There are very few things in life that can stir emotions within you like college football. For four months a year, millions of Americans decide to put their mental well-being in the hands of a collection of 18- to 24-year-old men they do not know personally. All they know is that they've chosen to wear their preferred uniform. Sometimes this decision brings joy. Other times it brings pain.

But what it always brings as kickoff draws near every week is anxiety. There's always the nervous energy of the unknown heading into a game. You can never be sure how things will go, and where the rollercoaster will take you. However, while we all feel it, some of us feel it more than others. Each week, The Anxiety Rankings aim to find the five most anxious places in the country.

Welcome to Week 8. Try to stay calm. You'll fail, but try all the same.

1. Arch Manning

You can debate all you want whether Arch Manning would've been as highly rated as he was coming out of high school if his last name had been Smith, but what there's no debating is that having the last name Manning has put a brighter spotlight on Arch since he was in high school and throughout his entire career. The fact he chose to play football at Texas, a program that's always in the spotlight itself, only magnifies things further.

Likewise, you can debate all you want about who is at fault, be it Manning, Steve Sarkisian or some unseen dark force beyond comprehension, but there's no debating that Manning has failed to live up to that hype. Even his coach said this week that he needs to see a better version of Arch Manning, as he's been peppered with more questions about benching his starting quarterback.

The answer is no, at least for now. Arch's problem is that the first step toward being benched is your coach being asked if he's thinking about benching you. That typically doesn't happen when you're playing well! Even if your coach hadn't considered it before, being asked the question causes your coach to ponder why he's being asked, and now the thought is there.

So it's not great timing that you're the face of a Texas team that's lost to consecutive unranked opponents after being the No. 1 team in the country two weeks ago, and now you're at home facing a top-10 team. A top-10 team led by a QB many consider to be the best in the country, Trinidad Chambliss.

Your problem becomes twofold. Simply playing better this week won't be enough to call off the dogs. You have to play better than Chambliss, too, or at least close enough to make sure your team wins the game. Because if Chambliss comes to town and balls out in front of 100,000 people at DKR Texas Memorial Stadium, those people in the crowd will be asking themselves why their 5-star QB doesn't play as well as the guy who was at D-II Ferris State two years ago.

2. Ryan Grubb

Alabama has lost two straight, which is not something Alabama fans are used to. For most of the last 20 years, losing two games in a season felt like a disaster; doing it twice in two weeks? Well, somebody needs to pay for that.

And the subject of fan ire seems to be offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb. After all, it was Grubb's offense that managed only 17 points against Georgia and then 10 last week against Tennessee. The fact that Georgia and Tennessee are two of the best defenses in the country is immaterial! There are no excuses at Alabama! So don't bring that up, and don't bring up the fact that, talented as he is, our QB is a freshman facing the toughest competition of his life.

Seriously, none of this is Grubb's fault, but reality often doesn't matter as much as perception. Grubb's aware of it, too. According to Alabama tight end Marshall Pritchett, Grubb told his offense that "the playoffs start now" ahead of this week's game against Texas A&M. And he's not entirely wrong. While chaos has reigned across the sport, a third loss could prove to be too much for the Tide to overcome in a quest for an at-large berth.

More of an immediate concern for Grubb, though, is getting back to the kind of offensive performances we saw in the first five games when Alabama was averaging 49.6 points per game. Which, seriously, can we stop and think about how the fans of a team averaging 39.3 points per game want the offensive coordinator tarred and feathered? That's tied with Ohio State for 12th best in the country.

Anyway, this week the Tide offense faces Texas A&M. While the Aggies haven't lived up to their preseason top-10 billing, the blame falls on the offense. Defensively, this team's been mostly fine, if not great, and its offense has done it no favors. If the Tide struggle to score again this week, it won't have the excuse of playing an elite defense this time. Then the questions will become louder, and the pressure on Grubb will be even greater.

And if the team loses because of a poor offensive performance?

