The SEC's tagline that "It Just Means More" has always been something of a punchline to fans outside the league, but after three straight seasons without a team in the national championship game, the jeers have grown louder. The SEC used to enjoy the ultimate bragging rights, but 2022 feels like ancient history, given the pace of change in the sport of late. And after one of the most chaotic weeks in SEC history, it's the lone power conference without an undefeated team.
Still, for all the punchlines "It Just Means More" has provided recently, the premise remains unquestionably true. The league itself might not be the supreme power in college football at the moment, but for SEC fans, Saturdays still hit different.
Think about it: Indiana's 22-game winning streak ended, but its fans still have all the earnest enthusiasm of a golden retriever. Florida State was arguably robbed of two last-second Hail Mary scores, but its fans have already cycled through the stages of grief enough times to fast-forward right past anger, bargaining and depression, and settle in to a nice cold dose of acceptance in less time that it took the replay booth to rule that last Ashton Daniels heave an interception. And Notre Dame might be upset about a disputed ending of its own after officials robbed the Irish of one final play, but hey, it's not as if they're going to lash out at another conference and opt out of a bowl. That would be petty and beneath such a storied program.
But in the SEC, last week's losses hit hard.
Auburn's stunner against Georgia sent shockwaves through Dawg Nation, with fans all over the state spending Saturday night sitting on the tailgate of their F-150s, staring out across a moonlit lake, awash in regret with Bob Seger's "Night Moves" playing on a cassette.
Alabama lost back-to-back regular-season games for the first time since 2007 after being stifled by Tennessee, reigniting frustrations over Kalen DeBoer with fans flooding message boards with detailed plans for how to bring back Bear Bryant through some sort of "Jurassic Park" type cloning experiment.
Another Texas loss to Florida has Steve Sarkisian under fire and Arch Manning on the brink of being benched.
Oklahoma's offense has less horsepower than the Sooner Schooner, and Mike Elko is wading in an above-ground cesspool at Texas A&M. Mississippi State's dream season has run aground without Kamario Taylor, and Missouri lost in such emphatic fashion that a handful of AP poll voters almost considered not putting the Tigers in their top 25.
For two decades, the SEC represented sanity, order, clarity. Now, Greg Sankey might as well be working the overnight shift at a Waffle House off I-280. Chaos reigns, no one can be trusted, and Lane Kiffin is asking an employee if they want to go with him to feed pancakes to Mike the Tiger. No wonder Sankey caved to a 24-team playoff. His league looks as if it can't be trusted to use scissors without adult supervision.
Things have gotten so bad, people are stealing the ACC's famed "Wheel of Destiny" to showcase the league's tomfoolery.
Wait, I was wrong. With bama, its actually an 11-team SEC Circle of Chaos! Since the SEC began in 1933, only 20 seasons have produced an 11-team circle. And 2026 did it by Week 6, the earliest ever. Chaos! https://t.co/55Qc41i6vC
— Gator Analytics (@gatadata88) October 17, 2026
Or, perhaps, we're looking at this all wrong.
Perhaps the SEC has reached a logical end point, where the "It Just Means More" arms race has made the conference into the thing its fans always claimed it should be -- the closest thing there is in college football to the NFL, where everyone's kind of good and a little bad, and the standings get tossed around like a pair of sneakers in the dryer.
So in Week 8, Xavier Gilliam and Tennessee could torment LaNorris Sellers and build on a signature win by thumping South Carolina. Or, DeSean Bishop's batteries could run low after his 47th carry and Tennessee will be forced to watch its quarterbacks run an offense like an old man trying to parallel park outside a CVS.
After dominating Missouri, Ole Miss seems as if it might be one of the safest bets in the SEC as it heads to Texas for a showdown with the Horns. But look no further than last year to find the blueprint for Manning's sudden turnaround.
Kentucky figures to continue its hot start against reeling Vanderbilt, but in this new SEC, perhaps the Commodores are simply lulling Kenny Minchey into a false sense of security and then -- boom! -- a fumble recovery in the end zone for a winning touchdown with no time left on the clock. It's kind of Vandy's thing.
Kiffin is hoping Auburn has downed its share of rat poison after a big win in Athens, but Sam Leavitt has already coughed up an FBS-high nine turnovers, so there's certainly no guarantee the War Eagle defense won't nab a few more.
Alabama could rebound against a reeling Texas A&M or, perhaps, Marcel Reed's struggles have all been due to a rare "Freaky Friday" incident in which he switched bodies with 2021 Zach Calzada, and this is the week Texas A&M finds a way for them to switch back.
Perhaps it's true that the chaos of the SEC's season is a feature, not a bug. Week 7 was one of the most epic Saturdays in recent memory, with the most stunning outcome being that it was Sankey's conference that provided us with the best case for a 24-team playoff yet.
