The Original College Football Czar

Week 5

Week four in review: Nobody in the top ten got knocked off, but the week still had its share of surprises, as the College Football Czar's record can attest. The biggest shakeup came in the chase for the group-of-five bid into the CFP, with favorites Memphis and Northern Illinois being all but eliminated.

The Pac 12 has picked up another Mountain West team in Utah State, which will make the jump in 2026, along with Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State. Meanwhile, the rebuilding league was rebuffed by American Athletic Conference members Memphis, South Florida, Tulane and UTSA, which decided to stay put. Why they were supposed to be interested in the first place, the Czar isn't sure. Okay, so the expanding league retains the name of the Pac 12, but in substance, it's just the rebranded Mountain West, which already was not quite as good a league as the AAC. Still, was it really necessary for those teams to buff the AAC again, after it had already been buffed? How much buffing is a conference expected to take?

Starting with another pair of tough Friday night setbacks, the Czar had by far his worst week to this point of the season, with a record of 8-10. For the year, he is now 48-31, for a .608 winning percentage.

Sept. 27

Washington at Rutgers

For the fourth year in a row, the Scarlet Knights have started 3-0, but on each of the other occasions they were beaten in game four. Two of those were at Michigan, though, and the other was against a defensively dominant Iowa team.

The Huskies hammered Northwestern 24-5, to win their first conference game as a member of the Big Ten. New QB Will Rogers found wide receiver Denzel Boston seven times for 121 yards and two touchdowns. It turns out this Denzel's sequels are a whole lot better than those phony films posing as The Manchurian Candidate and The Taking of Pelham, One, Two, Three.

RU is continuing to display its "Chop 4 Change" helmet decals, long after most of the other schools have given up on waging their Communist revolutions on the gridiron. The College Football Czar finds both ends of that slogan to be noxious. "Chop" is a reference to their irritating, Fleck-like "choppin wood" motivational device, and "Change" in this context means arson and looting. Coincidentally, "CHOP" was the name of the "Capitol Hill Occupied Protest" zone in Seattle during the riots. Do the Knights want to recreate that in their own town, for the sake of "change?"

Even the "4" in this slogan is not entirely unobjectionable, insofar as it is illiterate. Have these college boys never heard of a homonym? These guys had better take advantage of NIL while they have the chance, or they could soon find themselves sitting on the sidewalk with cardboard signs that say "Will Chop 4 Change."

Washington 30, Rutgers 28

Sept. 29

Illinois at Penn State

Considering some of the September blowouts they've had over the years, it's hard to believe the total of 718 yards the Nittany Lions gained in a 56-0 romp over Kent State was a school record, but it was. On the other side of the ball, they squelched the Golden Flashes for only 67 yards for the entire game.

The 4-0 Fighting Illini took a page out of Nebraska's book by sacking Cornhusker QB Dylan Raiola three times in the same overtime series, to win their first road game of the season, 31-24. If they can pull off an upset at PSU, a berth in the Big Ten title game would suddenly become a realistic goal.

Last time the Illini beat the Lions was a 20-18, nine-overtime game in 2021, in which the teams combined to go 3-for-14 in two-point attempts. To this day, every nameless, faceless person who is responsible for analytics would probably tell you that's impossible. But you head coaches keep on listening to them. That's what you get paid for, apparently.

Penn State 24, Illinois 20

Georgia at Alabama

The Crimson Tide have every reason to be confident in first-year coach Kalen DeBoer, but a transition from a seven-time national champion is not going to be seamless, and the College Football Czar expects this to be one game in which the absence of Nick Saban will matter.

If people start calling this the Game of the Century, can LSU sue? The Bulldogs and the Tide have met for two CFP championships and four SEC titles since 2012. Last year, Bama prevailed in the conference championship 27-24, locking the 12-1 Bulldogs out of the CFP. That was with the aid of an egregiously blown call on a fourth-down reception, however, and against a UGA offense that had been suffering significant injuries.

