College football is unpredictable and delightful, which is why we live for what happens on Saturdays. And Week 4 certainly delivered, from a shocking blowout in Bloomington to a nailbiter in Norman and everything in between.
Each Sunday, I’ll publish my biggest takeaways from the college football weekend. I’ll highlight the most interesting storylines, track College Football Playoff contenders and specifically shout out individual and team performances that deserve the spotlight.
1. It’s time for Oklahoma State to move on from Mike Gundy.
The 66-point loss to Oregon two weeks ago was bad, but a 19-12 loss to a 1-2 Tulsa team at home coming off a bye is totally inexcusable. That performance felt like either the end or the beginning of the end for Gundy, who is in his 21st season in Stillwater and by far the winningest coach in Oklahoma State program history. And yet … this feels untenable. After a 3-9 season, Gundy nearly got fired last offseason. He restructured his contract and overhauled his staff, and still no forward progress. It’s always hard to part with a coach who has been synonymous with a school — and a coach who played for said school — but this is an athletic department that needs a hard reset. And a new voice leading this particular program into this era of college football.
Seats get hotter for Gundy, Dabo and Fickell
Nicole Auerbach and Joshua Perry discuss how Dabo Swinney, Mike Gundy and Luke Fickell are falling to new lows with their respective programs, questioning what’s next for the three head coaches.
2. Is Clemson this year’s Florida State?
The bottom completely fell out for Clemson in Saturday’s 34-21 loss to Syracuse. The Tigers gave up 443 total yards of offense; their once-proud defense, put simply, got gashed repeatedly. It was embarrassing. Clemson has never started a season 1-3 in the Dabo Swinney era before, which led to an emotional Swinney postgame. He clearly can’t believe that his fan base has turned on him so quickly after multiple national championships and 181 wins over the years. But that’s how college football works. We live in a world of what have you done for me lately? And I get that it can be frustrating, but this sport is constantly evolving — and if you don’t adapt, you fall behind quickly. Nick Saban is the greatest coach in college football history because he adapted over and over again. Swinney has dipped his toe into the transfer portal, and Clemson did what it needed to do to retain elite talent. But something is seriously wrong here. It could be scheme or game planning. It could be the way the program is run, or that Swinney is still trying to do things the way he did 10 years ago, and it doesn’t work. Or that he’s just not the same without Brent Venables running his defense. Or some combination of all of the above.
Does Dabo need to evolve at Clemson?
Nicole Auerbach, Chris Simms, Joshua Perry and Ahmed Fareed discuss Clemson’s 1-3 start after a loss to Syracuse, evaluating head coach Dabo Swinney’s outlook in his 18th season.
But the drop-off has been both gradual and sudden at the same time, and Clemson is now staring down a long, brutal season with no light at the tunnel. Just like hapless Florida State endured a year ago.
3. Indiana football has some serious staying power.
Curt Cignetti clearly wanted to make a point on Saturday night by beating a ranked opponent by as many points as physically possible. All he heard last year was how Indiana could only beat unranked teams and would then falter against the good teams on its schedule. Well, about that … The Hoosiers obliterated then-No. 9 Illinois on Saturday with both an incredibly impressive offensive showing and a ferocious defensive performance.
Curt Cignetti is quickly approaching the “went for two because I couldn’t go for three” territory
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) September 21, 2025
Maybe it’s because we in the media are always looking for the Next Great Thing or trying to predict surprise teams. But we didn’t spend a ton of time this offseason talking about Indiana’s encore season. We talked about teams that could be this year’s Indiana — aka teams with favorable schedules that become CFP contenders. We didn’t talk about whether or not the Hoosiers could make back-to-back CFP appearances! But this is a legitimately solid football team with a great coaching staff that puts its players in good situations. Indiana’s schedule is more difficult this season than it was a year ago, but it’s clear that the Hoosiers aren’t going anywhere. They’re going to factor into this Big Ten race and the Playoff picture, too.
Oh, and welcome to the Heisman Trophy race, Fernando Mendoza.
4. Texas Tech is, indeed, a top Big 12 contender.
Money well spent, it seems. The Red Raider boosters went all-in on this football program this offseason, spending tens of millions of dollars to help Joey McGuire get the kind of talent he’d need to try to help Texas Tech win the Big 12 for the very first time. And that certainly worked, as evidenced by a convincing win over Utah (and a complete shutdown of Utes quarterback Devon Dampier) largely on the back of Red Raiders backup quarterback Will Hammond. It was, at times, a very ugly game, but it counts as an impressive win all the same. And Texas Tech wouldn’t have to play Iowa State until/if they meet in the Big 12 title game, which means this conference has a real shot at getting two teams into the CFP this year.
Oklahoma, Texas Tech prevail in Week 4
Nicole Auerbach and Joshua Perry give their biggest takeaways from Texas Tech’s win vs. Utah and Oklahoma’s victory against Auburn, discussing the performances by two teams looking to take the next step in 2025.
5. The Group of 6 representative in the College Football Playoff will come from the American conference.
This isn’t really a hot take, but it needs to be said. You’ve got USF with its wins over Florida and Boise State. You’ve got Tulane with its wins over Duke and Northwestern. And now Memphis has a win over Arkansas. No other Group of 6 conference has any comparable collection of nonconference wins, which means the American champion will likely be ranked significantly higher than the champion of the Mountain West or Sun Belt or whoever. The American race will be one to watch, and it might be a deeper league than I originally anticipated — which will make this very fun to track over the next couple of months.