For 19 years, a pocket of college football fans has been desperate to relive 2007. I know this because I'm one of them. Every time we get a huge upset, every time there's a particularly messy Saturday, every time some usurper however briefly (or not so briefly) enters the top five, I tilt my head, stroke my chin and think, "This sure is putting off 2007 vibes."
The 2007 vibes have been pounding us over the head of late. They aren't being subtle. The first two weeks of the season saw wins from underdogs of 29.5 points (UMass over Rutgers) and 24.5 points (Oklahoma State over Oregon), and a top-two team has lost to an unranked foe for four straight weeks -- a streak that will sadly end this Saturday, since No. 1 and No. 2 are playing ranked opponents. Eleven teams have spent at least one appearance in the AP top five, including debutants Utah and UCLA this week. Three teams immediately fell out after appearing on the list.
It's been delightfully messy. But is it 2007?
As a 2007 obsessive -- or shall we say, 2007 connoisseur -- I devised a checklist and a scoring system (50 total points) to see where 2026 is keeping up with the most vaunted of chaos seasons -- and where it still has a ways to go.
Nobody can hold onto the top two spots (10 points)
This was one of 2007's most defining characteristics, and 2026 is absolutely holding its own so far.
The hierarchy was stable at the start of the season, with LSU and USC occupying the top two spots, in some order, into October. But Stanford's monumental upset of USC as a 40.5-point underdog kick-started a run the sport has never matched. In the nine weeks from Week 6-14, 11 top-two teams lost, eight as favorites and six as double-digit favorites.
Score: 10/10 to date
As far as parallelism goes, 2026 has followed along nicely. We saw a bit more September movement this year, with Oregon falling out of the No. 2 spot in Week 1 after a mediocre performance against Boise State (so the Ducks' Week 2 loss to Oklahoma State didn't qualify), and we got a small shake-up when Texas knocked off Ohio State in Week 2. But once again, things really got rolling in Week 6.
That's five losses in the past four weeks, all by favorites of at least 6.5 points (and two by favorites of double digits). Georgia's loss to Auburn as a 19.5-point favorite was the biggest surprise in this batch.
So far, so good!
Some truly mind-blowing upsets (10 points)
We fall off-course a bit here.
While top-two teams didn't start losing until October, September gave us a few monumental upsets to keep energy levels nice and high.
We had five huge upsets in the first six weeks -- including two of the most celebrated on record (App State over Michigan, Stanford over USC) -- and then the stream of top-two losses took over.
Score: 4/10 to date
We got mind-bending upsets in each of the first two weeks, but the tap has been dry since.
We've had some other results that came close to clearing the bar -- Western Michigan's gut-wrenching loss to No. 16 Michigan on a miraculous Hail Mary, Boise State's seven-point loss to No. 2 Oregon and Coastal Carolina's 31-24 loss to West Virginia in Week 1, Utah State's 16-14 loss to No. 19 Washington in Week 2, plus Indiana's near-losses to Northwestern (29-23 as a 20.5-point favorite) and Minnesota (23-16 as a 20.5-point favorite). But the standards are ridiculously high here, and 2026 hasn't quite gotten there.
Unlikely teams taking starring roles (10 points)
This might be the most celebrated aspect of the 2007 season. It's one thing for top teams to lose; it's another for the proverbial unwashed masses to threaten to take over.
In Week 5 of the 2007 season, Rutgers crept into the AP top 10 despite starting the season unranked. Then, before the magical results of Week 6, South Florida, Boston College and Kentucky all showed up at the top-10 party. South Carolina and Oregon joined in Week 7, then came Arizona State in Week 9. Rivals Kansas and Missouri made their debuts in Week 10, followed by Hawaii in Week 15.
All 10 teams began the season unranked and spent at least a small amount of time in the top 10. Some advanced much higher than that. For pretty much any fan of any non-blue-blood school, this felt like a time of infinite possibilities.
Score: 4/10 to date
Thus far, three teams that were unranked in the preseason have stormed the top 10: Florida in Week 5, UCLA in Week 8 and Kentucky in Week 9. The appearance was just a cameo for the Gators, who proceeded to get rocked by Missouri and South Carolina, but UCLA remains unbeaten and Kentucky is a top-10 team in November for the first time in 49 years.
