#Nuggets: Six unbeatens fall on the best Saturday of the season... so far

Game of the Decade type stuff in Knoxville. What a game. What a scene. What a sport.

When Alabama tied the game at 28 after trailing 28-10, and especially when Dallas Turner returned a fumble for a touchdown with 7:49 to play, it seemed like the Crimson Tide were in line for approximately their 308th Program Win of the Nick Saban era. How many times have we seen Alabama take an opponent's best shot, maybe even get knocked to the canvas, and then get back up and win the fight by TKO? Already this season the Tide have beaten Texas and Texas A&M at the buzzer and fended off a late rally on the road at Arkansas. 

But Tennessee simply refused to join that group.

The Volunteers out-scored Alabama 10-0 in the final half of the fourth quarter, equalizing the score on Hendon Hooker and Jalin Hyatt's fifth touchdown connection of the game and then "forcing" Will Reichard to miss from 50 yards out with 15 seconds to play. (How many epic Alabama losses have involved missed field goals?) Hooker then hit completions of 18 and 27 yards to set up Chase McGrath's 40 yard field goal and one of those "only in college football" moments.

Fifteen years is a loooong time, and certainly every Tennessee fan would've preferred to end the streak five, ten, 14 years ago. But we wouldn't have gotten the drama, the catharsis, the ecstasy of 110,000 souls escaping from hell when Chase McGrath's field goal helicoptered over the cross bar. Only in college football. 

More thoughts on Alabama-Tennessee: 

-- Tennessee 52, Alabama 49 will fall in line right behind the Kick Six for the Most Epic Saban Era Alabama losses list. How funny is it that Alabama met its doom with one second to play back in 2013, and with two ticks left on Saturday? 

-- Needless to say, but also needs to be said: What a great accomplishment for Josh Heupel and his staff. I honestly didn't think they had it in them.

-- The FBS single-game record for touchdown receptions is seven, set by Rashaun Woods in 2004. Woods caught 12 passes that day. So while Jalin Hyatt's five grabs is not a record, it has to set some sort of efficiency record: six receptions, 207 yards, five touchdowns.

-- It's great for  Tennessee that Bryce Young played. The reigning Heisman winner went 35-of-52 for 455 yards with two touchdowns and no picks. How annoying would it be for Tennessee fans to end The Streak with, say, a 52-35 win and immediately get hit with the "Yeah, but Bryce didn't play" asterisk. No asterisks hung in the air among the cigar smoke floating above Neyland Stadium on Saturday night.

-- What do we make of this Alabama team? Clearly, the Tide are among the top three teams in the nation on paper, but in reality they've played four top-40 teams and looked like a top-10 team in one of them. I ranked Alabama ninth in my Super 16 ballot last week, which I'm pretty sure is the lowest among any poll voter. And yet. Where is the appropriate place to rank this Alabama team? And where would they be ranked if they wore Ole Miss's uniforms, not Alabama's? 

-- I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

-- Everyone loves to bag on the transfer portal. It's an easy punching bag, especially because every team is going to lose players they'd like to keep, and some programs will lose more than others. But we don't get Tennessee 52, Alabama 49 without it. In the final nine seconds, Virginia Tech signee Hendon Hooker hit USC signee Bru McCoy, setting up USC signee Chase McGrath for the game winner. 

Things also got bonkers in Fort Worth. No. 13 TCU's 43-40, double overtime win over No. 8 Oklahoma State wasn't the best game of the 3:30 p.m. ET window, but in plenty of other seasons it's the game of the month, if not the year.

The Frogs trailed 24-7 at one point in the second quarter, and for a moment it seemed as if a TCU rally would be thwarted by its inability to finish drives: three consecutive drives resulted in points, all of them field goals. With 13 minutes to play, Oklahoma State took possession with a 30-16 lead. 

From that point forward, Joe Gillespie's defense allowed 32 yards, forcing four punts and an interception, which gave Garrett Riley's offense enough cover to force overtime. After a 47-yard touchdown drive brought TCU within a score, Max Duggan orchestrated an 8-play, 94-yard touchdown march to tie it. 

The teams traded touchdowns in the first overtime, then the Frogs forced a holding penalties and then three straight Spencer Sanders incompletions to push Oklahoma State's lead to just 40-37. TCU ran the ball on six consecutive plays to complete the comeback, and the best 3-week stretch of football in program history.

Utah downs USC. Before a Rice-Eccles Stadium record crowd, in likely their last visit ever, No. 7 USC could not hold off No. 20 Utah. 

Utah forced three punts, trailed by 14 points twice, but simply would not be denied. In fact, of Utah's last six drives, the shortest was 60 yards, and that happened to be because the goal line was only 60 yards away when that drive began.

The Utes overcame a fumble at the goal line, trailing 35-28 in the third quarter, by forcing one of three USC punts on the night, and simply kept coming at the Trojans with everything they had. The connection between quarterback Cameron Rising and tight end Dalton Kincaid was literally unstoppable for USC.

Kincaid's 16 catches went for 234 yards and a touchdown, while Rising also served as his team's leading rusher, carrying 11 times for 60 yards and three scores. The third was one of the biggest touchdowns in Utah history, a 4th-and-the-game keeper from the 1 with 48 seconds left.

Utah smartly went for two and the win, and got it when Rising scored on a scramble. Utah's only lead on the night was the 43-42 final score.

We nearly had an all-time Pac-12 officiating blunder, though. With 13 seconds to play, a Utah defender intercepted a deflected Caleb Williams pass, momentarily clinching the game for the Utes. 

The interception was waved off due to pass interference, but it wasn't all bad for the Utes, because at least five seconds ran off over the course of the wiped-off return. Except they didn't, because an official inadvertently blew the play dead. The clock stopped during the return with 12 seconds to play, then started up again during the return, and finally stopped for good with eight seconds left. Proper timing would've put the clock closer to five or six.

