We’re roughly a third of the way through the college football regular season, which is as good a time as any to check in on the sport’s top teams and some of the key narratives we’ve seen develop both before and during the season.
Let’s play a fun game of buy, sell or hold!
BUY: Only hiring coaches from James Madison
We all know how good Curt Cignetti is. We don’t even need to Google it anymore! The national championship trophy speaks for itself. But have you seen what Bob Chesney is doing in Westwood?
UCLA is 4-0, scoring 45 or more points in three of those games. Two of the wins came on the road against Power 4 opponents, and the Bruins currently have the most productive rushing attack in the Big Ten. Now, I don’t know if this means UCLA is going to make the College Football Playoff this year and win a title next season like Indiana did — it probably doesn’t! Those are hard things to do! — but the UCLA program is clearly on the right trajectory, led a rising star in the coaching profession. What’s in the water in Harrisonburg, Va.?
UCLA is a genuinely fun team to watch, and I'm here for it. Bob Chesney is special.
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) September 26, 2026
SELL: Big Ten first-year head coaches at historic bluebloods
Maybe Michigan or Penn State should have hired Bob Chesney, as it turns out!
Kyle Whittingham is off to a rocky start to his tenure with the Wolverines, from the controversial last-second win over Western Michigan and comments alluding to the possibility of benching star quarterback Bryce Underwood, to the win over then-No. 11 Oklahoma and a last-second loss to Iowa.
Meanwhile, Matt Campbell hit his first rough patch as the head coach of the Nittany Lions with his first loss of the season to unranked Wisconsin at home. Trailing by 10, the Badgers scored two touchdowns in the game’s final four minutes to pull off the upset and ratchet up the angst in State College. Oof.
BUY: Florida — not LSU — being the real winner of the Lane Kiffin sweepstakes
Lane Kiffin held three different SEC programs hostage last fall as he debated whether to leave Ole Miss. He could have chosen to stay. He could have gone to Florida. Or he could have gone to LSU. As we all know, Baton Rouge called to him, and the rest is history. But is it possible that the Gators ended up with the better coach — and the one better-suited to them?
I was jazzed about Florida hiring Sumrall when it happened, and I was even more convinced after talking to Sumrall that he’d turn the program around relatively quickly. But four games into the season is far faster than even I anticipated! The offense is fun, creative and explosive. Once a hidden gem on a not-very-good football team, Jadan Baugh has burst onto the national scene and into the Heisman Trophy conversation. The defense could certainly be a bit better, but otherwise there’s not much to nitpick with the way this team plays — and the way it fully embodies the essence of Sumrall.
There’s still a lot of football to be played, but the Gators may have a real shot at the CFP this year.
SELL: Kamario Taylor playing somewhere else than Starkville next year
I couldn’t believe that Nick Saban went on ESPN’s College GameDay and said, if he were still coaching, he’d be trying to get Kamario Taylor to enter the portal. Yes, I know it was a joke. No, I don’t think it’s very funny.
Taylor has been one of the most electrifying players in all of college football through the first month of the season. He’s led Mississippi State to a 4-0 start and No. 16 ranking in the AP poll. Taylor has turned the Bulldogs into appointment viewing, turning one of the perennial SEC bottom-dwellers into an exciting, compelling program that’s ready to dream big.
Yet all I see on social media is that Taylor should leave. That he should enter the transfer portal and start a bidding war. That he should go to Miami or Ohio State or Texas or fill-in-the-blank blueblood/regular CFP contender. It is literally the first of October, and this speculation is taking focus away from the story of a team rising from the bottom to potentially contend for an SEC championship. It’s taking focus away from the story of a kid who grew up about a half hour away from Starkville, wanting to come to this school to help Jeff Lebby build it up. He’s on record saying he hasn’t thought about leaving. Yet he still gets asked about it after games, which is extremely annoying, I’m sure.
“If you know me, you know I bleed maroon and white,” Taylor said Saturday.
To quote the great coach Saban, “so quit asking!”
HOLD: Lincoln Riley can’t win “The Big One” at USC
I know, I know. Most talking heads have decided this week that they’re fully out on Lincoln Riley after yet another bad loss to another good team — thanks, in large part, to another defense he couldn’t trust in a pivotal moment.
I completely understand the instinct to give up on Riley and call his tenure at USC a failure. But … have you looked at the Trojans’ remaining schedule? There’s still so much meat left on the bone, so many opportunities to change this narrative. There’s Washington at home this weekend, and trips to Penn State and (a suddenly competent) Wisconsin in October.
There’s a home game against Ohio State on Halloween and a trip to Indiana on Nov. 14. Win either of those two games, and all the sudden Riley can win big games and can take USC to the College Football Playoff. I’m not ready to give up on the Trojans just yet. We won’t know if they’re ready to win a big one until they finally win a big one and the clock hits zero. And they’ve got a couple more chances still to do that this fall.
Emptying the notebook after a fascinating Week 4:
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) September 27, 2026
- Dylan Raiola steps in and steps up 🦆
- Same old story at USC 😵💫
- Is Texas the best team in the country? 🔎
- Jeff Brohm Letdown Game™️ ✅
- Jon Sumrall's Gators 📈📈
- Hawkeyes! 🍻
🔗 @NBCSports: https://t.co/IVAatrveGs
BUY: Backup quarterbacks at Oregon
I can’t say enough about what Dylan Raiola did Saturday night at the Coliseum. He stepped up in an unimaginably difficult situation, taking his first snap of the game against USC at the exact same time Dante Moore was leaving the stadium via ambulance. And Raiola still led Oregon to a monster win on the road, the kind of victory that can change the outlook for an entire season after an early inexplicable loss.