The Dogs survived a 13-12 slugfest with Kentucky two weeks ago, but it's not that unusual for them to have a tough time against lesser opponents. Last season, they only beat a mediocre Auburn team by seven points, Georgia Tech by eight, and South Carolina by ten. But they obliterated Ole Miss and Tennessee in November, and Florida State even worse in the Orange Bowl.

Pachyderm passer Jalen Milroe has played with precision through three games, but he has yet to exceed the 200-yard mark in a single one of them. He's usually an effective runner, too, but that's not what worked for his team last time, when the Dogs held him to 29 yards on 14 carries.

It's a little-known fact that the game of the last century was Q-Bert. Prove it wasn't!

Georgia 30, Alabama 22

Oklahoma State at Kansas State

After both teams lost to conference opponents a week ago, this is not quite a Big XII elimination game, but they would be wise to treat it as if it were. The Cowboys' fourth-quarter rally fell short against visiting Utah, 22-19, and K-State looked shockingly outclassed in a 38-9 beating at Brigham Young.

You'd think a quarterback with the misfortune of being named Avery would make a point of looking a little less Avery. The Raggedy Andy-like Wildcat sophomore has been something of a flop so far, averaging only 155 passing yards per game.

OSU tailback Ollie Gordonii's per-carry average improved against the Utes, but his total yardage did not, because he was only given eleven carries. Through four games, he has got a total of 258 yards, fewer than he had in single games last October against Cincinnati and West Virginia.

Hopefully, seeing Avery's long, curly mop doesn't give Cowpoke coach Mike Gundy any ideas. Last time he got one of those, he came out looking like Billy Ray Cyrus' slightly more intelligent brother.

Oklahoma State 38, Kansas State 26

Fresno State at UNLV

The Bulldogs won their Mountain West opener a week ago, 38-21 over New Mexico, whereas Vegas has yet to play a conference game. Yet this meeting could prove decisive not only in the MWC race, but in the competition to be the group-of-five representative in the CFP.

Rebel quarterback Matthew Sluka is the latest player to redshirt himself (which should not be possible), as he announces his imminent departure from the university. Sluka's agent told ESPN that the QB had been lured onto the team by a verbal promise of $100,000 from offensive coordinator Brennan Marion. By this point, Sluka realized that no payment was forthcoming, so he quit the season in order to retain a year's eligibility at another school.

And now, it's time for a little segment called The College Football Czar Tells Everybody What To Do. Head coach Barry Odom needs to get to the bottom of whether Marion made such an offer. If he didn't, he has got to make a public denial, rather than leave Odom to twist in the wind. If he did, then he's got to go. Moreover, that would mean Sluka really is owed the money, but only on the condition that he remain with the team for the rest of this season. Sluka should lighten up and recognize the position in which he has put himself by coming to Las Vegas in the first place. There have got to be plenty of opportunities in that city for the starting QB of a suddenly popular team to make some legitimate NIL money.

Finally, the NCAA must rescind its four-game redshirt rule. In fact, get rid of non-medical redshirts altogether. Redshirting started out as a mechanism for a coach to strategically spread out the talent on his roster from year to year, but with the NBA-ization of the coach-player relationship, it has become just another player entitlement. Now that star players seldom stay with the same team for four years, there's little motivation for the coach to extend a player's career by another season anyway. It's an idea whose time has passed. Leaving it in place at this point will only lead to players holding their teams for ransom.

By now, you might be wondering what qualifies the Czar to tell everybody what to do. It's like the saying goes: those who can, do, those who can't, teach, and those who can't teach do so anyway, and whine incessantly about their pay even though it's pretty damn good for only working two-thirds of the year. George Bernard Shaw said that, or at least he would have, had he not been a pompous socialist gasbag.

There. Now you probably don't even remember that the Czar hasn't actually made any attempt to justify himself.

Fresno State 28, UNLV 17

Arkansas vs. Texas A&M

Yet again, this traditional rivalry game is being sullied by playing it in Jerry Jones' House of Inadequacy, just as it has been for 14 of the past 17 meetings. At the time the neutral-site series began, that stadium boasted the largest video replay screen in the world. Perhaps it made the spectators happy to be there in person, because they could see at the same time how crappy indoor football looks on TV.

