Copyright CBS Sports
Week 10 is crucial to the 2025 college football season. It is the final full slate before the first set of College Football Playoff rankings our unveiled, giving us some insight into the selection committee's thought process and how it views the current hierarchy of programs in contention. While a lot will change between now and the end of November, it is important to make a good first impression. There have only been two teams that ranked No. 1 overall in the initial release that missed out on the College Football Playoff -- which is improbable in the 12-team era. That also means a lot of programs on or near the bubble are going to start feeling the heat, especially when the bubble becomes real as the weekly top 25 is dropped. We here at CBS Sports have been overreacting to each college football weekend for a while now. Let's try and manifest some into existence for a change ahead of the 10th week of the season. Red River Rivalry on the hot seat There's already some disillusionment between Oklahoma coach Brent Venables, Texas coach Steve Sarkisian and their respective fanbases. It's been a fairly rough month for both programs. The Longhorns' season was derailed at the start of October when they lost to a Florida team that subsequently fired coach Billy Napier just over two weeks later. Texas, in turn, beat a top-10 Oklahoma team to hand Venables his third Red River loss in four years. The Sooners are 1-2 in their last three games, with their postseason hopes holding on by a thread. While Texas has won three in a row since that Florida setbacks, Sarkisian's squad failed to look convincing against a pair of SEC bottom feeders in Kentucky and Mississippi State. Beating those two teams by a combined 10 points -- both in overtime -- certainly isn't the type of result that will assuage a fiery fanbase. Things will get worse for both coaches this weekend. When No. 9 Vanderbilt walks into DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium and hands Texas its third loss of the season and Oklahoma falls on the road to No. 14 Tennessee, Sarkisian and Venables are going to join a growing list of coaches on the scorching-hot seat. Mario Cristobal's Miami will never break through This really should be Miami's year. The Hurricanes are loaded on both sides of the ball, led by a veteran transfer quarterback in Carson Beck that -- for a while, at least -- was playing like the nation's best at his position. The ACC is also in an awful slump, with traditional powers like Clemson and Florida State continuing their slide down the scale of relevancy. Mario Cristobal cannot help but get in his own way. He's good for at least one baffling loss per season. That already happened in Week 7 when the Hurricanes fell at home to then-unranked Louisville. Beck looked like the Beck that, for all intents and purposes, got pushed out of Athens when he threw four interceptions against the Cardinals. Cristobal will suffer his second head-scratcher Saturday when Miami gets knocked out of the ACC and playoff races during its trip to SMU. This will be the first time that Miami has left the state of Florida all year and, though the Mustangs are reeling from their first ACC loss since joining the conference, they have not seen a defeat at home since Sept. 4, 2024. If Cristobal can't get it done this year, he never will. Brendan Sorsby enters the Heisman Trophy race Brendan Sorsby is the best college football player that casual fans likely have not heard of. While 7-1 Cincinnati's 10:15 p.m. ET kick against No. 24 Utah isn't conducive to a star-making performance, he's worth staying up to watch. It will be the moment that he, rightfully, stakes his claim to a spot in the Heisman Trophy race. He should already be a legitimate contender. He's the engine behind Cincinnati's resurgence under coach Scott Satterfield who, in eight games, has already eclipsed his highest win total in three years with the Bearcats. Since Cincinnati's season-opening loss to Nebraska, Sorsby has attempted 179 passes without throwing an interception. He also has 20 touchdowns passing in that span, which is tied with Alabama's Ty Simpson -- a Heisman candidate -- for sixth nationally and fourth among Power Four quarterbacks. Sorsby also has more yards passing (1,843) and touchdowns rushing (seven) than Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia, another early Heisman darling. He's averaging 6.2 yards per carry, fourth among FBS quarterbacks with at least 60 rushing attempts. He's the top player on a championship contender with the stats to rival just about any gunslinger in the country. Georgia Tech will host a playoff game An ACC title may not be enough to move the selection committee towards awarding Georgia Tech an automatic bye in the playoff, but it will be sufficient for the Yellow Jackets to host. They can certainly fit into that automatic bye conversation if they beat No. 5 Georgia in the regular season finale -- especially since their strength of record already ranks eighth nationally. Regardless of if they beat the Bulldogs or not, Georgia Tech is going to build a résumé befitting a host. The Jackets should take care of business on the road Saturday against NC State, and Boston College the week after that does not present much of a challenge.
