College Football Week 8 Awards October 20, 2013

(Note:  All rankings are current AP [week 8] unless otherwise noted.)

COACHES
Wish I were him: Jimbo Fisher, Florida State

Glad I’m not him: Les Miles, LSU

Lucky guy: George O’Leary, Central Florida

Poor guy: Kevin Sumlin, Texas A&M

Desperately seeking a clue: Charlie Strong, Louisville
Desperately seeking a P.R. man: Al Golden, Miami (Fla.)

Desperately seeking sunglasses and a fake beard: Dabo Swinney, Clemson

Desperately seeking … anything:  Mark Richt, Georgia

TEAMS
Thought you’d kick butt, you did: Baylor (defeated Iowa State 71-7)
Thought you’d kick butt, you didn’t: Miami (defeated North Carolina 27-23)

Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you did: Arkansas (lost to Alabama 52-0)

Thought you’d get your butt kicked, you didn’t:  Iowa (lost to Ohio State 34-24)

Thought you wouldn’t kick butt, you did:  Georgia Tech (defeated Syracuse 56-0)

Dang, they’re good: Florida State

Dang, they’re bad:  Southern Miss
Can’t Stand Prosperity:  Louisville

Did the season start?  Northwestern
Can the season end?  Georgia

Can the season never end?  Missouri

GAMES
Play this again:  No. 24 Auburn 45, No. 7 Texas A&M 41

Play this again, too:  BYU 47, Houston 46

Never play this again: Baylor 71, Iowa State 7

Forget about this one, too:  Georgia Tech 56, Syracuse 0

What? Central Florida 38, No. 8 Louisville 35

Huh?  No. 24 Auburn 45, No. 7 Texas A&M 41

Are you kidding me?  Ole Miss 27, No. 6 LSU 24
Oh – my – God:  No. 5 Florida State 51, No. 3 Clemson 14

Told you so:  Tennessee 23, No. 11 South Carolina 21

NEXT WEEK

(rankings are current AP (post-week 8, pre-week 9)
Ticket to die for:  Tennessee @ No. 1 Alabama

Best non-Big Six vs. Big Six matchup: Pittsburgh @ Navy

Best non-Big Six matchup: Boise State @ BYU

Upset alert: Tennessee @ No. 1 Alabama

Must win: No. 20 South Carolina @ No. 5 Missouri

Offensive explosion: Boise State @ BYU (Friday)

Defensive struggle: Michigan State @ Illinois
Great game no one is talking about: Houston @ Rutgers

Intriguing coaching matchup: Gary Pinkel of Missouri vs. Steve Spurrier of South Carolina

Who’s bringing the body bags? Florida Atlantic @ No. 11 Auburn

Why are they playing? Furman @ No. 13 LSU

Plenty of good seats remaining: Western Michigan @ UMass

They shoot horses, don’t they?  No. 6 Baylor @ Kansas

Week 8 in Review:

Rarely is there a week when there are so many upsets, that it’s impossible to give all of them their just due.  Normally, four categories are enough, from “What?” to “Oh-My-God”.  Yet this time around, we needed several more categories, for the undefeateds and top-ten teams ended up dropping like flies.      To wit:  No. 7 Texas A&M fell to Auburn, No. 6 LSU fell to Ole Miss.  Stanford, after paying dearly for taking a game off and thus laying an egg against Utah, turned right around the following week and took out undefeated, then-No. 9 UCLA.  Do we have to remind ourselves of how then-No. 8 Louisville (now No. 18) basically gave the game away to now-No. 21 Central Florida? Say this out loud:  Missouri beat Florida.  In so doing, the reader is likely to ask oneself, “in what Twilight Zone or alternate football universe does that happen?”  Yet it did; what’s even more other-dimensionly is that Mizzou was actually ranked ahead of the Gators when they triumphed (No. 14 vs. No. 22, respectively).  The Tigers, still undefeated, are now ranked at No. 6.

Then there was the purported “ticket to die for” of the week, and on paper it certainly was that, what with then-No. 3 Clemson at home against then-No. 5 Florida State in a titanic intra-conference clash — on paper, at least.  The only problem was, the Seminoles showed up for battle, whereas the Tigers, apparently, not so much.  The ‘Noles asserted themselves from the opening kickoff to the final whistle of the game, and demolished the home team, 51-14, despite Clemson’s hitherto superior ranking.  Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was hoping that the team could put an end to the concept of “Clemsoning”, (look up the second and third definitions of the term on Urban Dictionary), but after last night’s performance, that concept shall live on for a while longer.

Meanwhile, let us compare the heretofore Top Ten to today’s new rankings:

1.)     Alabama

2.)     Oregon

3.)     Clemson

4.)     Ohio State

5.)     Florida State

6.)     LSU

7.)     Texas A&M

8.)     Louisville

9.)     UCLA

10.)   Miami (Fla.)

Today (Oct. 20, 2013)

1.)    Alabama

2.)    Oregon

3.)    Florida State

4.)    Ohio State

5.)    Missouri

6.)    Baylor

7.)    Miami (Fla.)

8.)    Stanford

9.)    Clemson

10). Texas Tech

Curious to note:  Alabama and Oregon are still No’s 1 and 2 respectively.  So far, so good.  But Florida State, now at No. 3, leapfrogged over Ohio State, who is still at No. 4.  Mizzou, having beaten some formidable teams, has skyrocketed to No. 5, while Baylor sits at No. 6 (personally, I find the latter’s offense more potent than the former; were it only that the two could knock heads in a BCS game!).  Meanwhile, the Miami Hurricanes, laboring in the shadow of the NCAA’s Sword of Damocles, have quietly crept up to the No. 7 spot in a spectacular turnaround under Coach Al Golden’s leadership. Stanford is back in the top ten after defeating hitherto unbeaten UCLA, and Clemson remains in the top ten at No. 9 despite a thrashing at home against the Seminoles.  Tech rounds out the new top ten, and appropriately so, given that they’re currently unbeaten.  That current status, however, shall be seriously called into question the following week, though, as they shall play Oklahoma on the road, then Oklahoma State and Kansas State at home, then they face Baylor and cap things off against Texas.  The truly brutal part of the schedule is about to commence for the Red Raiders, hence they shall have the opportunity to prove their worthiness of their new ranking.  As LSU’s Charley McClendon said long ago, “[I]n football, and in life, you’ve got to keep proving yourself.

Oh, and don’t look now, but Auburn has climbed up to No. 11 from the No. 24 spot.

On a related note, two programs who were once esteemed as “football factories” but had something of a decade-long slump seem to have returned to that status this year; Florida State and, to a lesser extent, Tennessee.  The former demonstrated that convincingly before a national, prime time audience.  The latter demonstrated that over the course of the past three weeks by giving Georgia the fight of their lives on Oct. 5, then coming back to beat South Carolina yesterday.  No longer is playing the Vols a relative “gimme” on the SEC schedule as it was several years ago.  Everyone else in the conference ought to be put on notice.