Usually when you are halfway through the season, you have a pretty good idea of who’s great and who’s not. There’s usually a couple teams you can point to and say they are elite and will probably win it all. We are 8 weeks into the college football season and I have no idea who that is.
People are reading this and thinking “dude, did you forget that Ohio State, Miami, Georgia, and Indiana exist?” I did not forget about them, but can any of them be called elite? Miami really has not been tested by a good team yet. Don’t say Wake Forest. They are a good, fun story, but they don’t scare most good teams. Ohio State looks like they could be, but Julian Sayin is going to be out for a minute. Indiana’s offense has not looked good for 3 weeks. So that leaves Georgia. Who was ranked number 1 and lost to Auburn at home for the first time in over a decade.
Then you start looking at other teams like Notre Dame. They’ve had a cakewalk schedule up until that BYU game, where we saw BYU outplay the Irish and come away with the win. So then you think “hey, maybe BYU is one of those teams?” They were the number 2 team in the country and just lost on the road as a TD favorite to 3-3, now 4-3, UCF team.
Well what about other Big 12 teams like Texas Tech? They’ve got all that oil money flowing in so they can buy their team. They’ve gotta be a great team right? Wrong. They do not look like the Texas Tech team we all expected. They struggled with Oregon State and Colorado earlier this year, and they just lost to Cincinnati this weekend as 10 point favorites. Utah is maybe the one team in the Big 12 you can look at and maybe make an argument for them being great. We are over halfway through the season though and they just faced a decent team for the first time this last weekend. So how good are they? We aren’t sure yet.
Look at the Big Ten. I already mentioned Ohio State and Indiana. What about Oregon? They return a ton of starters from their playoff team last year. They’ve got one of the most expensive rosters in the country. Surely they are great? Wrong. They are 4-3 and just fired their OC. USC was supposed to be a different team this year and make a push. It’s the same USC team we’ve seen every other year under Lincoln Riley. Well then it’s gotta be Michigan. They’ve got an expensive, highly recruited QB, who actually has a coaching staff around him. Nope, the was benched and Michigan has been a mess. The only team we can even make an argument for in the Big Ten right now is undefeated UCLA. A UCLA team that is without their starting QB for the rest of the year.
We aren’t even going to talk about the ACC. Miami is the only team worth it in that conference. Everyone is mediocre at best. SMU is not scaring anyone. Wake Forest is not scaring anyone. The rest just keep beating each other. It’s Miami or no one.
Finally the SEC. If I told you before the season that besides Georgia, there is only one other SEC team with 1 loss or less. Who would you guess. Many would say Ole Miss, or LSU, or even Alabama. All would be wrong. It’s Kentucky. You read that right. Kentucky is the only other 1 loss team in the SEC. In fact, they are currently at the top of the standings. The rest of the SEC just keeps beating up on each other. To the point where maybe they have a handful of great teams, but they just keep beating each other? Or maybe there are no elite teams and that’s why they keep beating up on each other. Time will tell.
This year, more than ever, shows that with the NIL and transfer portal, the playing field has leveled. 5-10 years ago there would be 3 teams at this point in the season that everyone was pretty sure would win it all. Now we have no idea and you could make the argument for about 10 different teams. Knowing what we know now, which isn’t much, who would be your pick to win it all?
