If you know what you are looking at then chances are your blood may be already starting to boil. If not, let me explain.
Late in the Arkansas-Auburn game, Arkansas had the lead but Auburn was driving for a score, only needing a field goal to win. The play above is where things really go off the rails. Bo Nix takes the snap and immediately fumbles it. He picks it up and then immediately spikes it. First of all, you can’t do that in college football. That’s considered intentional grounding. What’s worse is that Nix spiked it behind his foot. So that is a backwards pass…a lateral if you will. At this point, a few officials blow their electronic whistles, one official definitely doesn’t, and one official throws a bean bag. In the aftermath of this, an Arkansas player eventually recovers the ball. So of course this is chaos already.
The referee calls it intentional grounding. Of course many know that there is more to this than that. And some are perplexed because the NFL does not have that rule about fumbling the snap (as far as I know). The play gets reviewed. It is pretty obvious the spike was behind Nix so it’s technically a fumble. What does the replay official conclude? He sticks with the call of intentional grounding, basically to bail out the officials on the field. What a fucking joke. According to Terry McAulay, retired official who does the rules for Sunday Night Football, said that because the Arkansas player continued to play through the whistle to recover the ball and that an Auburn player also continued to play at that point, that the whistle is irrelevant and that Arkansas should have been considered to have had an immediate recovery. Instead, Auburn gets their chance at the field goal and hits it to win, robbing the Hogs of a deserved win. So the SEC doubles down hours later about the rules. And probably nothing will happen to either the replay official or the officiating team on the field. This was not a missed call that was bad but really didn’t affect the outcome of the game. It certainly did. And Arkansas will not get the win they deserve. Sad.
As for the rest of the weekend it was the best weekend so far. A low bar for sure but there was a lot of exciting football. Kept me glued to the TV for over 11 hours. Let’s get down to recapping all this shall we?
And now for the rest of the recap
- A great game down in College Station this past weekend. Texas A&M won over Florida in a game many would call an upset. I have to agree especially since Florida was a Top 5 team and I picked the Aggies to win in an upset (which makes me feel good). Instead the Aggies gutted out a last-second walk-off field goal win and now their College Football Playoff aspirations are legit. As for Florida, ugh…. When you think they are about to be a threat to Georgia in the SEC East, something like this happens. It definitely won’t be easy for the Aggies the rest of the way in the SEC West but if they can somehow win out, then you have to take them seriously. Also good for Jimbo Fisher for finally getting a signature win as the Aggies head coach.
- Another upset occurred early in the day in a game that had to be moved because of Hurricane Delta (Burke?). Missouri held on to beat the defending champs from LSU in a game moved from Baton Rouge to Columbia. Everyone kind of knew the Tigers (of LSU) weren’t the same team but many their defense has looked terrible so far. But you have to give Mizzou some credit. If it wasn’t for them finally finding a starting quarterback in freshman Connor Bazelak, this game would have been an easy LSU win. I am positive now that there will be rumblings of Ed Orgeron being fired because it’s college football and many fans are shitty people.
- How about that game down in the other Death Valley (or the first Death Valley depending on which Tigers you prefer)? Many felt the Canes would have a chance against Clemson. Man were they ever fucking wrong. This was not close, in any way, shape, or form. Clemson just looks that much better than everyone in the conference. Saying that, they do have new conference mate (for this season), Notre Dame later in the season which should be a banger. As for Miami, they should still be fine. It’s one blemish but they can work their way back into the New Year’s Six pretty easily if they run the table the rest of the way. OK so pretty easily is a strong term.
- And there is the unluckiness that is Pitt. It was the Pittening yet again. Kicker Alex Kessman made a 58-yard field goal with 40 seconds left just to send their game with Boston College into overtime. Then, after BC had scored a TD and Pitt scored one of their own, Kessman missed the extra point. You can’t make this stuff up. Poor guy probably wanted to crawl under the turf at that point.
- Alabama beat Ole Miss. OK not a big deal. What was amazing was Lane cutting the brakes off his offense and going nuts with it. And it worked. The Tide could not keep up with the Rebel offense. It’s too bad the Rebel defense was equally as bad. Although let’s be honest: Alabama’s offense is seriously good. Not quite Clemson good, but arguably the best in the SEC. And now Evil Nick Saban is 21-0 against his former assistants. The student has not surpassed the teacher yet.
- Let history show that the Tennessee football Volunteers led Georgia 21-17 at the half in this game. Again, the Vols allowed the the Dawgs to close out the game on a huge run, this one 27 points, but it’s still not a bad thing to see the Vols at least somewhat competitive. They may be a year or two away from contending in the SEC East but the fans can see the light at the end of that tunnel. Now they just have to allow Jeremy Pruitt to continue to improve things in Knoxville and it will work out (possibly).
