Three weeks into the 2026 college football season, the games are beginning to do what games always do — separate belief from evidence. Alabama found its answer at quarterback in Keelon Russell, whose breakout performance transformed a question mark into a cornerstone. Texas A&M, by contrast, absorbed the kind of loss that doesn't merely change a record but reshapes a program's sense of itself. Elsewhere, old scores were settled and new wounds opened, as the season's early story begins to harden into something that will take months to undo.