Oklahoma State just beat Oregon? What in the world is happening? In one week you can go and lose to Tulsa and look pitiful, look like a team that doesn’t even deserve to be in the Big 12, and then the following week you knock off Oregon? That’s college football in 2026, and frankly, it adds to one of the craziest starts to a season I can remember.

I talked about it in my preview where I said maybe there’s a world where Oklahoma State had been prepping for Oregon the entire offseason. And I think we got our answer. The Cowboys dominated in first downs, dominated time of possession, and even lost the turnover battle and still won this game by eight points. Against Oregon. In Stillwater. After losing to Tulsa.

Shout out to Drew Mestemaker and this Oklahoma State team, because the complete narrative has flipped. A week ago people were questioning whether the Cowboys belonged in the Big 12. Now they have one of the biggest wins in the entire country through the first few weeks.

Dan Lanning’s calling card looked nonexistent

Now here’s where it gets ugly for Oregon. That defense is supposed to be Dan Lanning’s calling card. You had one of the best front sevens projected this entire offseason, a group people were calling elite before the season even started, and they looked pitiful against an Oklahoma State offensive line that was god-awful against Tulsa the week before. Let that sink in.

And I’m at the point with a loss this egregious that all the people who had been doubting Lanning, saying he’s not going to win the big game, that he’s overrated, you have to listen to them at least a little bit.

You may say, Tegan, it’s one regular season loss, don’t overreact. But this isn’t just one loss in a vacuum. Oregon looked terrible in the first two weeks. They played with fire, went into Stillwater, and lost the game. People were wondering if we’d see another Penn State-Clemson type of collapse, and this could be the first domino.

To be clear, I’m not saying Oregon’s season is over. But the margin for error just got razor thin, and that defense has to figure itself out in a hurry. The schedule doesn’t get easier, and Lanning now has to answer real questions about whether his program can handle adversity or whether it folds when the pressure mounts.

College football is off to the races in 2026, and I am absolutely floored by what we’ve already seen. Oklahoma State flipping its entire narrative in seven days while Oregon’s stock plummets is the kind of chaos that makes this sport so fun. If Oregon can’t right the ship soon, the Lanning doubters won’t just have a case — they’ll have a legit point.