The Conjunction Boys were a little late in getting up and aTm in their opener, a drowsy 23-13 defeat against Notre Dame. They still haven't snapped out of it altogether, but have gathered their bearings enough to beat I-AA McNeese Don't Call Us A State, and then fight off Florida and Bowling Green. Why are all these little schools dropping the "State" from their names these days, anyway? Were there confused recruits driving around helplessly, trying to navigate their way to the capital of McNeese?

The Razorbacks won on the road last week against Auburn, 24-14, after which Tiger coach Hugh Freeze secured a Lardhead of the Year Award nomination by saying, "the hard truth is if we play them nine more times, we beat them nine times." There's a quote that's going to age about as well as David Letterman.

Arkansas 19, Texas A&M 16

Wisconsin at USC

It was funny whenever Rob Petrie would trip over the Ottoman, but the fall that Tyler Van Dyke took in Week 2 against Alabama was no laughing matter. The Badger quarterback is out for the season with a torn ACL, leaving Braedyn Locke behind the nozzle of CheddAir. Locke completed only half his passes in the remainder of that game, and for fewer than ten yards per completion.

That might make this sound like a mismatch, but SC failed to take advantage of a likewise inexperienced QB last Saturday. It looked like a trademark Trojan comeback in their first-ever Big Ten game, as they rallied from ten points down to lead Michigan, 24-20. With four minutes left, and facing a team that couldn't throw the ball, they gave up 84 rushing yards on a Wolverine touchdown drive that sapped the clock, as well as the enthusiasm back at Southern Cal..

It's a bit surprising that these teams haven't met in a Rose Bowl during this century, as many times as each of them has played in that game. They last squared off in the 2015 Holiday Bowl, which was won by the Big Bad Gers, 23-21. The Trojans had led the series 6-0 up until that point, but all of those victories came back in the 50s and 60s.

Ever wonder why you have never met an Ottoman? Because that's a man who ottobe, but isn't.

USC 23, Wisconsin 13

Louisville at Notre Dame

Enough, already! Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman is allowing Jaden Mickey to redshirt himself, already knowing that the junior cornerback is going to enter the transfer portal. The player-coach relationship has gotten so arse-barkward by now that Freeman said "for me to do anything other than to support him is selfish." No, what's selfish is abandoning your team during the season so that you can preserve a year's eligibility to play for somebody else. Just because Mickey didn't win the starting job, he shouldn't get a rebate. The program made an investment in him for this season, and any coach, fan or reporter should expect him to honor that.

The College Football Czar wonders how long it will be before the players start ditching their responsibilities during games, and whether the coaches will stand up for themselves even then. "Gee, coach, if I had thrown that block like you told me to, I might have gotten injured and jeopardized my draft status." It's only a matter of time.

The 3-0 Cardinals captured their conference opener, 31-19 over visiting Georgia Tech, in part by recovering a fumble in the end zone in the first quarter, and returning a blocked field goal attempt to put the game away. In between, sixth-year senior Tyler Shough tossed two TD passes, giving him eight for the year, with no INTs.

ND is now 1-1 in home games against opponents from the MAC, after mucking their way past Miami Ohio, 28-3. Former Duke QB Riley Leonard has yet to put �em up for the pugilists, passing for only 587 yards through four games, with one touchdown and two picks.

News flash: There has been an Ottoman sighting in South Bend! But it was reported by Manti Te'o, so never mind.

Louisville 17, Notre Dame 10

Kentucky at Ole Miss

The Wildcat defense that nearly knocked off #1 Georgia two weeks ago takes on the nation's leading passer, Jaxson Dart, who has thrown for 377 yards or more in each of four games this season. Look at those four opponents, though: the mighty Man of Fur (Div. I-AA), the MT-heads, Wake Forest and Georgia Southern. He and his OL had better be prepared for a much tougher time in their SEC opener, and the Czar suspects they will be.

The Cats have yet to score a touchdown in SEC play, relying on Alex Raynor to boot two field goals against South Carolina, and four more against Georgia. The reliable senior has gone 9-for-9 with two kicks from more than 50 yards, but that hardly matters if his team can't hit paydirt once in a while.

