The Original College Football Czar

Week 7

Week six in review: It isn't fair to say no Nick Saban team would have had a letdown like that, but ... oh, wait a minute. Yes it is. Well, the College Football Czar will say it, too. No Nick Saban team would have had a letdown like the one that Alabama just did under first-year coach Kalen DeBoer. A week after outdueling Georgia for the #1 ranking, the Crimson Tide came crashing down in a 40-35 upset loss at Vanderbilt. Mind you, that would have been a far more significant result any time prior to this season, when it would have bounced Bama out of the national title chase. Because of playoff expansion, the regular season games simply don't mean as much.

If it's true that misery loves company, then the Tide must be having the time of their lives, because ranked teams were falling like West Virginians down the upper deck stairs at Acrisure Stadium, with #4 Tennessee, #9 Missouri, #10 Michigan, #11 USC and #22 Louisville all getting upset. It looked for most of the night as if #8 Miami would join them, until the Hurricanes poured it on in the fourth quarter to beat the Cal Bears, after trailing by 25 in the second half.

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart ironically earns a Lardhead of the Year Award nomination, for faulting the fans in Sanford Stadium after his team's lackluster 31-13 win over Auburn. "To be honest, I'm probably disappointed in our fans for the first time," he said. "I thought there was a lack of really affecting the game crowd-noise-wise." We've all seen a raucous crowd cause problems for the visiting team, but should the coach be relying on that? As much as some dorky fans refer to their teams as "we" all the time, the fans are not really part of the team. They are paying rather a lot of money to watch the team that Coach Smart is being paid $13 million a year to coach. If he can�'t churn some excitement out of a home crowd of 93,000, that's his own fault. If he really was so smart, at least he would have challenged the fans without adding a tone of animosity, the way that cornball musicians do it. "I was just in Macon yesterday, and they told me the people in Athens don't know how to rock!" If he wants them to perform for his team, he needs to make it sound like they're all on the same side.

Mind you, the Bulldogs were expected by lots of analysts, including this one, to win the national championship this year. Through five games, they've already dropped one, and barely escaped another, and those were both on the road. Their big opening win against Clemson was played in Atlanta. Their home opener was a phony game against Division I-AA Tennessee Tech. They eked out a 13-12 win at Kentucky, lost at Alabama, and on their return home, they slumbered through a game against the last-place team in the SEC. But it's the fans who need to start pulling their weight. It's the analytics geeks. It's the tee-shirt launcher guys. It's Uga!

The crowd is likely to be subdued again this Saturday, when Smart's team takes on 1-4 Mississippi State. He has no business being disappointed in them. Their assessment of his performance is what matters, not the other way around. If his team doesn't play better on the road, with upcoming games at Texas and Ole Miss, he may find himself yearning for those simpler, quieter times back in Week 6.

The College Football Czar continued to implement his cunning strategy of conserving his energy and dragging the season into the late rounds where he expects it to tire. For the week, he went only 7-8, as USC, Michigan and Duke all abandoned him within a ten-minute span around ten o'clock. For the season, his record stands at 62-51, for a meager .549 winning percentage.

Oct. 11

Memphis at South Florida

A dearth of competitive Saturday games is causing the College Football Czar to triple up on his Friday night picks this week, which is a bit of a risky proposition since he hasn't won a Friday game since Week 3.

The 4-1 Tigers have lost their only American Athletic Conference game so far, in a 56-44 firefight against Navy. Their defense made a dramatic turnaround in last week's 24-7 victory over Middle Tennessee. That might sound insignificant because of the offensive ineptitude of the MT-heads, but considering this week's opponent, it's probably a better indicator than that defeat in Annapolis.

It looked for a little while back in Week 2 as if USF would be the team to shock Alabama. The Bulls only trailed the Crimson Tide 14-13 in the third quarter, when on their next three possessions, they only gained a combined total of two yards. The game began to unravel at that point, and after they were stopped on downs on back-to-back possessions, the rout was on for a final of 42-16. This has become part of an alarming pattern, as they have been outscored 59-10 in the fourth quarter against four Division I-A opponents.

