I have fun writing the weekly Overreactions.

They’re intentionally bold and declarative, but I believe (at least to some degree) every entry. In other words, while the mission statement is to overtly overreact, I’m not intentionally trying to stir the pot with nonsense.

Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes I’m not.

Here are a few of my best and worst overreactions of the 2021 college football season.

Best (Week 1): Georgia isn’t holding Alabama to 3 points, a’ight?

The overreaction: I highly doubt the Dawgs could hold the Tide to 23 points.

But they’ll certainly get the chance. Maybe two of them.

Nobody in the East is going to challenge that defense. And eventually, the offense will regain its collective health and be as dangerous as we thought it would be. Consider Saturday’s output a blip, not a blueprint.

I wasn’t surprised Georgia beat Clemson. I said all offseason the Dawgs would win and repeated that prediction Saturday morning. But I certainly didn’t think they’d essentially pitch a shutout. That defense is even nastier than we thought it would be.

This might actually be the year the jokes end.

Worst (Week 3): Take a seat, Mike Norvell

The overreaction: How do you top arguably the worst loss in a program’s modern history?

By getting pasted the very next week by Wake Forest.

Nothing against the Demon Deacons. But … come on. Clemson has beaten Wake Forest 12 consecutive years — only once by fewer than 14 points.

Mike Norvell is 0-3 this season with a loss to Jacksonville State and now Wake Forest.

The last time FSU started 0-3 was 1976 — Bobby Bowden’s rookie season.

This just in: Mike Norvell is not Bobby Bowden.

He’s 3-9 overall, with absolutely no evidence to suggest he’s about to turn this around.

The big question is: Does FSU have the guts to do what USC did?

Postscript: FSU improved, but still finished 5-7 with losses to rivals Clemson and Florida.

Best (Week 2): The 4 Playoff teams are …

1. Alabama, 2. Georgia, 3. Clemson, 4. Cincinnati.

Remember when we looked at Cincy’s schedule and circled back-to-back games against ranked Indiana and ranked Notre Dame? Cincy likely will be favored against Indiana, and Notre Dame just had to rally to beat Toledo. The Irish are 2-0 by a combined margin of 6 points. Cincy will have 2 weeks to prepare, too.

Postscript: I never moved off Cincy as a Playoff team. People forget: This is largely the same offense that pushed largely the same Georgia defense in last year’s Peach Bowl. (I needed 1 more week to realize Clemson was in a dreaded gap year and wouldn’t sniff the Playoff.)

Worst (Week 4): RIP to the Air Raid offense

The overreaction: Mike Leach’s system might work wonders in a lot of leagues. It’s not working in the SEC — and it’s not going to, either.

SEC defenses are filled with NFL prospects, at all 3 levels. Schemes exploit mismatches, but SEC defenses have seen the scheme. Now, the athletes are winning.

Don’t think so?

Leach has coached 11 SEC games. His offense has been held to 2 or fewer TDs in 5 of those games — and almost a 6th time in Saturday’s loss against the team he destroyed in his SEC debut.

The SEC already has adjusted. If Leach doesn’t adjust and rely more on his run game, which helped the Bulldogs get back in the game Saturday against LSU, his tenure won’t last long.

Postscript: Leach did make adjustments. Most notably, the Bulldogs beat Kentucky on the strength of a running game that produced 94 yards and 3 TDs. MSU averaged 23 rushing attempts vs. SEC teams in 2021. That’s 5 more than last year. That’s a notable adjustment.

Best (Week 2): Is Ohio State out of the Playoff race?

The overreaction: That’s a great headline question, but the real narrative after the Buckeyes lost to Oregon is: Is Ohio State vulnerable in the Big Ten?

Obviously, the Buckeyes have to win out, including another B1G championship, to reach the Playoff. The wiggle room disappeared Saturday.

The question is, after 2 up-and-down performances, do you believe these Buckeyes are the best team in the Big Ten?

Most teams have gap years. This might be one for the Buckeyes, but we won’t know for another month, at least. Ohio State’s next challenge will come on Oct. 30 against Penn State.

Postscript: Yes, but not because of the Oregon loss. Michigan ended the Buckeyes’ Playoff dreams.

Best (Week 2): Tennessee’s loss was … encouraging

The overreaction: Coaches get fired for compiling too many moral victories, but Pitt is a pretty good team and I think Tennessee found its QB in Hendon Hooker.

Frankly, I was surprised Hooker didn’t win the job in fall camp. Joe Milton has the strongest arm in college football (history?), but still has a bit too much Luke LaLoosh in him. From 60 yards out, he’s as apt to hit the mascot in the back of the end zone as he is a receiver in the end zone.

Hooker isn’t as flashy, but he’s more productive. He gave Tennessee a chance to win Saturday.

Postscript: Pitt won the ACC championship and Hooker did indeed lead the Vols to a turn-the-corner type of regular season.

Worst (Week 10): If Jake Coker was good enough, Stetson Bennett is good enough …

The overreaction: Georgia picked the perfect year to hitch its title hopes to the back of the Jordan Davis party bus.

But this isn’t a trend. It’s a blip.

The only reason the Dawgs’ defensive-led quest could actually work this year is there isn’t an offense anywhere in America that comes close to the Playoff offenses of 2016-2020.

