The rumblings started as No. 1 Ohio State struggled with Mid-American Conference opponent Northern Illinois last Saturday. The tweets chirped louder as No. 2 Michigan State failed to cover the spread at home against Air Force and No. 3 TCU allowed 37 points to AAC program Southern Methodist.
The question seemed to shift from the early-season topic of college football's dominant team to ... is there any dominant team at all?
One would think in the Internet and social media era, a time and place where everything is forever, that recent memories wouldn't elude us so easily. This isn't yesterday's lunch and whether it was cold pizza or a grilled cheese sandwich.
Folks, we've seen this movie before. It happens every year in college football. Sure, there are teams ranked in the top 10 in the preseason and that will loiter near the top of the polls the duration of the season. But it's also become expected that there is a darkhorse lurking outside the top 10, and sometimes in the "others receiving votes" portion of the rankings, who will emerge.
September dominance, or struggles, isn't much of an indication of who'll be crushing opponents in November and December.
Take last season, for example.
Ohio State was left for dead after an early-season home loss to Virginia Tech. The Buckeyes tumbled out of the top 10, to No. 22, and were without reigning Big Ten Offensive Player of the Year and Heisman candidate Braxton Miller.
The Buckeyes, however, scored 42 or more points in 11 of their final 13 games, defeated No. 11 Wisconsin 59-0 in the Big Ten championship game and then beat No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Oregon 11 days apart in the inaugural College Football Playoff.
At the conclusion of the 2014 regular season, there was a ton of attention on the TCU football program. The Horned Frogs won their final game of the season, 55-3 against Iowa State and seemed in position to make the four-team CFP field. TCU didn't, of course, but the Horned Frogs beat two nationally ranked teams in October and two more in November to jump to the front of the pack.
But a year ago today, TCU was unranked and out of the discussion.
In 2013, there were three teams in the final Associated Press top 25 poll who were unranked entering this week of the college football season.
Auburn, which played in the BCS national championship game, was actually unranked until the Oct. 19 matchup against Texas A&M. The Tigers beat the Aggies and jumped from No. 24 to No. 11 in the polls, and then rolled through the SEC.
Michigan State finished No. 3 that season and Missouri left bowl season in the top five. Neither team was ranked at the end of September.
Ohio State didn't make as big of a push in 2012, but sat at No. 14 in the polls on Sept. 23 of that year. Expectations were minimal for the Buckeyes, who had first-year coach Urban Meyer and were ineligible for the Big Ten championship and a bowl game. The Buckeyes never lost.
That same season, not much was known about Texas A&M in September. By the end of the season, the Aggies had the first freshman Heisman Trophy winner, Johnny Manziel, and had risen to No. 5 in the post-bowl polls.
In 2011, Arkansas finished fifth and Southern Cal was sixth. The Razorbacks and Trojans were outside of the top 10 in September. In 2010, Stanford, with Andrew Luck at quarterback, jumped from No. 16 to No. 4 in the final. Stanford was one spot ahead of Auburn in the rankings on Sept. 19, but by season's end the Tigers had climbed 16 spots to No. 1 and captured the BCS national championship.
It wasn't dominance out of the gate for Auburn and eventual Heisman winner Cam Newton. The Tigers won three games by single digits in September, albeit against quality opponents like Mississippi State, Clemson and South Carolina, and allowed 26 points to Arkansas State in the season opener.
By the time we were devouring Thanksgiving leftovers, Auburn had defeated Alabama in the Iron Bowl to complete an undefeated regular season. Wins in the SEC championship game and BCS title game made the September afterthought a national champion.
There isn't a dominant team now, but that doesn't mean there won't be.