Ranking college football’s top 10 games of Week 5, with highlights

Saturday’s college football schedule was overloaded with big evening matchups, but there was just enough afternoon intrigue to make it a pretty complete day of football.

Let’s review the top 10 games of a pivotal Week 5.

You like lead changes? This had five, including three in the fourth quarter. Big special teams plays? Miami’s Maurice Thomas took the opening kickoff 99 yards. Gaudy stat lines? WMU’s Jon Wassink went 27-for-42 for 439 yards and five touchdowns, completing a combined 14 for 278 to D’Wayne Eskridge and Jayden Reed (who caught four TD passes).

Miami led 27-14 before the fourth Wassink-to-Reed scoring connection put WMU ahead, 34-33. The Redhawks drove 72 yards in four plays to take the lead back, then Wassink plunged in to make it 40-39, Broncos.

Miami drove one last time, and Sam Sloman’s 50-yard attempted game winner sailed wide right. The script was different, but the result was normal: the Chuck Martin team lost the close game.

With everything else on Saturday evening — this weekend saw one of the most unbalanced schedules you’ll ever see — this may have slipped your radar. But TCU scored a desperately needed win and ended a two-game skid with a good, old-fashioned last-minute field goal.

Defenses dominated, with neither team hitting 300 yards. TCU turned the ball over in ISU territory twice in the second half, and the Cyclones tied with a one-yard Darren Montgomery score with eight minutes remaining. But the Horned Frogs got a short field after a punt, converted a big third down with a 19-yard pass from Shawn Robinson to Jalen Reagor, and set Jonathan Song up for a game-winner.

You don’t have to be a good game to be remembered as a good game — you just have to finish with pizzazz.

Louisville took a 21-7 lead into halftime and a 24-14 lead into the fourth quarter. With two minutes left, however, and the Cardinals maybe one first down from icing the game, Jawon Pass was picked off by A.J. Westbrook, giving the Noles one last chance. And then Nyquan Murray provided it, catching a pass over the middle and weaving 58 yards.

Louisville had a 99 percent win probability before the pick. Oof.

A dropped, wide-open pass. A holding penalty after a nice run. A false start on fourth-and-short. It felt as if Michigan quarterback Shea Patterson’s teammates were sabotaging his efforts to generate a comeback. The Wildcats were up 17-0 after 17 minutes, and it took most of the remaining 43 for the Wolverines to get out of their own way.

But they did! With Don Brown’s defense adjusting and forcing seven consecutive punts, the Wolverines cut the lead to 17-7 at halftime, then put together three plodding, 11-play scoring drives.

With a chance to take the lead early in the fourth, Michigan saw a drive die because of maybe the worst holding call you’ll ever see.

Luckily for the Wolverines, the stagnant NU offense provided another opportunity. They took advantage, with Karan Higdon’s five-yard score with four minutes left.

Defending your conference title comes with its own set of challenges. Lane Kiffin’s second season at FAU has been more challenging than expected.

Two Devin Singletary touchdowns put the Owls up 14-0 after the first quarter. But the Blue Raiders cut the lead to 21-10 at halftime, then 24-17 heading into the fourth. FAU’s offense stalled — the Owls’ last 10 drives generated three points — and with 3:45 left, the Blue Raiders got the ball back at the FAU 43 with a chance to tie.

Tavares Thomas scored on fourth-and-goal with 38 seconds left, and with a chance to knock the champ out, MTSU went for two and the win. A scrambling Brent Stockstill and found Gatlin Casey for the conversion. What a frantic final minute.

Hawaii has bowl aspirations, and SJSU was just trying to avoid a winless campaign — there were different types of desperate motivation in the mix. SJSU exploded to a 17-3 lead but couldn’t apply the knockout punch because Hawaii had John Ursua, and the Spartans didn’t. He scored to make it 17-16 in the third quarter, then to make it 24-24 in the fourth. Then he scored again to make it 31-31 and send it to OT.

Then things got weird. The teams traded TDs in the first overtime possession exchange then played four more overtime periods without one. Eventually, Hawaii’s Ryan Meskell made a 35-yarder to start OT No. 5. Poor Bryce Crawford couldn’t match, missing a 47-yarder wide right to end the strange rock fight.

In 2016, EMU went 5-1 in one-possession games in the regular season to reach its first bowl in nearly three decades. The Eagles have been paying their close-game debt ever since — they went 3-6 in such games in 2017, and after beating Purdue in the last minute a few weeks ago, they’ve now lost three straight by a combined 13 points, two straight in overtime.

EMU jumped out to a quick 10-0 lead, but the Huskies charged back. And then the scoring stopped. EMU spent the second half chasing three points and finally got them when Chad Ryland hit a 28-yard field goal with three seconds left.

EMU’s Kevin McGill recovered a Tre Harbison fumble to give EMU a shot at the win in OT No. 2 ... and Ryland missed a 38-yard field goal wide right. Ryland atoned with a 42-yard FG in OT No. 3, but Harbison also atoned, scoring the game-winning TD from a yard out.

The Mike Leach offense is a dink-and-dunk attack. You are taught to take what you are given, even if it means a 70 percent completion rate at, like, eight yards per completion.

So despite all his career wins, let’s just say that Leach winning via long bomb is a rarity. But Easop Winston’s weaving, 89-yard catch and run with four minutes left gave the Cougars a huge boost and moved them to 4-1 for the season.

Everything was tense and perilous.

Penn State led 13-0 midway through the second quarter, and its defense was dominating, but the Nittany Lions had blown a couple of touchdown opportunities, and when Ohio State scored after a fumble to make it 13-7 at halftime, you assumed the Buckeyes might take control.

They did ... briefly. They went up 14-13 and were driving for another score but got knocked backward, then missed a field goal. PSU seized control again but turned the ball over on downs. The Nittany Lions struck with two brilliant scoring drives but missed a two-point conversion, making their lead just 26-14. Ohio State responded with two perfect drives but also missed a two-pointer, giving PSU a path to a game-winning field goal.

The Nittany Lions couldn’t get close enough. After three timeouts, an overthought, “I know you know, but you know I know, but I know you know I know, but...” play call on fourth-and-5 failed.

The last three games in this series have all featured double-digit fourth-quarter comebacks. This time, the road team took it.

One of the season’s early narratives has simply been, “Can someone take down the top teams?” Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, and Clemson (and sometimes Oklahoma) have shown by far the highest ceilings, and they have the track records.

But the Tigers barely survived Texas A&M in Week 2, and both the Buckeyes and Tigers enjoyed the narrowest of escapes on Saturday.

Syracuse checked so many boxes on the Upset Checklist that it’s easy to ache for the Orange. They went for it on a couple of key fourth downs. They went deep without fear and hit paydirt. They got a 51-yard bomb from kicker Andre Szmyt. Despite Clemson’s awesome defense, they still had a 10-point lead early in the fourth.

With Clemson starting quarterback Trevor Lawrence out of the game with a head injury and backup Kelly Bryant leaving the team, it was up to third-string freshman Chase Brice.

Luckily, he had help in Travis Etienne. The star sophomore cut Cuse’s lead to 23-20 with a 26-yard run with 11 minutes left. Syracuse tried to apply the dagger, but a beautiful fourth-and-1 pass completion was undone by an ineligible man downfield penalty. Clemson got the ball back with six minutes left and rode Etienne and Tavien Feaster. The duo combined for 71 yards on 11 carries, and Brice made a season-saving fourth-and-6 pass to Tee Higgins to set up Etienne’s two-yard game-winner.

The ACC champ survived.