But the inadvertent whistle retroactively blew the play dead with 13 seconds, giving USC a whole extra play.

Fortunately for the Pac-12, the penalty only pushed USC to its own 40, and Williams could not connect on any last-seconds prayers. Crisis averted. 

Michigan runs over, around, and through Penn State. Coming in to Saturday, NO. 10 Penn State's fifth-ranked rushing defense had allowed 399 yards and three touchdowns on 135 carries. 

Michigan did a month and a half's worth of damage in one afternoon, ripping off 418 yards and four touchdowns on 55 carries. Donovan Edwards and Blake Corum both did more damage than any team had thus far; Edwards carried 16 times for 173 yards, Corum 28 for 166, both scored twice. Auburn's 119-yard effort was previously the season high for Penn State.

A 4-minute stretch early in the third quarter decided the game. After Penn State took a 17-16 lead, Edwards ripped off a 67-yard touchdown run. The Wolverine defense forced a turnover on downs at its own 39, and then Corum took the next snap to the house. No. 5 Michigan led 31-17 en route to a 41-17 win. 

The big question after last year's win over Ohio State was if we witnessed a paradigm shift or a once-a-decade alignment of the planets. After Saturday, I can't wait to see Ohio State's passing attack go blow-for-blow with Michigan's running game.

FRIES

Seen and Heard

Seen

I didn't even know this was possible.

College football is the best sport in the world.

How many different sets of hands did this ball touch before finding its final resting place?

Heard

Spencer Sanders, Big 12 title race prognosticator. 

Hendon Hooker, doing his best Bill Belichick impersonation.

Lane Kiffin: "Let's both go beat the state of Alabama today. Go Vols."

The Super 16. Here's this week's FWAA-NFF Super 16 ballot.

1. Georgia
2. Michigan
3. Tennessee
4. Ohio State
5. TCU
6. Clemson
7. UCLA
8. Ole Miss
9. Oklahoma State
10. USC
11. Alabama
12. Oregon
13. Wake Forest
14. Utah
15. Syracuse
16. Kansas State

Odds and Ends

a. Stanford, left for dead by the rest of the Pac-12, beat Notre Dame in South Bend.

b. Interim head coaches went 5-0 last week, and on Saturday Mike Sanford moved to 1-0 at Colorado. The Buffs won their first game of the season, defeating Cal, 20-13 in overtime.

c. Both undefeated Sun Belt teams went down this week. No. 25 James Madison suffered its first defeat as an FBS team, falling 45-38 at Georgia Southern; Coastal Carolina was blasted off its own field in losing 49-21 to Old Dominion.

d. Bret Bielema is the runaway winner of the Big Ten Coach of the First Half of the Year. The No. 24 Illini moved to 6-1, their best start in 11 years, with a 26-14 win over Minnesota. Gopher quarterback Tanner Morgan, in something like his 75th start, went 4-of-12 for 21 yards with an interception.

e. Right now, it looks like Purdue at Illinois on Nov. 12 will decide the B1G West. Purdue beat Nebraska, 43-37, and in the process gained 608 yards on 40 first downs. Aidan O'Connell hit 35-of-54 throws for 391 yards.

f. North Texas set a school record with 475 rushing yards (on 10.1 a carry) in their 47-27 win over Louisiana Tech. 3-0 UNT visits 3-0 UTSA next week for first place in C-USA.

g. No. 22 Kentucky earned a nice bounce back win over No. 16 Mississippi State, 27-17. Mike Leach's team has scored 33 points in its two SEC road trips, both losses, but the good news is the Tide get to face Alabama's defense next week.

h. The party may really be over at Kansas. The Jayhawks are already without Jalon Daniels and lost star corner Cobee Bryant to a nasty injury. A week after maybe the worst offensive performance in program history, Oklahoma put up 701 yards in a 52-42 win over the No. 19 Jayhawks. 

i. In the game of the year at the FCS level, No. 2 South Dakota State went to the Fargodome and knocked off No. 1 North Dakota State, 23-21. The Jackrabbits trailed 21-7 at the half, but won the second half 16-0. That's three Dakota Marker games in a row that go South.

j. In the game of the year at the Division II level, No. 2 Grand Valley State went on the road and beat No. 1 Ferris State in the Anchor-Bone Classic, 22-21.

k. No. 18 Syracuse is 6-0 for the first time since its 1987 undefeated season, knocking off No. 15 NC State, 24-9.

l. How about Arkansas going up to the mountains and snapping a 3-game losing streak? Arkansas 52, BYU 35.

m. If you're evaluating Jim Leonhard for the Wisconsin job, how do you score a double OT loss at Michigan State? The Badgers are now 1-1 with a blowout victory and a close loss under their interim head coach.

n. East Carolina rallied from a 17-0 deficit to beat Memphis, 47-45 in four overtimes. The Tigers have lost two straight and held double digit leads in both games.

o. No. 22 Texas nearly squandered all of last week's goodwill against winless-in-conference-play Iowa State. The Longhorns led 17-7 in the third quarter, but needed a 4th-and-goal completion to score the decisive touchdown in a 24-21 win. Texas won turnovers 2-0, but Iowa State was 9-of-15 on third down -- and 7-of-10 on 3rd-and-8+. 

p. North Carolina beat Duke, 38-35, on an 8-yard Drake Maye touchdown pass with 16 seconds to play.

o. In Year 1 under Jon Sumrall, Troy is 5-2 with a loss to Ole Miss and a 4-point loss at App State. Trojans beat Texas State 17-14 on Saturday.

r. Best game you didn't see: Toledo rallied from a 21-point deficit to rocket past Kent State, 52-31.

DESSERT

College football, everybody.