is gone

• Second course: Florida outguns Ole Miss with a Buster Faulkner special
• Tasting note: A delicate, precise dish prepared by one of the game’s best play-callers, who is 
• The takeaway: Florida offensive coordinator Buster Faulkner went deep into his bag to hang 52 on No. 4 Ole Miss in a statement 52-28 win for No. 21 Florida. It won’t be long before Faulkner is a head coach, so Jon Sumrall’s timeline has sped up with this Gators roster that had plenty of talent left over from the Billy Napier era. 

Trinidad Chambliss is the best quarterback in the country. We established that last week. He doesn’t, however, have the best defense in the country. Even with Will Echoles anchoring the defensive line, the Rebels were helpless to stop Buster Faulkner’s offense, who has been worth every penny Jon Sumrall and Florida paid him to leave Georgia Tech. 

Faulkner does so much to stress the eyes of the defense with pre-snap motion and play-action, to stretch the field horizontally. Then, he has playmakers all over his defense, including Jadan Baugh, the best running back in college football, who went for 142 yards and three touchdowns on 29 carries, and his eventual replacement, Duke Clark, who added 126 yards and a score on just 12 attempts. 

If you make a defense hesitant with all the eye-candy, and have this level of talent, you’re going to be tough to stop. So far this year, Florida has scored 66, 52, 44, and 52 points. They’ve done it with well over a 60% run rate. Oh, and the wide receiver corps might be the best in the SEC (maybe if Billy Napier hired an OC like Faulkner, he’d still be in Gainesville). 

Last week, it was all about the explosive plays; this week, it was all about the down-to-down consistency. This team can beat you in so many ways. But we’ll have to wait until late October to learn how sustainable it is with No. 1 Texas and No. 2 Georgia on deck in Week 7 and 9. 

3. Dan Lanning has his swagger back, and Dylan Raiola has his redemption

• Third course: Oregon’s impassioned second-half at USC
• Tasting note: A fiery dish of vintage Oregon dominance in a one-sided rivalry that keeps heating up.
• The takeaway: On a night when Oregon QB Dante Moore had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance after a dirty hit from Desman Stephens II, backup QB Dylan Raiola was excellent, carving No. 12 USC’s defense for 28 second-half points in a 41-27 win over the No. 20 Ducks in LA. 

The hit that knocked Moore from the game was as dirty as it comes, and the celebrating that ensued from Desman Stephens II was much worse. It’s not an injury that should have happened, but the fact that risk exists is why Dan Lanning has turned Oregon into a QB factory. The same way he brought Moore, a former five-star, to Eugene to back up Dillon Gabriel in 2024, he added Raiola out of the portal, presumably to learn behind Moore before taking over next year. 

That timeline obviously got sped up, but the former five-star QB has seemingly made good use of his time with the Ducks, looking like a much different quarterback than the one who was last seen suffering a season-ending injury in a loss to USC as Nebraska’s starting quarterback. 

Raiola went 19/25 for 289 yards and two touchdowns, and much of that production came from the six completions for 82 yards on throws behind the line of scrimmage, as Oregon OC Drew Mehringer looks to be doing a better job of giving his quarterbacks easy completions. However, Raiola also went 4/6 for 89 yards on throws over 15 yards downfield, and 5/6 for 64 yards and a touchdown under pressure without being sacked once. 

Raiola was everything Lanning could have hoped he would be in relief, and even with the health of his starting quarterback in doubt going forward, Lanning got his swagger back after Oregon’s slow start. Postgame, he took a shot at Lincoln Riley, who has another new DC in Gary Patterson, yet still doesn’t have a defense. 

4. Mike Elko’s problems start with Marcel Reed, but they don’t end there

• Check, please: When it’s clear there won’t be a seat for you at the CFP table, it’s time to pay your check and leave
• The cost: Mike Elko pushed his chips behind Marcel Reed leading his program on a return trip to the College Football Playoff, but that’s proven to be a bad bet in losses to Kentucky and No. 10 LSU, 35-6 in Week 4, so it’s time to take a step back and reload in College Station.

Aside from Ole Miss, LSU has a penchant for blowing teams out. It was lopsided on the scoreboard, but the 29-point victory doesn’t tell the story of a game in which Mike Elko’s team was outgained 506-197. 

Marcel Reed was abysmal, averaging 2.5 sack-adjusted yards per attempt, completing just 10 of his 26 passes for 106 yards, and dropping his season-long completion percentage to 55.4%. However, the Aggies’ defense was just as bad, recording no sacks for the second straight week after ranking No. 9 in the country in sack rate in 2025 and No. 11 in pressure rate. 

The scary thing for Aggies fans, who are so accustomed to 8-4, is that there are six more losable games on this schedule. They probably won’t lose them all, but 4-8 is in play for the preseason No. 8 team in the country. 