This Georgia team won’t have to win a shootout.

As fun as it is to wonder how 2021 Georgia would fare against 2020 Alabama, 2019 LSU, 2018 Clemson or 2017 Alabama, the reality is, none of the Playoff contenders this year have an offense on par with those champions.

By the way, here’s how I think those mythical matchups would go:

  • 2020 Alabama 38, 2021 Georgia 24
  • 2019 LSU 41, 2021 Georgia 27
  • 2018 Clemson 34, 2021 Georgia 17
  • 2017 Alabama 24, 2021 Georgia 21
  • 2016 Clemson 38, 2021 Georgia 17

You have to go back to the 2015 Tide to find a national champion that started a “limited” quarterback. And that Tide team, of course, was led by a Heisman Trophy award winner in Derrick Henry who broke Herschel Walker’s sacred single-season SEC rushing record.

Jake Coker embraced and defined the game-manager moniker and never would have sniffed the field for any of the Alabama teams that followed him. But he was good enough, careful enough, timely enough to direct the Tide to a national championship.

Anything Jake Coker could do, Stetson Bennett can do, too.

Postscript: At this point, Kirby Smart and Bennett’s family might be the only people who believe this.

Best (Week 3): This is the worst Clemson offense since ___:

The overreaction: You have to go back awhile. Maybe the Kelly Bryant-led Tigers of 2017.

Those Tigers, like these Tigers, were in Year 1 of replacing a legendary QB. That year, Bryant took over for Deshaun Watson and the offense average just 33.3 points (32nd nationally). This year, DJ Uiagalelei is replacing Trevor Lawrence and the offense looks like some of Tommy West’s stuck-in-neutral units from the late 90s.

We made excuses for Clemson in its opening loss to Georgia. But there’s no hiding the fact anymore. Georgia Tech most certainly is not Georgia. It’s not easy replacing a generational talent at QB and RB. I don’t know that anybody in the ACC is good enough to change the league’s unofficial moniker “Another Clemson Championship,” but it’s clear these Tigers aren’t built to win Playoff shootouts.

Postscript: Dabo will be back, but it probably will be with a different QB.

Best (Week 5): If you’re a Gators fan, you should be livid with Dan Mullen

The overreaction: This was as avoidable as it was inevitable.

And it’s solely on Dan Mullen.

Anthony Richardson should have started Saturday at Kentucky. Instead, Richardson mostly watched Emory Jones and the Gators’ offense struggle to get anything going. One offensive touchdown. Eight false starts. A long gain of 22 yards.

Jones’ last drive was particularly galling. His final pass on 4th-and-goal with a chance to tie was deflected, but even if it hadn’t been touched, it was 3 yards off target.

Losing is one thing.

Losing with your best offensive weapon sitting on the bench is head coaching malpractice. And it just cost the Gators a shot at getting back to Atlanta.

Postscript: I wrote about Richardson plenty. Heck, I gave him the Heisman in Week 2. I would have given him the keys. Mullen didn’t. And that, more than anything else, is why Billy Napier is now coaching the Gators.

Best (Week 6): Loved the decision. Absolutely hated the call

The overreaction: I was surprised — and impressed — that Sam Pittman decided to go for 2 and the win after KJ Jefferson’s TD pass on the final play of regulation brought Arkansas within 1 point of Ole Miss.

I figured — probably along with the rest of America — that Pittman would feed Jefferson and ask his Hogs to graze on the Rebels’ porous d-line. After all, Arkansas had rushed for 350 yards. They only needed 3 yards for the win.

Lane Kiffin seemed so resigned to what was about to happen that before the snap, cameras caught him on the sideline, eyes closed, hands clasped as if he were praying for just 1 stop — just 1! — knowing how unlikely that would be.

Instead, Arkansas curiously called a pass play that looked doomed from the start. Jefferson harmlessly overthrew Treylon Burks in the back of the end zone. Pittman said afterward that he loved the play call. He said the Hogs had 3 good options but simply didn’t convert.

He saw something I didn’t. I saw 3 Hogs receivers surrounded by 7 Ole Miss defenders.

On a day Jefferson outplayed Matt Corral, the Hogs deserved better. Same situation later in the year, no way they run that same play. In Jefferson, they must trust.

Postscript: Fast-forward 4 weeks to the Mississippi State game. Arkansas scored a TD to go ahead 29-28. Pittman again decided to go for 2. This time, the Hogs handed off to Dominique Johnson, who walked in easily to provide the winning 3-point margin. That was the play they should have run against Ole Miss. Give Pittman credit for publicly supporting his OC but also ensuring the next time would be different.

Stay tuned (Week 6): Georgia is going to win the national championship

The overreaction: I’ve been at SDS for 7 football seasons.

That’s the first time I’ve written that sentence.

Postscript: Not with Stetson Bennett at QB.

Stay tuned (Week 10): JT Daniels is gonna come off the bench and beat Alabama, a’ight?

The overreaction: I mean, it absolutely has to go down like that, right?

After losing back-to-back games to Alabama because of backup QB heroics, there’s no more fitting way for Kirby Smart to finally get over on Nick Saban.

Postscript: Should we give Kirby some credit for not wasting this trick in the SEC title game?