The rise of both the Bruins and Wildcats has been fun and inspiring -- and rather reflective of the current age, where only usurpers from the Big Ten and SEC are allowed to usurp for too long -- but it pales in comparison to the teams that stormed the castle in 2007.
Untimely QB injuries (5 points)
We don't talk about this factor as much because it's not as fun, but it's unquestionable that quarterback injuries significantly impacted how 2007 played out.
Oregon's Dennis Dixon had emerged as a Heisman front-runner for a top-two Ducks team when he tore up his knee against Arizona in mid-November. Sam Bradford suffered a concussion in the first quarter of Oklahoma's late-season loss at Texas Tech. Pat White dislocated a thumb and missed significant time (and finished just 5-for-10 passing) in West Virginia's devastating loss to Pitt. USC's John David Booty fractured a finger on his throwing hand during the Trojans' loss to Stanford.
Not surprisingly, top teams are a bit more beatable when they're playing backup quarterbacks (or their starter is suddenly far less effective).
Score: 4/5 to date
This is certainly an area in which 2026 is keeping up.
Preseason No. 2 Oregon was underachieving even with Dante Moore, but the Ducks are just 2-2 since he suffered a likely season-ending concussion after a dirty hit against USC. Preseason No. 1 Ohio State lost Julian Sayin late in a win over Indiana and lost replacement Luke Fahey's first start (against USC). Big Ten quarterbacks have been dropping like flies all season. Granted, these injuries haven't played roles in as many upsets, but they've been a major subplot of the season.
Cult heroes we can't get enough of (5 points)
Jacob Hester was an unheralded fullback who became team captain and leading rusher for LSU's 2007 title team.
Missouri's Chase Daniel and Kansas' Todd Reesing were Texas products who weren't recruited by the home-state heavyweights but became all-time greats for all-time favorite teams elsewhere in the Big 12.
Pat White was a 180-pound, low-three-star athlete who signed with West Virginia late in the 2004 recruiting cycle but led the Mountaineers to three top-10 finishes and two major bowl wins as quarterback. (He also shared a backfield with another under-recruited, under-sized speedster in Steve Slaton, plus the most fullback fullback of all time, Owen Schmitt.)
The late Colt Brennan was an impossibly Californian former Colorado walk-on and juco transfer who landed in June Jones' Hawaii offense in 2005 and proceeded to throw for 14,193 yards in three seasons -- it felt as if all of those yards came in late-night games on ESPN -- powering the Rainbow Warriors to a Sugar Bowl bid after an unbeaten 2007 regular season.
The underdog stories overflowed in 2007, but the list of cult heroes didn't stop there. From Heisman winner Tim Tebow (maybe you've heard of him?) to the guys who bought those "Tide Rolled!" billboards after UL Monroe upset Nick Saban's Alabama, there were heroes aplenty.
God, 2007 was amazing.
Score: 3/5 to date
Granted, November and beyond is when heroes define themselves -- Indiana's Fernando Mendoza, after all, didn't lead that amazing late comeback against Penn State and become last year's Heisman favorite until Nov. 8. But the growing mythology around Ohio State's Jeremiah Smith, and perhaps Miami's Malachi Toney to a lesser extent, is noteworthy.
Meanwhile, another receiver, Oregon State's Jesse Legree, has emerged as one of the fastest and most impressive "overlooked recruit makes it big" stories in quite a while. Throw in a dash of wacky Jason Eck, and you can certainly make the case that 2026's cult hero score is coming along nicely. We'll see what the rest of the season brings.
New employee in the ticket office. Seems pretty passionate about Lobo Football. 𝗚𝗘𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗡𝗗𝗦𝗨 𝗧𝗜𝗖𝗞𝗘𝗧𝗦 𝗡𝗢𝗪 🎟️: https://t.co/0B4myKDAI1 https://t.co/jGuShImZQE
— New Mexico Football (@UNMLoboFB) October 18, 2026
A Les Miles figure (5 points)
For those of us old enough to have lived through 2007 in real time, it's impossible to properly describe the on-field nonsense that Les Miles seemed to get away with on a weekly basis at LSU.
