Editor’s note: This article is part of the College Football Stock Watch series, breaking down which teams are rising and falling in the Playoff race.

Back in the summer, I said this could be the greatest season college football has ever produced. And after another week of top-five teams losing while the drama of bubble watching intensifies, I think this will go down as one of the sport’s most entertaining seasons with more teams rising and falling in the expanded College Football Playoff race every week.

No. 3 Georgia (at No. 16 Ole Miss) and No. 4 Miami (Georgia Tech) both lost on the road on Saturday, while No. 9 BYU narrowly escaped Utah. Iowa State has gone from a projected Playoff team to almost out of the race after two consecutive losses, creating room for Deion Sanders and No. 20 Colorado to surge into the Big 12 race unexpectedly. And No. 11 Alabama dismantled No. 15 LSU in what was a de facto elimination game.

Week 12 will be headlined by Georgia’s trip to Tennessee, with numerous other ranked teams playing on the road. Fireworks will inevitably be seen again. But until then, let’s take a look at teams that are rising and falling in the College Football Playoff race, according to my projections model — which now has Oregon, Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame and Indiana above a 90 percent chance to make the field but nobody else higher than 77 percent.

Stock up

Colorado

Expectations for Colorado got out of hand after the Buffaloes’ 3-0 start last year in Sanders’ debut as coach. This year, expectations became too low after a narrow opening win against North Dakota State and an ugly road loss at Nebraska. Since then, Colorado is 6-1 with a last-minute loss to Kansas State, playing its best ball under Sanders thus far to move to 7-2 overall and 5-1 in the Big 12, where it’s alone in second place.

No matter how you spin it, Colorado is in a prime — see what I did there? — position to make the College Football Playoff after beating Texas Tech last week. It’s a 10-point favorite this Saturday vs. Utah and will have a coin-flip game at Kansas before rounding out the season as a touchdown or more favorite at home against Oklahoma State.

My model has Colorado as a slight favorite to win the Big 12 at 37 percent, just ahead of BYU at 36 percent. Colorado still has plenty of work to do to make the Playoff, with a 36 percent chance to get a bid (remember, the top five conference champions make the Playoff, so the Big 12 isn’t guaranteed a spot if, say, its champion has three-plus losses). But it does believe that the Buffaloes are a co-favorite to win the Big 12, and they’re just on the wrong side of the bubble as the fourth team left out of the Playoff.

It’s been a big rise and comeback story, given that Colorado had less than a 1 percent chance after the loss to Nebraska and was still at just 9 percent last week. The Buffaloes are getting help from results like Iowa State losing twice in a row, and they’re taking advantage.

You can’t deny the excitement that would follow Colorado en route to a Playoff berth. Two-way star Travis Hunter continues to do unthinkable things on the football field as college football’s version of Shohei Ohtani. He’s on track to be a Heisman Trophy finalist and a top-five pick in the NFL Draft — maybe even No. 1. And the talent doesn’t stop there, as quarterback Shedeur Sanders is a potential first-round pick as well, possibly at the top of a relatively weak QB class.

Ole Miss

I wasn’t a big believer in Ole Miss heading into last Saturday’s matchup with Georgia. Lane Kiffin’s squad had lost to a lackluster Kentucky team and also to LSU, and its best wins were against South Carolina and Oklahoma. The Playoff looked like an uphill battle.

But Saturday was why Ole Miss invested so much in boosting its roster through the transfer portal in the offseason: to win games against blue bloods. Those portal acquisitions came through in a big way as the Rebels dominated Georgia 28-10, their largest win against an AP top-10 foe since 1969. Outside of an early interception that Georgia quickly turned into a touchdown, Ole Miss thoroughly outplayed Kirby Smart’s squad all over the field. That has not happened many times during Smart’s tenure at Georgia, and definitely not since 2021.

GO DEEPER

Ole Miss fans carried out the goal posts — and the Rebels could be Playoff-bound

Ole Miss now has one of the best wins in the country against Georgia, and the South Carolina win is looking better too. It isn’t a lock to make the Playoff, but it’s in a pretty good position with a well-rounded roster that ranks second in the FBS in yards per play on offense and sixth on defense. With an off week now followed by games against struggling Florida and Mississippi State, my projections give the Rebels the ninth-best odds in the country to make the field at 65 percent — a big jump up from 20 percent a week earlier. They’re projected as the 10th-seed, slated to face seventh-seed Notre Dame in South Bend during the first round.

Georgia, meanwhile, still has a 64 percent chance to make the field, but that’s down from 92 percent last week.

Stock down

Miami

It’s not exactly shocking that Miami dropped a game to an inferior opponent, as the Hurricanes had played with fire a handful of times already this season. But Georgia Tech managed to give Miami its first loss of the season and throw a wrench into its Playoff aspirations. For the most part, Miami is still in a good position, but considering the weakness of the ACC, an at-large bid coming from the conference is not something I’d be betting on at this point.

SMU leads the conference at 5-0, with its only loss coming to unbeaten BYU of the Big 12, while Clemson and Miami both have one conference loss. And while there is still plenty of football to be played, Miami’s ACC title odds have plummeted from 62 percent before last week to 36 percent entering this week. My model makes it essentially a co-favorite with Clemson to win the ACC, with SMU not far behind.

The Hurricanes’ Playoff odds fell from 97 percent to 67 percent — still a good chance, but far from the lock they appeared to be. As it stands today, Miami is projected as the No. 3 seed in the College Football Playoff bracket with a bye in the first round because of its ACC title odds. But its margin for error is almost zero now, and winning out against Wake Forest, Syracuse and SMU or Clemson in the ACC title game is the only way for Miami to feel truly comfortable.

State of the Group of 5 race

Another week, another mention of Boise State as the favorite to make the College Football Playoff (61 percent) as the highest-ranked Group of 5 conference champion. After being ranked No. 12 in the initial CFP rankings, last Saturday didn’t come without drama, as the Broncos beat Nevada (which is 3-8) by only seven points. Just about anything can happen on a college football Saturday, so Boise State clearly cannot be placed in the bracket in permanent ink yet. It has remaining games against San Jose State, Wyoming and Oregon State before the Mountain West title game.

As for its top challenger, undefeated Army won again and now has an idle week before a huge game with Notre Dame. It’s not likely, but considering where Army was ranked in last week’s CFP rankings (No. 25), a win against Notre Dame or a Boise State loss has to happen for the Black Knights to earn a Playoff bid.

College Football Stock Watch is part of a partnership with Invesco QQQ. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.

(Photo of Travis Hunter: John E. Moore III / Getty Images)