Analytics say that if the Czar picks three Friday games, he will go undefeated for the week. But how would they know such a thing, you might ask, when the scenario is unprecedented, so that there cannot possibly be any data to support their conclusion? Because the experts said so, that's how. Who are you to question science? The Czar is left with no choice but to report your IP address to the Federal Department of Omnipotence, under suspicion of spreading disinformation. If you're lucky, you'll get to be cellmates with the guy who posted that video of the waterskiing squirrel.

Memphis 27, South Florida 14

Northwestern at Maryland

The 2-3 Wildcats are 0-3 against power conference opponents, having defeated only MAC foe Miami Ohio and Division I-AA Eastern Illinois. Sophomore quarterback Jack Lausch never got off the pad in a 24-5 loss at Washington, but he did manage to get airborne a week later against Indiana. NU was still beaten, 41-24, but Lausch passed for 243 yards and two TDs. This was yet another case in which a transfer was immediately promoted over the QB who was already on the roster, but former Mississippi State mud puppy Mike Wright had been ineffective through two games, letting Lausch finally get in the lineup.

In Week 5 against Indiana, the Terrapins collected four turnovers while giving up none, but it was they who got turned over on their shells, and were unable to right themselves for the rest of a 42-28 defeat. Their offense followed each of the first three takeaways with a three-and-out. The fourth time, they ran four plays, but only because they went for it on fourth down, unsuccessfully.

Q: Why does a turtle carry his house on his back?

A: Because it took too long for him to go home and make sure he turned the coffee pot off.

Maryland 20, Northwestern 16

Utah at Arizona State

Sun Devil running back Cam Skattebo is not named after a lyric from "Minnie the Moocher," which is fitting, because he earns absolutely everything he gets. In a 35-31 victory over Kansas, the senior slammer barreled through the blue birds for 186 rushing yards, plus 19 more on two receptions.

The Utes were undefeated until a Week 5 loss to Arizona, but let's look back at how their season started. After an opening shutout of the Division I-AA Southern Utah Thunderbirds, they won their first three legitimate games, but not convincingly so. Two of those were against Baylor and Oklahoma State, each now 0-3 in the Big XII, and the other was a wimpy 38-21 win over a Utah State program that has had no cojones since the Rocky Mountain ouster of head coach Blake Anderson.

Starting QB Cam Rising is expected to be a game time decision yet again. So far this season, he has no interceptions and seven TDs, although five of those came in that SUU game. Freshman Isaac Wilson has tossed six TDs, but been picked off seven times.

It's good to see that this game has fulfilled its Cam quota. It's as if Ute coach Kyle Whittingham said to ASU's Kenny Dillingham, "I'll see your pair of Cams and raise you a Caleb."

Arizona State 27, Utah 19

Oct. 12

California at Pitt

Okay, so there should have been a targeting call that would have allowed the Golden Bears to put away their game against Miami, but when a team has blown a 35-10 second-half lead, the outcome cannot be blamed on an officiating mistake. It would never have mattered, if their defense hadn't surrendered 312 yards on four consecutive second-half touchdown drives.

Win or lose, the Bears would have had a tough time bouncing back this week, following such a celebrated home game with their third laborious road trip of the young season. Back in Week 2, they scored a significant 21-14 win at Auburn, but in Week 4, they suffered a disheartening 14-9 defeat against a foundering Florida State team. One thing that could energize them is senior cornerback Nohl Williams, who leads the nation with five interceptions. Panther QB Eli Holstein has only thrown three picks so far, but he has come close on many occasions, and has tended to be erratic early in games.

The Panthers have certainly improved over last year, but how are they 5-0? It helps to have played both a lower-division opponent and the worst team in Division I-A. Being undefeated by October used to be rather impressive. Anymore, it's not much different from a college basketball team having ten wins by Christmas.

