Top 25

• Texas A&M 41, No. 1 Alabama 38
• No. 2 Georgia 34, No. 18 Auburn 10
• No. 3 Iowa 23, No. 4 Penn State 20
• No. 5 Cincinnati 52, Temple 3
• No. 6 Oklahoma 55, No. 21 Texas 48
• No. 7 Ohio State 66, Maryland 17
• No. 9 Michigan 32, Nebraska 29
• Boise State 26, No. 10 BYU 17
• No. 11 Michigan State 31, Rutgers 13
• No. 15 Coastal Carolina 52, Arkansas State 20 
• No. 17 Ole Miss 52, No. 13 Arkansas 51
• No. 14 Notre Dame 32, Virginia Tech 29
• No. 16 Kentucky 42, LSU 21
• No. 19 Wake Forest 40, Syracuse 37 (OT)
• No. 20 Florida 42, Vanderbilt 0
• No. 22 Arizona State 28, Stanford 10
• No. 24 SMU 31, Navy 24
• No. 25 San Diego State 31, New Mexico 7

 
Random Thoughts

• One of the coolest things about College football is that no one is ever truly safe.
• Wow, huge win by A&M. Alabama needs to win out for the rest of the year to make the playoff.
• I think Alabama’s biggest issue is its offensive coordinator. Bill O’Brien calls a complete shit came. He’s got an excessively talented team and yet he doesn’t do anything to set them up for success.
• Kenneth Walker from Michigan State has the longest streak for not fumbling at 315 carries in a row. I expect that this will be broken, now that it has been mentioned as the football stat gods must be appeased. The stat god’s were not happy with the Nick Saban assistant stat and proved their might.
• Good on Iowa, huge win for them. Now they just have to play hard until the B10 Championship game and beat up on the teams they should be able to beat. Iowa has a legit defense.
• The only defense playing slightly better than Iowa is Georgia.
• A playoff game between Iowa and Georgia could easily result in an exciting 6-3 finish.
• Kentucky? Really?
• Michigan State’s Mel Tucker has done an amazing job with that team.
• I expect LSU to start looking at potential replacements for Coach O. I wouldn’t be shocked to see them reach out to Urban Meyer under the table as a possible option.
• BYUs playoff hopes are done for the year, not that they really existed in the first place.
• Good win by Okie. I would be shocked if Spencer Rattler doesn’t enter the transfer portal. Expect to hear him linked to Miami, Arizona/Arizona State and Tennessee.
• Cincy blasted Temple, which really isn’t that hard. Cincy is making a habit of destroying teams and it will keep their ranking up their high. Cincy may not jump anyone who wins but they are going to keep creeping up when teams lose.
• Wake Forest is the cream of the ACC and undefeated at 6-0! It will be interesting to see what happens if Wake finishes the year undefeated.

 
Top 4:  
1. Georgia: The offense is cooking; we are about to go through two months of foreplay before we can watch the titans battle it out. And they each get better each week.
2. Iowa: An easy path to the B10 Championship Game. Where they will probably get a chance to play OSU.
3. Cincinnati: They keep on moving up, don’t expect them to fall because they are basically playing a bunch of DIII schools until they get SMU at the end of the year and step up the competition to DII.
4. Oklahoma: They benched their Heisman hopefully and got their biggest win of the year. I still think they get caught in a trap game and fall.     
Down:

• Alabama. The way to the playoff goes through the rest of the SEC and Georgia. They need to win out to get in.

Darkhorse on the Horizon:

• We’re going to start seeing what Michigan really is.  
• The OSU is awaking and its angry.  

Top 25
•         No. 1 Alabama 42,  No. 12 Ole Miss 21
•         No. 2 Georgia 37, No. 8 Arkansas 0
•         Stanford 31, No. 3 Oregon 24 (OT)
•         No. 4 Penn State 24, Indiana 0
•         No. 5 Iowa 51, Maryland 14
•         No. 6 Oklahoma 37, Kansas State 31
•         No. 7 Cincinnati 24, No. 9 Notre Dame 13
•         Kentucky 20, No. 10 Florida 13
•         No. 11 Ohio State 52, Rutgers 13
•         No. 13 BYU 34, Utah State 20
•         No. 14 Michigan 38, Wisconsin 17
•         Mississippi State 26, No. 15 Texas A&M 22
•         No. 16 Coastal Carolina 59, UL Monroe 6
•         No. 17 Michigan State 48, Western Kentucky 31
•         Hawaii 27, No. 18 Fresno State 24
•         No. 19 Oklahoma State 24, No. 21 Baylor 14
•         Arizona State |42, No. 20 UCLA 23
•         No. 22 Auburn 24, LSU 19
•         No. 23 NC State 34, Louisiana Tech 27
•         No. 24 Wake Forest 37, Louisville 34
•         No. 25 Clemson 19, Boston College 13 
 