Has Jaxson ever considered going by Jaxjr or Jaxii instead? If so, he'd better hurry, while those Instagram domains are still available.

Ole Miss 24, Kentucky 6

TCU at Kansas

Just when it looked like they were headed toward the top, the KU-KU Pigeon Sisters got stuck in the lift again. Lance Leipold's team has yet to defeat a Division I-A team this year, having blown a late ten-point lead in a 32-28 loss to West Virginia a week ago. Since an easy opening win against little Lindenwood, they have lost to Illinois, UNLV and WVU by a combined total of 13 points. A home game against the Horned Frogs might be what they need to get their offense going, though. Texas Christian has given up more points so far than anybody else in the 16-team Big XII, with the exception of Texas Tech.

Frog and former SMU coach Sonny Dykes was unable to stick around for the conclusion of his team's 66-42 defeat against that same Mustang team. He was ejected for committing a pair of unsportsmanlike conduct calls in rapid succession, after a touchdown on a kickoff return was called back because of a holding penalty. The truth be known, he must have been angrier about the three non-offensive TDs his team gave up, than the one they scored that was nullified.

While the Jayhawks' home field is under renovation, this game is being played at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. The quality of play won't be what they're used to in that building, but at least the football game will be about a football game for a change.

Kansas 44, TCU 40

Maryland at Indiana

Super-veteran quarterback Kurtis Rourke is having a great season so far for the Hoosiers, as he should, since he has faced the same level of competition as if he were still at Ohio U. During a 4-0 start, Rourke already has over 1,000 yards and eight touchdowns, with no INTs. Last week, he was able to watch Tayven Jackson play the majority of the second half, as their team dusted the Pick-C's of Charlotte, 52-14.

If Tai Felton has felt a ton of pressure, it hasn't shown yet. The Terrapin wide receiver has had more than 100 receiving yards and at least one TD in every game so far. In last year's 44-17 bombardment of IU, he made seven catches for 134 yards and three scores.

The College Football Czar is deciding his pick for this game very scientifically, by concluding that a guy named Maryland Jones would have gotten squooshed by the gigantic rolling rock ten minutes into the movie.

Indiana 29, Maryland 25

Brigham Young at Baylor

The Bears blew it against Colorado, and the Czar isn't talking about the long bomb or the goal-line fumble in overtime. Leading by seven with less than four minutes to play, Dave Aranda's team returned a punt to the CU 26-yard-line, but then made no effort to move the ball downfield. By plodding toward the middle, they actually lost yardage, leaving their kicker to attempt a 46-yard field goal, which he missed. What if they had instead gained a little bit of yardage, and made it a more routine attempt for a college kicker? In fact, there was no reason not to throw the ball at least once. If they had helped their kicker out, he could have basically put the game away, but as long as they led by only a touchdown, they could not have wound enough time of the clock to justify the tactic.

BYU bullied Kansas State 38-9, so Parker Kingston's electrifying 90-yard punt return was not a decisive factor. That's a good thing, because he almost threw the ball away before crossing the goal line. Having dangerously fielded a rolling punt while running toward his own goal line, he ceded more ground as he looped around the K-State coverage to the opposite sideline, then ran the entire length of the field, only to suddenly become indifferent to the football. It seems he desperately needed to spread his arms while running through the end zone to play to the fans, which made it vitally important to get the ball out of his hands as quickly as possible.

It was ruled that the ball had broken the plane of the goal line by the time he chucked it away, but that was dumb luck. If the most important thing to him at that instant had been scoring six points for the Cougars, he would have carried the ball in with him, instead of running around empty-handed like a ninny. The camera caught Kingston vomiting like a West Virginian on the bench afterwards. Perhaps he had just seen the replay.

Brigham Young 41, Baylor 27

Minnesota at Michigan

The way things are now, it's surprising that Wolverine running back Kalel Mullings hasn't transferred twice already. The little-utilized senior is finally getting his shot, and he is averaging 8.1 yards per carry through four games. Last week against USC, he dashed for 159 yards, including a 53-yard touchdown to open the scoring, and then a 63-yard gain to set up the decisive TD in a 27-24 victory. The win revived his team's playoff chances, or so it seems at the moment. The maize and blue have still not solved their question at quarterback, however, with Alex Orji only passing for 32 yards on seven completions.