In the middle of last week, Panther coach Pat Narduzzi declared running back Rodney Hammond to magically have become eligible, even though he had never explained why he had been ineligible in the first place, or who had declared him to be so. Coincidentally, the player who had beaten him out for the starting job, Desmond Reid, had been beaten up to the point where he was held out of the phony Week 5 game against Division I-AA Youngstown State. Not only did Reid play at North Carolina on Saturday, but he piled up 210 all-purpose yards. So, will Hammond again be deemed ineligible, or what?

One area in which Pitt cannot be beaten is uniforms, but Cal is pretty formidable itself this year. Last week, they broke out those classy bear claw helmets that they used to wear in the 80s, when those of us back east were first seeing them on cable TV.

Mmmmm. Bear claw.

Pitt 24, California 22

Penn State at USC

These perennial powers clash for the first time as Big Ten opponents, but they have met on ten occasions in the past, including four bowl games and two Kickoff Classics. The Trojans lead the series 6-4, after winning their most recent meeting, a 52-49 shootout in the Rose Bowl at the end of the 2016 season.

Nittany Lion leading rusher Nicholas Singleton didn't suit up for last week's 27-11 trudge past UCLA, and Kaytron Allen only gained 78 yards on 21 carries. This road trip could provide both of them an opportunity to get better, against a Southern Cal team that has given a lot of ground in its two losses.

At least SC is not sulking this year, but it is still letting games get away. At 3-2, they have lost on last-minute touchdowns at both Michigan and Minnesota. After giving up the go-ahead score to the Golden Gophers last week, QB Miller Moss drove them down to the 28-yard-line, before being intercepted in the end zone.

PSU coach James Franklin is suggesting that the State College Regional Airport be expanded so that his team can fly from there instead of busing to the nearest international airport in Harrisburg. Anything else you want them to do while you're at it, coach? Pick up Altoona and move it a little to the left, maybe?

Penn State 30, USC 27

Iowa State at West Virginia

These are two of the five Big XII teams that have not yet lost a conference game, along with Texas Tech, Brigham Young and Colorado. It sure looks to the College Football Czar like the race will boil down to Iowa State and BYU, who do not play each other in the regular season. WVU will have to beat both ISU and K-State before the Czar will consider them to be a realistic contender.

Has the Czar been underestimating the Mountaineers? Maybe a little, but he definitely overestimated their two league opponents so far. Kansas and Oklahoma State were supposed to contend for a CFP bid, but the two of them are now lumped together with Baylor in a festering heap at the bottom, at 0-3 in conference play. Not that the Clones' conference victories have been much better, but they do have a quality nonconference win over Iowa, and they blew out a competent Arkansas State team.

It makes perfect sense that the Clones would visit Morgantown to pick up a few pointers. The people there have been genetically replicating themselves for many generations.

Iowa State 23, West Virginia 16

Ohio State at Oregon

OSU prevailed in the first nine meetings between these teams, including the 2014 CFP championship. Only in 2021 did the webfoots finally win one, 35-28 in Columbus. They haven't met in Eugene since the lumpy nuts rolled through brand new Autzen Stadium, 30-0 in 1967. That was more than a decade before that field would make an appearance in Animal House, when Pinto committed statutory rape at the 50-yard-line. Apparently, some lardhead thought there was a joke in there somewhere.

UO has been winning a lot more easily lately, but not by very big scores. At UCLA, they stormed out to a 28-3 second quarter lead, but lost momentum after a long pick-six and only won 34-13. Last Friday at Michigan State, they dominated for three and a half quarters, then gave up the last ten points of the game to finish with a modest final score of 31-10.

The Buckeyes lead the nation in defense, both in terms of yardage allowed (202.4 per game) and scoring (6.8 ppg). Needless to say, they are no longer playing Akron, Western Michigan, Marshall, Michigan State or Iowa. Perhaps the more convincing indicator in their favor is that running backs Quinshon Judkins and TreVeyon Henderson are averaging 7.8 and 8.0 yards per carry, respectively. That could trouble a Duck defense that yielded an average of 7.7 to Ashton Jeanty in a wild 37-34 win over Boise State back in Week 2.

