Just as the frustrations with the first College Football Playoff rankings were settling in, the sport went on its usual path of chaos — completely changing the landscape of the projected playoff field.

The rankings got flipped upside down when Georgia fell flat against Mississippi and Miami couldn’t stay perfect when it faced Georgia Tech. Consequently, some teams saw their playoff chances boosted while others are feeling uncertainty in qualifying for the 12-team field.

There’s three weeks left in the regular season − and conference championship week − thus there’s still plenty of chances for the rankings to drastically change. The moves in the second rankings were mostly justified, but still, some teams got the short end of the stick.

Here’s who was slighted this week:

Indiana

The Hoosiers moved up three spots to No. 5, but they still aren’t being completely appreciated by the committee.

Indiana is still one spot behind Penn State, which doesn’t make all that much sense. Yes, Penn State’s only loss was to Ohio State, but Indiana is still undefeated and should be rewarded for being one of four remaining unbeaten teams. Just based off the eye test, Indiana has also been more dominant than the Nittany Lions.

The narrow victory against Michigan − the closest any team has gotten to the Hoosiers − mixed with Penn State dismantling Washington is likely the reason why the Nittany Lions still hold the edge … but Indiana has outperformed Penn State this season. Now, pressure will be put on Indiana against Ohio State, and it will likely be penalized more severely than the Nittany Lions should it also fall to the Buckeyes.

Georgia

There’s nothing wrong with Georgia’s spot. It deserves it. But, it does show how a pretty good football team can become a casualty of the new playoff format.

Thanks to the top five conference champions being guaranteed a spot, the Bulldogs are currently out of the field even at the No. 12 spot thanks to Boise State. Now, the Bulldogs need to hope for plenty of other dominoes to fall to jump back into the field. Georgia is behind the two teams it lost to − Alabama and Mississippi − showing the committee values the head-to-head record. So, the Bulldogs need the Crimson Tide, Rebels or another at-large team to drop another game — one worthy of them falling — just to get in the bracket.

At the moment, Boise State and Army are looking like the top contenders in the Group of Five to qualify, and it won’t matter where they are ranked behind the Bulldogs if they win conference titles. Lots of help is needed in Athens.

Southern Methodist

Only one team is still undefeated in ACC play, yet it doesn’t mean anything when it comes to qualifying for a playoff spot. Southern Methodist should have gotten a big boost with Miami falling from the ranks of the unbeatens, but instead the Mustangs are at No. 14 in the rankings while Miami is still projected to earn the ACC’s automatic bid.

The Hurricanes’ loss to Georgia Tech isn’t necessarily a bad one since the Yellow Jackets are a solid team, but the loss is worse than SMU’s lone loss that came in a close defeat against Brigham Young. Miami and SMU do share common wins against Louisville and Duke, but the Mustangs also have another quality win against Pittsburgh while the Hurricanes don’t boast anything else.

Currently, the only path it looks like SMU has toward making the playoff is winning the conference title, which is a much tougher road than Miami currently has.

Army

Being an undefeated Group of Five team clearly doesn’t mean as much as being a three-loss SEC team.

The Black Knights moved up just one spot but are still behind Missouri and LSU while they also got jumped by South Carolina. It comes after a game in which Army didn’t blow out North Texas, but clearly showed it was the better team in a 14-3 victory. Meanwhile, LSU got wrecked by Alabama, Missouri beat a bad Oklahoma team and South Carolina got a boost from beating a team that wasn’t even ranked by the committee (Vanderbilt).

Barring some miracle, Army doesn’t look like it has much of a chance to make the playoff, which is an unfortunate circumstance for a team having a dream season.

ARLINGTON, Texas – Mark Calo-oy, a veteran referee from Texas, has been picked to handle the fight between Mike Tyson and Jake Paul, according to a copy of the official’s assignments obtained by USA TODAY Sports.

He and Paul won’t need to be introduced. Calo-oy, 64, refereed Paul’s bout against Nate Diaz, a mixed martial arts fan favorite, Aug. 5, 2023 in Dallas.

Paul, the YouTuber-turned boxer, won the highly anticipated, 10-round fight by unanimous decision.

The heavyweight fight between Tyson, 58, and Paul, 27, is set to be held Friday at AT&T Stadium and televised by Netflix. And Calo-oy is familiar with big fights in front of large crowds in Texas.

He refereed the world title bout between Canelo Alvarez and Billy Joe Saunders in 2021 at AT&T Stadium in front of a crowd of 73,126. Alvarez won when Saunders failed to come out for the ninth round in front of the largest crowd for an indoor boxing event in the United States.

