Can 2026's chaos match the wildness seen in 2007? - ESPN

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.

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