The Solid Verbal College Football

Mike Norvell is out at Florida State, and ESPN's David Hale joins us for a full ACC whiparound as college football's coaching carousel heats up. We start with Norvell's firing, the massive buyout, and what comes next for Florida State. Then David Hale joins us to assess the Seminoles' coaching search, the surprising collapse at NC State, the future of Dabo Swinney at Clemson, and whether Bill Beli...

College Football Week 9 delivered another round of upsets, close calls and big questions about the teams at the top of the rankings. Seven Top 25 teams went down, including Ohio State in an upset loss to USC, and we're back to sort through the fallout from another unpredictable Saturday. We start with USC's statement win over the Buckeyes and what it means for both teams moving forward. Then, we t...

College Football Week 9 has the look of a quiet weekend before the November madness begins, but we're not buying the idea that everything will go according to plan. With quarterback injuries, vulnerable contenders, tricky road games, and conference races getting tighter, there's plenty that could go sideways. In this college football podcast episode, we preview the biggest games of Week 9 and make...

The college football coaching carousel is picking up speed, and we've got another round of major changes to unpack. Dave Aranda is out at Baylor, Drew Mehringer has been dismissed as Oregon's offensive coordinator, and the speculation surrounding openings at NC State and Maryland is getting more interesting by the day. We discuss what went wrong, where these programs go next, and which names could...

College Football Week 8 delivered another round of chaos, with major upsets, shaken playoff contenders and an increasingly difficult question: Who can we actually trust? We start in the Big 12, where BYU and Texas Tech both went down in stunning fashion. Just when it looked like the conference was establishing a clear hierarchy, UCF and Cincinnati threw everything into question. What do these loss...

College Football Week 8 might not have the biggest headliners of the season, but after another wild Saturday, there are plenty of opportunities for things to go sideways. Which teams can build on emotional wins, which ones are heading for a letdown, and which supposed contenders are running out of answers? We make our picks for Ole Miss at Texas, Indiana at Michigan, LSU at Auburn, USC at Wisconsi...

After a wild Week 7, we're back with ESPN's Bill Connelly to make sense of a college football season that keeps getting stranger. With five of the top seven teams losing and quarterback questions piling up across the country, is there actually a great team in college football right now? We dig into the fallout from Julian Sayin's injury at Ohio State, the struggles at Penn State under Matt Campbel...

College football's Week 7 was absolute madness. Eight ranked teams lost, including Georgia, Notre Dame, Indiana, Alabama and Texas, leaving us with a completely scrambled AP Top 25 and a whole lot of questions about who's actually good. We react to Auburn's stunning upset of No. 1 Georgia, Tennessee's dominant win over Alabama, Florida's comeback against Texas and BYU's statement victory over Notr...

College Football Week 7 is here, and the schedule is absolutely loaded. We've got top-five showdowns, historic road trips, heated rivalries and a Saturday where survival might be the name of the game. We're making our picks for more than 20 matchups, and things could get wild in a hurry. We start with Ohio State at Indiana in a massive Big Ten showdown. Are the defending champion Hoosiers still th...

Dan is back, and after Oregon's stunning loss to UCLA, we've got some questions about which college football fan bases are having the roughest time in 2026. Is Oregon's disappointment worse than what Texas A&M and Michigan fans are experiencing? Where do Oklahoma, Arkansas and NC State fit on the misery scale? We debate the difference between a frustrating season and one that leaves a fan base...

College football Week 6 delivered a little bit of everything, including a new No. 1 team, a stunning upset in the Red River rivalry, and another brutal Saturday for Oregon. With Dan away, Ty welcomes Tim Murray from VSiN to sort through the biggest results and what they mean for the rest of the season. We start with Oklahoma's win over Texas and the questions surrounding the Longhorns' offense, th...

College Football Week 6 is packed with matchups that could confirm everything we think we know about the 2026 season, or force us to reconsider. We preview Georgia-Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where two SEC heavyweights face a major test, and Texas-Oklahoma in a Red River rivalry featuring plenty of questions about both offenses. Can Indiana keep rolling against an improved Nebraska team? Is UCLA ready...

