Lots of carnage, lots of silliness, lots of broken hearts, and Incarcerated Bob to remind you that this is some seriously deranged business.
1. FLORIDA STATE (9-0): Beat the weekly distraction – and no, we’re not talking about Virginia, and no, you shouldn’t have to ask.
2. MISSISSIPPI AND MISSISSIPPI STATE (16-2): Showed an anxious nation what it needed to know about Presbyterian and Tennessee Martin.
3. MARSHALL (9-0): Zero, you got that? Zero.
4. DUKE AND GEORGIA TECH (16-3): More worrisome to FSU than TMZ. Well, okay, slightly less worrisome than TMZ.
5. OREGON (8-1): Beating Utah at Salt Lake City is ridiculously hard, but it helps when you get seven points that Utah was going to get. Kaelin Clay will survive this, but it will take a few fan cycles.
6. COASTAL CAROLINA (10-0): Beat Charlotte while North Dakota State’s 33-game winning streak went in the dumper, and is now the likely No. 1 ranked team in the FCS. You do not screw with a Chanticleer.
7. TCU (8-1): When you beat Bill Snyder and Kansas State, you’re beating the oldest football there is. By about six decades.
8. ARIZONA STATE (8-1): Invited Notre Dame to Tempe to play in 90-degree weather at high noon in November and needed three games to beat them, winning 34-3, losing 28-0, and winning 21-0. Oh, and Todd Graham looks like everyone’s perpetually annoyed uncle at Thanksgiving. Maybe a cap would help.
9. TEXAS A&M (7-3): Made Alabama very happy, if that’s Kevin Sumlin’s idea of a good time.
10. ALABAMA (8-1): Almost made Alabama very sad, and that is NOT Nick Saban’s idea of a good time. Then again, Nick Saban’s idea of a good time is not having a good time.
11. OHIO STATE (7-2): Beat Michigan State and destroyed the Big 10’s microscopic chances of getting a team in the playoff. Somehow, the nation is incredibly comfortable with that.
12. LEON ORR (Unattached): Told he wasn’t starting at his usual defensive tackle spot for Florida Saturday, he got on a bus and went back to Gainesville. He was at Vanderbilt. 579 miles away.
13. SERGEI KOVALEV (26-0-1): Taught the teacher, Bernard Hopkins, that 49 is a great time to retire from boxing, and that 50 is a totally crap time to keep boxing.
14. RAHEEM STERLING (Liverpool): For being yellow-carded against Chelsea for taking an elbow to the face, which is so totally his fault. Maybe next week he can get a red while being kicked in the goolies when England plays Slovenia.
15. WASHINGTON STATE AND OREGON STATE (7-12): Rushed for more yards than points scored. 72-71. Game must have taken five hours.
16. MIKE VRABEL (Houston Texans linebackerscoach): For not taking the burglarizing of his home sitting down, with thistweet (sanitized for your protection): “To all the Houston area pawn shops: 3 Super Bowl rings are headed your way. Courtesy of the m-----f-----s who smashed our back door in.”
17. MICHIGAN-NORTHWESTERN (19 points): I know Northwestern went to a lot of trouble to go for two and win the game, but quarterback Trevor Siemian falling down on the conversion? A perfect ending to a perfect(ly dreadful) game.
18. AUBURN (8-2): Contributed to the growing belief by flat-earthers that the SEC is largely inflatable by losing to a spectacularly ordinary Texas A&M team.
19. OKLAHOMA (6-3): Head coach Bob Stoops potted Baylor a 14-3 deficit, then he and his brother Mike, the defensive coordinator, allowed the next 45 points. His brother Mark, coaching at Kentucky allowed 63 to a Georgia team that just lost to Florida, so the Stoopses were edged, 111-45. Nice work.
20. KIRK FERENTZ (IOWA COACH, 6-2): Used his challenge down 51-7 to Minnesota with 21 seconds left, and lost it.
21. INCARCERATED BOB (0-You Name It): For getting a lot of people all heated up about the thoroughly bogus Jameis Winston point-shaving-for-a-half scandal. Tied with all the people who did get heated up about it despite not being as stupid as they seem.
22. INDIANA (3-6): For shamelessly glommingonto the brilliant idea Bucknell had the night before of having a fire at its in-stadium barbecue pit by having a fire alarm in the press box Saturday. No actual fire, though. Next time, you come heavy or not at all.
23. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (8-0): For actually having one product of the school complain that they dropped out of THIS poll for a week. Great education you people provide. Freaking exemplary.
24. THE MID-AMERICAN CONFERENCE (53-67): For once again dominating midweek football.
25. TULSA (2-7): For failing to keep that uppity SMU team from getting any smart ideas. Two touchdowns in the first quarter and two more in the fourth? When do the firings commence?
