October is always the most fun month of college football - injuries are starting to take their toll, teams are in the meat of their conference schedules, where hate and familiarity produce weird results. And, it is the season of depth; as the leaves turn, teams who do not recruit or develop quality depth start to fall by the wayside like leaves hitting pavement.
October does not forgive weakness, and it does not forgive mistakes. We saw that with LSU yesterday. We saw it with Ohio State, Clemson, Florida State. We saw it in spades with Alabama and Michigan State and Oklahoma.
After a wild day, where are we in Week Seven?
Rank |
Team |
Last Week |
1 |
Utah Utes |
1 |
2 |
LSU Tigers |
5 |
3 |
Clemson Tigers |
2 |
4 |
Ohio State Buckeyes |
6 |
5 |
Alabama Crimson Tide |
7 |
6 |
Michigan State Spartans |
8 |
7 |
Stanford Cardinal |
12 |
8 |
Baylor Bears |
9 |
9 |
Florida Gators |
4 |
10 |
Notre Dame Fighting Irish |
15 |
11 |
Florida State Seminoles |
16 |
12 |
TCU Horned Frogs |
13 |
13 |
Texas A&M Aggies |
3 |
14 |
Iowa Hawkeyes |
18 |
15 |
Oklahoma Sooners |
19 |
16 |
Michigan Wolverines |
10 |
17 |
Memphis Tigers |
21 |
18 |
Oklahoma State Cowboys |
17 |
19 |
Temple Owls |
24 |
20 |
Ole Miss Rebels |
11 |
21 |
Toledo Rockets |
23 |
22 |
Cal Golden Bears |
25 |
23 |
UNC Tarheels |
- |
24 |
Pitt Panthers |
- |
25 |
Duke Blue Devils |
- |
"Started From The Bottom, Now My Whole F'n Team Here."
Thanks for playing, Duke, Pitt, UNC - what passes for the second tier in a league easily dominated by bullies Florida State and Clemson. It ain't much, but it's better than, say, the Big Twelve's middle class.
That Was Awkward
Oh, Michigan. That is a terrible way to lose. Just awful. That said, the blocking was bad, the snap was worse, and Michigan defenders were in position to make a tackle and just didn't do it.
Oh, Aggies, hook your dudes up to some Madden so they can read coverages. I've rarely seen a Top-10 SEC team bullied like that.
Oh, Florida. Why is it that #DBU has been the launching point for QB emergences the past few years? It's one thing when Greg McElroy takes you apart with some motivation on his side. It's forgivable that Blake Sims and Lane Kiffin had their game of the season. It's another thing entirely when you collapse on special teams, don't plan for some Miles fakery, and, worse, make pitiful Brandon Harris look like Tom Brady. Harris made some great individual plays, to be sure. But, the Gator secondary was clueless on half of the big ones.
Ten Pounds Of Crap In A Five Pound Bag
...basically, the entire PAC 12. Arizona and Arizona State are done; UCLA is toast; Oregon was DOA with Mariota's graduation (yet still having that generous Duck defense;) USC is. 500. We're left with a bad-loss Stanford team and an undefeated Utah, the latter has have been shaky its last two outings (Ignore last night's final. Arizona State led in the 4th.) BLECH, it's the Big Ten with flashier offenses.
M.E.M.P.H.I.S.
Yeah, Ole Miss. We saw that. That wasn't a fluke. That was High School Hugh at his best, and a feisty Tigers team tired of taking your opprobrium. For a Rebels squad already decimated by injuries, it made perfect sense to continue to put your best player in harm's way for a meaningless non-conference game - a game which you then lost badly in large part because your decisions then got that guy hurt. Texas A&M is going to do filthy things to Ole Miss next week, setting up Alabama-LSU for the West and a trip to Atlanta.
Showdown Looming
No, I do not mean between Alabama and LSU (though that's happening;) I refer, of course, to the round-robin of Derpy WTF that is known as Baylor-Oklahoma-Oklahoma State-TCU.
I called the Sooners before the season started. I'm standing by it, even though Baylor has been the most consistent of the lot.