Now, Week 8 has a chance to up the ante again with more upsets, more drama, more fun.
Chaos? Uncertainty? Surprise? More, more, more.
What does it all mean?
They've been telling us all along.
Jump to:
Top games | Under-the-radar
Upset alert | Heisman five
Power rankings | Two-minute drill
Best of the rest of Week 8
The Big 12 is having a moment, with four teams currently ranked in the top 14, including both Houston and Utah. Since the start of last season, these two programs are a combined 33-6 and, in the past calendar year, they're 22-3, including the Utes' 12-game winning streak, the longest active streak in FBS. Of course, all those platitudes come with a bit of an asterisk, as Houston's biggest win during that stretch came last week in a high-scoring game with Oklahoma State, while a search for Utah's most impressive victory returns an "Error 404: File Not Found."
It's also an intriguing quarterback matchup. Last week, Conner Weigman threw for 343 yards and five touchdowns while setting a Big 12 record for TV viewers uttering the phrase, "Wait, the guy who used to be at Texas A&M is still playing?" Devon Dampier, meanwhile, has been more dynamic than the molé options at Red Iguana during his time in Salt Lake City. His 93 career touchdowns ranks fifth nationally among active QBs, and he's riding a 12-game streak with multiple TD passes -- easily the nation's longest active streak. Weigman and Dampier have a combined 64 college starts between them.
More importantly, the winner has a clear path to the Big 12 title game. Houston doesn't have another ranked matchup on its schedule, and Utah gets No. 2 BYU at home on Nov. 7.
Darian Mensah is just the second QB in the playoff era to complete 80% of his passes through six games. That sounds really impressive until you learn that the other QB to do it was Graham Mertz. Still, Mensah has been nearly flawless so far, while Pitt's QB situation is a mess since starter Mason Heintschel went down with a season-ending injury against Virginia Tech three weeks ago. The Panthers have dropped their past two after a 5-0 start, and Pat Narduzzi hasn't announced who will start at QB against top-ranked Miami after the ACC rejected his idea that Pitt should get to use Malachi Toney at QB just to make things fair.
Michigan is considering a QB change after Tommy Carr rallied the Wolverines past Penn State last week. On the one hand, Bryce Underwood was a highly touted recruit regarded as the future of the program. On the other hand, Carr is capable of throwing a forward pass without Michigan fans feeling as if they just watched the answering machine scene in "Swingers." It might not matter either way. Since its national championship game win in 2023, Michigan is averaging 24.4 points (60th among Power 4 teams), with just a 10.6% explosive play rate (64th) and a 53.3 team QBR (60th) and just 29 touchdown passes to go with 27 picks.
BYU is coming off arguably its biggest win in 40 years after toppling Notre Dame with a last-second -- or, um, second-to-last-second -- red zone stand, and the Cougars are now 29-4 since the start of the 2024 season. Only Indiana has been better in that stretch. Scott Frost is 4-18 in his past 22 conference games as a head coach. Unlike Notre Dame, he might be asking for officials to just go ahead and run as many seconds off the clock in the fourth quarter as they'd like.
Under-the-radar games
If we assume Ohio State and Indiana are the class of the conference, who is the third-best team in the Big Ten? For now, UCLA gets the nod, but with quarterback Nico Iamaleava out for the season, it might be a bit too early to say for sure the Bruins are ready for the big time. Northwestern is playing good football. Oregon is surviving without Dante Moore. USC has a lot of upside. And then there's ... Iowa. The Hawkeyes are like Steve Buscemi. There's nothing sexy about Iowa, but when's the last time you showed up for a Buscemi movie that wasn't at least pretty good?
And this year might be Iowa's "Fargo," the role where it all works just perfectly. The Hawkeyes' D is as reliable as ever, and Iowa's offense is approaching something seen about as often as Halley's comet: competent. Iowa's 62.2 Total QBR is its best since 2018, its offensive efficiency is its best since 2015, and its 6.5 yards-per-play is its best in at least 20 years.
Looking back at a decade of Big Ten offenses and Iowa has largely lived somewhere between barely acceptable and "dear god make it stop!!!"... and now... https://t.co/uqQYHWpMV1
— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) October 21, 2026
Clemson just played an FCS opponent last week, and QB Tait Reynolds still averaged just 4.9 yards per pass. For the season, the Tigers have two touchdown passes -- one of only six major-conference teams in the past 20 years with so few through six games. And yet, how can you not love Reynolds after this amazing response to the history lesson he got from Dabo Swinney last week?
