Chaos owns college football right now, and Week 7 made sure nobody could miss it. Five top-10 teams fell in the same Saturday slate, and that kind of wreckage says a lot about where this season stands: crowded, unstable and full of teams that look dangerous one week and ordinary the next.
That was the bigger story than any one upset. Miami nearly joined the list of victims too, needing double overtime to get past rival Florida State.
There are no unbeaten SEC teams left. UCLA is the last undefeated team in the Big Ten.
The sport feels flatter than it used to, and the way talent is spread around in the NIL and transfer portal era has turned Saturdays into a constant stress test. When Alabama and Georgia can’t hoard talent the way they once did, a lot more teams show up with players capable of flipping the script.
It’s great theater, but it’s also a mess.
Georgia found that out the hard way against Auburn, and Gunner Stockton was right in the middle of it. Stockton had three turnovers, capped by a late fumble that left the Bulldogs in bad shape.
Georgia came in off an emotional win over Alabama, so the trap-game setup was obvious. Still, this is supposed to be a team that does not unravel.
The defense is supposed to steady things. The offense is supposed to avoid self-inflicted damage.
Stockton did the opposite, and it was a stunning way to give the game away.
Notre Dame’s path is simpler, even if it is not exactly comfortable. The Irish look like a team that should probably just win out and remove all doubt.
Their season, in many ways, comes down to two games, and the cleaner way to handle the College Football Playoff race would be to beat Miami on Nov. 7.
Do that, and the stress disappears. Don’t, and Notre Dame is staring at a 10-2 finish with losses to the two best teams on its schedule, hoping the committee keeps it inside the top 12.
That’s a lot of anxiety when 11-1 would make everything much easier.
BYU’s win also carried extra weight beyond the Cougars themselves. It may have been even bigger for the Big 12, and the league knows exactly why.
Ohio State and Indiana brought another kind of drama: elite defense, shaky quarterback play and one injury that could reshape the conversation. Ryan Day said Julian Sayin will probably be out for “several weeks,” and the broadcast later showed him on the sideline with his right arm in a sling.
Josh Hoover also played through a shoulder injury sustained midway through the game. Before either quarterback got hurt, neither one was exactly lighting it up.
Sayin and Hoover both missed open receivers, and Sayin’s touchdown to Jeremiah Smith was the kind of play that happened because Smith made it happen, adjusting and winning the ball anyway. Hoover’s near game-winner to Nick Marsh should have been simpler too, if the throw came out quicker.
That final Indiana snap is the sort of thing Curt Cignetti may replay over and over; afterward, he called it “a hard one to swallow.” And for a quarterback with an 18-0 TD-to-INT ratio, the question marks are suddenly louder than anyone expected.
Ohio State and Indiana both look like they can defend with anybody. The issue now is what they can trust from the quarterback spot when the pressure gets biggest.
Texas, meanwhile, is sinking into a bad stretch that’s impossible to ignore. Two weeks ago, the Longhorns were No. 1 in the country after that dramatic comeback over Ohio State.
Even then, they didn’t look like the best team in the nation. Now they’ve stacked two ugly losses in a row.
The offense still looks clunky, and Steve Sarkisian may have to consider giving up playcalling because something has to change. The loss to Florida was especially painful: Texas blew its biggest home lead against an unranked opponent since 1965.
Against one of the worst pass defenses in the country, Arch Manning and the Longhorns managed only one passing touchdown and 173 total passing yards, and Manning also fumbled with less than two minutes left in the fourth quarter. With Ole Miss, Missouri and LSU still ahead, the season suddenly feels like it’s slipping.
One more note from around the country: earlier this week, the former James Madison football coaches were a focus because of what they’re doing at Indiana and UCLA. But the current Dukes head coach deserves attention too.
Billy Napier has James Madison at 7-0 and looking like the clear Sun Belt favorite. The question now is whether JMU can get to the College Football Playoff for a second straight year.
The eventual Pac-12 champion will have something to say about that, but it’s already a storyline worth watching.
In Other News...
Indiana Loss Now Comes With An Officiating Debate Fans Can't Ignore
Ohio States 19-15 win over Indiana did more than snap the Hoosiers 22-game winning streak. It also left plenty of people around the game sorting through a night filled with flags, frustration and a few calls that immediately became talking points, including a roughing-the-passer penalty on Jermaine Mathews Jr. and a missed pass interference whistle involving Jeremiah Smith.
For Indiana, the loss was already hard enough with Julian Sayin exiting because of a right arm injury, but the officiating chatter only sharpened the sting of a game both sides saw marked by multiple penalties. When a tight contest ends with that much second-guessing, the result is hard to separate from the debate that follows, and this one figures to linger well beyond the final whistle. [Read more 🡒]
Indiana Let Ohio State Slip Away For Three Brutal Reasons
Saturdays loss to Ohio State at Memorial Stadium had the kind of shape that can linger for a while in Bloomington. Indiana had enough moments to keep the game within reach, but the offense never found a steady rhythm, and the 19-15 finish reflected how many chances slipped away in a matchup that felt there for the taking.
Josh Hoovers day never really settled in, as Indiana finished with an inefficient passing performance and little help on the ground. The second-half turnovers mattered, Nico Radicics missed field goals loomed large, and the running game never provided the balance the Hoosiers needed, leaving plenty of reasons to wonder how different this one might have looked with just a cleaner stretch of execution. [Read more 🡒]
Indiana May Have Changed Ohio State's Entire Season
Ohio States 19-15 win over Indiana did more than snap the Hoosiers 22-game winning streak. It also left the Buckeyes dealing with a major quarterback concern after starter Julian Sayin went down with a right arm injury and was replaced by true freshman Luke Fahey.
Ryan Day said Sayin will be out for several weeks, which immediately changes the tenor of Ohio States season and adds another layer to the aftermath of a game Indiana had been aiming to survive with its streak intact. For a Buckeyes schedule that still includes USC, Oregon, Northwestern, Nebraska and Michigan, the injury could end up mattering far beyond a single close win in Bloomington. [Read more 🡒]