I wrote, after LSU’s Week 1 win against then-No. 4 Clemson, that this is the year for Brian Kelly and the Tigers. At the time, they looked like the cream of the SEC crop, primed to take advantage of a wide-open conference race while riding that momentum to a potential appearance in the College Football Playoff National Championship.
Time to eat crow. It’s not now. It’s never for Kelly’s Tigers.
Their 24-19 loss to No. 13 Ole Miss in Week 5 proved that this is just the same ole Kelly-coached LSU team. Good, but not good enough to compete for anything that matters.
This time, though, it’s not the defense that’s holding LSU back. The offense, led by quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who entered the year in the No. 1 overall NFL Draft pick conversation, has been a complete dud.
Ole Miss allowed 526 total yards of offense to a three-loss Arkansas team in its SEC opener two weeks ago. The Razorbacks rushed for 221 yards. LSU had 254 yards as a team against that same Rebels defense.
Nussmeier failed to reach at least 200 yards passing for the first time this season. He also threw his third interception in five games.
LSU’s defense put up another solid fight, but the Tigers were gassed by the offense’s inability to stay on the field. Kelly seems incapable of fielding a complete football team.
That means he’s not the guy to take LSU where it wants to go.
USC has already hit its ceiling under Lincoln Riley
And that came well before the Trojans joined the Big Ten. In fact, it’s looking as if USC may have peaked in its first year with Riley at the helm, when it won 11 games and made an appearance in the Pac-12 Championship Game.
It also lost to Tulane in the Cotton Bowl. USC hasn’t gotten close to winning double digit games since and, if Saturday was any indication, it likely won’t reach that mark this year.
It certainly won’t come anywhere close to a championship game. The Trojans lost 34-32 to a reeling Illinois team. A No. 23 Illinois team that lost 63-10 in its Big Ten opener and subsequently plummeted 14 spots in the AP Top 25.
It was a familiar story for USC. The Trojans have lost five straight games as an outright favorite against AP-ranked opponents. All five of those losses have come by three points or fewer.
It’s hard to find a path toward relevancy for USC this year. The Trojans have three ranked opponents left, including No. 6 Oregon on the road, and also have to travel to play a decent Nebraska team.
It’s time for NC State to move on
Dave Doeren has given NC State some of its best seasons since the turn of the century. He snapped an eight-game losing streak to Clemson in the Textile Bowl. He’s the program’s all-time wins leader at 90 (and counting). He’s taken the Wolfpack to a bowl game 10 times, more than any other coach in NC State history.
But it’s time for NC State to move on. For all that Doeren has accomplished, it’s clear that he has this team headed in the entirely wrong direction. Doeren’s best days are far in the rearview mirror.
He hit rock bottom in Week 5 when his team lost 23-21 to Virginia Tech. For those out of the loop, Virginia Tech fired coach Brent Pry on Sept. 14 following a 45-26 home loss to Old Dominion that punctuated an 0-3 start to the year.
With that, Doeren is now 5-8 in his last 13 games against Power Four competition. The Wolfpack is also 4-7 in conference play since the start of the 2024 campaign and, in spite of their many appearances, they have not won a bowl game in eight years.
Maybe NC State lets him ride out the rest of the season and go out on his own terms, but a change needs to be made to revitalize NC State.
The 2026 QB class is the worst since 2022
It’s a really bad time to be an NFL team that needs a quarterback. After what was viewed as a down year during the 2025 draft cycle, many pundits expected quarterback to be a strength of the 2026 NFL Draft.
The allure of names like Texas’ Arch Manning (if he actually decided to come out of college early), LSU’s Nussmeier, Penn State’s Drew Allar and Clemson’s Cade Klubnik, among many others, was hard to deny — before they actually started playing football this year, at least.
Manning and Allar have shown flashes, though they’re far from surefire professional studs. Nussmeier and Klubnik have been downright disappointments. South Carolina’s LaNorris Sellers has yet to live up to the massive preseason hype he received.
The 2026 class isn’t completely lacking in names. Oregon’s Dante Moore is playing his way into the first round. Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza is surpassing preseason expectations. That’s about it through the first five weeks.
Jason Eck should be the hottest coaching name on the carousel
If you’re not familiar with the name Jason Eck, it’s time to learn. He’s got New Mexico at 3-1 for the first time since 2007. New Mexico also played in front of its first sell-out crowd in 18 years during Saturday’s 38-20 win against rival New Mexico State.
Among those three wins was a 35-10 triumph against the Big Ten’s UCLA. New Mexico’s lone loss was by 17 points on the road against No. 19 Michigan, and the Lobos hung around in that one until the fourth quarter.
He’s doing this at a New Mexico program that hasn’t had a winning season in almost a decade. He engineered a similar turnaround at Idaho before ascending to the FBS ranks.
He led the Vandals, who had a losing season each year from 2017-21, to three straight appearances in the FCS Playoffs from 2022-24. Eck’s one of the most creative offensive minds in the game right now. Seriously, do yourself a favor and watch New Mexico at some point this season. Descriptions don’t do it justice.
He’s also the type of coach that will absolutely make an immediate impact with Power Four resources.
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