SEC's crazy, history-making Week 7 weekend is the latest example of college football's new era

Week seven of the college football season was everything fans love about the sport.

Chaos.

Rivalries, like Tennessee-Alabama and Auburn-Georgia.

Upsets, with BYU taking down Notre Dame in front of an exuberant home crowd in Provo.

And debate over what it all means for the rest of the year.

Not one team ranked in the AP Top 25 poll in week six stayed in the same position in the week seven poll.

Texas dropped 12 spots.

Florida gained 12.

Multiple other schools moved up or down at least six positions, with Missouri falling a whopping nine places after their blowout loss to Ole Miss.

But no stat better exemplifies the chaos of week seven better than this one.

Tom Fornelli from CBS Sports posted on X this week that, "The SEC is the first conference this century to have 5 AP Top-20 teams lose in the same week." WEEK 7 AP TOP 25 POLL FEATURES A COMPLETE SHUFFLE AFTER CHAOTIC WEEKEND, WITH MIAMI TAKING OVER THE TOP SPOT We're just a few months away from completing our 26th year in this century, somehow, and the SEC was the first conference in that time frame to have five teams ranked in the top-20 lose in just one weekend.

That's pretty remarkable.

And it's also a sign of things to come.

We've known for some time that the advent of NIL and the transfer portal would change college football.