It’s a credit to the type of person Raiola is that he chose to come to the Ducks, knowing he was unlikely to start if Moore came back to college but still wanting to develop and be part of this program. Moore did the same thing, signing up to be a backup QB for a year behind Dillon Gabriel. That says a lot about of these players and the program Dan Lanning is running up in Eugene. Seems like a pretty good QB system — and one that ensures a better QB2 than just about any other team in college football.
Dylan Raiola has been really, really impressive today. Stepped up in a very difficult situation and played better than we’ve seen him at any point in his college career so far.
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) September 27, 2026
HOLD: Notre Dame’s national championship chances
The Irish haven’t truly been tested yet — and may not until Miami comes to South Bend in November. But they still look the part of a championship contender, even as they continue to work through the new-look run game and as they figure out who their most potent offensive weapons are in the passing attack.
SELL: The SEC not having a championship-level team
October has barely begun, so I don’t want to prematurely declare that this is the year the SEC returns to the top of college football. But … a 10-2 record vs. the rest of the Power 4 certainly suggests that the top and middle of the SEC stack up extremely well against that of their peers.
I do believe Georgia has the roster, coach and cohesiveness to be a true national title contender. The fourth quarter we saw from Texas to storm back and beat Ohio State suggests that the Longhorns have a national championship-level ceiling — they just haven’t been consistent enough just yet for me to fully buy in.
Alabama’s got something special in quarterback Keelon Russell, plus a defense that looks like it’s capable of causing problems throughout SEC play. Florida has emerged as a legitimate CFP contender in Jon Sumrall’s first season. Mississippi State may have the best quarterback in all of college football. Or maybe that’s Ole Miss? Either way, there are a lot of very good teams in the SEC. One of them may very well be on the path to winning a national title, the league’s first in four years.
HOLD: The Big Ten being “down” this year
If the SEC is up, is the Big Ten down? That’s what we all want to know.
Ohio State lost to Texas. Oregon lost to Oklahoma State. Rutgers loss to UMass, for goodness’s sake. Even Indiana looks shakier than it did a year ago! Michigan barely has an offense! It’s been a tough first month for the Big Ten, and it’s fair to question whether we believe its top teams can be the best in the sport once again.
Vegas still likes Ohio State’s chances. Oregon’s win at USC could prove to be a turning point for the Ducks. The Hoosiers, despite some uncharacteristic pre-snap penalties and a defense that has appeared porous at times, still haven’t lost a game since 2024. It’s possible that the Big Ten’s best is still the nation’s best — it just may be a rockier path to that final destination this season.
SELL: Curt Cignetti taking any transfer QB and winning big
Well, Josh Hoover isn’t Fernando Mendoza. That’s for certain, as we sit here four games into the 2026 regular season. And maybe that was too much to ask from the TCU transfer! Mendoza did become Indiana’s first Heisman Trophy winner, after all. But it’s fair to say they’re not the same, that they’re not interchangeable. It’s the same with D’Angelo Ponds in the secondary — just because there’s a great deal of talent in the back end of Indiana’s defense doesn’t mean that it’s exactly the same without its heartbeat. It’s OK to say that!
BUY: Instant replay live look-ins
If there was any good that came out of the last-second snafu at the Big House in Week 1, it’s this: Now, three of the Power 4 conferences have expanded audience access to replay reviews.
The Big Ten, ACC and Big 12 are all doing live look-ins to their command centers during replay reviews (for some but not all of their games). The ACC pioneered the move a season ago (and the Big 12 followed), and it’s truly genius. Transparency is so important for these conferences as they try to get fans to trust their officiating and replay processes.
Inside the AP Poll: First-year head coaches are making an immediate impact: https://t.co/GXrD07NjDC https://t.co/DCRieNGZ8d
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) September 28, 2026
SELL: AP Top 25 poll overreactions
I think some fans are forgetting that the AP poll is *not* the same thing as the CFP rankings. At least, that’s the way it seems to me, based on the level of vitriol I see online each week. The AP poll can change drastically! It’s OK if it does, because it means voters are reacting to new information and new data points. It’s also OK if not everyone agrees on the overall No. 1 team or how to handle a head-to-head result for two teams with otherwise distinctive resumes.
Groupthink is generally bad in sports media! But in this particular space, fans use poll-tracking websites to find — and harass — specific people who vote differently from others, which doesn’t seem very healthy or productive. Especially when the poll is not part of the CFP process and doesn’t have any say in determining who makes the 12-team Playoff field. It’s OK if Missouri is ranked this week (even if I didn’t vote for this myself), because if the Tigers lose again, they’ll fall out. It’s also OK if Wake Forest isn’t ranked because if the Demon Deacons keep winning, they will be soon.
These things will work themselves out as games are played and votes change — and that’s a good thing.
BUY: Crying Kirk Ferentz
Kirk Ferentz has gotten more emotional as he’s gotten older, and it’s led to some beautiful, candid postgame interviews. I, personally, love them. It was so sweet to see how much that last-second win at Michigan meant to him, and I’m sure if the Hawkeyes are able to upset the Buckeyes this weekend, we’ll see even more waterworks.
A celebration well earned. pic.twitter.com/JXdjYRX2ZH
— Hawkeye Football (@HawkeyeFootball) September 27, 2026
SELL: Other people’s blood on your face
No offense to PJ Fleck. I’m just not wired that way!
