In recent years, Week 9 of the college football season has been good at shutting down fun upstart stories -- or at least severely wounding them.

Think of unranked Wisconsin pummeling No. 9 Iowa, Mississippi State upsetting No. 12 Kentucky and Michigan State upending No. 6 Michigan in 2021. Or unranked Louisville upsetting No. 10 Wake Forest in 2022. Or Oregon blowing out No. 13 Utah in 2023 and No. 20 Illinois in 2024. Or Texas finishing off last season's Diego Pavia-and-Vanderbilt episode. Before we get to November, where nearly everything we remember from a given season happens, we evidently have to declutter a bit.

Maybe that says foreboding things this week about Texas A &M, with its highest poll ranking in 30 years, playing a desperate LSU in Baton Rouge. Or an unbeaten BYU team pl

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