And now, 20 Final Thoughts from college football’s Week 6, which served as a friendly reminder that whenever the Saturday schedule looks light, it’s gonna get extra crazy.

1. I may have inadvertently planted the seeds for Saturday’s chaos back in January, before last season’s national championship game. The deadline for my way-too-early Top 25 for 2025 was approaching, and I was torn between which of two teams to rank No. 1 — Texas or Penn State. So, I began polling my colleagues in Atlanta, and, after much internal debate, finally went with the Nittany Lions.

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After all that time and energy, it turns out I should have gone with “none of the above.”

2. Saturday gave us not one, but two top-10 teams losing to sub-.500 opponents. Some folks may have seen 1-3 Florida over No. 9 Texas coming, but 0-4 UCLA beating No. 7 Penn State? On a scale of 1 to “App State over Michigan,” I give it a 9.5.

Not only was UCLA awful in its first four games (which included a 35-10 loss to New Mexico), but also it was playing for an interim coach (Tim Skipper), with a first-time play caller (Jerry Neuheisel) after the previous OC (Tino Sunseri) was fired four days earlier. So of course, the 24.5-point underdogs marched down the field on their opening drive, went up 27-7 at halftime, withstood a second-half Penn State surge and won 42-37.

UCLA became the first 0-4 team (or worse) to beat a top-10 foe since 0-6 UTEP beat No. 7 BYU 40 years ago. College football, baby.

3. Only a week ago, James Franklin’s team took then-No. 6 Oregon to overtime before suffering another big-game disappointment. This loss wasn’t disappointing. It was a debacle.

Franklin’s program spent many millions to bring back the core of last year’s College Football Playoff semifinal team, plus $3 million to hire away Ohio State DC Jim Knowles. Its defense, so dominant in recent seasons, couldn’t stop Oregon’s Dante Moore when it mattered, and couldn’t stop UCLA at all.

It did lose a key player last week, linebacker Tony Rojas. And slow starts aren’t unusual for teams flying cross-country. But twice in the second half, Drew Allar got the Nittany Lions back within one score, only for the Bruins (1-4, 1-1 Big Ten) to drive down the field and answer. Even then, Penn State had a chance, getting down to the UCLA 9-yard-line with 37 seconds left, trailing 42-35, but Allar tried to run a keeper out of the shotgun and got stuffed.