Week 8 Overreactions: Indiana is criminally underrated, Georgia is playoff lock, Brent Venables-Oklahoma reunion already soured

For the fifth time this season, we have a change at the top of the rankings, as Oregon is now the No. 1 team for the first time since 2012. Georgia’s two-touchdown upset at top-ranked Texas headlined one of many huge results from Week 8. 

So let’s make some overreactions on what we saw. 

The Week 8 overreactions:

If Indiana were named Michigan, Penn State or Nebraska it would be ranked in the Top 5 and talked about like a surefire CFP team

The Hoosiers annihilated Nebraska 56-7 on Saturday in Bloomington losing star quarterback Kurtis Rourke early in the second half and not missing a beat with backup Tayven Jackson (who started 4-of-4 for 68 yards and two touchdowns). 

Curt Cignetti’s team, which has 12 key transfers from James Madison, Rourke and a host of other impact newcomers, is 7-0 and off to its best start in 57 years. 

Indiana …

• Had its biggest Big Ten win since World War II.
• Is the only Power Conference team to never trail for a single minute this season.
• Leads the nation in scoring at 48.7 points per game.
• Has a Top 5 defense, allowing just 4.4 yards per play.
• Has scoring margin of +245 through seven games, which is better than the margins of the last three national champions (2021 Georgia, 2022 Georgia and 2023 Michigan) at the same mark of the season, per True Media Sports.

Sure, the Hoosiers haven’t played anyone yet (109th strength of schedule). You know who else crushed cupcakes every Saturday last season?

Michigan. 

If Indiana, with its statistical profile, were named Nebraska, Michigan or even Penn State, it would be ranked in the Top 5 and talked about not as a College Football Playoff Cinderella but a potential lock to make the 12-team field. Instead, the Hoosiers (13th) still can’t even crack the Top 10 of the latest AP Poll Top 25 — and that’s ridiculous.

Brent Venables–Oklahoma reunion has mostly been a disaster 

The Sooners are a total mess right now, and following a humiliating 35-9 home loss to a South Carolina, they’re arguably the worst team in the SEC this season. 

That’s not how Year 1 in a new conference was supposed to go. That’s not the expectations Brent Venables was pushing this offseason. 

Venables is now 11-11 in conference games, and he’s mighty fortunate AD Joe Castiglione handed him an extension before a pivotal Year 3 in Norman last summer. Otherwise, he’d be in real hot-seat discussions right now. 

Venables went 6-7 in his first season, which was marred by one of the worst OU defenses in school history and was the program’s first losing season since 1998. 

Last season’s 10-3 mark with an upset over Texas sure looks like fool’s gold, especially considering Venables’ teams has failed to score a touchdown in two other losses to the Longhorns and their 26-point loss to South Carolina was the second-worst home defeat in school history. 

Do these Sooners look like they’re a “stable” or “strong” program right now?

After Saturday, Oklahoma is now 4-3, 1-3 in the SEC. Venables has played quarterback roulette, benching 5-star Jackson Arnold for true freshman Michael Hawkins Jr., only to go back to Arnold on Saturday after Hawkins had three turnovers on the first nine snaps of the game. 

OU’s offense has been a disaster, scoring five total touchdowns in SEC play. Meanwhile, Hawkins handed the Gamecocks 21 points on a pick-six, a scoop-and-score fumble and another interception before Sooners fans had even taken a bite of their first hot dog. 

The receiver room has been derailed by rotten luck (five wideouts injured), but the offensive has been atrocious (15 sacks, 24 TFLs allowed the last two games) — and seems to be getting worse each week. 

To the credit of Danny Stutsman, Billy Bowman and others, OU’s defense (just 250 yards allowed Saturday) hasn’t quit, but it’s barely mattered. Also, neither of those stars will be on OU’s team in 2025. 

The program looks rudderless, and honestly, fairly hopeless right now. The offensive line room has been mismanaged. Venables’ decision to promote Seth Littrell to OC, who he fired Sunday, was a total failure. He’s whiffed in the transfer portal, too. 

Unlike Steve Sarkisian at Texas, who took his medicine for two seasons with the Longhorns to slowly build one of the top rosters in the sport, Venables chased immediate results in Year 1 — and he still had a losing record. 

Outside a brief period in the 1990s, OU’s football team was like Warren Buffett’s investment portfolio — recession proof. But Venables is proving that’s no longer true. The program’s stock has taken a huge hit, with $50 million guaranteed to Venables thanks to that needless extension, the question is how far will it dip and can OU afford to let it reach rock-bottom?

With games remaining against No. 21 Missouri, No. 15 Alabama and No. 8 LSU, we’re going to find out.

Georgia clinched a College Football Playoff spot with the upset over top-ranked Texas 

There are only two Top 25 teams with multiple wins over current ranked teams: BYU (Kansas State and SMU) and now Georgia. 

The Bulldogs have a pair of Top 10 wins, blasting Clemson by 31 and beating Texas in Austin by two touchdowns. 

Fueled by the same “disrespect” that was the hallmark of their 2021 and 2022 title teams, the Bulldogs manhandled the Longhorns’ offensive line — which might have three Day 1 NFL Draft picks. Of course, a healthy Mykel Williams, who barely played in the loss to Alabama, and Jalon Walker, are 1st-round picks of their own. 

This was a vintage Kirby Smart defense — fast, ferocious and hard-hitting. They finished with seven sacks (three forced fumbles), 11 tackles for loss, one pick and nearly 3-4 more against one of the top offenses in college football. 

While the Bulldogs’ schedule remains difficult down the stretch (a resurgent Florida in two weeks, No. 7 Tennessee, at No. 16 Ole Miss), they’ve pocketed the best two wins in the country and have north of  90% playoff odds by most models. 

This is not a team folks want to face come December, but after Saturday, that looks like a close to a lock at this point. 

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