CFBs Week 7 Reaction: Let Ryan Day off the hook…for now

We all heard it and many of us believed it. “The The team won't be able to just walk in (Insert new conference here) and dominate.” Now that we've reached the halfway point of the season, we have to ask ourselves: Was this an overreaction?

At the top of the sport's two best conferences are freshman programs: Oregon (Big Ten) and Texas (SEC), and their leaders are definitely. Oregon cemented itself as the Big Ten's class by defeating Ohio State in an epic game in Eugene, and Texas was the most consistent team in the SEC. The Longhorns' chance to stake their claim comes Saturday at home against Georgia. Meanwhile, the Big 12 went through a major shakeup of teams entering and leaving, but two of the top four teams in the standings are newcomers (BYU and Arizona State).

This backdrop takes us to Saturday. Two weeks ago was “Upset Saturday.” Last weekend, seven top 25 teams won either in overtime or by 1-2 points in the regular season – “Survival Saturday.”

This week? “Breakup Saturday.”

With this Saturday's lineup, we can begin to distinguish which teams are legitimate (to varying degrees) and which teams will fall back a notch or two. The SEC doubleheader of Alabama/Tennessee and Georgia/Texas is huge, Miami can silence doubters with an impressive performance at Louisville after a few subpar games, and in the Big Ten, Indiana/Nebraska and Michigan/Illinois are games where the Teams can legitimize themselves as contenders for the College Football Playoff. Each week becomes more critical as the first playoff rankings (November 5th) get closer and closer.

But first, let's look at what we overreact to and what we underreact to. In the sport we love, both are in abundance, both equally necessary.

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Oregon's win over Ohio State comes with a bonus: College Football Playoff Bubble Watch

We're overreacting to… Ryan Day's criticism (for now).

Saturday felt like the same sad story for Ohio State fans – the Buckeyes lost to a top-five team and once again settled for a long-distance shot to win the game, but ended up with a tough loss. And with that comes a lot of criticism for coach Ryan Day. It is not exempt from criticism, but some narratives tend to overreact.

The biggest thing (besides the ridiculous hot seat talk) is the idea that Day can't win big games. We've all seen the stat: 2-6 against AP Top 5 teams, but let's elaborate a little. Day is 8-8 against top 10 teams in his career. Many say: “Day can beat all the smaller teams, but fails against the big teams.” Now some of Urban Meyer’s teams lost in the playoffs because they were eliminated against the “easy teams”. Sometimes it's not as easy as it looks. But Day's position is a “What have you done for me lately?” kind of job. The day trip to the national championship game in 2020 seems like a lifetime ago. And three of those top-five losses come against Michigan, which is a separate discussion.

The day will be judged on the sum of all the parts at the end of the season rather than a mid-season game. There's (presumably) a top-five opportunity at Penn State in a few weeks. If Ohio State wins this game, never looks back and secures the Big Ten title (a realistic possibility), what then? Yes, Oregon was a tough loss in a game where many thought Ohio State was making a statement, and there's something to be said about the management late in the game. But let's leave the blanket statements about Day and this squad until later. If the flame ends up going out, be sure to let go.

If you want to direct harsh criticism at the coaching staff, look at the defense. Ohio State has not forced a fourth-quarter punt in its last five losses, and in two losses to Oregon and three to Michigan since 2021, the Buckeyes have recorded just one sack.

Louisiana-Monroe's only loss this season came against No. 1 Texas. (Sara Diggins/Imagn Images)

We don't respond enough to…Louisiana-Monroe and Arizona State.

Last week's issue highlighted the success of Sam Houston. This week is reserved for a Group of 5 program and a Power 4 program that are in the midst of great resurgences.

Louisiana-Monroe is 5-1 and 3-0 in the Sun Belt under first-year head coach Bryant Vincent. It's a program with just one winning season since 1981 (2012) and one of the smallest budgets in FBS football. It has not appeared in a bowl game since 2012 and has never won a bowl game in school history. Is this the year? Hopefully, because the program and the fans deserve it.

