There are very few things in life that can stir emotions within you like college football. For four months a year, millions of Americans decide to put their mental well-being in the hands of a collection of 18- to 24-year-old men they do not know personally. All they know is that they've chosen to wear their preferred uniform. Sometimes this decision brings joy. Other times it brings pain.
But what it always brings as kickoff draws near every week is anxiety. There's always the nervous energy of the unknown heading into a game. You can never be sure how things will go, and where the rollercoaster will take you. However, while we all feel it, some of us feel it more than others, and each week, The Anxiety Rankings aim to find the five most anxious places in the country.
Welcome to Week 6. Try to stay calm. You'll fail, but try all the same.
1. Brent Venables
I don't know whether he did it intentionally or not, but there was a moment when Brent Venables was asked during a press conference this week what a win over Texas would mean. He took a breath and then said under his breath, but loud enough for the microphone to pick it up, "it would turn around our season."
He then went into his normal voice and gave a standard coaching answer about not being where they want to be as a football team, needing to play our best football, focusing on an opportunity to compete, and so on and so forth as is prescribed in the press conference manual handed out to all college football coaches before each season. But everything he needed to tell you was in that first sentence that he may not have meant for you to hear.
A win this week against Texas would turn around Oklahoma's season, and not simply in the typical fashion of beating your most-hated rival. A win would get the Sooners to 3-2 on the year and 1-1 in the SEC. It would help heal the wounds of an embarrassing 41-13 blowout loss to Georgia two weeks ago. A win would bring confidence to the locker room and tell the country that, while the Sooners got off to a slow start, they're still a team capable of beating the No. 1 team in the country. They're still a team that has an opportunity to compete for the SEC and the College Football Playoff.
But a loss? Hoo boy. A loss could send the season spiraling past the point of return. It would drop the Sooners to 2-3 on the season and 0-2 in the SEC. Any chance of even pretending this team can get back to the playoffs would be quickly dismissed. After all, there are still four more games on the schedule against teams that are currently ranked, even if none of them are the caliber of Georgia or Texas.
It would also be Oklahoma's third-straight loss to the hated Longhorns, and fourth loss in the last five years since Venables took over. Oklahoma hasn't lost three straight to Texas since the stretch between 1997 and 1999. Those first two losses belong to John Blake, who was not given the chance to lose a third. The last one belonged to Bob Stoops, who wouldn't suffer another loss to the Longhorns for another six years.
Venables was given a contract extension following last year's playoff appearance, so there's no guarantee Oklahoma would look to move on. However, this is college football. If you lose to your rival for the fourth time in five years and it leads to the season collapsing, well, we've seen schools pay a lot of money to erase mistakes before, haven't we?
I'd be mumbling to myself too if I were in Venables' shoes.
2. Week 6 Anxiety Bowl - USC at Penn State
It's White Out week at Penn State, and I'm not sure if anybody is excited about it. Penn State enters the game having lost two straight. All the excitement of a new coaching staff and a 3-0 start to the season went out the window quickly following two ugly losses to Wisconsin and Northwestern. Against Wisconsin, the offense was horrific, but at least the defense held its own.
Last week against Northwestern, the Nittany Lions had nothing. They scored only 13 points, and the defense let the Wildcats run wild for 413 yards. Seriously, there isn't a typo there. It's supposed to say 413. Northwestern averaged 7.5 yards per carry on 55 attempts. It looked like a high school powerhouse playing some small 7-man team from the boonies out there. And now the team returns home to play the team that was supposed to be one of the two toughest on its schedule this year.
If Penn State loses, they'll be 3-3 on the season, and Matt Campbell will become the first Penn State coach to start his tenure 3-3 since Joe Paterno in 1966. With a road trip to Michigan looming, a 3-4 start becomes a very real possibility, as does the idea of missing a bowl game. If that happens, it'll be the first time Penn State missed a bowl (outside the COVID season of 2020) since 2013, right before Bill O'Brien was replaced by James Franklin.
But will Penn State lose to USC? That's what makes this The Anxiety Bowl, because would you believe me if I told you that USC is the underdog? That's right, the 5-1 Trojans, whose only loss is to Oregon, are underdogs to a Penn State team that's lost two straight and just got run over like a squirrel crossing the street in heavy traffic. And it makes sense!
This is USC on the road under Lincoln Riley. The results haven't been great! The Trojans are 11-10 on the road under Riley, and only 4-7 since joining the Big Ten. When having to leave the West Coast for Big Ten games, they've lost to Maryland, Minnesota and Illinois. Earlier this season, they won at Rutgers, but by a score of 42-35. Rutgers is in far worse shape than Penn State.
So if you're USC and you lose this game, your Big Ten and playoff hopes are essentially done. It's hard to imagine 7-2 gets you to the Big Ten Championship Game, though it's certainly not impossible. What is nearly impossible, though, is finishing 7-2 in the Big Ten. Not when you have games left against Ohio State and Indiana.
It's not Happy Valley this weekend. It's Anxiety Alley.
3. Nebraska fans
Nebraska fans have plenty of battle scars to help them deal with the anxiety that comes with rooting for the Cornhuskers, but one of the problems with being punched in the stomach so many times is you have a distinct idea of how it feels, and you don't want to feel it again.
