There’s no official halfway point of the NCAA college football season, as some teams play 12 regular-season games while others play 13. But the regular season wraps up in Week 14, so the recently completed Week 7 means we’re essentially at the midpoint.
As a result, now’s a good time to look back at what’s happened and ahead to what’s on the horizon. Here are the biggest notes and nuggets.
The Coaching Carousel
With the firings of James Franklin (Penn State), Trent Bray (Oregon State), and Trent Dilfer (University of Alabama at Birmingham) on Sunday, there are nine head coach openings in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). Two of them—Stanford and Kent State—were created from offseason terminations, meaning that the seven in-season firings are the most before November since the 1978 college football season.Speaking of Franklin, his now-former Nittany Lions were No. 2 in the AP Preseason Poll, which makes PSU just the second preseason Top 5 team to ever fire its coach midseason, joining the 2016 LSU Tigers, who canned Les Miles after a 2-2 start.
Preseason Rankings Don’t Mean Much
Of the top 17 teams in the AP Preseason Poll, nine of them are no longer ranked. That’s over half of the squads, including No. 2 PSU and No. 4 Clemson. Meanwhile, in the AP Poll entering Week 8, 11 of the top 25 weren’t ranked in the preseason poll. Just about all coaches hate preseason polls, and statistics like this show why.Bill Belichick Is Very Much on Brand
Much has been made about Bill Belichick’s disaster of a season at North Carolina, with the team having a 2-3 record, including a 0-3 mark versus Power 4 teams. UNC will make the cross-country trip to face Cal on Friday night, and as double-digit underdogs, the Tar Heels appear headed for 2-4.However, for the man with eight Super Bowl rings, that would be nothing new in his first year at a new post. His very first NFL head coaching job with the 1991 Cleveland Browns saw the team start out with a 2-4 record. His first year with the New England Patriots in 2000 also saw his team start 2-4. UNC has stressed that this is just Year 1 of a multi-year rebuild, though some impatient fans, alumni, and donors expected more immediate results.
The Undefeated
There are 11 unbeaten squads entering Week 8, and with none of them playing one another this weekend, there could still be 11 undefeated teams come Week 9. It’s the third year in a row that there have been exactly 11 unbeatens entering Week 8, and each of the top five squads falls into this category: No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Miami, No. 3 Indiana, No. 4 Texas A&M, and No. 5 Ole Miss.However, you could also find a pair of perfect programs that are not ranked at all in UNLV and Navy. Both play outside of major conferences, and as a result, they’ve played two of the three easiest schedules thus far, with the Rebels’ strength of schedule ranking dead last of the 136 FBS programs. Navy will get tested in November, when it plays three straight ranked squads, but UNLV doesn’t have a single ranked team on the rest of its schedule. If the Rebels run the table, they will make for an interesting discussion topic when the CFP committee selects a Group of Five team to make the playoff.
The Lonely Trio
There are also three winless teams remaining entering Week 8. Two of them, Oregon State (0-7) and Sam Houston (0-6), will play on Nov. 8, guaranteeing at least one of them picks up a victory this year.The other is UMass (0-6), which has not posted a record better than 4-8 since joining FBS in 2012. The Minutemen rank last in the nation in scoring offense and are seventh worst in scoring defense. Their closest defeat was losing by one point to a Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) school in Bryant University (Rhode Island), while UMass has lost to their FBS opponents by an average of 32.4 points. With little chance of a victory on their upcoming schedule, we could see a team finish winless for the second year in a row, after Kent State went 0-12 last year.
Rivalry Weekend Coming Up
Looking ahead to the Week 8 schedule, there are a number of rivalry games, many with nicknames or trophies. There’s USC vs. Notre Dame, who will meet for the 96th time and have the Jeweled Shillelagh on the line. Also, Utah vs. BYU is known as the Holy War, and the two are facing off in a ranked matchup for the first time since 2009.
Memphis vs. UAB is a rivalry known as The Battle for the Bones due to its trophy, a bronze rack of ribs that is fitting for the cities’ affinity for barbecue. There’s also TCU vs. Baylor, who will meet for the 121st time in the Bluebonnet Battle, one of the most contested series in college football history. Meanwhile, one of the youngest rivalries is Georgia Southern vs. Georgia State, matching up for just the 12th time. However, it has one of the best nicknames, Modern Day Hate, a play on the rivalry between fellow Peach State programs the University of Georgia and Georgia Tech, whose series is called Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate.