Apparently, the Fighting Ducks have succeeded in ending racism, so now they are busy stomping out cancer. All that, and a Top Ten football team, too. That must be exhausting. Kudos to their conditioning coach, for not letting it affect their stamina.

Ohio State 26, Oregon 22

Texas vs. Oklahoma

The neutral-site Red River Rivalry comes once again to the Cotton Bowl, where it has been played every year since 1932. Ten years ago, there were suggestions that it might be moved into that road salt storage igloo in Arlington, but the lardheads were astonishingly outnumbered for a change.

After an idle week, quarterback Quinn Ewers is ready to return to the Longhorn lineup, but is that good news? Freshman Arch Manning has been the more productive of the two, and against slightly better competition.

The Sooners have got a QB controversy of their own, albeit a less enviable one. In a 25-15 loss to Tennessee, Jackson Arnold gave way to freshman Michael Hawkinsjr, who subsequently got the start against Auburn. With him at the helm, OU only gained 291 total yards, and needed a late defensive TD to turn away the Tigers, 27-21.

The trophy for this game is the Golden Hat, which players on the winning team naturally like to put on after the game. Kind of trivializes the occasion, since it resembles the kind of trinket that is used anymore on the sideline, to recognize a player for some grand accomplishment, like managing to stay onside.

Texas 38, Oklahoma 21

Ole Miss at LSU

The College Football Czar has always hated the Tiger tradition of wearing their road uniforms for all conference home games. Now, there seems to be a white-at-home fad catching on throughout the country. Everybody needs to knock it off already. Their first clue that they are doing something wrong should have been that they are mimicking the Dallas Cowboys.

Louisiana State has played only one SEC game so far, and that 36-33 cliffhanger against South Carolina in Week 3 can no longer be considered encouraging, the way that same SC team just got smashed by these Rebels

The Rebs have their own version of Refrigerator Perry in nose tackle J.J. Pegues, who pounded his way into the end zone twice while playing running back in that 26-3 thumping of the Gamecocks. You wouldn't want to raid a Fridge in Mississippi, because it might just be full of cartons of nightcrawlers. As a matter of fact, the people down in those parts sometimes use them to catch fish, too.

Ole Miss 42, LSU 34

Kansas State at Colorado

It may be a bit tardy, but Buffalo coach Deion Sanders' attempts to discipline his team are a welcome development. Referring to the players' language when interacting with the assistant coaches, he told them, "You guys are letting the profanity loose like the coach is your homie. He's not your homie. That's your superior." Unfortunately, the Czar has his doubts about whether he's getting this message across. Under the new athletic order, there probably isn't a single player in major college football who would position himself beneath the assistant coaches on the totem pole.

Each of these teams is coming off an idle week, during which it discovered that its Week 5 victory was not as impressive as it seemed. The Okie State team that K-State had clobbered got waylaid by West Virginia last weekend, while the UCF team that CU had slammed fell flat against Florida.

The Buffs showed some semblance of a running game against Central Florida, but let's not get carried away. A total of 128 yards on 29 carries may represent a breakthrough for CU, but those would be pedestrian numbers for the Cats.

The College Football Czar is deferring to the Associated Press on the spelling of "homie," because he admits he has no idea. Good thing he took his SAT way back before it included words like that.

Kansas State 35, Colorado 33

Wisconsin at Rutgers

These teams have met five times, and all of those since the Scarlet Knights joined the Big Ten in 2014. The Big Bad Gers have won all five games, by a combined score of 192-43. A year ago in Madison was by far their closest contest, though, with UW winning 24-13.