Granted, his messiest moment wouldn't come until 2010, when he somehow baited Tennessee into having 13 defenders on the field for what seemed like the final play of the game, but 2007 was a Miles masterpiece. He called a preposterous fake field goal flip in a win over Steve Spurrier's South Carolina. He went for it on fourth down five times against Tebow and Urban Meyer's Florida ... and went 5-for-5 in a 28-24 win. And in the closing stages at Auburn, he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that the clock was running out, then watched Matt Flynn find Demetrius Byrd for a game-winning 22-yard touchdown with one second left.
Despite all this chaos -- and despite fielding a ridiculously talented team -- LSU still managed to lose twice in 2007, falling to both Kentucky and Arkansas in overtime. And yet, because of all the other chaos, the Tigers still not only reached the BCS championship game, but won it.
Score: 4/5 to date
I didn't connect all the dots until recently, but Indiana's Curt Cignetti is the most Milesian coach we've seen in the 2020s. He doesn't eat grass (as far as we know), and he's not quite as chaotic, but his sideline demeanor and eccentric interviews make him the most unique character in the sport, and he somehow created an all-time catchphrase in his first day on the job at Indiana.
Last Saturday clinched it for me, however. Cignetti openly mismanaged the clock on two separate occasions in the final minute against Minnesota, costing his team around 40-50 seconds as they first fell behind by three points and then tried to work their way into field goal range. But then Paddy McAteer calmly bombed in a 60-yard field goal to force overtime, and the Hoosiers won.
Not sure I've yelled "WHAT ARE YOU DOING" that loudly at my television since 2007 LSU-Auburn.
A unique ending that somehow disappoints. Granted, LSU's endless chaos made the Tigers worthy champions, but there's no question that the 2007 title game felt like an epic letdown. After all the madness -- upsets, rises from South Florida, Boston College, Kansas, etc., Missouri and West Virginia occupying the top two spots in the BCS rankings heading into Championship Week -- we ended up with preseason No. 1 LSU facing an Ohio State team that had been to the national title game the year before. Blue blood vs. blue blood.
Honestly, 2007 might have been the most perfect year imaginable for a 12-team playoff. While it would have allowed cream to rise to the top in its own way, the number of glorious matchups we'd have seen would have been worth it.
Hypothetical 2007 CFP (based on final BCS rankings):
No. 9 West Virginia (10-2) at No. 8 Kansas (11-1) -- winner plays No. 1 Ohio State (11-1)
No. 12 Florida (9-3) at No. 5 Georgia (10-2) -- winner plays No. 4 Oklahoma (11-2)
No. 11 Arizona State (10-2) at No. 6 Missouri (11-2) -- winner plays No. 3 Virginia Tech (11-2)
No. 10 Hawaii (12-0) at No. 7 USC (10-2) -- winner plays No. 2 LSU (11-2)
My SP+ ratings did rank LSU a healthy No. 1 that season with a 31.2 rating -- for reference, Georgia is the current No. 1 with a 28.1, three points worse -- but while there are currently only two teams with an SP+ rating of 26 or higher in 2026, seven teams cleared that bar that season: LSU, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Kansas, Florida and Missouri. Two of them would have played in an epic first-round matchup in Lawrence, and all of them would have had a puncher's chance at a title run. So, too, would Georgia, who might have finished the season as the hottest team in the country.
Alas, in 2007 we were still seven years from a four-team CFP and 17 years from a 12-teamer (and 20 years from a 24-teamer, but don't get me started on that). Only LSU and Ohio State got a crack at the title, and the Tigers unleashed a 31-0 midgame run to cruise, 38-24.
Score: TBD (but I'm going to say a tentative 4/5 here).
Among the current top 12 in the CFP rankings are nine teams that finished last year in the top 12 of the year-end polls. We've enjoyed solid chaos levels, and we do have upstarts like UCLA and Kentucky -- plus an unbeaten Utah -- near the top. But even with the baked-in randomness of a four-round CFP, I'm not thinking the odds are great that we're going to end up with some wild, unexpected semifinalists or finalists. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Hopefully the recent upsets continue and I have a reason to revisit this piece after the season. But for now, we're only looking at a score of about 33 out of 50 on the 2007 scale. Granted, that might be as close as virtually any season of the last nearly two decades has come, but if nothing else, this exercise should have reminded us just how wacky 2007 really was. If all you got out of this exercise was a reminder of Les Miles' ridiculousness and a search of "Pat White highlights" on YouTube, it was worth it.