Another weekend of college football is in full swing. Here are some of the more notable winners and losers so far:

 

Alabama (winner)

Is there a grand, overarching theme of the No. 8 Crimson Tide’s 27-24 victory Saturday at No. 14 Missouri? Probably not. It was a pairing of well-regarded teams, neither led by more than 10, and both defenses performed ably.

Frankly, it didn’t stray too far from what anyone imagines as a standard-issue game between teams in the top half of the SEC.

Yet it was another significant step for Alabama (5-1, 3-0) – toward a league title, sure, but also toward preserving some flexibility for playoff positioning.

The Crimson Tide has spent the past three weeks dealing Georgia, Vanderbilt and Missouri (5-1, 1-1) their first losses of the season. Maybe all of those triumphs don’t hold up come early December, but one or two of them probably will.

The schedule also turns in Alabama’s favor, at least a little. It has just one trip outside the state (Oct. 25 at South Carolina) in the regular season. Four of its final six are at home. And the three credible playoff contenders left – Tennessee, LSU and Oklahoma – all have to visit Tuscaloosa.

Hefty though that may seem, just remember those are the games the Crimson Tide has largely aced in the past two seasons. Alabama is 6-1 against ranked teams under Coach Kalen DeBoer, with Saturday’s effort just the latest example of the Crimson Tide thriving in big games.

UCLA (winner)

At the professional level, an early-season firing in many sports can be spun not merely as ditching a losing coach but also an attempt to salvage a season. That’s a harder sell at the college level, especially in football. The season is too short, and there usually isn’t a realistic chance to hire someone from the outside until November or December.

So when a college football program pulls the plug on a coach’s tenure, the best thing that is likely to come from it is a head start in the search for a new sideline boss.

UCLA might be an exception. After firing DeShaun Foster after an ugly 0-3 start, the Bruins have progressed rapidly under interim coach Tim Skipper. They lost by a field goal at Northwestern, then stunned Penn State last week in the season’s most startling result to date.

But was it a fluke? Saturday’s 38-13 clobbering of Michigan State would suggest otherwise. UCLA (2-4, 2-1 Big Ten) dominated the middle of the game against the Spartans (3-3, 0-3), who gave up 38 straight points.

The Bruins still have trips to Indiana, Ohio State and Southern California to come, as well as a visit from Washington, so the path to even a .500 season remains challenging. But it was almost unthinkable to even dream of that possibility a few weeks ago. UCLA’s rapid progression to competency has secured much more of a short-term payoff than anyone could have anticipated from an early coaching change.

Florida State (loser)

So the Seminoles are not back, huh?

One of the belles of the ball on the opening weekend of the season, Florida State has backed up its upset of Alabama (and routs of East Texas A&M and Kent State) with … a double-overtime loss at Virginia, a one-possession loss to Miami and now Saturday’s 34-31 setback against Pittsburgh.

It isn’t to suggest the No. 25 Seminoles (3-3, 0-3 ACC) are a disaster like a year ago, when they went 2-10. That team would have loved to have had enough answers to score 30-plus points in a conference loss, as this one has twice in the past three weeks. Florida State cracked 17 points just once against a Football Bowl Subdivision team last season.

But between some recent injury issues and benefiting from an oddly feeble performance from Alabama back on Aug. 30, the Seminoles find themselves teetering into the territory of being a mild disappointment. An ACC title is basically out at this point, but this is clearly a better bunch than a year ago. There’s an urgent need to show it, and next week’s trip to Stanford provides an opportunity to do exactly that.

South Florida (winner)

When the Bulls were last getting national attention, they followed up opening victories over then-ranked Boise State and Florida teams with a 37-point thumping at Miami. Hey, it happens.

Since then, Coach Alex Golesh’s team has pounded a Football Championship Subdivision team (63-14 over South Carolina State) and worn out the scoreboard on back-to-back Friday nights against a pair of conference foes (54-26 at home against Charlotte and 63-36 at North Texas).

The latter game came this Friday night against the previously unbeaten Mean Green, which was on the cusp of taking a 21-14 lead into the break before muffing a punt in the final minute of the first half. The No. 24 Bulls (5-1, 2-0 American) scored a touchdown with two seconds to go, setting off a surge that continued well into the third quarter.

South Florida opened the second half with a four-play touchdown drive. Two plays after North Texas (5-1, 1-1) threw an interception, the Bulls reached the end zone again. And four snaps into the next drive, Jhalyn Shuler returned a fumble 34 yards for a touchdown to make it 42-21.

The final tally was four touchdowns (and three North Texas turnovers) in a little more than four minutes. When coaches preach about the value of the “middle eight” – the last four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the second – they could do a lot worse than point to how South Florida flipped this game and remained part of a scrum of unbeatens in American play that also includes Memphis, Tulane and Saturday’s Navy/Temple winner.

Kennesaw State (winner)

The Owls endured a less-than-stellar FBS debut last season – a midweek upset of Liberty notwithstanding – and the firing of coach Brian Bohannon with three games to go was bungled in absurd fashion. They finished 2-10, and there was little optimism outside the Atlanta suburbs that Kennesaw State would venture too far from the Conference USA cellar this season.

All of which makes the Owls’ 35-7 rout of Louisiana Tech on Thursday more than mention-worthy a couple of days later. After a one-point defeat at Wake Forest in Coach Jerry Mack’s debut and a blowout loss at Indiana, Kennesaw State has rattled off four consecutive victories (all at home) and might be one of the sport’s most improved teams.

Georgia Southern transfer Dexter Williams II threw for 290 yards and four touchdowns Thursday as the Owls remained one of three undefeated teams in CUSA. The back half of the schedule includes four road games out of six (including a trip to Jacksonville State), but things are clearly on the right track at Kennesaw State.

Demond Williams Jr. (winner)

The Washington sophomore, fresh off helping the Huskies erase a 20-point deficit in a victory last week at Maryland, authored a career night Friday in a 38-19 defeat of Rutgers.

Williams threw for a career-high 402 yards and rushed for 136 yards while totaling four touchdowns as Washington (5-1, 2-1 Big Ten) beat a team coming off an open date for the second consecutive week.

The Huskies went 6-7 last season, a transition year after the bulk of their national runner-up team (including DeBoer) departed and Jedd Fisch arrived from Arizona. But Williams played in every game, gradually getting some experience before starting against Oregon in the regular season finale and against Louisville in the Sun Bowl.

He has settled in quite well, throwing for 1,628 yards, 10 touchdowns and one interception while adding 382 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. Those are solid half-season stats, and if the Huskies and Williams can both thrive the next two weeks at Michigan and at home against Illinois, the quarterback could well start drawing more national attention.