Indiana Can Win the National Championship (In Football): Week 7 CFB Recap

Another week of college football is in the books and I think I would retroactively dub this week as Show Me Saturday. We had teams go on the road and show that they're legitimate contenders. We had others — half of the SEC — show cracks in the armor that could lead to big problems down the road.

Here's the Week 7 recap:

- Indiana Is For Real

Man, what an impressive win from Indiana. Admittedly, I thought the Hoosiers would go on the road to Oregon and be handled by the Ducks like they were in their two big road games last season. Not even close.

There are only four teams in the country I'm reasonably certain are good enough to win the national championship right now and Indiana is one of them — alongside Ohio State, Miami and Alabama. IU went on the road against one of the best offenses in the country — or at least so we thought — that had only allowed one sack this season and left with six sacks and eight tackles for loss. Pair that defense with Fernando Mendoza, Elijah Sarratt and Roman Hemby and you have a team that will very likely be hosting a College Football Playoff game, if not a top four seed with a bye into the second round.

- James Franklin ... What the Fuck, Dude

I think it would have been perfectly reasonable to say at this time last week it couldn't really get any worse for Penn State. The Nittany Lions were a preseason national title favorite that followed up a double overtime loss to Oregon with maybe the most embarrassing loss in program history as a 24-point favorite against winless UCLA.

And then this Saturday happened.

Penn State lost to Northwestern at home, again as a favorite of more than 20 points. Drew Allar also suffered a season-ending injury, which would be a bigger blow if the season meant anything anymore.

This team just straight-up sucks. I'll go so far as to say I'd be surprised if it made a bowl game at this point. And this time a week ago, I thought it would be pretty difficult to fire James Franklin, but now I don't really see another way out of this. Recruits are falling by the wayside, the fanbase has turned from hostility to apathy and it's clearly just never gonna happen with this guy.

The $56 million price tag to fire him may actually be the cheaper option than losing a swath if your fanbase for years to come.

- How Many SEC Teams Are Good?

Alabama went on the road and got an impressive win at Missouri and Texas A&M handled Florida at Kyle Field. Outside of those two teams, how many other squads in the SEC do we know are any good?

Oklahoma, even with John Mateer, got smashed by Texas in the Red River Shootout. Tennessee needed three turnovers from Arkansas to win by a field goal and Ole Miss escaped with its life against Washington State as a 32-point favorite at home. Georgia trailed Auburn for much of the game before finally winning by 10 points and LSU also managed another gross win against South Carolina.

I think there's a pretty clear-cut No. 1 and 2 in the SEC and after that, it's a whole clump of teams that might suck or might be pretty good. Somebody in that group needs to make a statement, though.

- DeShaun Foster Must Be the Worst Coach in Football History

A week after upsetting Penn State at home, UCLA went on the road and absolutely beat the brakes off Michigan State, 38-13. This is a team that had not held a lead as of two weeks ago and looked not only like the worst team in the Power Four, but one of the worst teams in all of college football.

I have no idea what DeShaun Foster had these guys doing, but he shouldn't be hired to coach football ever again. I'm sure he's a great guy, but he had a team that's clearly capable of competing with anybody looking like there were high school teams out there that could beat it. I seriously can't even fathom how there could be this big of a delta from what that team was in its first four games to what it is now.

In all seriousness, the Bruins are probably the toughest team left on Indiana's schedule.

- Kirby Smart Got Away With the Most Egregious Cheating I've Ever Seen

Is this official braindead? I've genuinely never seen anything like this.

Kirby Smart, with the play clock about to expire during a critical third down in the fourth quarter, rand down the sideline to call a timeout and after it was granted, said he was just clapping. He somehow got the officials to overturn the call, reset the play clock and keep his timeout.

I'm all for a little bit of gamesmanship, but this is shameless. It's the officials' fault at the end of the day, but have some pride, dude.