The best part of Tuesday's press conferences in Clemson was QB Tait Reynolds describing his sideline conversation with HC Dabo Swinney during last Saturday's CSU game, one which included the famous Wally Pipp story https://t.co/wenCvSGB9b
— Will Vandervort (@steelerwill) October 20, 2026
After North Carolina toppled Duke last week, Bill Belichick offered the clearest example yet that his revenge tour has reached maximum Belichick. Within 10 minutes of the clock expiring, he said the win was over and he was moving on. Syracuse, meanwhile, might be turning to its fourth starting QB of the season after Malachi Nelson was dinged up against Louisville, and suddenly the idea that Belichick and the Heels might get to eight or nine wins doesn't seem all that wild.
North Dakota State at New Mexico
It's a showdown between two of the top teams in the Mountain West! Or the Pac-12? Honestly, remembering who's in which league has become the rough equivalent of the George Washington sketch by Nate Bargatze on "Saturday Night Live." "And sir, this Mountain West will only include teams in the mountains?" "No, there will also be Northern Illinois." "So where will New Mexico State play?" "Nobody knows." In any case, New Mexico's astonishing turnover luck finally came to an end last week when the Lobos coughed up two picks and a fumble against Hawai'i. It didn't matter. They still won easily.
Colorado lost its eighth straight Big 12 game last week to Utah, but they kept it close and Isaac Wilson has given the offense a spark. For Oklahoma State, last week's loss to Houston probably ended any hopes of a long-shot playoff berth. But Drew Mestemaker's strong second half at least offered some encouragement. Still, it's worth noting an ugly split. In 16 wins over the past three years, Mestemaker's stat line: 80.9 Total QBR, 48 total touchdowns and eight turnovers. In five losses: 62.0 Total QBR, 12 total touchdowns and 13 turnovers.
Upset alert
USC (at Wisconsin)
In a loss to UCLA last week, Wisconsin was flagged for 108 yards of penalties, forcing Luke Fickell to demand to speak to a manager.
That's likely to rile up the Badgers, but the bigger issue might be the immense trap-game potential for USC. The Trojans need to get past the trip to Wisconsin before back-to-back games against Ohio State and Indiana. The Badgers being the final straw for Lincoln Riley with USC fans would be a little like Al Capone going to jail for tax evasion.
TCU (home vs. West Virginia)
TCU shocked Baylor in the Revivalry last week, but this is still the same team that lost to UNC and UCF, and the Horned Frogs haven't scored more than 21 against a power-conference opponent all season. Meanwhile, Michael Hawkins Jr. leads the country in rushing touchdowns.
Air Force (at Wyoming)
Air Force is tied atop the Mountain West at 5-1, but trips to Laramie are never easy. Air Force has lost its past five at Wyoming dating to 2012.
Heisman five
Before we get into the leaders for college football's greatest honor that doesn't involve consuming an anthropomorphic breakfast pastry, let's do a quick blind comparison between two pretty mediocre quarterbacks.
QB A: 4-2, 58.2 QBR, 63% completions, 12 TD passes, five interceptions, 8.1 yards-per-pass, 1,317 passing yards, 16.5% off target throws
QB B: 4-2, 54.3 QBR, 64% completions, 11 TD passes, five interceptions, 7.8 yards-per-pass, 1,295 passing yards, 10.0% off target throws
Neither would be in the Heisman mix, but neither really sets himself apart from the other either, right?
Well, you might not be surprised to learn that QB B is Arch Manning, one of the preseason favorites to win the Heisman, who's now hanging on to his starting job like a new dad carrying a full diaper to the trash can.
QB A though? That's Manning, too -- through his first six games of last season. In fact, it wasn't until Manning's eighth game of the season in 2025 that he really took off, posting an 89.1 Total QBR with 20 touchdowns and two turnovers the rest of the way.
The point is, we can expect Manning to become a Heisman contender again any day now.
As for the current players vying for the hardware ...
1. Ohio State WR Jeremiah Smith
Indiana tried to blanket him with double coverage throughout last weekend's game, but Smith still managed to juke a pair of DBs and haul in what proved to be the winner score in the end zone for his 12th touchdown of the season. The job gets more interesting now though with QB Julian Sayin sidelined for the foreseeable future and Ohio State still unsure whether it can expect Smith to throw the ball to himself.
2. Miami QB Darian Mensah
Mensah threw his first interception of the season in an overtime win over Florida State last week. He also threw for 326 yards and three touchdowns and might or might not have covertly let all the air out of Mike Norvell's tires after the game.
3. Texas edge Collin Simmons
Texas' offense is scuffling but that shouldn't keep Simmons from getting his flowers (and hopefully not mimicking watering them after a sack). Simmons has 16 tackles for loss -- 4.5 more than anyone else. He has 10.5 sacks -- 2.5 more than second place. And his 25 pressures and 22.5% pressure rate make him the most feared pass rusher in the country.