- I didn’t think Florida State could keep it close. Like not at all. But they were surprisingly effective until late in the second quarter. But the Irish were still way too much for the Noles. They are a legit contender to go to the ACC Championship. Mike Norvell is struggling so far at Tallahassee and it will be interesting to see if he gets the same amount of chances as Willie Taggart got before he was dumped.
- Back to games that were completely bonkers, look no further than the Red River Shootout. And a shootout it was. This game went to four overtimes and it felt like neither team wanted to win despite the fact they were putting up some gaudy stats. Finally, Spencer Rattler didn’t fuck up and Sam Ehlinger couldn’t get it done and the Sooners pulled off the victory. Still, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see neither of these two teams in the Big XII Championship in December.
- That Virginia Tech-North Carolina game was more of a Big XII game than pretty much all the Big XII games on Saturday. A hilariously poor showing of defense on both teams’ accounts. North Carolina was able to pull away late but it wasn’t pretty. The Tar Heels can’t afford to be like that on the defensive side of the ball when they play Notre Dame later on in the season or it could be a long day for Mack Brown and the boys from Chapel Hill.
- Don’t sleep on the BYU Cougars. The Cougars are 4-0 and look like they will probably be 7-0 when they get into November and their game against Boise State. They are solidly in the Top 25 but will need to win and win big to move up the rankings. Winning by a touchdown over UTSA won’t cut it, despite the fact the Roadrunners are going to be at least a contender to go bowling if not an outside shot at being a thorn in UAB’s side for the Conference USA West crown.
- Iowa State keeps trundling along in the Big XII after that horrible opening loss to what is really a good Louisiana team. The way things are going, it wouldn’t surprise me (and shouldn’t surprise others) if the Cyclones were heading to Dallas for the Big XII Championship in about two months.
- What the hell happened at Mississippi State? They looked great two weeks ago against LSU and then can’t do anything in their previous game and were even worse at Kentucky. 300 yards passing and 2 points. So of course Mike Leach is already starting to blame some of the players. This usually takes like two or three seasons to occur: it’s happening in two weeks in Starkville. Yikes.
- Another great game just happened to be Temple’s first game of the season. No I’m not kidding. And they played the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of college football, Navy. Navy doesn’t know if they want to be good or they’re really fucking bad. All I know is this ended up being a close finish after Navy took a fairly large lead and then allowed the Owls to crawl their way back for a chance to tie late. I am sure Ken Niumatalolo secretly drinks heavily after games like this.
- USF…what can you say? They got throttled by East Carolina. Yes, the East Carolina football Pirates. The Bulls are so bad that when I tweeted about them being bad, a few people replied and agreed and they’re USF FANS! Wow.
- Finally, Charlotte took down North Texas. That’s not really news. The news is about the graphics used on the ESPN scoreboard. Charlotte has a C with a pickaxe in the middle of it. North Texas has UNT with an eagle. Yes, it was a C followed by a UNT.
Alright that was seriously fun. And soon enough we will get college football that lasts past 2 in the morning, like God intended it. Oh man, there goes my sleep, which has already been bad but is about to get much worse.
Alright, let’s now look at the Bossman Top 25:
| #1 | Clemson |
| #2 | Georgia |
| #3 | Alabama |
| #4 | North Carolina |
| #5 | Notre Dame |
| #6 | Ohio State |
| #7 | Oklahoma State |
| #8 | Florida |
| #9 | Cincinnati |
| #10 | Auburn |
| #11 | Miami |
| #12 | Penn State |
| #13 | BYU |
| #14 | Oregon |
| #15 | Texas A&M |
| #16 | Tennessee |
| #17 | Wisconsin |
| #18 | SMU |
| #19 | Louisiana |
| #20 | Michigan |
| #21 | Iowa State |
| #22 | Virginia Tech |
| #23 | Kansas State |
| #24 | Marshall |
| #25 | Minnesota |
Yes there are some differences between my rankings and the AP Poll, as usual. I have Georgia at #2 and Notre Dame down at #5. The Irish should move up just for the fact that I doubt we will have two SEC teams in the top three (I hope). As for #6 through #12, pick the teams out of a hat to figure out the order. A lot can happen the rest of the way and at this point, no one team is that much better than another. And how about Marshall at #24. I know the AP Poll doesn’t have them in there but man they deserve to be there in my humble opinion. Also, yes I have BYU at #13. It sounds like they probably won’t move that much further up from there but they are still undefeated and shouldn’t fall unless they lose.
Hey guess what we have? FUN BELT! Yes, weekday Sun Belt action is back and it starts on Wednesday night. 8:00 but who knows if Canadians can get it. And it’s a big one. Coastal Carolina and Louisiana. I love weekday football. Honestly, and I know I rail on the NFL being on Thursday but between late August and early January, the more football the better. Have a good week everyone!
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