What we learned about college football in September
Somehow, a third of the regular season is already complete
The fun part about college football is that it feels like a sprint. Unlike the year round cycle of events that the NFL has created, college football really hits the ground running in September and comes to a complete stop by the end of signing days in February. With the elimination of the Spring transfer portal window, the season’s entire offseason “building” really does culminate shortly after the final playoff game ends.
So with that in mind, it’s actually not crazy to look back at September and try and pull out valuable lessons, because the sample size we have now is large enough to account for some built in variance while also reshaping preseason predictions and projections that ranged from “probably still accurate1” to “holy shit wrong2.”
It’s not early enough for bold declarations3, but it is late enough that you can start to feel pretty good about teams based on their bodies of work and the coaching staff’s history of maintaining or growing as the season marches forward.4 So what do I think we can take forward for the rest of the season? Glad you asked…
