BYU’s Notre Dame Win Puts No. 1 Within Reach After Top-25 Upheaval

BYU won the game that opened its path to No. 1. Whether it wins over the voters will be settled Sunday, after a Saturday in which five of college football’s top seven teams lost and the Cougars supplied the final blow to the old order.

The Cougars’ 28-24 victory over Notre Dame moved them to 6-0 and gave Chip Patterson enough evidence to project a seven-place jump, from eighth to first, in CBS Sports’ post-Week 7 AP Top 25 forecast. It is a prediction of the ballot, not an announced AP ranking.

Bear Bachmeier threw the go-ahead touchdown pass with 1:47 remaining, and BYU then stopped the second-ranked Fighting Irish near the goal line on the final play. The finish preserved an unbeaten season while denying Notre Dame an opportunity to take advantage of Georgia’s defeat earlier in the day.

Georgia had only just taken over at No. 1. Its home loss to unranked Auburn made another change at the top unavoidable, but did not identify a clear successor. Notre Dame lost, Miami needed two overtimes against Florida State, and Ohio State emerged from Indiana with a major road win and an injured starting quarterback.

The AP’s poll page lists the new rankings for release at 2 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, October 18. Until then, the argument is about what voters should reward: an unbeaten record, the quality of the latest opponent, the body of work across the season, or some combination of all three.

Patterson’s answer favors BYU. His forecast puts Miami second and Ohio State third, followed by Georgia, Notre Dame and Indiana. That ordering would place two unbeaten teams above the leading one-loss contenders, while giving relatively soft landings to teams beaten in high-profile games.

BYU’s case rests on more than being the last team standing in the late television window. The Cougars beat a top-two opponent, remained unbeaten and found a winning drive after Notre Dame had taken a fourth-quarter lead. Bachmeier ran for two touchdowns, caught another and threw for 224 yards, according to the Associated Press game account carried by the Chicago Tribune.

That performance also separates this story from a routine poll shuffle. A seven-place leap to first would require voters to reassess the teams that entered Saturday above BYU, not simply promote everyone one position after the leader lost. Patterson described his choice as a bold prediction, acknowledging the distance the Cougars would have to travel on individual ballots.

Miami is the most direct obstacle. The Hurricanes entered the weekend third and survived Florida State, keeping their own unbeaten record intact. Patterson expects Miami to receive first-place votes, but argues that its double-overtime escape could leave it short of BYU in total voting points. That is his assessment of the likely voting, not evidence that ballots have already been counted.

Ohio State supplied a different kind of argument. The Buckeyes beat Indiana 19-15 in Bloomington, ending the Hoosiers’ 22-game winning streak, their official game report confirmed. At 6-1, Ohio State added a second ranked road win, although Julian Sayin’s injury complicated the immediate outlook beyond the poll.

For Notre Dame, the distinction between defeat and collapse matters. Patterson projects the Irish fifth because they lost narrowly, on the road, against another top-10 team. Georgia is projected fourth, with its earlier victory at Alabama still supporting its position despite the Auburn upset. Indiana would fall only one spot, to sixth, under the same forecast.

The next projected group is Ole Miss seventh, Texas Tech eighth, Tennessee ninth, Utah tenth and UCLA eleventh. Ole Miss beat Missouri 31-3, while Tennessee defeated Alabama 26-10. Texas Tech reached 6-0 after scoring 53 against Arizona State, and UCLA remained unbeaten with a 17-7 victory over Wisconsin.

Alabama is projected twelfth after a second consecutive defeat, followed by Kentucky, Houston, Iowa and USC. Missouri, Florida, Texas and Wake Forest occupy Patterson’s projected seventeenth-through-twentieth positions. His remaining selections are LSU, Boise State, SMU and Northwestern, followed by the winner of Oregon against Nebraska in the final slot. Mississippi State and Oklahoma State are projected to drop out.

That last place needs a time stamp. The CBS article was published at 11:56 p.m. Eastern Saturday and still treated Oregon-Nebraska, Utah-Colorado and Wake Forest-Cal as unfinished business. Its twenty-fifth selection was explicitly conditional, not a final choice between two teams. A forecast written during late games should not be mistaken for the completed Sunday ballot.

A later NBC Sports analysis by Vaughn Dalzell reported Oregon’s win over Nebraska, Utah’s 27-24 escape against Colorado and Wake Forest’s 41-7 victory at Cal. Those results supply the late-game context without turning Patterson’s earlier forecast into an official or retroactively updated ranking.

The upheaval was not confined to the fight for first. Texas lost to Florida after losing to Oklahoma the previous week. Alabama’s defeat at Tennessee forced another reassessment of a team that had been in the top six. Florida, meanwhile, gained a route back into the rankings through a win in Austin.

BYU now has the clearest new result for voters to consider: a win over No. 2 and a record without a loss. Patterson believes that should be enough to put the Cougars first. The AP ballot will determine whether the rest of the electorate agrees.