The spray cheese finally went airborne last week, and no, it can't be stopped by wearing a dopey cloth mask. Sophomore slinger Braedyn Locke finally got CheddAir off the ground, passing for 359 yards in a 52-6 strafing of pitiful Purdue.

Last Saturday, the Jersey Boys' offense was about as effective as an endorsement from Bruce Springsteen. In a 14-7 setback, they were almost shut out at Nebraska, even though they blocked two Cornhusker punts. On six plays from the two-yard-line or closer, they were denied every time.

If Comrade Bruce is known as "The Boss," shouldn't the proletariat hate him?

Wisconsin 31, Rutgers 19

Vanderbilt at Kentucky

In this battle between the giant-killers, the Commodores try to keep up their energy level after last week's monumental 40-35 victory over #1 Alabama. When Diego Pavia played at New Mexico State, he was always a gutsy quarterback, but he didn't tend to show the kind of touch he did for Vandy, on a series of sidearm slings on critical downs against the Crimson Tide.

The Wildcats could have easily let down after a draining 13-12 loss to a top-ranked Georgia team, but instead they went out two weeks later and took down #6 Ole Miss, 20-17. In spite of having faced two presumptive national contenders, UK currently ranks eighth in the nation in defense.

What do you suppose a giant-killer does with the giant after the fact? I mean, a dead giant doesn't have many practical applications. You can't just walk around it for the rest of your life. And you can't blow it up, because searing hot chunks of flaming giant blubber will come raining out of the sky. This is just the kind of thing that occupies the Czar's thoughts, whenever there's an Iowa game on TV.

Kentucky 14, Vanderbilt 6

Arizona at Brigham Young

The all-time series between these one-time Western Athletic Conference rivals is all tied up at 12-12-1. The Cougars have won the past three, however, including a 28-23 decision in Provo in 2021. The U of A hasn't scored a win against them sine the 2008 Las Vegas Bowl.

BYU almost blew it two weeks ago at Baylor, when they watched their 21-point lead dwindle to six by the end of the game. They let the Bears come 24 yards away from taking the lead with under two minutes remaining, before stopping them on downs for a 34-28 escape.

The way the Wildcat offense operated last season, one would have expected it to pour through the porous Texas Tech defense, but its efforts to do so were, well, poor. First-year coach Brent Brennan might tell QB Noah Fifita to drop and give him Twenita if he continues to be so careless with the ball. The sophomore has already equaled last year's interception total of six, while having 18 fewer touchdowns.

If the Cat QB were to change his name to Fifita Centavo, could he be sued?

Brigham Young 38, Arizona 31

Georgia Tech at North Carolina

How badly does Mack Brown want to continue coaching? That might sound like an unfair question, but it's one that he brought up himself after a directionless 70-50 loss to James Madison. The Tar Heels have since dropped their first two ACC games, fading in the fourth quarter against both Duke and Pitt.

UNC quarterback Jacolby Criswell may not be amazing, but he has been a lot better than okay, especially for a guy who began the season as the third-stringer. One thing that he and league-leading rusher Omario Hampton cannot do, however, is stop the other team from scoring.

You can't put a tag on anything that carries the Haynes name, let alone a tackle. In last week's 24-14 victory over Duke, Yellowjacket QB Haynes King threw two late TD passes, and RB Jamal Haynes rushed for a season-high 128 yards.

Perhaps if Criswell went on the Tonight show and predicted that the Heels will go winless for the rest of the season, that they will discover live, unhatched dinosaur eggs buried in Chapel Hill, and that the team bus will be struck by an electric ray that will cause them all to pronounce all their words inside out, then they could finally get things turned around.

Georgia Tech 36, North Carolina 28

Minnesota at UCLA

Sophomore Bruin quarterback Justyn Martin made his first career start last week, and already we can see he's got a future in the NFL. How do we know that? In a 27-11 loss at Penn State, he completed 22 passes for only 167 yards. He'd fit right in.

