Things to watch this weekend in the Big Ten:
No. 15 Southern California (7-2, 4-2, No. 18 CFP) at No. 6 Indiana (8-1, 5-1, No. 9 CFP ), Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET (CBS)
Indiana fell five spots in the CFP rankings after having last weekend off. That drop should let the defending national champions realize they can’t take anything for granted.
Southern California also had last weekend off after boosting its playoff hopes with a 30-18 home win over Ohio State on Oct. 31. The Trojans still must prove they can win big games on the road. The last time they played away from home, they lost 24-7 at Wisconsin.
Illinois (6-3, 4-2) at No. 4 UCLA (9-0, 6-0, No. 4 CFP), Friday, 9 p.m. ET (Fox)
UCLA can tie a school single-season record for wins by beating Illinois and remaining unbeaten. UCLA’s had nine 10-win seasons, with the most recent one coming in 2014.
Michigan (5-4, 2-4) at No. 18 Oregon (6-3, 4-2, No. 16 CFP), Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET (FS1)
Oregon chases its third straight victory while Michigan attempts to bounce back from a 15-6 home loss to Michigan State that resulted in the firing of offensive coordinator Jason Beck.
— Michigan State CB NiJhay Burt picked off a pass and forced a fumble in the Spartans’ victory over Michigan.
— UCLA QB Ty Dieffenbach threw for 303 yards and three touchdowns off only eight completions in the Bruins’ 34-20 victory at Minnesota. He threw 75-yard touchdown passes on consecutive offensive plays. Dieffenbach is the only Bowl Subdivision player since at least 1995 to throw for at least 300 yards on eight completions.
— Illinois WR Collin Dixon had eight catches for 129 yards and two touchdowns in a 24-13 win over Nebraska. Dixon has 12 touchdown catches this season, putting him in a tie for fourth place among all Bowl Subdivision players.
— Oregon OLB Matayo Uiagalelei recorded 1 ½ sacks and caught a 30-yard pass on a fake punt during Oregon’s 41-28 victory at Ohio State.
Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith has 3,758 yards receiving and should set the Big Ten career record this week. The Big Ten record is owned by John Standeford, who had 3,788 for Purdue from 2000-03. Smith also has 16 career 100-yard receiving games, one away from the Big Ten career record that is shared by Purdue’s David Bell (2019-21) and Michigan’s Braylon Edwards (2001-04). … One more victory would give UCLA its biggest year-to-year turnaround in school history. The Bruins already have won six more games than they did last season, when they finished 3-9. They went from 2-7-1 in 1971 to 8-3 in 1972. … L.J. Phillips Jr. became the fifth different Iowa running back to rush for at least 100 yards in a game this season when he gained 128 yards on 21 carries in a 24-10 victory at Northwestern. … Wisconsin is the only Power Four team that hasn’t allowed a single play from scrimmage of 50-plus yards this season. The only other FBS teams not to allow a gain of 50-plus yards are Central Michigan, Louisiana-Lafayette and Nevada.
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Indiana wide receiver Charlie Becker (80) catches a touchdown pass in the end zone during overtime of an NCAA college football game against Minnesota, Saturday, Oct. 31, 2026, in Bloomington, Ind. (AP Photo/Doug McSchooler)
Democratic nominee Scott Colom has defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi’s closely contested U.S. Senate race after a prolonged ballot-counting process, giving the state its first Black U.S. senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration wants to sell public lands to states, tribes and local governments as part of an effort to “decrease the size of the federal estate,” according to a new plan presented by the Interior Department. Agency officials said the sale of federal property would allow the government to focus resources on “nationally significant” lands, which were not defined.
Here's the latest:
Party leaders hailed the senator-elect’s triumph, with nods to the South’s emerging status as a political battleground after other victories from North Carolina and South Carolina to Georgia and Texas.
“Scott ran the campaign of a lifetime and re-imagined what’s possible for Democrats in the South,” Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer of New York posted online.
Former President Bill Clinton, a native Arkansan who campaigned with Colom days before the election, addressed the senator-elect on social media, saying he won “because you believe in the promise of your state’s people. And they believed in you right back.”
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Huang faced growing calls to resign after his affair with an alleged Chinese spy. Late Wednesday, media reports said Huang had another extramarital affair with an Nvidia employee who reports to him.
Shares of Nvidia, one of the largest companies in the world, plunged 10% in premarket trading Thursday.
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Because of the Black population and its alignment with Democrats, Mississippi’s general elections have been closer for years than those in neighboring Southern states. Trump won by double digits in each of his three presidential contests, but in 2023, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves managed to win reelection by a margin of just 3 percentage points.
Colom and other Black party leaders and strategists insisted throughout 2026 that he could narrow the gap with strong Black turnout, Republican discontent and an uptick in Democrats’ usual share of the white vote in Mississippi.
Results showed strong turnout in the Mississippi Delta, which has a concentration of majority-Black counties. But nearly all of the state moved leftward from the 2024 election, when Trump carried Mississippi by nearly 23 points.
The contest was a latecomer to the national spotlight, finally drawing attention and money months after Black senators, including Georgia’s Raphael Warnock and Maryland’s Angela Alsobrooks, first urged donors and party leaders to see it as winnable.
The son of a onetime Republican who worked for President Ronald Reagan, Colom produced one of the year’s most widely circulated ads. After Hyde-Smith seemed to brush off high beef prices by saying consumers could choose other proteins, Colom cut a 30-second spot depicting incredulous voters saying they’d “pick another senator instead.”
When Trump came to Corinth, Mississippi, in late October to rally with Hyde-Smith, Colom walked the line of Trump supporters as they waited to enter. He introduced himself and asked about their concerns.
President Donald Trump’s administration wants to sell public lands to states, tribes and local governments as part of an effort to “decrease the size of the federal estate,” according to a new plan presented by the Interior Department.
Agency officials said the sale of federal property would allow the government to focus resources on “nationally significant” lands, which were not defined. They offered no details on what parcels could be sold, nor the scope or location of potential sales.
The proposal drew quick pushback from some lawmakers, including Trump’s former Interior secretary, Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke, showing it faces strong headwinds in Congress even before Democrats assume the majority in January.
The Interior Department’s five-year strategic plan also calls for land transfers and exchanges to support greater energy production, a centerpiece of the administration’s pro-fossil fuel policies. It reflects the Trump administration’s view of most public lands as assets to be used, rather than to be set aside for preservation.
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Democratic nominee Scott Colom defeated Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith on Wednesday in Mississippi’s closely contested U.S. Senate race after a prolonged ballot-counting process, giving the state its first Black U.S. senator since post-Civil War Reconstruction.
Colom’s narrow victory is a seismic shift in Mississippi, which has been controlled mostly by white conservatives for generations despite having the largest share of Black residents of any U.S. state. The outcome adds to a decisive midterm rebuke of President Donald Trump, whose party suffered defeats in several Republican-controlled states, and it will bolster some Democrats’ argument that their future runs through the American South.
“All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this,” Colom told a crowd of hundreds who gathered at Tougaloo College for his victory party. “I had the courage to believe in Mississippi. I had the courage to understand that we can show the country that Mississippi matters.”
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A person holds a sign at an election event for Mississippi Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Scott Colom in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
Mississippi Democratic Senate candidate Scott Colom speaks at an election event in Jackson, Miss., Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ellen Schmidt)
