SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2026
Clear your schedule. Week 6 of the college football season is the best Saturday of the fall so far — a noon window with an undefeated Hoosier team rolling into Lincoln, a 3:30 ET logjam headlined by the Red River Rivalry, and a primetime nightcap that might as well be a playoff quarterfinal: No. 2 Georgia at No. 6 Alabama.
One housekeeping note before we start: every ranking below is from the Week 6 AP Top 25, released last Sunday, Oct. 4 — the one with Texas still No. 1, Georgia No. 2, Notre Dame No. 3, and Missouri's rocket ride from No. 25 to No. 14, per NCAA.com's full poll table. If you saw different numbers somewhere else this week, that outlet was probably using the Coaches Poll. We're going with the AP.
All times below are Eastern with Pacific in parentheses, because your couch is in Vegas and the games are everywhere else. Here's the full map.
Noon ET — the appetizers (9 a.m. PT)
Texas A&M at No. 14 Missouri | Noon ET / 9 a.m. PT | ABC. Start here. Missouri just delivered the weekend's most violent statement, crushing Florida 45-17 at home and vaulting from No. 25 to No. 14 in a single week — the biggest jump in the poll, per Sports Illustrated's poll breakdown. Eli Drinkwitz's team pairs a nasty run defense with a vertical passing game, and the Tigers now get a Texas A&M team sitting at 3-2 and desperate. ABC's noon window, playoff stakes in October. Say less.
No. 7 Indiana at Nebraska | Noon ET / 9 a.m. PT | FOX. The Big Noon Kickoff game, and it's a good one: Indiana is 5-0 and holding firm in the top 10, and now the Hoosiers walk into Memorial Stadium in Lincoln against a Nebraska team that's been hanging around the receiving-votes line of the AP poll. Our Nebraska-Indiana showdown preview has the full buildup. Indiana keeps winning and the playoff committee keeps noticing.
UNC at No. 25 Pitt | Noon ET / 9 a.m. PT | ESPN. Pitt is 5-0 and just cracked the Top 25 — and then immediately lost its quarterback. Star QB Mason Heintschel tore his ACL in the win at Virginia Tech and is out for the season, per Sports Illustrated. So the question isn't whether Pitt is for real; it's whether Pitt can survive its own depth chart. UNC gets the first crack at finding out.
South Carolina at No. 16 Florida | 12:45 p.m. ET / 9:45 a.m. PT | SEC Network. Florida tumbled eight spots after the Missouri loss, per SI, and now the Gators have to get off the mat against a South Carolina team with nothing to lose. Trap-game energy, early window, SEC Network. You know the drill.
3:30 ET — the main course (12:30 p.m. PT)
No. 1 Texas vs. Oklahoma | 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT | ABC. The Red River Rivalry. The Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Half the stadium burnt orange, half crimson, and the most hostile neutral site in sports. Quarterback John Mateer and the 2-2 Sooners face Arch Manning and the 4-0 Longhorns, with both teams coming off bye weeks, per the Oklahoman's game guide. Texas owns the No. 1 ranking and a one-point win over Ohio State that keeps looking better — the Buckeyes just went into Iowa City and won 31-14, per TFE Times' power rankings. Oklahoma is 0-1 in the SEC and playing for its season. Rivalry games don't care about records. This one decides whether the Sooners' season is alive or over.
No. 21 UCLA at No. 13 Oregon | 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT | CBS. The Big Ten's sneaky-best game of the day. UCLA is 4-0 and up to No. 21; Oregon is 3-1 and sitting at No. 13 with everything still in front of it. Ranked-vs-ranked, mid-afternoon, playoff positioning on the line in a conference where Ohio State and Indiana are already hogging the oxygen. The loser probably needs help. The winner is alive.
No. 9 Ole Miss at Vanderbilt | 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT | ESPN. Circle this one in red. Ole Miss is 3-1 and ranked ninth, and Vanderbilt at 3-2 has made a habit of ruining ranked teams' afternoons in Nashville. This is the upset special of the week — the kind of game that flips the playoff picture while everyone's watching Texas-OU.
