Anxiety Rankings, Week 6: Brent Venables under pressure, USC and Penn State both need to get back on track

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, and each week, The Anxiety Rankings aim to find the five most anxious places in the country.

You'll fail, but try all the same. I don't know whether he did it intentionally or not, but there was a moment when Brent Venables was asked during a press conference this week what a win over Texas would mean. He took a breath and then said under his breath, but loud enough for the microphone to pick it up, "it would turn around our season." He then went into his normal voice and gave a standard coaching answer about not being where they want to be as a football team, needing to play our best football, focusing on an opportunity to compete, and so on and so forth as is prescribed in the press conference manual handed out to all college football coaches before each season.

But everything he needed to tell you was in that first sentence that he may not have meant for you to hear. A win this week against Texas would turn around Oklahoma's season, and not simply in the typical fashion of beating your most-hated rival. A win would get the Sooners to 3-2 on the year and 1-1 in the SEC.

It would help heal the wounds of an embarrassing 41-13 blowout loss to Georgia two weeks ago. A win would bring confidence to the locker room and tell the country that, while the Sooners got off to a slow start, they're still a team capable of beating the No. 1 team in the country. They're still a team that has an opportunity to compete for the SEC and the College Football Playoff.