So, sure, the Huskers are off to a 5-0 start. The offense doesn't seem to miss Dylan Raiola very much, as Anthony Colandrea's been a good fit in Dana Holgorsen's scheme. Sometimes divorce is the best thing for both parties, and so far that feels like the case in Lincoln.
But Nebraska fans have seen this movie before, too. The team got off to a 5-1 start last year with a close loss to Michigan before finishing the regular season 7-5. In 2024, a 5-1 start ended at 6-6. So you can understand why some Nebraska fans might be hesitant to get overly excited by a 5-0 start this year, particularly when you've played one of the easiest schedules in the country (it generally falls between 120th and 130th depending on your favored metric).
It's about to get much more difficult this week. The defending champions are coming to town, and Curt Cignetti's Indiana team isn't known for taking it easy on opponents when it gets the chance. If you're a Nebraska fan, you probably want to be excited about the opportunity to announce to the world that things have changed, but you can't escape that voice in the back of your head whispering, "here comes the doooooooooooooom."
The good news for Nebraska is that this isn't a must-win situation. Your season isn't on the line. Frankly, hanging around and keeping it close would probably be a good sign about the team moving forward, even if you don't pull off the upset.
The bad news is it won't get any easier. Next week you're on the road for Oregon, and you still have dates with Ohio State and Iowa to contend with. But a close loss against Indiana at least gives you the confidence to believe you can flirt with playoff contention for the rest of the season, and maybe shock the world with an upset. But a blowout loss would erase all the fun of that 5-0 start very quickly and make you wonder if you're in for another late-season collapse.
4. Virginia
Last week was not supposed to happen. It's one thing to lose to Florida State on the road, even this 2026 version of Florida State. It's not ideal, but it's understandable. What isn't as understandable is getting trounced by these Seminoles. The Florida State offense looked terrific in a 38-7 win over the Cavaliers, and suddenly a Virginia season that looked promising is on the verge of being lost.
The Hoos were a big surprise last year, reaching the ACC Championship. They got off to another excellent start this season with a season-opening 34-8 win over NC State. Sure, they lost to West Virginia, but it wasn't a conference loss, so you could survive it. But now you're 3-2 on the season, and as you look back at the schedule you've played, things no longer seem all that impressive.
NC State is 3-2. The Florida State team that killed you is 3-2. The West Virginia team that beat you has lost two straight since, and is 3-2 as well. Your other wins have been against Norfolk State and Delaware.
This week you're playing Syracuse. The Orange are only 2-2 and haven't been all that impressive, but you've looked pretty rough yourself. Beau Pribula doesn't seem to be 100%. He's not being used as a runner the same way he was to start the year. He's dropped back to pass 93 times in the last three games, and frankly, Beau Pribula dropping back to pass 31 times per game is not an ideal strategy for him or the Hoos.
If you win at home this week, it'll be more of a relief than a sign things have turned back around. But if you lose?
5. TCU Offensive Coordinator Gordon Sammis
There's a remarkable stat about TCU this season that I discovered while researching something else entirely this week. Did you know that the Horned Frogs have allowed only 13.4 points per game this season? That's tied for the 12th nationally, and it's tied with Georgia of all teams. Seriously, the Horned Frogs haven't allowed more than 21 points in a game this season.
And they're 2-3. The combined record of the 11 teams ahead of them and the Georgia team TCU is tied with? It's 54-3. TCU has as many losses by itself as the other 12 combined.
The problem is those other teams are also scoring 41.2 points per game, and TCU is scoring 25.4. That's where Gordon Sammis comes in, because it's not hard to look around the facility and figure out who everybody else is looking at as an easy scapegoat, and Sammis sticks out like a sore thumb.
Sammis was brought in this offseason from UConn after overseeing an offense that scored 35.3 points per game last season and, more importantly, had a QB in Joe Fagnano who threw for 28 touchdowns and only 1 interception. That ball security was a key reason TCU's Sonny Dykes sought out Sammis. After watching Josh Hoover turn the ball over too frequently, Dykes figured he had to pair what looked to be a good defense with an offense that would take care of the ball. They also brought in Harvard transfer Jaden Craig, who was a prolific passer at the Ivy League level.
But it hasn't worked. It turns out that it may have been Joe Fagnano who deserved the credit for avoiding turnovers, because TCU ranks 117th nationally with a turnover rate on offense of 14.3%. That's actually slightly worse than last season (113th, 13.2%). To be fair to Jaden Craig, it's not entirely on him. He's thrown four interceptions and fumbled twice, losing one. However, as a team, the Frogs have fumbled the ball 11 times, though they've only lost four of them.
In other words, they rank 117th in turnover rate and are actually lucky to rank even that high. It could've been far worse.
Now, Sonny Dykes is already on the hot seat and has been included in The Anxiety Rankings earlier this season. He can't fire the QB. He can't fire everybody on the team that's fumbled the ball. But he could fire the new offensive coordinator in a last-ditch effort to save his job. The team is on a bye this week. I hope Sammis spends it wisely.
