College Football Playoff Panic Meter: Oklahoma is off the charts. Which contender is next?

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The Gingerbread Man crumbled. The villain froze upon sight of the team he betrayed. And the prairie wagon got stuck in a deep rut, again.

Awful day for Texas A&M and Marcel Reed. Not much better for Lane Kiffin and LSU. Oklahoma survived, but it didn’t inspire.

Texas A&M, Oklahoma and LSU each began the season ranked inside the top 15.

After three weeks, each has a loss.

As Kiffin finished reflecting on an emotional night at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, he was struck by a thought.

“We're 0-1 in SEC play, … and have eight SEC games to play,” Kiffin said. “There's a lot of football left.”

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A lot of landmines left, Kiffin means.

Step on a couple more, and another season will end without Kiffin ever coaching in a playoff game.

For the Sooners, it’s tougher yet. They have nine SEC games left. That’s a problem for a team that hasn't scored more than 14 points in either of its past two games.

“That was ugly," Sooners coach Brent Venables said after a 14-6 win against New Mexico.

It’s about to get uglier.

Here’s my "Topp Thoughts" playoff panic assessment for Oklahoma, Texas A&M and LSU:

Oklahoma

Playoff panic meter: Total hysteria.

The quote that says it all: Asked whether Oklahoma’s offense has anything it can hang its hat on, Venables said this: “Not really. No. No. When you watched the game, did you see anything?”

Why it’s time to panic: No matter how many contract extensions Oklahoma pens for Venables or raises it awards, the fact remains Oklahoma's offensive flaws keep deepening. Turnover-prone quarterback John Mateer racked up two more interceptions in this pugil fight with New Mexico.

Oklahoma’s offensive line can’t win the line of scrimmage, and the Sooners ground game is unworthy of the Oklahoma name.

Oh, and I haven’t even gotten to the top reason for Oklahoma’s playoff panic. The SEC schedule is a soul-sucking demon created from the fires of Greg Sankey’s desire for a nine-game conference schedule.

Oklahoma’s next four games start with No. 2 Georgia, then No. 1 Texas, then continue with a pair of teams punching above their historical weight class, Kentucky and Mississippi State.

Forget the playoff, Oklahoma, and make hotel reservations for Memphis, home to the Liberty Bowl.

That should be more than enough for Oklahoma to uncork another absurd extension for Venables, right?

Texas A&M

Playoff panic meter: Soaring, but not quite to Oklahoma’s hysteria level.

The quote that says it all: Asked about the positives he saw in a 31-21 loss to Kentucky, Aggies coach Mike Elko put it this way: “There's no positives. Not an ounce of a positive anywhere. There's a product that's not good enough.”

Why it’s close to time for panic: Tell me if you’ve heard this battle hymn before around Aggieland. Goes like this:

Hello darkness, my old friend.

The Aggies were overhyped again.

And the coach provided a Year 2 uprising.

But then the program started wheezing.

And the vision that was planted in my brain was another Marcel interception.

Battered Aggie Syndrome went into a brief remission as Texas A&M experienced a breakthrough last season and reached the playoff for the first time. Well, BAS is about to experience a flare-up. The warning signs were all too apparent when Marcel Reed struggled in back-to-back losses to Texas and Miami to end 2025 on a dour note.

His turnover woes deepened. He threw two brutal interceptions against Kentucky with the Aggies in scoring range. He didn’t get great pass protection, and he wilted under pressure. Texas A&M’s defense didn’t help. Elko said Reed “is pressing." The coach compared the situation to “a pitcher not able to show strikes.”

That’s not good.

“We got it out the way,” Reed said afterward. “It’s a learning experience.”

Got what of the way? A clunker Texas A&M couldn’t afford? Upstart Kentucky deserves credit. It looks good enough to be a thorn in the side of SEC foes, but tougher opponents await — starting with LSU in Tiger Stadium next week, in a game that’ll leave the loser on playoff life support.

Six ranked opponents remain on Texas A&M’s schedule. A loss at LSU would make it get late early for the Aggies.

LSU

Playoff panic meter: Time to worry, but don’t panic.

The quote that says it all: Kiffin and his team didn’t have much juice inside the hornet’s nest at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, while the Rebels and their fans were cranked up to the max, hungry for vengeance against their former coach. As Kiffin put it: “You walked into a storm.” The storm flattened LSU, particularly in the first half.

Why it’s a worrisome time, but not panic mode: LSU doesn’t look like the same team that walloped Clemson in the season opener at Tiger Stadium. It’s become apparent that Clemson is nothing more than a middling ACC team.

It’s not just the team, either. Kiffin looked shellshocked throughout his return to Oxford. This wasn’t the same gladiator who survived a fuming coliseum of 100,000 fans in his 2021 return to Tennessee, when Vols fans lost their ever-lovin’ mind, and Kiffin egged them on. Heck, this wasn’t even “Get your popcorn ready” Kiffin, who went down swinging like a madman against Nick Saban.

Ole Miss fans greeted their ex-coach with a thunderous chorus of boos. Then, the game began, and Kiffin watched with a thousand-yard stare, as his team fell further and further behind. LSU rallied and briefly tied it in the fourth quarter, only to bear witness to Trinidad Chambliss' greatness in crunchtime.

Kiffin called it a “really emotional” return.

“You can’t predict your emotions. Sometimes I don’t act like it, but I’m a human, too,” Kiffin said.

That sounds like a shook man carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Kiffin needs to mull his quarterback situation, too, after Sam Leavitt completed fewer than 60% of his passes for the second time in three weeks. LSU lost the line of scrimmage, in a stark contrast to Week 1.

Even so, the playoff committee most ruthlessly punishes losses to bad teams, and Ole Miss might itself be a playoff team. Also, three of LSU’s toughest remaining games — against Texas A&M, Alabama and Texas — will be played at Tiger Stadium.

At their best in Week 1, the Tigers looked stronger than either the Aggies or Sooners.

Can Kiffin get his fastball back? He’s first got to get Mississippi out of his mind.

Blake Toppmeyer is the USA TODAY Network's senior national college football columnist. Listen to his podcast, "College Football Unfiltered." Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College Football Playoff Panic Meter: Oklahoma is off the charts. Which contender is next?

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