Random Thoughts

• This is currently a two team race and it looks like the SEC Championship will be the actual National Championship game. There are some really good teams this year, but there is no one currently close to Alabama and Georgia. It is going to take some really bad days by either combined with their opponents best effort to knock them off before the SEC Championship game.
• Lane Kiffin looked like someone had banged his mom even before the game started. Way to serious for the clown prince of college football that we’ve come to know and love.
• Ole Miss makes way too many dumb mistakes to compete against the top tier teams. They need to clean that up if they want to jump from good to great.
• Georgia looks angry, like really angry. Even without their starting QB they demolished a good Arkansas team. This team is playing with a chip and will likely get even better as the season goes on.
• Arkansas is a good team and the Hogs have a lot of reasons to be thrilled about the direction of the program and have a ton to play for this year. Hopefully they bounce back and done go into a tail spin after this beating.
• Iowa reminds me of the Patriots teams from the early 2000s, play amazing defense, punch people in the face with your running game and pick up the first downs with short passes on 3 and 2 or 3 and 3. It is an efficient system, as long as your avoid shootouts.
• People are going to crap on Florida for losing to Kentucky, but Kentucky is a better team than they get credit for. We’ll see how good they really are in a few weeks though.
• In most years, Auburn beating LSU in a thrilling game would be interesting. But frankly, I’m not really interested in either as they aren’t near complete teams and make way too many mistakes to be enjoyable football to watch.
• But just for fun, the last time Auburn beat LSU in Baton Rouge, the LSU coach got fired later in the season and the Auburn coach was a guy who is now a United States Senator. I wouldn’t be shocked if Ed is out at the end of the year either.
• What happened to the Manny Diaz love fest at Miami. He owes Florida State’s Mike Norvell a huge gift basket for keeping the Florida attention off of Miami’s bad start.
• But…. Expect Urban Meyer to take some of that attention away this week with the video of him enjoying a few in a bar with a woman who clearly wasn’t his wife.
• Clemson would have lost if BC had a functional QB. Clemson has some serious problems going on right now and I don’t know what they are doing to solve them.
• I got to see the UAB Turnover Dragon for the first time. Probably one of my favorite turnover items I’ve seen so far. If you haven’t seen it, here you can see it here: Is that a dragon skull? UAB shows off unusual turnover chain | Watch ESPN
• Coastal Carolina and BYU keep rolling up the wins, too bad their schedules are filled with mediocre teams. BYU tried to schedule a couple of good ones but they have kind of fallen off because that is what you get with the PAC12.
• Fresno State fell to Hawaii, not that anyone actually cared.  
• For those of you following the PAC12 at home:
  • North
    • 1. Team that lost to Purdue
    • 2. Team that lost to Kansas State
    • 3. Team that lost to Stanford
  • South
    • 1. Team that lost to BYU
    • 2. Team that lost to BYU
    • 3. Team that lost to Fresno St
• The BIG10 is deep with good teams, but I don’t see a national champion among them yet. There is still plenty of time for someone to hit their stride and get rolling. Each team has its fascinating niche which makes it interesting to watch.
• The ACC is screwed. Put the fork in.
• The SEC is going to eat itself pretty hard over the next eight weeks and it should be fun to watch what happens to the early season darlings in Kentucky, Ole Miss and Arkansas.

 
Heisman Hype: I still don’t really care at this point in the year. For the next month we’ll get random “dark horse” candidates who have chewed up shitty competition and people are writing about them.