Damon Zavala, Vice President of the Association of Ringside Physicians, said a referee would play an important role because of Tyson’s age. He made the remarks before USA TODAY learned the referee would be Calo-oy.

‘There are differences in ref style and how they take command of a situation in the ring and who’s in charge,’ Zavala, who is trained in internal medicine, told USA TODAY Sports in late October. ‘Some guys that might get caught up in the moment and just be a step too late in stopping the action.’

Calo-oy’s history suggests he is not afraid to stop a fight. Of the 48 bouts he has refereed this year, he has stopped 11 of them, according to BoxRec, the official registry for boxing.

During a career that started in 2003, Calo-oy refereed 445 bouts, according to BoxRec. More than 20 of them were world title fights.

Tyson, the former world heavyweight champion, has not fought in a sanctioned pro bout since 2005. In 2020, Tyson fought Roy Jones Jr. in an eight-round exhibition, and they fought to a split draw as scored by celebrity judges.

The judges for the Tyson-Paul fight are David Iacobucci of Dallas, Laurence Cole of Dallas and Jesse Reyes of Plano.

He may not have a Most Valuable Player award like teammate Jose Altuve, but Alex Bregman has been one of the faces of the Houston Astros franchise since its historic stretch of AL West dominance began in 2017.

A free agent for the first time in his career at the age of 30, Bregman is one of the biggest names on the market this winter and is expected to fetch a nine-figure contract.

Bregman made his major league debut in 2016 and was a World Series champion in 2017, the first of Houston’s seven consecutive trips to the AL Championship Series. He finished runner-up in AL MVP voting in 2019 with the best season of his career to date, slugging 41 home runs with a 1.015 OPS and 8.9 WAR. His power output has declined in the years since, but Bregman won his first career Gold Glove in 2024.

Here’s a look at some of the top potential landing spots for Bregman:

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Houston Astros

Can they really let him walk? Houston has won the AL West seven times in Bregman’s nine seasons and it’s the only club he’s known since since going No. 2 overall in the 2015 draft. A return makes sense, but the Astros may not be willing to give Bregman the kind of contract he desires – reported to be in the $160-180 million range. That said, they signed Jose Altuve to a five-year extension last spring and it’s hard to imagine the second baseman being too happy if his infield mate departs.

New York Yankees

Bregman would immediately solve the Yankees’ third base problem and allow Jazz Chisholm Jr. to move to second base. Maybe it won’t be a factor, but it’s worth remembering that Bregman is persona non grata in the Bronx for his role in Astros’ cheating scandal, purportedly depriving the Yankees of AL pennant back in 2017. Are Yankees fans (and captain Aaron Judge) willing to put all that aside for a guy with a sub-.800 OPS?

New York Mets

There’s a couple of different avenues that the Mets and Bregman could take here. He’s open to playing second base, a position the Mets desperately need to upgrade this winter. But if the team doesn’t bring back Pete Alonso or replace him directly at first, they could consider moving Mark Vientos across the diamond (or to DH?) and put the Gold Glove winning Bregman at the hot corner.

Washington Nationals

The future may be now in Washington. With a pretty decent rotation, an All-Star shortstop in CJ Abrams and young sluggers James Wood and Dylan Crews making waves the majors, a wild-card run wouldn’t be a shocker in 2025. Bregman may be costly, but splashing the cash would give the Nationals a proven winner and perhaps more importantly, reestablish Washington as a team to be taken seriously.

Toronto Blue Jays

The Blue Jays really just want some somebody to take their money. Bregman would surely love to play with Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the Toronto infield, but the two Blue Jays stars are both free agents after the 2025 season. Would Bregman commit his long-term future with that much uncertainty?

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The homes of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce were burglarized within 48 hours of each other in early October, according to multiple reports.

First reported by TMZ, the events took place as the Chiefs’ stars were set to play the New Orleans Saints on ‘Monday Night Football’ on Oct. 7, when Kansas City would improve its record to 5-0.

However, on the night before, Belton, Missouri, police reportedly were called to Mahomes’ residence around midnight on Oct. 6 after a member of the quarterback’s security team called it in.

According to police documents obtained by The Kansas City Star, the Cass County Sheriff’s Office report characterized the incident as “Burglary/Breaking & Entering,’ while calling it an ongoing investigation.

Officials reportedly said there were no signs of forced entry at the Belton estate.

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The same can’t be said for Kelce’s Leawood, Kansas, home, which reportedly was broken into at around 7:33 p.m. local time on Oct. 7, a short time after ‘Monday Night Football’ kicked off. TMZ reported that documents showed that $20,000 was taken from Kelce’s home and the back door was damaged. They added that Kelce and Taylor Swift, who attended the game, elected to stay at a Kansas City hotel afterward in the interest of safety.

