Welcome to Week 5 of the 2018 College Football Empires Map.

To begin the season, each FBS team was given control of its surrounding territory. Each game that involves one or two teams with territory results in the winner claiming all of it. Results carry on week to week, so teams are always in the process of trying to regain or expand land. For more detailed rules, check out Week 1’s explanation.

Here’s the updated map, with notes to follow.

Week 4’s largest land exchanges

USC managed to sneak out a victory over Washington State to take over all of the land Washington State had accumulated, giving the Trojans control of much of the Mountain Time Zone.

Stanford, Alabama, and Oklahoma take the lead in original territories owned, with their victories over Oregon, Texas A&M, and Army, respectively.

Kentucky’s win over Mississippi State not only put the Wildcats in the AP Top 25, but also gave them control of the original territories of Kansas State, UL Lafayette, and Mississippi State.

Lions, upsets, and Bears, oh my!

Four of the weekends biggest upsets had a direct impact on the empires map.

Old Dominion (the lion mascot team here) set up their monarchy over Virginia Tech and now own land in Florida and Virginia.

Purdue took over the Northeast, New Orleans, and part of North Carolina with an upset over Boston College.

Texas Tech extended their empire out with a demolition of Oklahoma State to take over Boise and parts of Oklahoma and Alabama.

Lastly, the Morgan State Bears, a team coming in with an eight-game losing streak, conquered North Carolina A&T, who was on a 15-game winning streak, to take control of East Carolina.

Here is how the map has progressed throughout the season so far:

In Week 5, six games are between two teams who both own land.

Washington-BYU: Washington holds Utah’s original territory, and BYU enters with the land it took from Wisconsin two weekends ago.

Clemson-Syracuse: This rematch of one of 2017’s largest upsets will be for land in New York, Michigan, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas.

West Virginia-Texas Tech: Both will look to continue winning streaks, playing for control of the original territories belonging to Boise State, Troy, Houston, Rice, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, and Tennessee.

NC State-Virginia: The winner will just about surround Ohio State’s starting territory, along with land in North Carolina, and Georgia.

Ohio State-Penn State: College GameDay once again chose to attend an empire game. The winner of this game will be in second next week in territories owned, and it will be even more important for the historic map, but more on that later

Stanford-Notre Dame: The winner will take the lead in territories owned and population owned. This game will have a significant impact on the direction of the map throughout the season, as all that land will likely either be stuck in the Pac-12 or ACC (considering Notre Dame’s schedule) until bowl season.

Week 4 Empires Map leaderboards

Territories

T1. Alabama-7

T1. Stanford-7

T1. Oklahoma-7

T4. LSU-6

T4. Kentucky-6

T4. Notre Dame-6

T7. Texas Tech-5

T7. Ohio State-5

T7. Duke-5

Counties

Alabama-241 Kentucky-189 Maryland-185 LSU-144 USC-140 Colorado-128 Georgia-126 Oklahoma-125 Wisconsin-121 Notre Dame-117

Population

Stanford-31,073,948 Ohio State-23,290,710 Duke-18,509,389 Purdue-14,996,319 South Florida-14,658,163 Oklahoma-13,313,227 San Diego State-12,094,585 LSU-11,006,211 UCF-10,163,871 Texas Tech-9,994,543

Land Area (sq. miles)

LSU-667,170 USC-351,554 San Diego State-218,548 Maryland-215,117 Alabama-184,742 Stanford-166,103 Texas Tech-154,341 BYU-141,093 Kentucky-122,520 Notre Dame-114,210

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I’m also maintaining an ongoing version of 2017’s map, which has finally built to the biggest game in Empires Map history.

This week features the biggest game in the history of the 2017-2018 Empires Map.

Ohio State and Penn State will play for control of almost the entire northern half of the United States.

Ohio State enters with 31 territories, 911 counties, over 96 million people, and 1.6 million square miles of land.

Penn State enters with 31 territories, 752 counties, almost 64 million people, and 600 thousand square miles of land.

The winner will own 53 percent of counties, 51 percent of the population, 63 percent of land area, and 48 percent of territories.

Elsewhere on the 2017-2018 map:

It wasn’t looking good for Conference USA following LSU conquering Louisiana Tech to take C-USA off the map. However, Old Dominion came to the rescue with their win over Virginia Tech to ensure C-USA won’t be removed until at least next week.

Arizona State and New Mexico State land passed hands for the second week in a row as Texas Tech upset Oklahoma State.