5. John Mateer and Ben Arbuckle have wasted another Brent Venables defense

• Check, please: When it’s clear there won’t be a seat for you at the CFP table, it’s time to pay your check and leave
• The cost: A competent offense would give this Brent Venables defense a chance to get back to the CFP, but like Texas A&M, Oklahoma talked itself into the wrong quarterback, and no matter how well the defense plays, it won’t matter. It didn’t in a 41-13 loss to No. 2 Georgia. 

It was nice to see Georgia play a real team with a pulse — as much as you can say that about the Sooners right now — and for the most part, Oklahoma’s defense did a good job. It just didn’t matter because John Mateer is this team’s quarterback. The numbers look okay, but most of that came after the game was out of reach. 

When it was in reach, with Oklahoma driving down 14-0 in the second quarter, Mateer did this: 

Need I say more? Pay your check and leave, Oklahoma. We’re finished with you. 

6. Wake Forest buried Louisville’s at-large hopes

• Check, please: When it’s clear there won’t be a seat for you at the CFP table, it’s time to pay your check and leave
• The cost: No. 16 Louisville positioned itself as the clear top contender to Miami in the ACC with its win over SMU last weekend, but undisciplined play and kicking troubles blew a chance at 11-1 with an easy conference slate ahead, falling 30-27 to Wake Forest. 

Technically, Louisville still has a chance at the CFP if it can win the ACC, but even with Lincoln Kienholz playing well, there’s no way to trust Jeff Brohm’s Cardinals. Wake Forest continues to punch above its weight under Jake Dickert after a nine-win season in Year 1, so it’s not that a loss to the Demon Deacons is disqualifying; it’s that Louisville doesn’t have a single ranked opponent left on its schedule. 

A two-loss ACC team with its best win over SMU isn’t getting a sniff from the CFP committee, and even I, who spent last week saying I was “irresponsibly high” on Louisville, know it's unlikely this team navigates the rest of the schedule unscathed. 

The two missed kicks are the story, but the way Wake Forest sowed havoc in the Louisville backfield with its simulated pressures and aggressive run-fits, finishing with four sacks and five tackles for loss. That includes a sack on this critical third-down in the fourth quarter, which cost Louisville 11 yards before the first of its two field goal misses: 

Kienholz's biggest strength has been his ability to limit negative plays with his athleticism, but Wake Forest’s defense generated so many free-runners; it was on him so quickly and converted four of its six pressures into sacks. Kienholz was great on third-down despite facing an 8.8-yard average distance, but the run game had a 32% success rate. On the season, star running back Isaac Brown is averaging 4.2 yards per carry, down from 8.8 in 2025. He’s not the same player, and without him at his best, Louisville isn’t the same team. 

7. Ohio State WR, Jeremiah Smith

• Head of the table: The best individual performance of the week earns a seat at the head of the table
• The resume: 12 rec, 217 yards, 4 TDs
• The takeaway: Jeremiah Smith, who has been the best wide receiver in college football since the moment he put on an Ohio State uniform three years ago, set his career highs in catches, yards, and touchdowns

It’s impossible to find something interesting or unique to say about how incredible Jeremiah Smith is at this point. He’s the best player in college football, and is finally putting up the numbers he’ll need for a compelling Heisman Trophy case at the end of the season. 

Because I couldn’t possibly find an adjective that hasn’t been used to describe Smith, or anything that would come close to capturing his greatness as that catch, here’s my attempt at a unique statistical angle. 

Smith is averaging 5.51 yards per route run this season. Former Ole Miss wide receiver Tre Harris is the all-time leader in yards per route run at 5.15 from his 2024 season. No other player in PFF’s database has ever been 5.00 yards per route run for a season. Smith has always been a big-play machine; now he’s a high-volume target hog, and his efficiency, with 18.7 yards per reception, is at a career high. 

8. Matt Campbell’s Big Ten debut didn’t go to plan

• Bad spill: It’s not a party until somebody spills, and these teams might need a change of clothes after their major mishaps
• The mess: Penn State has a soft Big Ten schedule, and after cruising to a 3-0 start with a glorified preseason slate, the No. 13 Nittany Lions fell apart in the second half of blowing a 17-0 second-quarter lead in a 24-20 loss. 

You won’t find many people who said Penn State was one of the 12 best teams in college football heading into the season, but there were plenty of prognosticators with Matt Campbell’s new-look Nittany Lions in their 12-team CFP field. Those predictions almost entirely hinged on a favorable schedule that doesn’t feature Indiana, Ohio State, or Oregon on it. But forget the Big Ten’s big three because Penn State hasn’t looked as good as Northwestern, which it plays on Friday night at the new Ryan Field. 

There are a myriad of issues with Penn State’s offense right now, including an overly conservative approach that infected Matt Campbell’s entire game plan. Rocco Becht, however, the most experienced quarterback in college football, is chief among them. 

The Nittany Lions scored just one offensive touchdown, and did it on an 11-yard drive after one of Colton Joseph’s three interceptions. With star receiver Koby Howard out, Becht went 1/8 on throws over 20 yards downfield and averaged only 3.68 yards per dropback with a 23% success rate.