Five weeks into the 2026 college football season, the easy answers are disappearing. We unveil the latest Verballer Top 12 , clean up a few things we missed from Saturday night, and then bring in ESPN’s Bill Connelly to help us figure out what we can actually trust as the season moves into October. How good is Missouri? What does the top of the Big 12 actually look like? Who belongs behind M...

College Football Week 5 gave us another reminder not to get too comfortable with anything we thought we knew in September. We start with Missouri’s emphatic win over Florida and what it means for both teams after a month of wildly shifting expectations. Then we get into Alabama’s dominant performance against Mississippi State, another ridiculous day from Keelon Russell, Ohio State hand...

College Football Week 5 is here, and a bunch of teams are trying to figure out whether the good vibes are real or just another mirage. We make our picks for Alabama-Mississippi State in Starkville, Ohio State-Iowa in Iowa City, Florida-Missouri, Miami-Clemson and a pair of fascinating Friday night games with Pitt-Virginia Tech and Penn State-Northwestern. Can Mississippi State prove it belongs in...

September is almost over, which means we finally have enough evidence to start wondering who has actually taken a meaningful step forward, who has gone backward, and which teams are still making us wait for a real answer? We run through a wide range of teams that have changed the conversation around themselves over the first month of the season, including Texas A&M, Wisconsin, Virginia Tech, K...

College Football Week 4 gave us the kind of Saturday that starts changing how the season looks. We start with Florida’s emphatic win over Ole Miss and what it means for a Gators team that suddenly has to be taken seriously in the SEC race. Then we turn to Oregon’s wild road win at USC, where an early injury changed the entire shape of the game and forced the Ducks to find a very differ...

College Football Week 4 is absolutely loaded, and we’re breaking down as much of it as humanly possible. We start with Texas traveling to Tennessee for its first true road test, then turn to Oregon-USC and a major prove-it game for both programs. Plus, why Ole Miss-Florida has all the makings of the mother of all letdown games, whether Michigan can create enough offense against Iowa, and wha...

Three weeks into the college football season, how much do we actually know? For our September Mailbag, we turn the show over to questions from the Verballerhood and try to figure out which teams have given us enough evidence to trust what we’re seeing. We talk Ole Miss, Texas, Miami and the ACC, then dig into whether early stumbles from the Big Ten and SEC could open the door for the Big 12...

College Football Week 3 delivered the kind of Saturday that forces you to reconsider a few things in a hurry. We start in Oxford, where Lane Kiffin returned with LSU for a game that had been circled for months, and Ole Miss had a chance to prove just how much of the program survived his departure. We get into what the night told us about Trinidad Chambliss, the Rebels, LSU’s still-developing...

College Football Week 3 is here, and the schedule is loaded with games that could get strange in a hurry. We make our picks for LSU-Ole Miss in Oxford, Houston-Texas Tech on a short week, SMU-Louisville in a massive ACC matchup, Florida State-Alabama, Mississippi State-South Carolina, Florida-Auburn and more. Along the way, we dig into which teams we actually trust, which early-season performances...

Two weeks into the 2026 college football season, it’s time to challenge some of our preseason assumptions. First, we look at where we may have been wrong, or at least too confident, on teams like Oregon, Texas Tech, Illinois, Washington, BYU and more. Then, we revisit our AP Top 25 ballot and talk through the teams that may deserve more love, including Mississippi State, Houston, Tulsa, Virg...

Week 2 delivered the first truly chaotic Saturday of the 2026 college football season. Texas erased a fourth-quarter deficit to beat Ohio State, Oklahoma State stunned Oregon in Stillwater, and Michigan leaned on its defense to win a rock fight against Oklahoma. We break down what Texas proved in its comeback, what went wrong for Oregon, and what Michigan’s win says about both the Wolverines...

College Football Week 2 is here, and the schedule gets serious in a hurry. The biggest game of the weekend sends No. 1 Ohio State to Austin to face No. 4 Texas in a matchup that already feels like it could shape the College Football Playoff race. We break down the biggest questions on both sides, from Ohio State’s new-look offense and running game to Arch Manning, Texas’ defense and th...

With most of Week 1 in the books, we go back through the games that deserved a longer look after Saturday night’s live reaction show. LSU’s demolition of Clemson is at the center of the conversation. How much of the result was about LSU looking immediately dangerous under Lane Kiffin, and how much should Clemson fans worry about a team that was physically overwhelmed? We also dig deepe...