College football Week 9 overreactions: Big Ten closer to ACC and Big 12 than SEC, no Heisman for Jeremiah

The Big Ten's run as college football's top conference is over, while Ohio State's offensive woes could cost Jeremiah Smith a Heisman Trophy -- plus more Week 9 overreactions Nov 1, 2026 at 8:01 am ET • 9 min read When Indiana held on to beat Miami in last season's national championship, it was clear that the Big Ten was the king of college football.It was the conference's third straight national championship -- all won by different schools -- as it usurped the SEC as the ruler of the sport.Unless something shocking happens between now and Jan. 25, the Big Ten will not win a fourth consecutive national championship. The Big Ten is much closer to the Big 12 and ACC this season than the SEC. That comparison might even be unfair to the ACC. All the Big Ten's top teams are either deeply flawed, untested or both. If decided today, the ACC has a better 1-2 punch of Miami and Wake Forest than whatever the Big Ten could muster up as its top two teams. Ohio State? Clearly not the same team without star quarterback Julian Sayin, who may miss the remainder of the season. The Buckeyes have more than just a quarterback problem, too, as evident in the way USC beat them Saturday night. Ohio State was my preseason pick to win it all but that doesn't look feasible for a Sayin-less team. Indiana? The Hoosiers haven't looked like a top 10 team all season long. Curt Cignetti is a good enough coach to keep Indiana winning but this team looks like it's just dying to give a game or two away. Indiana looks like the 2024 version of itself -- much more like a one-and-done playoff team than a viable championship contender again.UCLA? The Bruins have beaten up on mediocre to bad Big Ten teams. UCLA has the No. 75 strength of schedule and its marquee win is over an Oregon team without Dante Moore. UCLA looks well on its way to making the playoff but it's impossible to decipher where it stacks up against the elite teams because it hasn't played one. The rest of the field includes a USC team that got blown out against Wisconsin and two-loss teams like Iowa and Northwestern. Collectively, the Big Ten is the most disappointing conference in the country thus far. Going into the 2026 season, one knew the Big Ten would be top-heavy. It's no secret that the bottom of the league can be quite bad and the conference relies on its big brands to carry its reputation. But this season the bottom of the league is again quite bad but the expected powerhouses at the top haven't materialized. No team better encapsulates that than Oregon, but Michigan is obviously mediocre and Penn State is 4-4. The SEC is by no means perfect but it is easily the more challenging and talented conference. The SEC has the entire top five and 9 of the top 10 toughest schedules, according to ESPN's strength of schedule metric. The SEC not only has seven viable playoff contenders, the entire bottom of the league isn't bad. Arkansas and Vanderbilt are, yes, but Texas A&M, Mississippi State and Auburn could all knock out Big Ten teams. We already saw it earlier this year when a healthy Kamario Taylor went in to Minnesota and helped Mississippi State beat the Gophers 38-13. That same Minnesota team has beaten Iowa, Michigan, Washington and gave Indiana everything it could handle before losing in overtime on Saturday. Proclaiming the SEC as the nation's best conference can elicit eye rolls nationally, especially when it may not be deserving as it wasn't last season. But this season, it really isn't even a question. The SEC is far and away the best of the best. The Big Ten? It belongs with the rest of the pack. Smith deserves a Heisman but won't win oneJeremiah Smith made Big Ten history Saturday night when he caught his 40th career touchdown. It should have been a celebratory moment for the transcendent Ohio State receiver, and yet it came amid a 30-18 loss to unranked USC. The loss not only damaged Ohio State's playoff and national championship hopes, but the way in which the Buckeyes lost also poured cold water on Smith's Heisman Trophy chances. Smith slipped behind Miami quarterback Darian Mensah and receiver Malachi Toney in the Heisman odds, and one can envision how it can get worse for the Buckeyes star if backup quarterback Luke Fahey continues to struggle as Julian Sayin's replacement. No one expected Fahey to match Sayin's production but USC's defense previously gave up 35 points to 2-6 Rutgers and 30 points to Louisiana. And it certainly wasn't Fahey's fault Ohio State lost to the Trojans -- OSU faltered in a number of areas -- but his big throw and red-zone struggles signal challenges moving forward for Smith's Heisman case. Not only does Smith need to stockpile statistics as he did the first half of the season but he needs to deliver 'wow' plays. He's more than capable of doing so but the combination of Fahey's limitations and a more conservative Ohio State offense could limit those opportunities. Smith deserves a career Heisman and a 2026 season Heisman. But if what we saw Saturday night is what the rest of this season will be for the Buckeyes, he won't be the one giving an acceptance speech in New York next month. Big 12 officiating is horribleBeing a football referee at any level is hard work. There is a lot happening at every moment and it can be easy to make a mistake. It truly is harder than it looks.That said, the Big 12 is embarrassing itself with its weekly officiating blunders that keep involving BYU. FOX Sports analyst Robert Griffin III nailed it when he said Saturday, "This is three weeks in a row where we've had Big 12 officials just making up rules as they go." Two weeks ago it was