4. Oregon State WR Jesse Legree
He had only 108 receiving yards and two touchdowns in last weekend's win over Washington State, which by Legree's standards was a ho-hum performance. Legree is the first FBS player to post 1,000 receiving yards and 14 touchdown catches in seven games since 2010. In fact, the only other receivers to do that in the past 20 seasons are Justin Blackmon and Michael Crabtree, who have four Biletnikoff Awards between them. Legree has done it in the first seven games of his college career -- and he's still not even the best receiver in the country right now.
5. Wake Forest QB Gio Lopez
The Deacons are off this week, so Lopez will spend the week making prank calls to Freddie Kitchens' house as revenge for what the former UNC OC did to him last season. Regardless, here's a pretty uncanny comparison ...
Want to see something crazy? QB A: 53.1% success rate, 86.3 Total QBR, 8.8 yd/dropback, 23 TD, 3 TO, 10 sacks, 2219 total yards QB B: 53.1% success rate, 86.1 Total QBR, 8.6 yd/dropback, 23 TD, 1 TO, 10 sacks, 2200 total yards . . . . . . . . QB B is Wake's Gio Lopez. QB A is... Wake's Sam Hartman in 2021 through 7 games.
— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) October 18, 2026
Post-week 7 power rankings
A look at the biggest movers and shakers from last week's action.
1. Underdogs
2. 1 second left (BYU edition)
3. Tennessee's defense
4. Wake Forest
5. The secret alien race that has covertly been living among us for years and gave us Jeremiah Smith as the savior for all humanity
6. The case for a 24-team playoff
7. Bill Belichick
8. The ACC's awareness that Mike Norvell cannot be felled by conventional weapons and therefore extraordinary measures must be taken
9. Dylan Raiola revenge games
10. Charlotte
Unranked: Dawgs; all officiating; disrespecting any family who names their kids Bear and Tiger; Kentucky scoring with 1:17 left to rob us of a third straight one-point win; remaining Arch Heisman hope; Maryland; injury carts driven by anyone other than Marshawn Lynch.
I don't know that I've ever seen a player's injury get worse because of the injury cart and yet... https://t.co/LmgoXxnc0R
— Aaron Dickens (@AaronDickens) October 17, 2026
Two-minute drill
It's a rematch of last year's ACC championship game, which is a little like when "Greenland 2" came out earlier this year and everyone was like, "Wait, there was a Greenland 1?" In any case, the shine is off both programs at this point. Virginia has lost three of its past four vs. power-conference foes, all by double digits, and Duke has dropped its past two on its final drive. Defenses are finally realizing the key to beating Duke is stopping Nate Sheppard from running wild, though Sheppard has had an answer of his own. In the past two games, he has 18 catches for 189 yards.
Texas famously believes chili should contain brisket and no beans. Cincinnati famously believes chili should include pasta, cinnamon and enough shredded cheese to warrant felony charges. This is, indeed, a clash of cultures, where the only overlap in the Venn diagram is that both of them lost money on Brendan Sorsby. In any case, Texas Tech is off to a 6-0 start with an increasingly impressive-looking win over Houston and a remaining schedule that includes only one ranked team (No. 25 Arizona). ESPN's FPI gives the Red Raiders a 66% chance to make the Big 12 title game -- fourth best among Power 4 schools -- and that feels low.
When he was hired, Tosh Lupoi left his introductory news conference and flew directly to Hawai'i to lobby star QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele to stick with Cal. By Week 7, he had JKS riding the bench until opting to insert him into a game the Bears were already losing by 41. On the upside, Cal's helmets last week were Grateful Dead tributes, which might help explain the Bears' performance. They had started listening to "One More Saturday Night" and 56 minutes into a jam session they realized the game had already started.
Oregon saved its season by rallying to beat Nebraska last week, a win so upsetting to Matt Rhule that he's turning Lincoln into that town from "Footloose."
Illinois has already lost to Duke and Purdue, and was lucky to escape Michigan State a week ago, so this should be a good chance for the Ducks to get their footing, though they might have to do so without Evan Stewart.
James Madison has won 19 straight against teams outside the Power 4, with all but four coming by double digits. There has not been a more dominant team in the country through seven weeks.
There was a time not all that long ago when this game represented the absolute rock bottom of FBS, with the two annually vying for the top spot in the Bottom 10. Sadly, it's now a matchup between two entirely mediocre programs, and it doesn't require a parental warning for graphic content before kickoff. Luckily, we've still got ...
Combined record: 1-12 with 10 of those losses coming by double digits. We're just sad we don't also have to stay up for an 11:30 p.m. ET kickoff to witness the misery.