But seriously, Martin showed surprising poise at PSU, where it would have been understandable for him to be overwhelmed by the occasion. It's not the Nittany Lions who have the top passing defense in the Big Ten, though. It's these Golden Gophers, who are only yielding an even 114 yards per game in the air.

A week after having a close call go against them on an onside kick, the radiant rodents were almost victimized by the worst call the College Football Czar has seen this season. Quarterback Max Brosman very clearly plunged across the goal line on a fourth-down play to give his Gophers a late, go-ahead score, but the on-field officials ruled that he never broke the plane. The replay official would eventually correct the call, but in the meantime coach P.J. Fleck was exploding on the sideline as if Bill Murray had just thrown a plastic explosive down the head hole of his jacket. The only difference was that Fleck was funny.

Who knew this would turn out not to be a good week in the Czar's picks for the late Harold Ramis? The Czar won't rub it in by saying anything about Ghostbusters, other than it was somewhat less clever than the old TV show by the same name, starring Forrest Tucker and Larry Storch.

Minnesota 21, UCLA 13

Washington State at Fresno State

The Bulldogs are not out of the Mountain West race after being obliterated by UNLV 59-14, but that sure put an end to any talk about them being the group-of-five team in the CFP. In that Week 5 whitewash, FSU went minus-4 in turnovers, and ran the ball for only 30 yards on 31 carries.

The Cougars got bullied by Boise State, 45-24 in Week 5, but this is not nearly a similar challenge. Leading Bulldog rusher Malik Sherrod has only 196 yards for the season, whereas Ashton Jeanty of Boise State piled up 256 against Wazzu in a single game.

The edifice that is now known as Valley Children's Stadium, there's an area called the Boneyard, where the Dogs commemorate all their home wins against the bigger schools, by burying a bone with that team's name on it. That explains why they can't win this game. The song never told them which bone is connected to the wazzu bone, so they can't even find it.

Washington State 51, Fresno State 34

Stanford at Notre Dame

If the BCS still existed, the playoff hopes of the Fighting Irish would be finished. Two weeks after their historic home defeat against Northern Illinois, that very same Huskie with an "ie" team was beaten by Buffalo in overtime. In the old BCS formula, a team's rating would depend on not only its own results, but those of its opponents. If a presumptive national contender lost to an upper-echelon MAC team that in turn lost to a lower-echelon MAC team, the impact would be noticeable. But in a 12-team field, with eight of its participants determined subjectively by a committee, the Irish could drop this one, too, and still be well in the running.

The Cardinal opened conference play with a big road win at Syracuse, but they have since been clobbered by Clemson and Virginia Tech by a combined score of 71-21. With quarterback Ashton Daniels injured, Justin Lamson threw for only 103 yards. Their lone TD came on a halfback option, thrown by freshman Micah Ford.

One of these teams is in the ACC, and it's not Notre Dame. Where were you on that one, Criswell?

Notre Dame 33, Stanford 20

Northern Illinois at Bowling Green

The Huskies are one of the Mid-American Conference teams that is reportedly being pursued by the Mountain West. Whether or not they ultimately accept probably depends on whether there's anybody still involved with that program who was around for their three-year misadventure as a Big West member in the mid-90s. That's three years of long road trips with no rivalry games, in a geographically mismatched conference, contributing to a record of 11-22.

These two, the apparent powerhouse teams in the MAC, have each had one devastating defeat that has ended any ambitions about being the group-of-five representative in the CFP. NIU atrophied over its idle week following a big win at Notre Dame, and was upset on its home field by Buffalo in overtime, 30-27 in Week 4. This, despite almost doubling the Bulls' offensive output. BGSU had hung within a touchdown each against Penn State and Texas A&M, but was subsequently beaten by Old Dominion, by that same 30-27 score.

What does that coincidence mean? Don't ask the College Football Czar. Ask somebody who's a numerologist, like Louis Farrakhan. And then run away, before he begins to say things.

Bowling Green 35, Northern Illinois 34

The College Football Czar

a sports publication from The Shinbone