Big 12 officials completely botching the end of BYU-Notre Dame. Not only did it look like a clear pass interference penalty on Notre Dame QB CJ Carr's last-second throw, but Big 12 officials failed to properly review the time remaining and deprived Notre Dame of one final second. Last weekend there was a controversial roughing the kicker penalty and then an incorrect implementation of a 10-second run off when a UCF player's helmet came off because the clock should have stopped for a blocked kick. And then on Saturday there was a decision that completely confounded FOX Sports rules analyst Mike Pereira. BYU quarterback Bear Bachmeier fumbled the ball as he attempted to score on a QB sneak. Running back Sione Pioha picked up the fumble and scored a touchdown. The officials initially ruled on the field that Bachmeier's forward progress had been stopped and the play was dead. The replay center reversed that call and instead ruled it a touchdown. Pereira, rightfully, couldn't believe it. "The ruling on the field was the runner was down initially, and if that's the case, you've ruled it dead. You can give a recovery, but you can't give an advance unless we've come up with a new rule here, which I'm not too sure that you can really do." BYU went up 7-0 and won the game 27-20 over Arizona State. After the game, the Big 12 admitted that it had again messed up an important call. As Breaking Bad's Jesse Pinkman might say, the Big 12 can't keep getting away with this. Three weekends in a row is completely unacceptable. I know Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark is on the way out but he needs to make fixing his conference's egregiously bad officiating a major priority before he exits college athletics for greener pastures. Horrible officiating week after week in crucial moments significantly damages the conference's credibility and could have an outsized impact on the College Football Playoff race if it keeps up. Notre Dame's playoff path may be perilousNotre Dame is 7-1, ranked No. 5 in the country and won 35-13 over Navy on Saturday. Life seems pretty good in South Bend. And yet two results elsewhere Saturday could put Notre Dame back in the same unfortunate College Football Playoff position it found itself in a year ago. Syracuse's upset over No. 19 SMU and Iowa's 30-0 blowout win over No. 25 Wisconsin were both damaging to ND's playoff resume. It eliminated the Fighting Irish's one win over a top 25 opponent (Wisconsin) and eliminated one of two remaining opportunities to get a win over a top 25 team. Assuming SMU drops out of the top 25, Notre Dame's only remaining opportunity comes next week against No. 1 Miami.If Notre Dame beats Miami, it has nothing to worry about. In fact, it'd have a very good chance to earn a first-round bye with a top-four seed. If ND loses, it could finish the season with a 10-2 record with zero top-25 wins. That's not great, especially with a mediocre strength of schedule that ranks No. 57 nationally. Could ND get left out even with a 10-2 record? Yes. It looks like there could be a logjam of 9-3 SEC teams that would be more deserving, particularly if Texas and Ole Miss find themselves with that record. Notre Dame's soft scheduling will likely serve it well in an expanded 24-team playoff but it could again be the difference between getting in versus getting left out. Rivers could win at NC StateAs CBS Sports first reported last week, Philip Rivers has been the focus of the NC State search from the moment the school fired Dave Doeren. It has only gotten more serious over the last week and multiple industry sources told CBS Sports they expect the hire to happen at this point. Most tellingly, NC State isn't seriously entertaining any candidate not named Rivers.It's a massive risk to not only hire a first-time college head coach from the high school ranks but a program legend at that. It's not easy firing a beloved alumnus. NC State knows that firsthand when it had to fire former basketball coach Sidney Lowe. The last coach to make the jump from successful high school coach straight to the FBS level was Trent Dilfer, and he didn't even make it three full seasons at UAB with a disastrous 9-21 record. There are many reasons it won't work, and yet I still think it might. Rivers was a cerebral quarterback, which has translated to his coaching work at St. Michael Catholic in Fairhope, Alabama. He is a strong motivator and can fire up the NC State booster base to make the Wolfpack more competitive. He's a known name which shouldn't hurt in recruiting, a world he has some experience in after helping his son navigate that process before he committed to NC State. The key, as it is for every coach but especially for Rivers, is nailing the coaching staff and support staff. Rivers could excel in a leader-of-men-role but he'll need smart people around him who know how to get things done at the college level. He needs a good general manager to help him with the NIL and personnel side, and he needs a good defensive coordinator to take a lot of the pressure off him in that department. South Carolina defensive coordinator Clayton White, an NC State alum, would be a great fit. NC State was dependably solid in Doeren's 14 years in Raleigh. The Wolfpack were rarely great but never bad. It was a good run for a long time but the program needs someone who can reinvigorate it. Rivers, who interviewed well for the Buffalo Bills job in January, is the high-risk, high-reward candidate who could propel the program to greater heights. Feel free to screenshot this column and send it back to me in three years if it implodes. But Rivers has a much better shot at succeeding in jump from high school to college than the men who preceded him.