If there's any team in the Big Ten that looks like it's trying to row a boat downfield, it's Iowa, but P.J. Fleck's team let the Hawkeyes paddle them in the second half of a 31-14 runaway. With that defeat, the Golden Gophers relinquished the coveted Floyd of Rosedale, but in this conference there's always some trinket or other at stake, so they have a chance to play for another one this week in Ann Arbor. Unfortunately, they haven't gotten to sip from the Little Brown Jug for so long that they're seeing little green spiders, winning only four times in the past 48 meetings.

No wonder things haven't been going so well for Coach Fleck in the Land O' Lakes. When he tells his players to row the boat, they leave the practice field and go fishing.

Michigan 28, Minnesota 12

Colorado at Central Florida

The College Football Czar's contention that the pass was incomplete notwithstanding, Shedeur Sanders deserves better than for that play to be called a Hail Mary. That was a 45-yard pass into the end zone with authority to a particular target, not a desperation heave with the hope that one of his teammates would outjump the opponents for the ball. In fact, he threw an even better deep ball on the previous play, which hit is receiver right between the shoulders but wasn't caught.

Seriously, though. The ball clearly hit the turf as LaJohntay Wester fell forward in the end zone. Because it happened all in one motion, he did not have an opportunity to establish possession. The ball split his forearms and touched the ground. That's not a catch. Everyone seems determined to remain in denial about this, for fear of being called Primophobes, or some such thing.

UCF had a dramatic victory of its own the last time it took the field, in Week 3 at TCU. Trailing 28-7 in the third quarter, they came all the way back to win 35-34, with former Arkansas quarterback K.J. Jefferson connecting with wide receiver Kobe Hudson for two scores.

The Knights declared themselves national champions in 2017 after they won the AAC and beat a four-loss Auburn team in the Peach Bowl. In terms of teams that overrate themselves, Sanders & Sons are rank amateurs.

Central Florida 31, Colorado 30

Liberty at Appalachian State

The way the Mountaineers got pummeled by South Alabama last Thursday, the Czar wasn't sure if that was a likeness of their mascot Yosef on their helmets, or if Popeye had forgotten to eat his spinach. The 34-point flogging they took was their second blowout loss of the young season, the other being a 66-20 trampling by Clemson.

Based on strength of schedule, the Czar has not considered LU a contender for a playoff berth, but the Flames kept their flickering hopes alive by surviving a long lightning delay and a 17-0 deficit to beat East Carolina, 35-24.

Not all group-of-five conferences are created equal. This year's C-USA is, at best, two teams deep, the other being Western Kentucky. Among the league's ten teams are three that are recent arrivals from Division I-AA, and then there are perennial punching bags Florida International and UTEP, and a Louisiana Tech program that is paying the price for being fickle enough to fire Skip Holtz. Liberty could easily run the table again this season, without being as good as half of the teams in the Sun Belt Conference.

Yosef sure doesn't look anything like an Appalachian. The Czar happens to know that Appalachians tend to be Ohio-born Yale lawyers who join investment firms in San Francisco. Don't those hicks down there in Boone, NC ever watch the news?

Appalachian State 41, Liberty 38

Florida State at SMU

The Mustangs must try to keep up their intensity up for their first-ever ACC game, even though it's not nearly the blockbuster it was expected to be before the season. The woes of 1-3 FSU are well documented, even though they did defeat California 14-9 a week ago. We'll see this week how much confidence quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei has taken away from his game-winning 36-yard strike to the human password, Ja'Khi Douglas.

This 3-1 Southern Methodist team has had its own struggles, especially on offense. That may sound ridiculous coming off a 66-42 victory over rival TCU, but that was with the aid of five takeaways and two TDs on special teams. They still aren't throwing the ball effectively, with sophomore Kevin Jennings tallying a meager total of 137 yards on 14 completions against the Horned Frogs. If Preston Stone goes another whole game without getting any snaps, the Czar will have to suppose he's in the doghouse for something other than his erratic play against Nevada and BYU.

