CFB Week Seven Preview (National):
#7 Indiana-#3 Oregon, #8 Alabama-#14 Missouri,
Annual “Red River Showdown” Celebrate Spotlight
(DG’s “This Week In CFB” YouTube Show = below)
By David Glenn
North Carolina Sports Network
(last updated Oct. 8, 2025)
The 2025 college football season continues Thursday through Saturday with a compelling Week Seven schedule.
The most prominent games nationally this time (each previewed below) include conference clashes in the SEC and the Big Ten, led by #8 Alabama at #14 Missouri (noon, ABC), the famous “Red River Showdown” between #6 Oklahoma and Texas (3:30 p.m., ABC) and #7 Indiana at #3 Oregon (3:30 p.m., CBS).
Meanwhile, in the Old North State, surging East Carolina gets another Thursday night national television spotlight, NC State faces a huge opportunity at #16 Notre Dame, Appalachian State embarks on an important out-of-state road trip, and — at the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) level — promising Elon and Western Carolina squads host highly regarded foes.
Here are more details on our “Three To See” selections from this week’s national schedule:
National “Three To See,” Game One
#7 Indiana (5-0) at #3 Oregon (5-0), Sat., 3:30 p.m. (CBS)
As we dive into some of the details of this matchup, hats off to second-year Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti, who was an assistant at NC State under Chuck Amato in the early 2000s and more recently the very successful head coach at Elon and James Madison before he took the Indiana job.
Indiana, while a five-time national champion in men’s basketball, has rarely been nationally relevant in football. In fact, the Hoosiers had finished in the national Top 25 only once in 35 years when Cignetti took the job, and they rarely have had even a winning record in their Big Ten games.
Cignetti obviously had an amazing, immediate impact in Bloomington last year, when the Hoosiers went 11-2, made the College Football Playoff and finished #10 in the national polls. That marked only the third time, in more than 100 years of college football, that IU had a top-10 season on the gridiron.
Despite losing star quarterback Kurtis Rourke, a Canada native who’s now playing in the Canadian Football League, Indiana is off to a sensational 5-0 start and back in the national top 10. Although the Hoosiers have played a couple of close games, when they faced a top-10 Illinois squad, they won 63-10.
With Cal transfer Fernando Mendoza now at the controls, the Hoosiers are fourth nationally in scoring offense, at 48 points per game, and most of the deeper analytics and metrics also rank them among the top 10 teams in the nation.
Those same analytics and metrics typically have 5-0 Oregon first, second or third nationally.
Under fourth-year head coach Dan Lanning, the Ducks (a seven-point favorite) have become one of the top programs in the country. Last year, they went 13-0 and won the Big Ten title before losing in the first round of the College Football Playoff. With Phil Knight’s enormous Nike money providing much of the foundation, Oregon has become one of the most consistent winners in college football, especially over the past 20 years.
In this game, both Mendoza and Oregon quarterback Dante Moore are considered possible first-round NFL draft picks, although the Ducks have many more professional prospects throughout their depth chart overall, and they’ll certainly be extremely difficult to beat on their home field on Saturday afternoon.
National “Three To See,” Game Two
#8 Alabama (4-1) at #14 Missouri (5-0), Sat., noon (ABC)
This is another high-profile game that includes a head coach those in the Old North State know quite well.
Eli Drinkwitz, the former NC State offensive coordinator under Dave Doeren who went 12-1 during his only campaign (2019) as the head coach at Appalachian State, is now in his sixth season as the head coach at Missouri, and after three mediocre campaigns with the Tigers, he now has taken that program to almost unprecedented heights.
Only one time in Missouri football history have they had three consecutive Top 25 seasons, and Drinkwitz has the Tigers on the cusp of doing exactly that. He was 11-2 in 2023, then 10-3 last year, and now his 2025 team is off to a 5-0 start, albeit against a relatively soft schedule, so this Alabama game will be Missouri’s toughest test of the season by far.
Fun Fact: The only coach ever to lead Missouri to three consecutive Top 25 seasons was Dan Devine. After he did it, way back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, he was hired away by the NFL’s Green Bay Packers and later became the head coach at Notre Dame. That’s some rarified air.
