This wasn’t supposed to surprise anybody.
Back in the summer, the warning signs were already blinking as everyone tried to map out what the 2026 college football season might look like. That exercise turned out about as useful as hawking hot dog pudding at a September 11 a.m. kickoff. Then September arrived and did what September always seems to do now: blow up the neat little projections and leave the predictors looking foolish.
And honestly, that’s part of the fun.
College football has become gloriously hard to pin down, especially now that player movement has made the whole thing even messier. The old days, when a handful of powers could keep a tighter grip on the sport, made preseason forecasting feel a lot more manageable.
Not anymore. Now the chaos is the point.
Just look at how badly some of the early guesses aged.
Mississippi State was slotted 15th in the SEC media poll, second to last in the 16-team league. Now the Bulldogs are 4-0 and ranked No. 16 in the nation.
Kentucky sat one spot ahead of them at 14th in July, and now the Wildcats are No. 24 in this week’s AP poll. Florida, meanwhile, went from No. 9 in the preseason SEC poll to No. 8 in the AP poll.
Those weren’t the teams driving the summer conversation. Now they’re all making noise.
That kind of climb used to be much tougher. Today, it’s part of the new order.
Everyone is looking for the next Indiana, the Hoosiers having been picked 17th in the 18-team Big Ten in 2024 before making the first 12-team playoff that fall and winning it the next year. Mississippi State is not being stamped as the next Cignetti revolution, but the point is clear: nobody should be writing off the possibility.
And then there are the teams that have fallen straight through the floor.
Oklahoma and Texas A&M were both preseason top-10 picks. Neither is even receiving votes in this week’s AP poll.
Six teams from the preseason top 25 have already fallen out of the rankings, and the Sooners and Aggies stand out most of all. Both have been undone by experienced quarterbacks who haven’t been able to lift underwhelming offenses.
It’s not just an SEC problem, either. Oregon was another preseason top-10 team with a star-level quarterback back in the fold and a shiny No. 2 ranking that made it a fashionable national title pick in August.
Then the Ducks were clipped by an Oklahoma State team that had just lost to Tulsa. That result means Arkansas, sitting 16th in the SEC, has a transitive win over the preseason No. 2 team in the country.
That’s the kind of thing that makes the whole sport feel delightfully unhinged.
Still, not everything has been chaos for chaos’s sake. The biggest games have mostly delivered.
Texas-Ohio State in Week 2 lived up to every bit of the hype, with Texas pulling off a comeback for the ages in a game that went down to the final seconds. A week later, Lane Kiffin’s return to Oxford, Mississippi, produced another marquee finish, and again the game was decided in the final minute.
That matters, too. If the sport is going to keep rewarding surprise, the showcase games have to bring the drama when the spotlight hits.
October should sharpen everything even more. Indiana’s Oct. 17 trip to Ohio State will be the defending champs’ first real test among the living, since the Big Ten allows soft launches.
The SEC, meanwhile, is headed for plenty of wreckage in the first year of its nine-game conference schedule, which figures to muddy records and make life tougher for the CFP committee. Notre Dame and Miami, by contrast, are playing nobody notable besides each other.
But that’s another conversation.
For now, on the first glorious day of October, the preseason prophets can take the hit. The picks were wrong, and in some cases spectacularly so.
In Other News...
Kalen DeBoers Starkville Travel Plan Says A Lot About Alabama Prep
Kalen DeBoers travel plan for Alabamas trip to Mississippi State says plenty about how the staff is handling this week. Rather than bus to Starkville on Friday and spend the night there, the Crimson Tide will remain in Tuscaloosa and leave Saturday morning, a setup DeBoer tied to past practice and the availability of the teams preferred accommodations at home.
It also gives a small window into the rhythm Alabama wants heading into the game. The team is set to depart early Saturday and begin practice at 9 a.m. CT, with players typically checking in at 6:45 a.m. CT, a schedule that keeps the focus on routine and preparation right up to kickoff. [Read more 🡒]
Alabama Faces An O-Line Concern Heading Into Mississippi State
The SECs new injury reporting policy is already putting a little more light on Alabamas health picture as the Crimson Tide head into its conference game against Mississippi State. This weeks report lists right tackle Jayvin James as questionable, a note that matters on a front line where availability can shape everything from protection to play-calling, while other names around the roster are trending toward being available.
Alabamas overall injury list still has some longer-term concerns attached to it, too, with Jeremiah Beaman and Cayden Jones among the players confirmed to miss the 2026 season because of injuries. For a team navigating the grind of SEC play, the immediate question is less about the long view and more about how the Tide lines up at a spot that can change the tone of a game before it even settles in. [Read more 🡒]
Nick Saban Just Took Another Hard Line In The Pay Fight
Nick Saban used a recent appearance on ESPNs First Take to weigh in on the Protect College Sports Act, and the longtime Alabama coach made clear he sees the issue of athlete compensation through a different lens than many of the sports most vocal advocates. The proposal is designed to boost pay for student-athletes while also protecting womens and Olympic sports, and it would add more structure around topics such as transfer rules, eligibility limits and agent fees.
Sabans argument was rooted in the idea that player pay and coach pay operate in separate markets, with him comparing a students scholarship to a professors salary as part of his broader case. The legislation also includes a retention fund for athlete compensation, which puts the debate squarely at the intersection of fairness, roster stability and the future shape of college sports, the same terrain Saban has been challenging for years. [Read more 🡒]