Well, that was interesting. One Saturday and suddenly college football looks like a drunken giant kicked a path through the living room, scattering Legos and Lincoln Logs everywhere. Let’s see if I can avoid stepping on too many of them.
Alabama won big, Oregon won big. So far so good, nothing to see here. Ohio State was off, still good. FSU won … uh-oh. In and of itself that’s not earthshaking, the #4 team in my poll SHOULD win. But like THAT? Over the #5 team?
From there, the carnage goes into full swing. 6 of the next 7 teams in my rankings lost. The 7th escaped with 16 seconds to play.
George O’Leary got at least fifteen seconds of fame when UCF beat Louisville, but does the loss make it more likely or less likely that Charlie Strong is in the NFL next year? (more IMO). What do we make of Clemson after last night (one of those nights, an overstated reality check IMO). What about LSU (an accurate reality check IMO)? What about A&M (Johnny Football don’t play defense AND he’s not actually quite the greatest QB in college history IMO)? What about South Carolina (probably a different game if Shaw doesn’t get hurt in the final minutes IMO, but I’ll certainly take it)?
All this talk about the losers from yesterday, maybe we have to give a little love to the winners. Ole Miss closed the deal, but did everything they could think of to screw it up. Auburn gets their biggest win since Mister Moneybags left the Loveliest Village. Tennessee finally got that signature win the last couple of coaches couldn’t find. Stanford reasserted themselves as the second best team in their conference. Baylor might have proven there’s life after RGIII. Missouri puts a solid shoulder to the door but still hasn’t really kicked the door in yet.
And then there’s my back yard, where one friend so aptly put it last night “even the planes returning from Nashville sound pissed off”. Let me be blunt: an iffy ejection based on an even iffier rule did not cost Georgia the game in Nashville. That distinction rests with ill-timed turnovers, almost comical special teams play and an overrated quarterback failing to live up to his hype when it counts. And the defense hasn’t exactly set the woods on fire no matter who was on the field. Down the road in Atlanta, Georgia Tech put on an option clinic against a team that had never defended the option and STILL hasn’t defended the option. But it was, at best, a game between two completely irrelevant teams. It’s nice and all I guess, but it doesn’t really mean a thing.
So, having stalled for about as long as I can, I guess it’s time for this week’s Top 25.
1. Alabama (1)
2. Oregon (2)
3. FSU (4)
4. Ohio State (3)
5. Miami (9)
6. Missouri (15)
7. Stanford (12)
8. Baylor (13)
9. Texas Tech (14)
10. Oklahoma (17)
11. Clemson (5)
12. Auburn (Un)
13. UCLA (11)
14. Texas A&M (8)
15. Oklahoma State (18)
16. Louisville (6)
17. Fresno State (19)
18. LSU (7)
19. Northern Illnois (20)
20. Nebraska (21)
21. South Carolina (10)
22. Virginia Tech (24)
23. Wisconsin (25)
24. Arizona State (Un)
25. Ole Miss (Un)
Dropped Out This Week: Georgia (16), Washington (22), Florida (23)
Jon's Three Cents 