• Today’s dark horse of the week is Pitt QB Kenny Pickett. Threw four touchdowns in a rout of Georgia Tech, adding 410 yards of offense. The Pitt QB is in his 5th year of being a starting QB at Pitt, because fuck it at this point in regard to college rules. He has tossed 15 TD passes in his past three games -- two more than he'd ever thrown in a full season before hand, breaking Dan Marino's school record for TD passes in a three-game stretch. That I’m sure Dan is really sad about it.
• You’ll also hear more about Bijan Robinson from Texas, I want to see how he does next week with his showdown with the Sooners.

Top 4:  
1. Alabama: A demoralized A&M comes next on the Tide hype train.
2. Georgia: The offense is cooking; we are about to go through two months of foreplay before we can watch the titans battle it out. And they each get better each week.
3. Penn State / Iowa Winner: Who ever wins this is in the driver’s seat to win the Big 10 and get into the playoffs. At least until they meet OSU and get their dreams crushed.     
4. Cincinnati: They got the big name win they needed. Now they need ND to stay undefeated the rest of the way. They play really good football but they lose by 28 if they play either of the SEC monsters.    
Down:

• Oregon. What is the deal out in the PAC12? They kill it one week then they suck the next. There is no consistency whatsoever, other than the lack of consistency.
• Oklahoma may keep winning, but they look like crap against crap teams. Not impressed so they are out of my top four.    

Darkhorse on the Horizon:

• Don’t be surprised to start hearing more about Michigan as a contender because I think they will be in the top 10 when the polls get released this week. With matchups against Penn State and OSU to come, they’ll have the strength of schedule to leapfrog the teams ahead of them, they just need to win. 

Top 25

• No. 1 Alabama 63, Southern Miss 14
• No. 2 Georgia 62, Vanderbilt 0
• No. 3 Oregon 41, Arizona 19
• No. 4 Oklahoma 16, West Virginia 13
• No. 5 Iowa 24, Colorado State 14
• No. 6 Penn State 38, Villanova 17
• No. 16 Arkansas 20, No. 7 Texas A&M 10
• NC State 27, No. 9 Clemson 21
• No. 10 Ohio State 59, Akron 7
• No. 11 Florida 38, Tennessee 14
• No. 12 Notre Dame 41, No. 18 Wisconsin 13  
• Baylor 31, No. 14 Iowa State 29
• No. 15 BYU 35, South Florida 27
• No. 17 Coastal Carolina 53, UMass 3
• No. 19 Michigan 20, Rutgers 13
• No. 20 Michigan State 23, Nebraska 20
• Georgia Tech 45, No. 21 North Carolina 22  
• No. 22 Fresno State 38, UNLV 30
• No. 23 Auburn 34, Georgia State 24
• No. 24 UCLA 35, Stanford 24
• Oklahoma State 31, No. 25 Kansas State 20

​
Random Thoughts

• F’n Sam Pittman! Arkansas looks legit and all of the crap they took for hiring Pittman makes them look even smart by comparison. Flattening Texas and Texas A&M team is an impressive start to the season. Regardless of what happens with the Razorbacks as they face off against three ranked opponents in October -- the Hogs get No. 2 Georgia, No. 13 Ole Miss and No. 23 Auburn in consecutive weeks -- Sam Pittman's rebuild in Fayetteville is a rousing success.
• Notre Dame's defense: It's been a shaky start to the season, but Notre Dame's defense finally put together a complete performance in a 41-13 win over No. 18 Wisconsin. This was the kind of get-right performance we needed to see from Notre Dame to still take them seriously as a top-15 squad. Even if Wisconsin ends up being a paper tiger, putting together a complete performance is a step in the right direction.
• Georgia put on an offensive display against Vanderbilt.  
• Baylor: The Bears quietly started the season on a hot streak against bad competition, but beating No. 14 Iowa State 31-29 proves that Baylor is better than what people have been giving them credit for. First time that Baylor has beaten a ranked opponent in 15 attempts!
• The ACC has an identity crisis as Clemson blows badly. I like the competition within the ACC but other conferences only take domination seriously and no one is taking the ACC seriously at this point. And while congrats to Boston College and Wake Forest on being 4-0, no one cares about either of them.
• FSU rocking a fantastic 0-4. Thanks to that garbage fire we’ll get to hear news reports about Coach Prime coming to FSU.
• The Big 10 is the second best conference in college football right now but Notre Dame beating Wisconsin easily could be a continued showing that they aren’t as good as people think they are.
• Or that Minnesota closed as a 31-point favorite for its home game against Bowling Green and ended up losing 14-10.
• Oklahoma needs to figure its offense out, fast. This team is supposed to be a playoff contender this year but it continues to do barely enough to beat mediocre to bad teams.