He also averaged -0.49 EPA/dropback, which is the lowest of his career and difficult to do with just one interception and only two sacks. Excluding those three plays, he averaged -0.23 EPA/dropback, which was worse than all but two of his games last season, and both of those came late in the year when he was nursing two shoulder injuries. 

9. A cold dish of Karma for Michigan served up Iowa style in Ann Arbor

• Hors d’oeuvres: A little something to chew on from the week that was in college football
• Nutrition facts: 
• Iowa averaged 4.9 yards per play with a 40% success rate and was outgained 429-285
• 11 times since 2020, a team has beaten an AP Top 25 opponent while averaging fewer than 5.0 yards per play. Iowa is the only program in the country with two such wins over that span. 

Iowa scored three touchdowns against Michigan on Saturday. The first was a 99-yard kickoff return touchdown from Braeden Jackson. The second came one play after an Iowa receiver tipped a pass downfield, and tight end DJ Vonnahme managed to reestablish himself in bounds just in time to haul it in for a 21-yard gain. The third came as time expired after an unnecessary roughness penalty by Michigan kept the Hawkeyes’ game-winning drive alive. 

10. Mississippi State is more than just Kamario Taylor

• Hors d’oeuvres: A little something to chew on from the week that was in college football
• Nutrition facts: 
• Mississippi State finished with a 19% run-stuff rate vs. Missouri
• Mississippi State posted a 28% havoc rate with 6 TFLs, 2 sacks, and 15 pass-breakups
• Kelley Jones was targeted 6 times and allowed 2 catches for 12 yards. 

Kamario Taylor is undeniably the star of the show in Starkville, but if the Bulldogs are going to be a serious College Football Playoff contender, which they have a case to be after notching their first ranked win since 2014 with Dak Prescott, it has to be about more than just the quarterback. 

Yes, Taylor delivered some absolute beauties, including completions of 48 and 24 yards on the game-winning touchdown drive, but a long and rangy secondary, led by Kelley Jones, helped prevent Austin Simmons from matching Taylor blow-for-blow, and an aggressive defensive front stymied an Ahmad Hardy-less run game for Mizzou. 

It’s the Kamario Taylor show, and his matchup with Keelon Russell and Alabama next week is box office, but there’s more to this team, which is largely constructed of Power Conference retreads Jeff Lebby plucked out of the Transfer Portal, which can be a highly volatile approach. 

11. Indiana is chugging Nick Marsh’s muscle milk

• Dessert: Whether it’s a rich play design or a decadent athletic display, here’s a sweet football treat
• Nutrition facts: 
• Indiana WR Nick Marsh lined up as an in-line tight end for 10 snaps vs. Northwestern, a career high
• Indiana had runs of 18, 39, and 70 yards among Marsh’s 7 run-block snaps at tight end 
• Indiana produced 0.33 EPA/rush with a 51% rushing success rate and an 11% explosive rush rate vs. Northwestern
• Lee Beebe Jr. rushed for 203 of Indiana’s 271 yards on just 24 carries, with Turbo Richard exiting the game injured

Nick Marsh isn’t just the best blocking wide receiver in the country; Indiana’s 6-foot-3, 210-pound Michigan State transfer looks like one of the better blocking tight ends. Offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan broke out the Marsh at tight end wrinkle against Northwestern, and he was a weapon, with key blocks on all of Indiana’s biggest runs of the game. 

Northwestern is a two-high shell, bend-don’t-break defense, so it stayed small against Indiana’s “12-personnel” looks with Marsh at TE. He punished them and will continue to do the same. If defenses eventually have to put an extra linebacker on the field or walk a safety down into the box for those plays, it’ll be bombs away for Josh Hoover and the Hoosiers. 

Northwestern hung around in a weird game where Chip Kelly was deep in his bag and overall seems to be bringing the best out of Aidan Chiles, but the close score says more to me about the Wildcats than the defending champs, but we’re monitoring the situation with IU’s defense. 

12. Boise State bulldozed Western Michigan’s CFP path

• Kid’s menu: The CFP saves one spot at the big kids’ table for the Group of Six
• The takeaway: This was the chance for Western Michigan to get its redemption for the erroneous second and the second Hail Mary in the Big House. Beat those Broncos and your Broncos go into pole position in the Group of Six CFP race. Instead, Boise State came into Kalamazoo and closed the book on Western Michigan’s Cinderella story. 

If the MAC was going to put a team in the College Football Playoff, the team would almost definitely need to have a head-to-head win over a G6 power from another conference. That’s why this matchup with Boise State set up perfectly for Lance Taylor’s team. Well, until the game kicked off. 

Boise’s two-headed backfield of Dylan Riley and Sire Gaines has been devastating. Gaines couldn’t go in this one, but Riley shouldered the load, rushing for 138 yards and a touchdown on 28 carries. 

That run game set Boise State up with an average third-down distance of 4.7 yards, which led to an absurd 71% late-down success rate. The Broncos from Boise are the best Group of Six team, and their odds to make the CFP dropped from +230 before Week 4 to +140 in the DraftKings Sportsbook.

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