David HaleOct 12, 2025, 12:19 AM ETCloseCollege football reporter.Joined ESPN in 2012.Graduate of the University of Delaware.Follow on X
play0:24Elijah Sarratt’s TD puts Indiana ahead for goodFernando Mendoza connects with Elijah Sarratt to take the lead against the Ducks.
play2:13Colorado fans storm field; Deion ‘happy and elated’Colorado fans storm the field after the Buffaloes upset Iowa State, and Deion Sanders shares his thoughts on the victory.
play1:19South Florida Bulls vs. North Texas Mean Green: Full HighlightsSouth Florida Bulls vs. North Texas Mean Green: Full Highlights
play1:18Air Force Falcons vs. UNLV Rebels: Full HighlightsAir Force Falcons vs. UNLV Rebels: Full Highlights
Indiana Hoosiers vs. Oregon Ducks: Final Game Highlight (0:43)Indiana Hoosiers vs. Oregon Ducks: Final Game Highlight (0:43)
Elijah Sarratt’s TD puts Indiana ahead for goodFernando Mendoza connects with Elijah Sarratt to take the lead against the Ducks.
Colorado fans storm field; Deion ‘happy and elated’Colorado fans storm the field after the Buffaloes upset Iowa State, and Deion Sanders shares his thoughts on the victory.
Colorado fans storm the field after the Buffaloes upset Iowa State, and Deion Sanders shares his thoughts on the victory.
South Florida Bulls vs. North Texas Mean Green: Full HighlightsSouth Florida Bulls vs. North Texas Mean Green: Full Highlights
Air Force Falcons vs. UNLV Rebels: Full HighlightsAir Force Falcons vs. UNLV Rebels: Full Highlights
And yet, for all this change, for all that’s new in college football, one thing has remained steadfastly true: The biggest brands have continued to dominate the sport.
It has been nearly three decades since we’ve had a first-time national champion. It’s been more than four decades since Florida State and Miami forced their way into the staid ranks of college football’s blue bloods. It has been a lifetime since someone in the Big Ten could realistically be called “fun.”
But here we are, halfway through the 2025 season, and Indiana has given us something truly unique and entertaining, truly new — a program that had wallowed in obscurity for decades, now a genuine power on the national stage.
“We showed the country we’re a real team,” said quarterback Fernando Mendoza after Saturday’s stunning 30-20 win over No. 3 Oregon.
Fernando Mendoza connects with Elijah Sarratt to take the lead against the Ducks.
Cignetti said he had “big road wins” at his past stops, and no matter that those stops were in places like IUP, Elon, James Madison and not the Big Ten, his intuition was right.
On Saturday, Fernando Mendoza slung the ball around, hitting star receiver Elijah Sarratt eight times for 121 yards and a score.
On Saturday, Aiden Fisher and the country’s most underrated defense held Heisman Trophy favorite Dante Moore to just 5.5 yards per throw and picked him off twice.
Elsewhere, Nebraska narrowly escaped Maryland, UCLA now seems like a tough out, and things are so bleak at Wisconsin everyone has already moved on to ice fishing season.
Of course, the story only gets the storybook ending if Indiana keeps winning, and while the remaining schedule is more than amenable, there ultimate date with destiny will arrive eventually.
The Buckeyes are the defending champs, the standard by which everyone else in the Big Ten is judged. Ohio State dominated No. 17 Illinois on Saturday, too — 34-16 — but that win hardly warrants headlines because the Buckeyes are used to doing this. Ohio State is a story when it doesn’t win, not when it lives up to all the advanced billing. The Buckeyes chug along, replacing bastions of NFL talent with a fresh cast, year after year.
Indiana is still a story because we couldn’t have seen this coming. Indiana is a surprise. Indiana is new.
This is not a sport that welcomes anyone new to the party, which makes what Indiana is doing still an entirely precarious thing.
But if Cignetti and the Hoosiers can keep winning, can get to the Big Ten championship and upend the Buckeyes, can make the playoff and win there, too, if they can win so much that no one is surprised when it happens anymore, that would be a real story.
Each week, the biggest games deliver thrilling results that shift the landscape of the college football world. Beyond those headlines, however, a host of other subtler shifts occur. We try to capture those here.
Two things were clear after the first Saturday of the regular season: Florida State was back and Kalen DeBoer was being fitted for his membership jacket in the Alabama coaching bust club alongside Mike DuBose and Mike Shula. Mike Price would’ve been in, too, but he accidentally ended up at the wrong club entirely.
The win proved another résumé builder in Simpson’s Heisman campaign, something that would’ve seemed patently absurd to say after the FSU loss. It was also another victory for DeBoer’s famed “black hoodie of death,” which is now the most successful bit of coaching attire since Dan Mullen’s legendary “gray comfy pants of mediocrity.”
