The era of dominant teams and undefeated seasons is over. Friday night No. 8 Florida State fell at unranked Virginia, 46-38 in double overtime, and the result was a harbinger of the college football future.
After conference realignment, NIL, revenue sharing and the Transfer Portal, there are two distinct tiers in college football. teams that compete financially and those that don't. The also-rans, the programs with inadequate budgets like Stanford, Oklahoma State and Oregon State, have no chance on Saturdays.
But among teams that are fully participating, even Vanderbilt or South Florida and Virginia, the margins are smaller than ever. No one has true depth or dominance. Every school can bid for a quarterback.
Add in long road trips and quirky scheduling like Friday night games and byes and six-day turnarounds, start times that stretch from 9:30 in the morning to 8 at night, and fans will witness NFL-style parity, for better or worse.
CBS college football analyst Danny Kanell elaborated on the phenomenon in a post from his car after the Seminoles epic stumble at Virginia.
A new era of college football is here. And it’s awesome. Gone are the days of undefeated teams. 10-2 and 9-3 are the new gold standard. More mayhem is coming. Enjoy it! pic.twitter.com/r26WE7cZle
— Danny Kanell (@dannykanell) September 27, 2025
"Get ready for mayhem," Kanell said. "Because the talent gaps that used to be there are gone. There's so much more parity across the board in college football."
On the same night, 4-1 Arizona State upset No. 24 TCU in Tempe, 27-24.
"Coaching matters. Officiating matters. All of it. The margins are that much slimmer." In the new environment, teams will have to be much more resilient.
In the Big Ten Conference in the top half of the league there are no gimmes, no easy victories fans can pencil in on the refrigerator schedule. It will be a dogfight-- 7-2 will be a strong conference record. Only teams with depth and a strong culture will survive it, and everyone is likely to take their lumps.
Talent is more spread out, and the vagaries of scheduling and inconsistent officiating make it more unpredictable than ever.
Fortunately for Duck fans, Dan Lanning has built an organization that's prepared for the chaos, built to thrive in the mayhem. Still, they'll be tested by Penn State, Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, USC and Washington. Few teams could survive all that unscathed.