The Kansas City Star reported that Leawood Police Department records show a burglary was reported around 1:36 a.m. on Oct. 8 on Kelce’s street in Leawood.

Kelce and Swift were seen in New York City in the days that followed as the Chiefs entered their bye week.

Kelce purchased his home in 2023 and has received plenty of public attention since he began dating Swift.

Mahomes and his family moved into the mansion in 2023. The home was featured on the Netflix documentary, ‘Quarterback,’ when it was still being built.

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ATLANTA — We’re going to have plenty of time, like maybe a decade or two, to talk about Cooper Flagg. And in the aftermath of Tuesday’s Champions Classic, the presumptive No. 1 pick is going to get his first real taste of what the world of sports takes is all about. 

That’s how it works when you live up to the hype for 39 minutes but mishandle a ball in a crowd and then dribble it off your foot with the game on the line. Better get used to it. 

But Flagg is 17 years old and Duke is still Final Four caliber team. It’s way too soon to start nitpicking. 

It is not, however, too early to render a judgment on the other big storyline from a remarkable night of college basketball.

Mark Pope? Yeah, he’s the real deal, too. Just a couple weeks into the college basketball season, he’s already made Kentucky basketball fun again. 

It’s been awhile. 

“This group is special,” Pope said after Kentucky’s 77-72 victory, giving him a signature win right out of the gates and at a time when there was — and probably still is — some uncertainty about whether he’s up to this mammoth job. 

Time will tell. But one thing you can already see: There’s a major vibe shift around Kentucky basketball.  

Freed from the tension of John Calipari’s stubbornness, his deteriorating relationship with Kentucky’s administration and his antagonistic posture toward a fan base that cares like no other in sports, Big Blue Nation will not find this kind of basketball difficult to embrace. 

It’s beautiful, it’s energetic, and most of all its drama-free. 

Yeah, Kentucky needed a change. They got it. And it looks as if they’re really, really going to like it. 

Nothing against Calipari, a Hall of Fame coach whose first 10 years there were phenomenal. But the whole operation got stale, it got contentious, and his last four seasons were a slow-motion train wreck that ended with some embarrassing NCAA tournament defeats. 

Still, when Calipari left for Arkansas, there were no guarantees about how it would go for Big Blue Nation. After all the big names said no, the initial reaction to Pope was strongly negative. 

Despite being part of Kentucky’s 1996 national title team, he was still a coach with no NCAA tournament victories in nine years at Utah Valley and BYU. 

Kentucky fans, of course, quickly embraced Pope because there was really no other choice. He wasn’t just one of theirs, he reminded them what that actually meant. For 15 years, the program was about the Calipari brand. From the first moment he got the job, Pope was determined to flip that back around and make Kentucky the star of the show. 

That’s a great way to start a honeymoon, but you also have to show it on the floor. And with a roster that Pope pulled together largely from the transfer portal, there was a scenario where Year 1 was basically a write-off.

“Nobody knew each other,” Pope said. 

But you can already see that Pope is really good at three things that will serve him well as Kentucky’s coach. 

The first is that he is incredibly dialed in to how players interact with each other and feed off each other. He talked, for instance, about the human nature for people to pull away from problems and the intentionality it takes to do the opposite. You saw that Tuesday when Kentucky got down 10 points in the first half and just kept hanging in the game until the experience and physicality of its older players took over in the final minutes 

“I felt like it was really special for us,” said senior Andrew Carr, a forward who transferred from Wake Forest and scored 17 points with two huge and-1 finishes in the final minutes. “Not everything was going our way, and coach talks about turning into each other, the people that matter, and the closer we get it’s harder to beat us.”

The second big trait of a Pope team is the offense. It just flows. For years, one of the big frustrations fans had with Calipari is that the ball didn’t move enough, there wasn’t enough spacing and he didn’t emphasize 3-point shooting until his final season. With Pope, that’s not an issue. The ball zips around, guys move off the ball and everyone has the green light to shoot when open. This was the ballgame: Kentucky made 10-of-25 threes to Duke’s 4-of-23.

And the third thing is that Kentucky just plays really, really hard, which it will need to do against most teams. The Wildcats have some good pieces, but they won’t have a huge talent advantage in most of their big games — and they certainly didn’t against a Duke team with multiple future NBA draft picks. That’s arguably the biggest reason why Kentucky’s effort just wore down Duke to the point where Flagg was too exhausted to execute down the stretch after scoring 26 points and grabbing 12 rebounds in 32 minutes. 

