Week 8 of the 2026 college football season is almost upon us. After this week, every single team, regardless of whether they’ve had their bye or not, will have played over half of their regular season games already. We’re getting down to crunch time, and there are still a ton of teams in the CFP hunt.

But before we dive into Week 8 and start making some predictions, here’s some of the latest CFB news you need to catch up on.

Syracuse’s Fran Brown on Hot Seat With 13 Losses Since 2025

In 2024, Fran Brown looked like he was going to save Syracuse Football. The Orange hadn’t won double-digit games since 2018, and before that, it had been 17 years since their last 10+ win season. But in year one under Brown, the Orange went 10-3 with a Holiday Bowl win. Finally, there were high hopes around Syracuse Football, but they didn’t last long.

In 2025, Brown led the Orange to a 3-9 record and a 1-7 ACC mark. Things haven’t been much better this year, with the Orange starting 2-4 and 0-4 in ACC play. Per a report by The Athletic, Brown’s seat is starting to heat up as those around the program are growing tired of losing. If he can’t finish the season strong, he could be gone at the end of the season.

Missouri State Football Surrenders 37 Second-Half Points in Loss

If you like a lot of points, you would’ve loved watching Missouri State and Delaware duke it out on Tuesday night. After a pretty chaotic first half, which saw Missouri State take a 28-24 lead into the break, all hell broke loose in the second half.

At one point in the fourth quarter, the over/under for this game was set at 100.5 points. It ultimately went under at 99 total points, but it’s not because Delaware didn’t try to get there. In the final 30 minutes of the game, Missouri State gave up 37 points while scoring just 10 of their own to lose, 61-38.

Outside of the SEC/Big 10’s cupcake games, I can’t remember the last time a team gave up 35+ in one half, but I guess there’s a good reason they’re 2-5.

AAC Program Announces New Family-Friendly Ticket Pricing

The University of Alabama-Birmingham has announced a new family-friendly ticketing policy that will allow more fans to access their games in the future. Children ages 4-12 will be eligible for specially priced tickets to football and basketball games, while children under three will get in for free as long as you have purchased one normal ticket.

“Our goal is to make UAB Athletics an affordable and welcoming experience for families throughout Birmingham,” said Interim Athletics Director Andy Kennedy. “We want to give more children the opportunity to experience the excitement of college athletics, create lasting memories with their families and develop a lifelong connection to the Blazers.”

Over the past few years, UAB has seen its football attendance decline, going from an average of about 24,000 in its first season in Protective Stadium (2022) to 19,700 in 2025. They’re trying to find ways to get more people in the stands, and they hope that making children’s tickets more affordable will help.

Marshall Football Earns First SBC Win Over South Alabama

It has been a slow start to Sun Belt play for Marshall, who, historically, has been pretty good. They were 0-2 in conference play to start the year, but they earned a big win over South Alabama, who were 2-0 in SBC play, on Tuesday night to earn their first conference win of the season.

This game wasn’t pretty. There was a lot of defense, and the first half consisted of four field goals, but Marshall found their way into the end zone twice in the second half to lift them past South Alabama, 20-13. The Thundering Herd are trying to turn their season around after a slow start, and this was a great way to start.

Cal No Longer Confident in QB Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele

Cal Football has surprisingly produced some of the NFL’s best quarterbacks over the years. Aaron Rodgers and Jared Goff both played for the Golden Bears before taking the league by storm, and when they signed Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, the No. 65 player in the 2025 recruiting class, it looked like they may have another NFL QB on their hands, but his career has not gone as planned.

As a freshman, JKS played well but not great, throwing for 3,454 yards and 18 touchdowns with 9 interceptions. Heading into his sophomore season, Cal wanted to see him take a leap forward, but through six games, he has 1,290 passing yards, nine touchdowns, and five interceptions. Now, the coaching staff is questioning whether or not he should be the starter.

“I’m going to put the individual that I think is going to be best for us to go win the game,” Head Coach Tosh Lupoi said earlier this week. “You will see who is out there based off of my decision of who’s going to put us in the best position to go win the game.”

Cal is 3-4 with a road trip to SMU coming up this week. We’ll see if they give JKS the ball or turn to his backup.

Injury Update on Colorado’s Lamont Lester Jr.

Lamont Lester Jr. was a 0-star recruit coming out of high school, and after a year at Monmouth, he transferred to the FBS level and joined Deion Sanders at Colorado, where he had four sacks in three games before suffering an injury and missing a couple of games before returning against Utah (but he only played three snaps in that game). Now, Sanders is expecting Lester to be a full-go against Oklahoma State this weekend.

Colorado will need Lester to be 100 percent, because OSU’s offense is no joke. Drew Mestemaker is making his case to be the No. 1 overall pick next spring, so putting pressure on him is going to be paramount if the Buffalos want to win this game.

Iowa State Football Coach Backs New AD Jared Benko

Iowa State hired Jared Benko as their new athletic director earlier this week, and ISU Head Coach Jimmy Rogers seems to be a big fan of the former Auburn executive deputy athletic director.

“I think President (David) Cook knocked it out of the park, which was finding somebody that has been kind of engulfed in this new world and this new landscape,” Rogers said of Benko. “Being at an SEC school and having the people to rely on back at Auburn, and just his experience overall, I think is really impressive. It’s a necessity right now in college football; it’s a necessity here to build the team that we want to build.”

With NIL taking over college football, managing money has never been more important in college sports. If you want to compete, you have to allocate your resources perfectly, and the Cyclones hope Benko can help them compete for Big 12 and National Championships.

Rutgers Football Loses Two Defensive Backs for the Season

It’s been a rough season for Rutgers, who sit at 2-4 this season with their only wins coming against Howard and Maryland, but things just got even tougher as they have now ruled out two defensive backs for the remainder of the season.

On Tuesday, Greg Schiano announced that safety Kaj Sanders and cornerback Zahmir Dawud will not return this season with undisclosed injuries. Sanders has over 1,100 career snaps at Rutgers, while Dawud has appeared in two games this season.

“Unfortunately, Kaj is out for the year. He’s done for the year,” Schiano said in his weekly press conference. “As is Zahmir Dawud. So we have two guys that are down in the secondary.”

Schiano is already on the hot seat, so the last thing he needed was losing two defensive players for the whole season.

NC State RB Ruled Out vs Stanford

Much like Rutgers, it hasn’t been the easiest of seasons for N.C. State, who came into the year with pretty high expectations after winning eight games a year ago. They’ve dropped games to UVA, Vanderbilt, and Wake Forest, and now they have to travel across the country to face Stanford without their top running back.

Jayden Scott, who has rushed for 358 yards and four touchdowns behind a 5.8 average this season, has officially been ruled out for Saturday’s game with a lower leg/foot injury. Stanford hasn’t been any good either, so this was supposed to be a great chance to win for the Wolfpack, but without their top rusher, things just got harder.

Arkansas Could Part Ways With AD Hunter Yurachek During Bye Week

Arkansas has been one of the worst teams in the SEC for quite a while now. They haven’t won 10+ games since 2011, and since Sam Pittman took over in 2020, they’ve won more than 7 games in a season just once. They’ve already made a change at head coach, so after a 3-4 start to 2026, the next logical move would be to make a change at AD.

Hunter Yurachek has been with the Razorbacks for nearly a decade, but he hasn’t been able to get Arkansas football back to being a consistent threat in the SEC. Now, reports are swirling that Arkansas could sever ties with Yurachek during their bye this week.

If Arkansas wants to be competitive in the SEC again, changes need to be made.