 
Heisman Hype: I still don’t really care at this point in the year. For the next month we’ll get random “dark horse” candidates who have chewed up shitty competition and people are writing about them.

• Today’s dark horse of the week is Taulia Tagovailoa, the Maryland QB. This guy couldn’t beat out Mac Jones year so he bolted for the door when he realized he was never going to start at Alabama. Tagovailoa sits at 1,340 yards, 75.5% completion, 10 touchdowns – and just one interception. But WVU is the best team he’s played as Kent State isn’t a powerhouse. His candidacy should die a horrible death in the next two weeks as he goes against Iowa and Ohio State.   

Top 4: No Change
1. Alabama: Two big games back to back against Ole Miss and then A&M.
2. Georgia: If the offense is actually on track, then this team can beat Alabama.  
3. Oklahoma: They need to fix their offense quick.   
4. Oregon: Doing what they needed to do by destroying a bad Arizona team.   
Down:

• I could continue to shit on Clemson, but since they are already shitty enough, I’ll leave them alone.    

If you haven't had a chance to watch this yet, this video serves as a prime example of why fans simply don't have any faith in referees. As we all are familiar, in college football, on a punt, as soon as the punting team touches the ball, it's blown dead, and that's where the offense starts their next possession.

UNLESS you happen to be one of the referees in this game, that is...Because you could MAYBE MAYBE try to argue that the first Mississippi State player (#5) didn't actually touch the ball, so technically, the ball was still live...but, you cannot, under any circumstances whatsoever, make the claim that the 2nd Mississippi State player (#1) didn't. He very clearly makes contact, as he actually forces the ball to change direction. That's it. That should have been the end of the play, right there. It's either Memphis' ball at the 1 yard line, or it's Memphis ball at the 8. No other outcome should have been possible.

And yet? What happens? The refs just sit there picking their butts, while a Memphis player scoops up the ball, DESPITE the fact the play should have been blown dead, and returns it for the TD. No way that stands, right? Ball was clearly dead! Except...the refs totally allowed it to stand. Memphis got a free TD out of play that should have resulted in them having 1st down at either their own 1 or 8 yard line. Absolutely ridiculous, and one of the all time worst calls (or non-call) in college football that I have ever seen.

Top 25

• No. 1 Alabama 31, No. 11 Florida 29
• No. 2 Georgia 40, South Carolina 13
• No. 3 Oklahoma 23, Nebraska 16
• No. 4 Oregon 48, Stony Brook 7
• No. 5 Iowa 30, Kent State 7
• No. 6 Clemson 14, Georgia Tech 8
• No. 7 Texas A&M 34, New Mexico 0
• No. 8 Cincinnati 38, Indiana 24
• No. 9 Ohio State 41, Tulsa 20
• No. 10 Penn State 28, No. 22 Auburn 20
• No. 12 Notre Dame 27, Purdue 13
• Fresno State 40, No. 13 UCLA 37
• No. 14 Iowa State 48, UNLV 3
• West Virginia 27, No. 15 Virginia Tech 21
• No. 16 Coastal Carolina 28, Buffalo 25
• No. 17 Ole Miss 61, Tulane 21 
• No. 23 BYU 27, No. 19 Arizona State 17
• No. 20 Arkansas 45, Georgia Southern 10
• No. 21 North Carolina 59, Virginia 39
• Michigan State 38, No. 24 Miami (Fla.) 17
• No. 25 Michigan 63, Northern Illinois 10

