The College Football Playoff championship game is set for 8 p.m. ET Monday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. No. 1 Alabama meets No. 3 Georgia in a rematch of the SEC championship game, which the Crimson Tide won 41-24. The Bulldogs are 2.5-points favorites, however, and it’s a chance for Kirby Smart to lead Georgia to its first national championship since 1980. Alabama is looking for its seventh national championship under Nick Saban....

It’s October, and strange things happen in October. Here are the top playoff contenders from each conference and the matchups to watch as we head into Week 6. MORE: Best images from Week 5 ACC Top Contenders: No. 3 Clemson, No. 7 Louisville, No. 10 Miami, No. 17 North Carolina What We Learned: Clemson is still the king. A game effort by Louisville came up just short in Death Valley....

And it pretty much always ended the same: with UCLA as champion, 10 times in the 12 tournaments contested between 1964 and 1975. Only 32 teams qualified that last year: conference champions made it automatically, a few assorted independents were brought along and, for the first time, some accomplished league contenders were invited to compete. When UCLA won its first nine titles, the field was 25 teams or fewer. Imagine if the people in charge had left it at that, under the assumption the Bruins would keep winning on an annual basis no matter what changes were transacted to make the tournament more just and more compelling....

The first set will be released Tuesday to kick off November, and there are just five weeks remaining in the playoff chase. The latest shakeups saw two top-four teams lose in No. 2 Penn State and No. 4 TCU, and that means the arguments are about to begin. Consider that we left two unbeaten Power 5 teams out of the top four, and we think the committee is going to back that up....

The Bulldogs look like the best bet to make the College Football Playoff. Cincinnati, one of two unbeatens in the Group of 5, still is in the mix. The rest of the top-10 contenders have one loss. The third set of CFP rankings will be Tuesday. How will they sort out that one-loss mess? The Big 12 took the latest hit when Oklahoma suffered a 27-14 loss to Baylor in Week 11....

Ohio State took the No. 1 spot from LSU, which fell to No. 2. No. 3 Clemson and No. 4 Georgia stayed in the same spots. Alabama remains at No. 5, and Utah bumped up to No. 6. The Big 12 now has two teams in the top 10 in No. 7 Oklahoma and No. 9 Baylor. Big Ten has teams in No. 8 Minnesota and No. 10 Penn State to round out the top 10....

That is where this is headed after their Week 10 losses. Alabama slipped to No. 10 in the AP Poll after a 32-31 loss at LSU, which bumped up to No. 7 in a stunning role reversal for Nick Saban and Brian Kelly. Now, the Crimson Tide need help just to get to the SEC championship game. Remember, no two-loss team has made the CFP, and there will not be exceptions made for the Crimson Tide if they can’t back-door into that conference championship opportunity....

Clemson narrowly avoided an upset at home against Syracuse and dropped down two spots to No. 4. Mississippi State and Duke were the only dropouts on Saturday after losses to conference foes Florida and Virginia Tech, respectively. Colorado and N.C. State were the biggest movers, as each entered the rankings for the first time this season after victories over UCLA and Virginia, respectively. MORE: SN’s Week 5 Power Rankings...

That’s a loaded question: Some stadiums thrive on sheer size. Others have intimidating atmospheres and others simply defy logic. At the end of all that, it’s more than just numbers. MORE: College football 2018 lookahead Knowing that everyone might have different ways of thinking what defines “tough,” we looked at several categories to select the toughest places to play in all of college football: Last year: Jordan-Hare Stadium (Auburn) Seventeen FBS schools finished unbeaten at home last season, but it’s fair to say Auburn was the best at home last year....

That said, there will be great football to watch from all across the nation, and Sporting News is on hand to make sure you get the most of it. MORE: Sporting News’ Week 3 Power Rankings SN has all the highlights and big plays from Saturday, including from big games like Ohio State-TCU, Auburn-LSU, Boise State-Oklahoma State and more. Here are all the biggest scores and highlights from Week 3:...

No. 17 Miami and No. 18 Louisville meet in the ABC prime-time game of the week in a showdown between two teams trying to move up the ladder in the ACC. There are nine games involving teams ranked in the AP Top 25 after No. 12 North Carolina and Charlotte canceled their matchup. MORE: College football updated polls after Week 2 We are still finding our bearings with picks against the spread, especially on the big lines....

The SEC matchups will separate the contenders from the pretenders, while several Big Ten and Pac-12 teams hope to avoid upsets and maintain perfect records. MORE: Bold predictions for college football Week 4 Here are five storylines to watch in Week 4: 1. Battle in the SEC East — No. 14 Tennessee will host No. 19 Florida in an extremely important SEC East showdown. If Georgia loses this weekend, the winner of this game will have control over the East division....

The hunger strike is being rebooted in an effort to get Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act by Jan. 17, Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The act would work to roll back a slate of restrictive voter laws passed in a number of states by thwarting voter suppression and ending partisan gerrymandering, While President Joe Biden has urged Congress to pass the Freedom to Vote Act as soon as possible, the GOP’s use of the filibuster, a longstanding debate aimed at delaying a vote on legislation, will likely make that prospect an uphill battle....

Booker scored a career-high 27 points, 11 in the last 4:40, and Dinwiddie scored 16 of his 23 in the second half as No. 20 Colorado rallied from a 10-point deficit to hand No. 10 Oregon its first loss of the season, 100-91 on Sunday. MORE: Box score/stats | Full scoreboard | Video "You've got to fight fire with fire," Colorado coach Tad Boyle said. "When they're trapping you and they're attacking you defensively, you've got to attack them....

Dayna Jennings, 45, was convicted of the first-degree murder of her father William Mussack, 69, as well as tampering with a human body, after his decomposing corpse was discovered by police at the house in Federal Heights on January 10, 2018. Police said they had made several attempts to conduct a welfare check on Mussack after relatives became concerned that they could not get in contact with him in December 2017....

Indianapolis will turn to Nick Foles to start at quarterback for Matt Ryan and with Jonathan Taylor (ankle) lost for the season at running back, Deon Jackson and Zack Moss will split the main duties there. Los Angeles will keep rolling with the electric offensive combination of Justin Herbert and Austin Ekeler. Its injury-riddled defense is starting to improve at the right time, too. Here’s everything to know about betting on Colts vs....

Leading the way for Indianapolis was birthday boy Nyheim Hines, who had a career-best 115 yards of total offense; 70 yards and a rushing touchdown on 12 carrries, and 45 yards and a receiving touchdown on five catches. Philip Rivers quietly played a crucial role, too, completing 29 of 39 passes (74.4 percent) for 308 yards. Rivers did a great job of taking care of the football while also managing to take a few deep shots, most of them going to rookie wideout Michael Pittman Jr....

Bruno Cannetti checked Andres Quintana with two leg kicks before dropping him onto the canvas with a big right hook. Cannetti smothered him with a barrage of punches, trying to end the fight, but Quintana willed himself up onto his feet. Join DAZN and watch Combate 42 on Aug. 23 There, moments later, “The Bullet” exploded out of a clinch against the cage with a right-left combination that cracked Cannetti across the jaw and dropped him with a thud....