In the West, Kenny Dillingham deserves a lot of credit for how he rebuilt the Sun Devils. He inherited chaos following the Herm Edwards fallout – a mass transfer exodus (including Jayden Daniels) and NCAA violations from the Edwards regime. The Sun Devils suffered their loss in 2023 and were picked last in the Big 12 preseason poll this summer.

Let's look at where they are now: 5-1 overall, 2-1 in Big 12 play. The most recent win came against former No. 16 Utah, the preseason Big 12 favorite. Dillingham is full of energy, running back Cam Skattebo is one of the most fun players to watch, and the atmosphere in Tempe is great.

We overreacted to…the demise of Clemson and Notre Dame.

These are two programs that suffered brutal losses early in the season and have weathered a lot of criticism. For Clemson, the defeat against Georgia was, among other things, confirmation that the program had fallen behind, Dabo's roster building methods were outdated and quarterback Cade Klubnik had not made any progress, among other things. For Notre Dame, a loss to Northern Illinois spelled trouble under Marcus Freeman amid a series of inexplicable results against lower-ranking programs. A playoff or bust season felt like certain failure back then. In the four-team playoff model, that might actually have been the end for both teams, but this is a new era and both teams have looked great in recent weeks.

Clemson is ranked 10th after winning its last five games by an average margin of 29.4 points per game. Notre Dame, ranked 12th, is on a four-game winning streak with an average margin of victory of 33.2 points per game. Both teams will need to maintain this and perhaps prevail to secure a playoff spot, but we must give credit for how each team has bounced back and improved off the mat since the start of September.

Each team's quarterbacks were out of action during this run. Klubnik during the winning streak: 68 percent completion, 21 total touchdowns (17 passes), one turnover. Riley Leonard: 69 percent completion and 13 total touchdowns (six passing, seven rushing), one turnover.

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Riley Leonard is starting to look like the QB Notre Dame has always expected

We underreact to… Ashton Jeanty's height.

Jeanty is not an underrated commodity, we know the Boise State running back is staking his claim for the Heisman Trophy. Yet it feels like we still don't talk enough about what he does week in and week out. This isn't just a fun story about a G5 star becoming a national name. We are having one of the greatest individual seasons we have ever seen in this sport.

Here's how Jeanty's first six games compare to the last four running backs to win the Heisman Trophy:

• Reggie Bush (2005): 86 carries, 761 yards, nine touchdowns
• Mark Ingram (2009): 111 carries, 659 yards, seven touchdowns
• Derrick Henry (2015): 120 carries, 665 yards, 10 touchdowns
• Ashton Jeanty: 126 carries, 1,248 yards (!), 17 touchdowns

The only comparison is Barry Sanders, who holds the single-season rushing record of 2,628 yards (1986). After six games, Jeanty is about 47 percent of his goal, but that doesn't include postseason games unless there is a collapse at Boise State, which seems unlikely. Whatever you do, make sure you keep an eye on everything surrounding Boise State — it's projected to be No. 12 in the region The athleteis the latest CFP model and has the Heisman front-runner putting up numbers we haven't seen in several generations.

Through six games, Ashton Jeanty is currently on pace to break Barry Sanders' FBS single-season rushing yard record 🤯

Will we have a new record holder at the end of the season?@BroncoSportsFB | @AshtonJeanty2 pic.twitter.com/g3tdXLb3jt

— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) October 13, 2024

We responded appropriately to… this year's Heisman hype.

The first edition of Over/Under Reactions warned against paying attention to the Heisman odds after the first week. So much was unexplained and unknown – who would have thought who would show up by mid-season, at the end of the season, etc. But now that we're halfway through the year, we can acknowledge that the early season hype has continued and this will be a fun race to the finish line.

This year's Heisman hopeful has a little bit of everything – a running back (Jeanty), a two-way player (Travis Hunter) and a bevy of quarterbacks (Dillion Gabriel, Jalen Milroe, Cam Ward, among others). They all come from programs of varying levels, from elite to rebuilding teams like Colorado and G5 Boise State. The variety and storylines are refreshing and more names are expected to be added depending on the rest of the season. A compelling Heisman race that coincides with the week-to-week drama we've seen so far, culminating in the first 12-team playoff… what more could we want?

(Top photo: Alika Jenner / Getty Images)