The Noles have won one in a row, which means their work is done here. That dastardly CFP committee has surely learned its lesson by now.

SMU 19, Florida State 13

Cincinnati at Texas Tech

This might not seem like a very big game, but the Red Raiders have won five in a row at home, while the Bearcats would be 4-0 if they hadn't fallen apart in the fourth quarter against Pitt. Aside from a 10-10 tie in 1968, there really hasn't been any competition between these two. Even UC's hiring away Tommy Tuberville in 2013 was hardly contentious, since he was obviously looking to leave Lubbock before it had a chance to bounce him out of town.

In its Big XII opener, UC manhandled former AAC foe Houston, 34-0. The game was difficult to watch, not just because it was so lopsided, but because both teams were wearing white helmets and pants. Coaches need to start coordinating on these things. You'd think they'd never been on TV before.

The 3-1 Red Raiders played their best game to this point in the season in a 30-22 win over Arizona State. However, they're rotating kickers, between Gino Carcia and Reese Burkhart. It seems inevitable that this approach will prove costly at some point.

Q: What's the difference between Texas chili and Cincinnati chili?

A: One righteous butt-kicking from Hank Hill.

Cincinnati 27, Texas Tech 24

Old Dominion at Bowling Green

The Falcons have lost their only two legitimate games so far, but those were to ranked teams Penn State and Texas A&M, by seven and six points, respectively. Meanwhile, ODU is O'd a little respect in spite of an 0-3 start. Not a lot of teams have faced as tough a nonconference slate as South Carolina, East Carolina, Virginia Tech and BGSU.

It might be time the Monarchs started feeding the Gobbler. Former VT running back Bryce Duke gained 85 yards on only four carries against his old team, injecting a little life into a moribund ground game that ranks eleventh in the SBC in yards per carry.

The lion kings must be mourning the late James Earl Jones, who is perpetuating the Circle of Life by dying a natural death and feeding the grass, which is a heck of a lot better a deal than the antelope ever got.

Bowling Green 35, Old Dominion 23

Washington State at Boise State

The Cougar program was supposed to have come crashing down as a result of being left behind by realignment, but so far they are 4-0 against a fairly good schedule. Late last Friday, they rallied their way past previously unbeaten San Jose State, 54-52 in double-overtime. A big game materialized for QB John Mateer, who passed for 390 yards, and ran for 111 more.

The Ashton Jeanty for Heisman campaign seems to have faded since the Broncos' last-second loss at Oregon, but that's only because he and his team have been inactive. Following an idle week, they pointlessly beat up on I-AA doormat Portland State 56-14, with the junior tailback carrying the ball only 11 times for 127 yards, both season lows by a long shot.

If "Boise" were pronounced authentically Frenchly, it would be something like "Bwahh," which sounds like something that might emanate from the Wazzu. Hence, they're outranked.

Washington State 37, Oregon State 26

Arizona at Utah

When the Utes played in the Pac 12, they usually dropped a game every year when they appeared the superior team, but were unable to pull away because of the methodical nature of their offense. A team with the Wildcats' quick-strike capability appears to be suited to take advantage.

Still, last Friday's 31-7 loss to Kansas State was a disturbing development for a U of A team that scored no fewer than 24 points in any game during last year's 10-3 campaign. With the roster from that team mostly intact, another loss this week would suggest that ex-coach Jedd Fisch was a more significant factor than this team would care to admit.

It is unclear whether UU quarterback Cam Rising will be back for this game. He was available to play last Saturday against Oklahoma State, but coach Kyle Willingham didn't like the way his hand injury was affecting the strength of his passes. Freshman Isaac Wilson was good enough to get them through the big game with a 22-19 victory, hitting ultra-experienced TE Brant Kuithe for a game-winning 45-yarder.

The Ute students who attend the games call themselves the Mighty Utah Student Section, or MUSS for short. Rising, another of the Big XII's meticulously coiffed QBs, is sure glad they're on his side.

Arizona 28, Utah 23

The College Football Czar

a sports publication from The Shinbone