3. Dave Aranda

You think Dave Aranda noticed Maryland breaking the seal this week when it fired Mike Locksley? I do. Aranda has been on the hot seat for a while at Baylor, but things cooled down a bit when the Bears got off to a 4-1 start. When DJ Lagway threw for 306 yards and four touchdowns in a 55-19 win over Arizona State, the mood changed almost entirely.

Suddenly, Baylor fans wondered if they might not just do something stupid and compete for a Big 12 title. The bye week afterward only allowed the momentum to build further. The next game was against rival TCU. A fan base that had little reason to care suddenly found plenty, and the atmosphere for last week's game at McLane Stadium was one of the best it had seen in a while. After all, the team was hot, and TCU had struggled all season.

Who wouldn't want to show up and watch the home team stomp on a rival?

Instead, it was TCU that did the stomping. TCU stomped on Baylor's hopes and dreams. Baylor followed up that 55-point outburst against Arizona State with only six points against TCU. Two weeks after watching Lagway throw for 306 yards, Baylor managed only 310 as a team. Now, the hot-seat chatter has returned because fans are tired of being teased and want to see some consistency. Honestly, I don't know that there's anything Dave Aranda can do to save his job at this point, but I know there's one thing he can't do: lose to Kansas.

This week's game is on the road, which may be a blessing in disguise at this point, but it's still against a Kansas team that's 2-4 on the year and 0-3 in the Big 12. It lost at home to the same Arizona State team Baylor crushed. If it somehow figures out a way to beat Baylor, Dave Aranda might be able to dress up as an unemployed coach for Halloween.

4. Luke Fickell

Things change so quickly in this sport. Luke Fickell was another coach on the hot seat entering the season. The program brought him back for another season and invested heavily in the roster this year, and it showed dividends early! While the Badgers lost their season-opener to Notre Dame 41-13, nobody was going to hold it against them. Hell, the Badgers even got credit just for hanging in there during the first half before the dam broke.

Wisconsin followed it up with four straight wins. The road win against No. 13 Penn State felt like a big deal at the time, but Penn State has lost three more since and now sits 3-4. There was the 31-3 win over Michigan State, but the Spartans are 2-5, and their only wins this year have come against Toledo and Eastern Michigan.

Last week presented a real opportunity for the Badgers to establish themselves. They were on the road against an unbeaten UCLA, but it was an unbeaten UCLA that had played poorly in an upset win over Oregon and was down to its backup QB. If ever the stars had aligned for a big win, this was it.

It was not. Wisconsin managed only 214 yards of offense in a 17-7 loss. QB Colton Joseph completed 6 of his 16 passes for 66 yards, though he did rush for 71 yards. Still, unless you're a service academy, it's rarely a good thing when your QB rushes for more yards than he passes for.

Now everybody is looking around and wondering if the team has improved or if it was just the schedule. We'll get another indicator this week since it's USC coming to Madison, but that's just the first of a tough back-to-back. Next week the Badgers are on the road for Iowa. Suddenly a 4-1 start has the chance to turn to 4-4 very quickly, and I don't know if a strong finish with a much easier November (Rutgers, at Maryland, at Purdue, Minnesota) will be enough to convince the powers that be to bring Fickell back. A win against USC feels like it could be very big for Fickell.

5. BYU fans

It's a natural reaction. Your team pulls off one of the biggest wins in program history, and you're filled with joy. Nobody believed you could do it, but guess what? You did it. Everybody else was an idiot, but not you. You always knew your team had it in them.

But there's another side to it. Now that you've beaten Notre Dame and announced to the world that you're a force to be reckoned with, you've got more to lose. And this is college football after all. BYU certainly wouldn't be the first team to follow up a massive win with an enormous letdown.

That's why you kind of wish you had a bye week after the game rather than having to travel across the country to play UCF on a humid, windy, and possibly wet day in Orlando.

That's the fear. That everything you thought you accomplished could be completely wiped away only a week later.