On the other side, when Alabama lost 31-17 at Florida State in its season opener, that definitely turned up the heat on second-year head coach Kalen DeBoer. Everyone knew it wouldn’t be easy to follow living legend Nick Saban, but when the Crimson Tide went 9-4 in DeBoer’s debut campaign, that marked the first time the Tide had failed to win 10 or more games in a single season since 2007, which was Saban’s first year in Tuscaloosa.
Obviously, the Tide have bounced back extremely well from that late August loss in Tallahassee; they crushed Wisconsin, 38-14, then started their SEC schedule by beating #5 Georgia in Athens and then #16 Vanderbilt by a 30-14 margin just last week at Bryant-Denny Stadium.
Impressively, DeBoer now has a 13-2 career record against ranked opponents, including his time at Fresno State and Washington, which is the best winning percentage (almost 87 percent) for any head coach with at least 10 opportunities under those circumstances.
Alabama has an emerging NFL prospect at quarterback in Ty Simpson, who has been spreading the ball around to superstar wide receiver Ryan Williams and others, and as usual the Tide also have a strong running game, led by steady senior running back Jam Miller.
Missouri has a very accurate QB in Beau Pribula, a Penn State transfer who is third nationally with a 76 percent completion rate, and a highly productive running back of its own in sophomore Ahmad Hardy, a Louisiana-Monroe transfer and former first-team All-Sun Belt honoree who leads the nation with 146 rushing yards per game.
The guess here is that Alabama (a three-point favorite) will be too tough for the Tigers, but this one should be fun to watch.
National “Three To See,” Game Three
Amazingly, these two schools have played each other in football since 1900! For perspective, in 1900, Oklahoma wasn’t even a state yet — that happened in 1907 — and the teams weren’t even called the “Sooners” and the “Longhorns” yet.
Since 1932, this game has been played at a neutral site — the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, which is located in the northern part of Texas and almost equidistant between the UT and OU campuses. The game is typically played during the Texas State Fair, and this year’s matchup is expected to draw 90,000-plus to the Cotton Bowl, as usual.
It’ll be another pretty cool look on TV, because — unlike at most football games, at any level — if you look up from the 50-yard line, pretty much all the fans in one half of the stadium are in Oklahoma’s colors, and pretty much all the fans in the other half are wearing Texas’ colors.
Oklahoma actually has had the better of this rivalry lately, with 17 victories in the past 26 matchups. However, over the past three seasons, when Steve Sarkisian has led the Longhorns and Brent Venables — the former Clemson defensive coordinator — has led the Sooners, Texas has taken two of three, by dominating scores of 49-0 and, just last year, 34-3.
This time, though, it’s Oklahoma that’s undefeated at 5-0 and ranked #6 nationally, whereas it’s the Longhorns — this year’s preseason #1 team, remember — who are just 3-2, with a loss at Ohio State in their opener and then another at Florida just last week.
Both teams have played elite defense for much of this season — they’re two of only five teams nationally giving up 12 or fewer points per game — but both teams also have major questions behind center.
Texas quarterback Arch Manning (who had been hyped as a possible Heisman candidate in the preseason) has really struggled in his first season as the Longhorns’ full-time starter, whereas Washington State transfer John Mateer — a dual-threat QB who had been very good for the Sooners — broke a bone in his throwing hand during their win against Auburn on Sept. 20.
Mateer underwent surgery by one of the nation’s leading hand specialists soon afterward, he was in uniform but didn’t play last week, and at this writing it’s not clear if he’ll be available against Texas.
Oklahoma’s backup QB, Michael Hawkins Jr., is a great athlete and a more capable passer than he was last year, when the Longhorns absolutely pounded him, but be ready for the possibility that Mateer, who’s a much more proven commodity, tries to play with a specially made brace on his throwing hand.
NOTE: For the in-state edition of our Week Seven college football preview, including analysis on the highest-profile games, plus schedules and TV/streaming options for all 32 teams (FBS, FCS, Division Two, Division Three) in the Bold North State, please click HERE.