Meanwhile, Florida State lost for the third straight time, 34-31, to Pitt, and has now gone 386 days without an ACC win. The Noles allowed Pitt freshman QB Mason Heintschel to throw for 321 yards, and FSU has surrendered points on 17 of 33 complete drives during the three-game skid.
This leads us to some compelling evidence as we begin to discuss who’ll be in the 12-team playoff. Florida State beat, arguably, the best team in the SEC. Florida State is 0-3 in the ACC. Therefore, the ACC is clearly far, far better than the SEC. That’s just math.
UCLA continues to look exceptional after firing DeShaun Foster, as Tim Skipper and the Bruins walloped Michigan State 38-13 on Saturday.
After mustering just 57 total points amid an 0-4 start under Foster, the coaching change has provided a spark to UCLA that typically can’t be achieved without drinking that lemonade from Panera that has so much guanine it allows you to travel through time.
Skipper has been a revelation. On the flight to Michigan, he left a note on each seat on the plane reading, “Are you a one-hit wonder?” which served to motivate both his team and Dexys Midnight Runners who returned to the studio for the first time in 43 years in hopes of getting a second hit. Skipper also showed plenty of chutzpah by calling for a brilliantly executed fake punt that led to a UCLA touchdown.
UCLA has put up 80 points against Penn State and Michigan State the past two weeks with Jerry Neuheisel calling the plays and, we assume, stealing Kelly Kapowski’s heart in the process.
The key to the offensive turnaround has been the legs of QB Nico Iamaleava, who ran for 128 yards and three touchdowns in Saturday’s win, leading his agent to immediately demand a trade back to the SEC.
Penn State opened the season No. 2 in the country. The Nittany Lions have now lost three in a row, after falling to Northwestern 22-21 Saturday. The passing and ground game struggled, and after Penn State scored a go-ahead TD with 10:50 to play in the game, the Jim Knowles-led defense surrendered a 12-play, 75-yard touchdown drive that, until that moment, the folks working at Northwestern’s physics department had only hypothesized was theoretically possible.
All of this leaves Penn State in a bleak position. Hopes for the playoff are over, and Drew Allar suffered a season-ending injury. Penn State would owe James Franklin a boatload of cash to fire him, and the world’s best bioengineers are still months away from developing a microchip that would allow Franklin to experience emotions during a loss. And the next three games for the Nittany Lions: at Iowa, at Ohio State, vs. Indiana.
Two weeks ago, Auburn might’ve toppled Oklahoma, but a pair of officiating decisions doomed the Tigers. The SEC apologized later for one blown call involving a Sooners player who feigned leaving the game, but it did little to change the outcome.
Saturday, Auburn looked to be on the verge of taking a significant lead against Georgia in a game that might’ve been a turning point for Freeze’s program, and again, the officials intervened.
Jackson Arnold appeared to be into the end zone for a touchdown that would’ve put Auburn up 17-0, but he was ruled down at the one inch line. On the next play, Arnold again appeared to cross the goal line before having the ball punched out, and again, the official disagreed. The play was ruled a fumble, Georgia recover, then scored its first points of the game. Auburn never came close to cracking the scoreboard again, and the Dawgs went on to win 20-10.
So many near-misses in back-to-back big games that all went against Auburn is hard to believe. What, after all, has Freeze ever done to deserve such things? Wait, don’t answer that.
Garrett Nussmeier, who is definitely not hurt, threw two picks, as LSU struggled to find pay dirt yet again, but the Tigers’ defense proved good enough to lead the way to another win, 20-10 over South Carolina.
Still, LSU has played five games vs. FBS competition so far this season, and it has still not yet scored more than 23 points. Which is fine. Everything is fine. Stop asking.
If Week 7 was a crowning moment for Curt Cignetti and his “Google me” catchphrase, it was a slightly less impressive coaching performance for Bobby Petrino, and his famous catchphrase, “Please, whatever you do, don’t Google me.”
Petrino, in his first game as Arkansas’ interim head coach after Sam Pittman was fired two weeks ago, did have the Hogs ready for Tennessee, even leading midway through the second quarter. But Tennessee reeled off 24 straight points before a late Arkansas comeback attempt fell short.
Will a close loss to the No. 12 team in the country do much for Petrino’s quest to regain the job he was once fired from in disgrace? He should probably brace for the reality that it’s not, or boy would his face be red when he doesn’t get it.
Colorado fans storm field; Deion ‘happy and elated’
South Florida Bulls vs. North Texas Mean Green: Full Highlights
South Florida Bulls vs. North Texas Mean Green: Full Highlights