Ah yes, Rivalry Week. Where strange things happen. Or don’t.
Nothing strange about kicking things off in earnest on Thanksgiving and seeing Ole Miss get the blue hell beaten out of them. A performance that got (so far) only the defensive coordinator fired but should have been the swan song for the entire inept staff … Friday provided the Big 12 version of arena football, with Oklahoma outlasting West Virginia … Washington did Apple Cup things to Wazzu …. Virginia Tech did VaTech things to UVA, again … UCF won a game but lost something far more valuable to their fortunes … Then we get to Saturday and things got more than a little serious, with Alabama scuffling for a half with Auburn, Clemson doing likewise with South Carolina, and Notre Dame doing the same for most of the day in SoCal … Other teams, like Georgia and Florida and Kentucky did what they were supposed to do with downtrodden rivals (and don’t let the surge fool you, the lack of commitment to winning, or football in general, at Georgia Tech leaves the Jackets in the ranks of the downtrodden regardless of their late season wins) … But just when you thought you’d seen the last of the turkey, along comes Michigan to lay a big ol’ turkey egg against Ohio State. Again … The insanity of seven overtimes for Texas A&M and LSU seemed to put a fitting bow on the regular season, in a year when defenses were hard to locate unless bad offenses were willing to pitch in to help … Oh, and let’s not forget Tennessee reverting to form against Vandy, after reverting to form in the latter part of the previous game. Nobody is likely to mourn the departure from Rocky Top of OC Tyson Helton, who is off to take over things at Western Kentucky. Good luck with that, he seems better suited for a Hilltop than a mountain anyway.
Only a few games remain before bowl season begins, so let’s sort ’em out again in earnest here with the latest update of my JonsThreeCents College Football Top 25.
(last week’s ranking follows their name)
- Alabama (1)
- Clemson (2)
- Notre Dame (3)
- Georgia (5)
- Oklahoma (6)
- Ohio State (11)
- Florida (10)
- Michigan (4)
- UCF (9)
- Washington (16)
- Texas (14)
- Penn State (15)
- LSU (7)
- Washington State (8)
- West Virginia (13)
- Utah (17)
- Boise State (20)
- Kentucky (18)
- Syracuse (19)
- Mississippi State (22)
- Northwestern (21)
- Fresno State (24)
- Texas A&M (Un)
- Army (23)
- Utah State (12)
Dropped: Cincinnati (25)