When BYU walked off Notre Dame after C.J. Carr’s pass fell incomplete in the end zone as the clock hit zero - or did it? - the Cougars had every reason to feel like they’d reached the sport’s summit. In a matchup of undefeated Top 10 teams, they’d beaten the Fighting Irish and climbed to No. 2 in the country.
Seven days later, that same BYU team was suddenly on the wrong end of the chaos it had just helped create.
UCF came into the game at 3-3, fresh off back-to-back double-digit road losses to Houston and Oklahoma State, and the Scott Frost-coached Knights looked like a team BYU should handle. Instead, the matchup turned into a track meet of momentum swings. There were six lead changes in regulation, the teams were tied 24-24 when overtime began, and UCF eventually finished off a 39-31 win when the Cougars failed to score in double overtime.
That whiplash is the point.
College football in 2026 keeps serving up the same reminder: yesterday’s giant can be today’s casualty. BYU wasn’t the only unbeaten team to get clipped this past weekend.
No. 8 Texas Tech led unranked Cincinnati 24-6 at halftime before falling 37-24.
No. 11 Tennessee was beaten on a last-second field goal by South Carolina, a team sitting at 3-3.
And it wasn’t just the latest weekend. The week before, top-ranked Georgia suffered its first loss of the season at the hands of an Auburn team that entered at 3-2.
Auburn then turned around and lost by three scores to No. 18 LSU.
That’s the deal now. Parity is everywhere, and it is ruthless.
Minnesota’s strange, maddening version of it fits right into the national picture. The Gophers have beaten three ranked teams in five weeks, yet somehow they also carried a blowout loss to a 2-3 Purdue team right in the middle of that run. For Minnesota fans, that kind of thing has become familiar enough to feel almost scripted.
Some Gopher fans will look at it and say that’s just what life is under P.J. Fleck, and there’s history behind that view.
Minnesota has been through this before, with losses to Bowling Green and Illinois in 2021 and defeats to Illinois and Purdue in 2023. Even around The Daily Gopher, there were people bracing for the Purdue slip after Minnesota picked up the program’s first home win over Michigan since 1977.
But this isn’t just a Minnesota story anymore.
The same logic hits everyone. Iowa fans can stew over losing to Minnesota, only to turn around and wonder how they dropped a game to a team that lost by 28 to Purdue. The answer is the same one college football keeps handing out: parity.
NIL and the transfer portal have changed the sport in ways both good and bad. The rich still have the advantage, and the gap between the big spenders and everyone else is still real. But one thing hasn’t changed: only 11 players can be on the field at once, and if you’re not on the field at your current school, there’s usually another one that will take you.
That’s why depth is harder to build, even for the power programs. Oregon is a perfect example.
According to The Athletic, the Ducks’ roster this season is estimated to cost between $48 million and $54 million, including a reported but unconfirmed $2 million for a certain transfer safety. They entered the year as a preseason national title favorite, but after losses to Oklahoma State, UCLA and Illinois, they’re unlikely to even make the playoff seven games into the season.
Money matters, but it doesn’t buy certainty once the ball is kicked off.
That’s also why Indiana’s 16-0 national championship season last year stands out even more now. The Hoosiers are still very good this season, but they’re not operating like that same juggernaut anymore, and they’ve had to grind through one-possession games in each of their last three weeks.
So no, the inexplicable loss shouldn’t just be waved away. Apathy doesn’t solve anything.
But it also shouldn’t be treated like a glitch unique to one program. In today’s college football, anybody can beat anybody on any Saturday.
That’s not a flaw in the system anymore. That is the system.
In Other News...
Minnesota Faces An Indiana Test With One Huge Offensive Unknown
Indianas recent stretch has offered Minnesota a clearer look at what the Hoosiers want to be under this staff: physical, transfer-driven and built around a defense that has carried more than its share of the load. Zach Osterman, who covers Indiana, pointed to the programs preference for proven additions and to a unit that has given opponents very little room to breathe, especially up front. For the Gophers, that means the matchup is less about flash and more about whether they can avoid getting dragged into a game dictated by Indianas defense and its tempo of control.
The offensive unknown sits at quarterback, where Josh Hoovers status has been a lingering question as the week has gone on. Indiana has had reason to feel better about the position than it did earlier in the process, and it also has a backup in Grant Wilson it trusts if the situation calls for it. Even so, the bigger issue for the Hoosiers may be more basic than the name under center: their offense has to show more, particularly on the ground, if it wants to match the standard their defense is setting. [Read more 🡒]
Minnesota Faces Its Biggest Proving Ground Yet After Emotional Iowa Win
Saturday at Memorial Stadium brings a much stiffer test for Minnesota, with the Gophers heading to Bloomington to face No. 4 Indiana at 2:30 p.m. on CBS and Paramount+. The trip comes on the heels of a 13-10 win over Iowa, a result that left Minnesota with three rivalry trophies at once for the first time since 1978, a reminder that this team has already made plenty of noise before reaching the thick of the schedule.
Now comes the bigger measuring stick. Indiana has the ranking, the home stage and the national spotlight, and the matchup will draw even more attention as the Gophers try to show their emotional breakthrough can carry into a road game of this size. For Minnesota, it is the kind of afternoon that can either validate the momentum from last week or show how far there still is to go. [Read more 🡒]
P.J. Fleck Just Fueled Minnesotas Biggest Offensive Debate
The offensive frustration that has shadowed Minnesota for stretches of the last few seasons was back in plain view against Iowa, when the Gophers struggled to sustain anything consistent and the game turned into another reminder of how much the margin for error shrinks when the defense and special teams are carrying the load. Minnesotas offense has landed near the bottom nationally and in the Big Ten, and with the next stretch of games looming, the lack of rhythm is starting to feel less like a bad night and more like a lingering issue.
P.J. Flecks support for Greg Harbaugh Jr. only adds another layer to the conversation, because the head coach is clearly not looking to make this a public referendum on his offensive coordinator. But with the results continuing to lag and the unit still searching for answers, the bigger question around the program is no longer whether the offense has room to improve. It is whether there is enough time left in the season for that improvement to show up before the schedule asks Minnesota to answer for it again. [Read more 🡒]