No. 3 Notre Dame vs. Stanford | 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT | NBC/Peacock. The Irish are 5-0 and No. 3 in the country, and this is a business-trip game: handle Stanford, stay healthy, keep the playoff seeding clean. The only drama is whether Notre Dame looks bored doing it.
No. 22 Houston at Kansas State | 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30 p.m. PT | FOX. Houston is 4-1 and ranked, Kansas State is unranked and ornery at home. The Big 12's middle class is a knife fight this year, and this is one of those games that decides who gets to keep dreaming about Arlington.
Late afternoon — don't touch the remote (1:15 p.m. PT)
No. 15 Tennessee at Arkansas | 4:15 p.m. ET / 1:15 p.m. PT | SEC Network. Tennessee is 4-1 and needs style points; Arkansas is 2-3 and needs a miracle. The Vols can't afford to look past this one with the schedule about to get mean.
Maryland at No. 5 Ohio State | 4:15 p.m. ET / 1:15 p.m. PT | Big Ten Network. Ohio State is 4-1 and coming off that 31-14 road win at Iowa, per TFE Times, and the Buckeyes' only loss is the one-pointer to Texas. Maryland is the speed bump. The only question is whether Ohio State covers the number and keeps the pressure on the teams above it.
Primetime — the nightcap that decides everything (4–4:30 p.m. PT)
No. 10 LSU at Kentucky | 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT | ESPN. Kentucky is 4-1 and the first team out of the AP Top 25 — 160 points in the receiving-votes column, per NCAA.com — which makes this the most dangerous game on LSU's schedule that nobody's talking about. The Tigers are 4-1 and ranked tenth; a loss in Lexington would be the kind of October disaster that ends playoff conversations. The Wildcats are playing for a ranking. Night game. ESPN. You know how this goes.
No. 2 Georgia at No. 6 Alabama | 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT | ABC. This is the game of the week, the game of the month, and maybe the game of the regular season. Both teams are 5-0. Georgia has scored 40-plus in every single game, per On3's matchup preview. Alabama owns a 45-27-4 edge in the all-time series and has won the last five regular-season meetings — but the Bulldogs own the most recent win that matters, beating the Tide in last year's SEC title game. Kalen DeBoer, in his third season, is 2-1 against Kirby Smart, per On3. It's at Saban Field at Bryant-Denny Stadium, under the lights, with the SEC and the No. 1 seed conversation on the line. Our early Georgia-Alabama preview dug into the matchup earlier this week. Loser doesn't die — but the path gets brutally narrow.
No. 19 USC at Penn State | 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT | NBC/Peacock. USC is 5-1 and ranked 19th, and now the Trojans head east to face a Penn State team that's unranked but never an easy out in its own building at night. Cross-country trips in primetime are where good seasons go to get weird.
Late night — for the sickos (7:15 p.m. PT)
Kansas at No. 12 Utah | 10:15 p.m. ET / 7:15 p.m. PT | ESPN. Utah is 4-0, ranked 12th, and playing the best defense nobody outside the Mountain time zone has watched. Kansas is the late-night chaos agent. If the early games behaved, this is your dessert. If they didn't, this is your therapy.
One game we're not breaking down here: Hawaii at Arizona State (9:15 p.m. ET, FS1) already has its own full preview from earlier today — go read that one if the late window is your thing.
What it all means
By midnight, the playoff picture gets its first real shake of October. A Georgia win in Tuscaloosa probably makes the Bulldogs the new No. 1. An Alabama win vaults the Tide into the top five and drops Georgia into the danger zone with the entire SEC cannibalizing itself. Texas has to survive the rivalry game to keep its grip on the top spot. And somewhere in the 3:30 window — Vanderbilt, Lexington, Eugene — a result nobody saw coming reshuffles the whole board.
That's the beauty of a Saturday like this. Twelve hours, four windows, and by the end of it we find out which of these teams was real all along.
