This week, CBS Sports has been celebrating the midpoint of the 2026 college football season. We have honored the best and brightest with a Midseason All-America Team, given the experts a chance to redo their predictions for how the season will end in the College Football Playoff, and taken the time to offer a midseason report card for every power conference team. The key word here is celebrate, because while it's easy to get caught up in complaining about a coach, quarterback or playoff format, college football still overwhelms us with names, games and storylines worth debating and celebrating every week.
When there's a chaotic Saturday like in Week 7 with five of the top seven teams going down in a 12-hour span, we celebrate it. It hasn't mattered whether we had poll champions, BCS champions or any number of playoff formats; those stories have been a driving reason behind college football's popularity. But to be fair to complaining as an institution, complaining is nothing new in college football.
We complain about the quarterback who can't convert on deep passes, the offensive coordinator who isn't calling the right plays and the defense that just can't get off the field on third down. We complain about officials (a lot) and lightning delays (seemingly a lot more than we used to). Complaining has also driven a lot of the changes in college football.
It both brought about the BCS after years of split champions and then tore it down, leading to the four-team CFP that was soon expanded again after complaints about access. The cries for "more" and "now" seem to have us headed for another change, kickstarting a visceral response of complaints about the impact of expansion. I know college football needs debates, hypotheticals and yes, even some complaints to fuel the conversation around the sport.
But I also know that it's not fair to the players, coaches, staffers and families to overload the conversation with complaining -- especially if it takes away from the celebrating. College football in 2026 has been a blast, and the second half of the season is going to pack even more of a punch. Getting to watch, talk and think about this sport is such a privilege; we'd hate to see anyone waste that privilege on complaining.
The sport's suits can figure out playoff formats and roster caps in boardrooms on someone else's dime, because right now we're only focusing on the storylines that will drive the action on the field during the stretch run of the 2026 season. Ryan Day's outlook on Julian Sayin's recovery suggests that any projection for the Buckeyes must include the possibility, if not the likelihood, that he won't make it back this season. No one has attempted to set a timetable yet, but if we're trying to make our midseason predictions, you must consider that it's either going to be Luke Fahey or Tavien St.
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