The 2026 college football season has already delivered plenty of answers, but the biggest questions are still sitting out there as Week 7 gives way to the stretch run. The playoff picture is starting to come into focus, first-year head coaches like Bob Chesney and Will Stein have settled in fast, and the Heisman race is beginning to sort itself out. Still, a handful of programs are staring at defining weeks ahead, and what happens next will shape the expanded 12-team field.
For Notre Dame, the issue is simple: can it finally win the kind of game that has slipped away too often? BYU’s win over the Irish said plenty about the Cougars, but it also reopened a familiar wound for Notre Dame.
Over the last two seasons, the Irish are 0-3 against the three best teams they’ve faced, with a mix of vanilla offense and poor defense costing them against Miami, Texas A&M and now BYU. That inability to get over the hump helped keep them out of the playoff last season, and now they’ve got another chance to change the story.
On November 7, No. 1 Miami comes to South Bend.
Win that one and take care of the rest of the schedule, and they’re in. Lose again, and the playoff path gets murky fast.
Texas is fighting a different kind of battle: trying to stop a season from slipping into the same pattern it saw in 2025. The Longhorns had all the ingredients to be one of the nation’s premier teams on paper.
Arch Manning entered his second year at quarterback, Colin Simmons was one of the country’s top defensive ends, and portal additions like Cam Coleman, Hollywood Smother and Rasheem Biles gave Austin plenty to feel good about. Then the season started rolling downhill in a hurry.
Texas opened 4-0 and beat Ohio State in Week 2, but since then it has dropped two straight games to unranked opponents, both by 27-24 scores. First came Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout, then Florida this past weekend, and in both games the Longhorns gave away multi-score leads.
Now they get No. 7 Ole Miss at home, and that matchup looks like the clearest chance to reset things before the rest of the schedule tightens up.
Ohio State, meanwhile, has the kind of problem no contender wants: a big win that came with a major price tag. The Buckeyes went into Bloomington and beat Indiana, ending the longest active win streak in college football, but quarterback Julian Sayin was injured in the process and will likely be out for quite some time.
That matters because Ohio State’s next stretch is no joke, with USC on the road, Oregon at home, Northwestern at home, Nebraska on the road and Michigan at home all looming. The Buckeyes are on a five-game winning streak, but the question now is whether the run game can carry the offense the way it did in 2014 while Sayin is sidelined.
And then there’s the SEC, where the playoff race is still wide open despite all the noise that usually comes with the conference. Heading into the second-to-last week of October, only two SEC teams are in the top 10: Georgia at No. 5 and Ole Miss at No.
- Tennessee is 11th, Kentucky 12th and Alabama 13th, all close enough to keep pushing.
The schedule still has a say in all of it, too. Ole Miss and Georgia still have to meet on November 7.
Alabama still has LSU and Auburn, plus the Iron Bowl. Tennessee and Kentucky still have to play, and the Vols host LSU two weeks later.
After facing Tennessee, Kentucky still has Florida, Louisville and a trip to Missouri. Whoever comes out of that mess with a playoff spot will have earned it.
In Other News...
Notre Dames BYU Loss Just Took On Even Bigger Meaning
UCLAs fast start under first-year coach Bob Chesney has become one of the early national storylines, and it has added a new wrinkle to how Notre Dames season is being viewed. The Bruins are unbeaten and looking more and more like a Big Ten contender, while BYUs upset of the Irish only looks more significant with each passing week as the Cougars climb in the rankings and strengthen their playoff case.
For Notre Dame, the result is no longer just a tough loss on the schedule. It is part of a broader picture that includes a messy national race around the Irish, with Oregon also dealing with its own trouble after losing quarterback Dante Moore and seeing its playoff path become far less certain. In that context, the BYU defeat carries even more weight, because the teams Notre Dame is tied to in the broader postseason conversation are starting to look very different now. [Read more 🡒]
Marcus Freemans Notre Dame Pitch To Leonard Moore Said Everything
Marcus Freemans recruiting pitch to Leonard Moores family was as direct as it was revealing. Dr. Leonard Moore said the Notre Dame coach leaned into what makes the program demanding, pointing to the universitys academic rigor and the reality that nothing on the field would come easy, including earning snaps.
That honesty clearly landed with the family, and Moore ended up committing to Notre Dame. He quickly found his way onto the field, starting by Week 5 of his freshman season and producing enough on defense to show why the Irish were willing to bet on a player who embraced the challenge instead of expecting any shortcuts. [Read more 🡒]
Notre Dames Defensive Approach Just Became A Bigger Concern
Chris Ashs first month as Notre Dames defensive coordinator has already come under scrutiny, and the criticism only sharpened after the loss to BYU. The Irish leaned on a conservative plan that left too much space for the Cougars to settle in, and BYU players noticed. Running back Preston Rex was among those who described the defense as vanilla, a blunt assessment that matched what unfolded on the field as Notre Dame had trouble creating pressure and matching up with a more varied attack.
For a defense that is trying to find its footing under a new coordinator, the concern is not just what happened in one game but how quickly the next test arrives. Notre Dame now has to tighten things up before facing Navy and Miami, two opponents that can force a defense to handle different looks and stay disciplined snap after snap. If the Irish cannot show more flexibility and disruption soon, the questions around this unit are only going to get louder. [Read more 🡒]