David Pollack didn’t have the clean, definitive answer many expected when asked to name college football’s best team.
On his Bleacher Report show with Takeo Spikes, during the week his alma mater dropped out of the No. 1 spot, Pollack went the opposite direction from the usual hot take. He said there wasn’t one team that clearly separated itself from the pack.
"Nobody," he said. "Every year I've been doing this for the last 15 years or whatever, if you ask me in week 8 and you were like, 'Hey, man, who do you think is the best team in the country?'
Your boy with a big mouth would have been giving you an answer and told you about some tape and said, that, and the other. I ain't got a clue.
If you give me eight teams and flip a coin, I'd like like, all right."
The results from Week 7 helped explain why he felt that way. No.
1 Georgia, No. 2 Notre Dame, No.
5 Indana, and No. 7 Texas all lost over the weekend.
Notre Dame and Indiana were beaten by other top 10 teams, while Texas and Georgia dropped games to opponents that had been outside the AP top 25.
Pollack expanded on the point and said the sport is as balanced as he has seen it.
"This is the most parity that we've had in college football, no question. It is so different now because you're spending so much money, everybody's spreading the talent all across the country.
Who can take care of the ball consistently? Man, it's crazy to think we're this far into the season.
We're like, 'Who's good?'"
That spread of talent shows up in the standings, too. A season after Indiana finished undefeated and won a College Football Playoff championship after more than 50 years of mediocrity, other unexpected teams are now in the CFP conversation heading into Week 8. UCLA and Kentucky, both coming off rough seasons and coaching changes, are right in the mix as well.
At the same time, preseason top 10 programs Oregon, Texas A&M, and Oklahoma have combined for eight losses, which is seven more than UCLA and Kentucky together.
All of that makes the ongoing debate around a 12-team Playoff expanding to 24 teams even more relevant. Some have argued that such a move would water down the regular season, but Pollack’s view is that the season already feels unusually unpredictable.
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Stein also knows the atmosphere should help, and he has pushed fans to turn the home crowd into a factor for a sellout game with a Blue Out theme. Kentucky has already shown it can handle pressure and momentum this season, but this one carries a different kind of edge because of the opponent and the recent results between the schools. For a team trying to keep its footing in the SEC race, ending the pre-bye stretch on the right note would go a long way toward quieting a problem that has lingered a little too long. [Read more 🡒]