College football Week 9 recap - What's ahead as season heats up - ESPN

A crowd of 42,228 showed up for the huge Boise State-UNLV game Friday night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas. In 22 previous home games there, UNLV had topped 30,000 just three times, peaking at 35,193. The Rebels surpassed that previous high by 20% this week.

A crowd of 53,082 showed up for Indiana's big win over Washington. It was the second straight sellout, and the rest of the Hoosiers' home games are sellouts as well. They appear all but guaranteed to set a full-season home attendance record.

A crowd of 108,852 showed up for Texas A&M's 38-23 comeback win over LSU. It was the third-largest crowd ever at Kyle Field and the largest in three years. The Aggies moved to 5-0 in SEC play, and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that their home finale against Texas in a few weeks will draw reasonably well, too.

As a college football public, we head into November completely engaged. According to the Allstate Playoff Predictor, 26 teams still have at least a 5% chance of reaching the first 12-team College Football Playoff, a list that includes Indiana (68.6%), Texas A&M (46.6%) and UNLV (8.7%), not to mention the likes of Boise State (60.5%), BYU (57.2%), Iowa State (45.6%), Army (21.5%) and Pitt (20.4%).

Yes, the national title favorites remain awfully familiar — the Predictor gives the best title odds to Texas, Ohio State, Georgia and Alabama — and Week 9 didn't deliver too many surprises: While Ohio State flirted with disaster against Nebraska and Texas needed a great defensive effort to survive a trip to Vanderbilt, the only ranked teams that lost fell to higher-ranked teams.

But even if we have fallen off the chaos pace set by seasons such as 2007 and 1984, the playoff itself has given this season a delightfully