College football Week 9 highlights: Top games, plays, stats - ESPN

It is human nature to assume that every trend line points endlessly in the same direction, off to some far horizon that looks, more or less, just like our current view.

We see the sun come up every day, and we assume it will again tomorrow. We bet on blue-chip stocks, knowing that, for every blip and dive along the way, they'll pay off in the long run. We hear «Texas is back» each season, and we're secure in the knowledge that, sooner or later, we'll all get to laugh about it again.

Amid an infinite universe filled with mystery, there are some hard truths that are impossible to escape.

Or, at least that's how it used to be.

On Saturday, Nashville, Tennessee, was the center of the college football universe, as Vanderbilt took another step toward the playoff. Week 9 gave us another Virginia escape act, another Texas Tech blowout, another line on Fernando Mendoza's Heisman Trophy résumé at Indiana. This season, the meek have inherited the college football world, and it's as fun as it is unexpected.

It used to be that Vanderbilt was the doormat of the SEC, the team whose job was simply to keep the Butch Joneses and Will Muschamps of the world bowl eligible.

It used to be that Virginia was the least invested school in the ACC, a place where the locker room served as a Jamba Juice during open dates.

It used to be that Indiana's place in the Big Ten was to keep Rutgers company at the bottom of the standings.

It used to be that Texas Tech used all its oil money on brisket and Cadillacs and Kliff Kingsbury's hair gel.

These were truths we knew to be self-evident. These were teams whose struggles you could set a watch by. These were the standard by which all other awfulness was judged.

Until now.

In 2025, Vanderbilt is a power.