Random Thoughts

• Florida played better than anyone thought they would, except Tim Tebow. Good on them, and good for Nick Saban for having an opportunity to get a serious wakeup call to his team before a very dangerous Ole Miss team comes to town next week.
• Speaking of Ole Miss, a fast offense now combined with an aggressive defense spells trouble for the SEC. Ole Miss obliterating a Tulane team that gave the Sooners a run for their money makes your question Okie even more.
• At least one, and probably two, rules foulups occurred on Calvin Austin III's stealth 94-yard punt return that gave Memphis an 11-point lead with 5:36 remaining in the fourth quarter. The Tigers held on to win 31-29 over Miss State despite the clear miss that Austin was one of two Tigers on the field wearing No. 4. That's against NCAA rules and the touchdown should have been called back. The other is that the ball was touched twice by Miss State players and the back judge even through down his resin bag but they let them play. Lesson learned, pick up the ball.
• Speaking of official mistakes, the ref’s took a down from Penn State because they didn’t know it was 2nd down because the marker said 3rd. Penn State still carried the day, mainly because Auburn still can’t close out games without doing dumb things by getting too cute.
• While Miami was clearly overrated to start the year, Sparty continues to impress.  
• Stony Brook kept it close for a half against Oregon, then they remembered they were playing Oregon and got thrashed.
• Cincy now has two weeks to rest up before their huge game against Notre Dame. A win against ND puts them in the drivers seat for a playoff spot as I think the committee wants to go for a group of five team to show that they are diverse in their selection.
• Bobby Bowden's son, Terry, led Louisiana-Monroe to a 12-7 win over Jackson State, a team coached by arguably Bobby Bowden's best all-time player, Deion Sanders. If your team is most famous for your coaches name and you can’t name a single player, your team probably sucks.
• Speaking of sucking, congrats to UConn. Sure, UConn lost Saturday in yet another blowout -- this time, 52-21 to Army -- but on their 34th drive of the season against FBS competition, the Huskies finally scored points.
• Oklahoma was thought to be the best challenger to Alabama but they barely got past Tulane at home in Week 1 and couldn't put away a desperate Nebraska team in Norman in Week 3. They have time to fix it but they play some teams that have the potential to beat them.
• Georgia is likely the only team that can beat Alabama and while their defense is suffocating, their offense can put you to sleep quicker than a shot of Nyquil.
• Ohio State got boatraced vs. Alabama in the title game last year and may not even be the best team in the Big Ten East this year. C.J. Stroud has a lot of problems and the Buckeye defense can't stop anyone.
• Iowa has a dominant defense but their offense has bigger issues than Georgia and keeps you awake only because they do dumb things.
• Clemson has scored two touchdowns vs. Power Five opponents so far this year. That is not powerhouse material. DJ needs to step it up as the ACC looks like a shitshow this year and is still easily winnable.
• Texas A&M, Cincinnati, Notre Dame, Penn State, Oregon and UCLA are all nice teams but you don't need the vision of an Air Force pilot to see the flaws with these squads. If they play their best games its competitive, if Alabama plays their best then they lose by 40.
• There's nothing wrong with this though. In fact, it's a welcome sight for a sport that has lacked some parity in the College Football Playoff era.
• College football needs this drama. It's the best sport in the world but it's been too predictable. There is unpredictability from week to week but when Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State are penciled in the playoff on an annual basis, people lose interest. The problem has been is that they were that much better than everyone else.  
• If anything, this will be the year there will be cases to be made for a handful of teams worthy of the No. 4 spot. The season is still young but the ending is shaping up to be one of the craziest we've seen since the wacky and wild 2007 season that saw No. 1 teams falling like leaves in autumn.

Heisman Hype: I don’t really care at this point in the year. Frankly, I’m not interested in it until at least Halloween. But if you want the current top names:

1. Alabama QB Bryce Young
2. Ole Miss QB Matt Corral
3. Michigan State RB Kenneth Walker
4. Ohio State QB C.J. Stroud
5. Michigan RB Blake Corum

Top 4:
1. Alabama: Florida played them to the wall and a very dangerous Ole Miss team is on deck. A bad defensive performance next week and Alabama falls.
2. Georgia: Amazing defense continues to pair with a shitty boring offense.
3. Oklahoma: Way to close to future UConn HC candidate Scott Frost’s crappy Cornhuskers.  
4. Oregon: No reason for them to go anywhere, they crushed the Stony Brook (who I will always think fondly of for being interested in me years ago) 
Down:

• Clemson comes the closest for their garbage fire offense, but they weren’t a top four team last week and they aren’t this week.