“Guys went and sat in the locker room (at halftime) and it was constructive,” Pope said. ‘Guys do most of the fixing before I get in the locker room. It was just sheer resolve and determination. There was a lot of ebb and flow, and the game almost swung away from us, and the guys reeled it in.”

It’s still too early in the college basketball season to draw a whole lot of conclusions about where either Kentucky or Duke is going to end up. But for Pope, a man who arguably has the best but toughest job in college basketball, it was a validating night. 

He said after the game that he’d have felt the same way about his team whether they won or lost, and that’s probably true. But beating Duke is no small thing, and the amount of belief and credibility Kentucky will get from this win will have a cascading effect on the fan base, on recruiting and on the confidence of a team that believes it might have something special. 

All in all, Big Blue Nation couldn’t have asked for anything more.

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ATLANTA — With each missed layup, clanked three and clumsy pass out of bounds, you could imagine Danny Hurley somewhere in Connecticut with steam coming out of his nostrils watching Tuesday’s game here between No. 1 Kansas and Michigan State while doing a full Seinfeld-meets-George-Carlin routine. 

“Champions Classic? How the (expletive) do you call that a Classic? And last I checked, aren’t we the (expletive expletive) champions?‘

To be perfectly clear, Hurley did not say this. For all we know he wasn’t even watching. But if Hurley was looking for a little early-season motivation, he could have plausibly found it here, where the supposed No. 1 team in the country slogged through a 77-69 victory over a Michigan State team that isn’t going to be the champion of anything anytime soon.

In fact, given that Tom Izzo’s one and only national title will be a quarter-century old when the Final Four comes around again this year, maybe it’s time to find a new team for this annual event that — if we take words literally — should feature teams that actually win championships. 

Maybe, you know, like the team that has won five NCAA titles since Izzo’s crowning achievement 25 years ago. 

Seriously, why is Michigan State still invited to take part in this? If the theory behind the Champions Classic is to juice interest in college basketball by getting four bluebloods in the same building for an early-season ESPN showcase, you should put the best programs in it. 

Sorry, but Michigan State no longer qualifies.  

For Izzo, who turns 70 in January, this has been a decade of decline. Oh, he’s as good as ever when he gets cranky about the culture around college athletics these days and can tee off to reporters about how things aren’t as good (for him, anyway) as they used to be.

But on the court? Well, the Spartans don’t breathe that air anymore. They’re still the hard-nosed, lunchbucket team that guards and plays physical and mucks things up a bit for more talented opponents. 

They’re just a lesser version of that now, being led by Frankie Fidler, a transfer from Omaha, and Jaxon Kohler, a junior who averaged 2.0 points per game last season.

And when you put that up against Kansas? Well, it wasn’t much to look at if we’re being honest. 

“Offensively, we both sucked,” Izzo said.

Give Izzo some credit for keeping the game competitive deep into the second half despite his team making 3-of-24 from the three-point line and shooting 35 percent overall. 

But this isn’t the ‘Lose Close and Make It Ugly Classic.’ This is supposed to be for the elite of the elite. The only thing Michigan State was elite at on Tuesday was making 18,000 pairs of eyes bleed.  

“You’ve got to grind games out like this, especially against teams like Michigan State,’ Kansas guard Dajuan Harris Jr. said.

Talk about damning with faint praise. And it was entirely predictable. This is who Michigan State is now in the current decade: Under-skilled, uninspiring and more likely to be sweating the NCAA Tournament bubble than cutting down nets. There’s nothing wrong with that. There are dozens of college basketball teams who play like Michigan State, look like Michigan State, and some will advance deep in the NCAA Tournament next March. For all we know, these Spartans may be one of them.

But that’s not the point. 

Back in 2011 when then-Michigan State athletics director Mark Hollis helped pitch this event to ESPN, it made sense to share this stage with Kentucky, Duke and Kansas. Izzo was sending teams to the Final Four every few years, and at minimum the Spartans were coming into every season somewhere around the top-10.

But Tuesday was the third time in the last four years that Michigan State came to the Champions Classic unranked, and last season they were No. 18. When you compare that to the star quality that the other programs bring to this event – and that a team like UConn could provide – how does it make any sense for the Spartans to still be here? 

For most of this event’s history, Michigan State earned its keep with consistency, if not championships. But now, it’s indisputable that the Spartans are a cut below, grandfathered in through reputation rather than results. 

Is this the Champions Classic or the ‘Three Champions and Middle of the Big Ten Classic’? 

Izzo is the kind of coach who believes you earn what you get. If Michigan State can’t live up to that standard, we don’t need to continue letting them turn this event into a misnomer.