Weekend Wesults fur ze furst veek oon September, ya!

Hey, what an exciting weekend (so far)! What looked like a boring week in Australia ended up with a handful of routs and a handful of upsets - and telling them apart in advance was impossible! Sure, Hawthorn, Sydney, West Coast and Richmond followed the script and routed their opponents by a combined 230 points...but Port Adelaide ended up playing the Peel Thunder feeder team, rather than the parent club Fremantle, and won by well over ten goals; Brisbane and Essendon surprised and pulled off narrow upsets in close games; GWS apparently took the last week off once they were out of the playoff race and Melbourne walked all over them; and most dramatically, Geelong found their championship pride to end the run of nine straight years in the finals and three titles, sending three of their retirees off with pride in a fourth quarter rout of finals-bound Adelaide.

In the CFL, BC upset Montreal 25-20 Friday; the other games are still coming up here on Labor Day weekend. 

Now, here's the opening weekend of Division I college football! In descending order of interest...
*BYU won at Nebraska (in front of a full house, as with every Nebraska game since 1962!) on a Hail Mary from a backup QB on the last play!
*Alabama looked dominant again, discovering Jake Coker as QB and whomping Wisconsin, 35-17.
*Northwestern shut down ranked Stanford 16-6, much to everybody's surprise. 
*Texas A&M looked remarkable in defeating ranked Arizona State 38-17. (Our pastor's happy!)
*Notre Dame looks even better, annihilating Texas 38-3 (it wasn't that close).
*Utah did what they were supposed to, defeating Michigan in Harbaugh's debut, and giving the Pac-12 a good win.
*But elsewhere in the state, Utah State looked terrible against FCS Southern Utah, winning 12-9, but only when Andrew Rodriguez bailed them out on punt number 25 for the day by running it back 88 yards after a day of no offense and five points. (Wyoming, Army, Washington St, Kansas, and Vanderbilt weren't so lucky, losing to FCS opponents in their openers - admittedly, the last two were 'supposed' to lose. Wyoming's loss, to middling FCS North Dakota 24-13, was the worst of the lot)
*Two match-ups of bottom feeders had interesting results: First-timers Kennesaw St started their existence as a football school with a 56-16 defeat of fellow novices East Tennessee St. But the devastating loss was by Georgia State, #128 out of 128 on the FOLLOWING FOOTBALL rankings in 2014, who thought they had easy pickings against FBS novice Charlotte... who were 23-20 victors in the Georgia Dome. Panthers fans were absolutely besides themselves on social media, excoriating their football team's lack of improvement over their four years in FBS.

Other scores of interest in the FF universe: 
Auburn over Louisville, 31-24...South beat North, 17-13, in the battle of the Carolinas...Indiana held off Southern Illinois 48-47: lower Big Ten versus upper Missouri Valley? That score's about right...TCU edged Minnesota 23-17 (we had the Gophers winning, but they came close)... Oklahoma struggled but won over Central Michigan, 24-13...Boise St scored 16 in the first half, Washington scored 13 in the second half and missed a last minute FG to lose by three...Temple "upset" Penn St (we bet Temple on our sheet!) 27-10...Arizona struggled with UTSA, just like last year, but won 42-32...Hawai'i over Colorado 28-20...Arkansas St and Georgia Southern both laid eggs against Power Five opponents, while Appalachian St won 49-0 against FCS Howard...After their big win against NDSU on national TV last week, Montana gave up a last second FG of their own last night to Cal Poly SLO, losing 20-19...Toledo/Stony Brook and LSU/McNeese St were both stormed out; Georgia cut its victory over UL-Monroe short because of the weather...Mostly disappointing day for the Colonial AA, going 2-9 for the weekend. William&Mary and James Madison deserved to celebrate their victories, and Towson can cheer a "good loss" to powerful East Carolina by just eight...Coastal Carolina, who announced they'll be moving to FBS next year in the Sun Belt, didn't show much muscle in beating Furman 38-35 (they were favored by 23 in Sagarin). But the Sun Belt doesn't require much muscle, either...Jacksonville State may be the class of the Ohio Valley, defeating highly-regarded Chattanooga 23-20...Not a lot to cheer about in the HBC ranks, though, with results like Grambling State's 73-14 loss at Cal-Berkeley on the board. Even our favorite team, Savannah State, failed to make headlines despite their near-complete incompetence in losing to Colorado State 65-13; Davidson managed to "downstage" them with a zero-to-69 drubbing from fellow FCS Citadel.

NEW TIERS POSTED TOMORROW in what is our regular Monday ratings feature. See you then! 

 

Some great mid-major (and above) thoughts from "Fan-Sided"

Here are a couple of posts from the college football section of SI's FanSided, including one listing five schools who are not only ready to move up but additionally NEED to move up to a Power Five conference ASAP...a short clip about the contract extension for Boise State's head coach, but the real news is that little ol' Boise is giving its DC and OC three-year, million dollar contracts, something unheard of just a few years ago...and an interesting analysis of five schools who turn the two and three star recruits into five star players because of their coaching, style, consistency, and methods.

It's college bowl season!

Sorry for the delay in this post: real life intervened. But, here are the 38 scheduled bowl games and their predicted outcomes, not just from Following Football but from Sagarin, ESPN, and Vegas:

Dec 20:                                          ESPN             SAGARIN           VEGAS           Following FB
Nevada v LA-Lafayette:              Nev by 4        Nev by 1.4           Nev by 1.          ULL by 1/2
Utah St v UTEP:                            USU by 13  USU by 8.8.    USU by 10.     USU by 12
Utah v Colorado St:                      CSU by 3.      Utah by 5.6     Utah by 3       CSU by 1/2
W Michigan v Air Force:             WM by 7.      WM by 0.5.        AF by 1.5.       AF by 6
Bowling Green v S Alabama:     BG by 1         SA by 2.4.           SA by 3.            SA by 1/2 

Dec 22
BYU v Memphis:                            Mem by 7.  Mem by 2.0    Mem by 1.5.    Mem by 3

Dec 23
Marshall v N Illinois:                    Mrsh by 7.  Mrsh by 12.5. Mrsh by 10   Mrsh by 4
Navy v San Diego St:                    SDSU by 1.    SDSU by 3.1.       SDSU by 3.     Navy by 1

Dec 24
C Michigan v W Kentucky:          WK by 13.     WK by 5.0.     WK by 4.      WK by 5
Fresno St v Rice:                            Rice by 8.     Rice by 2.6.    Rice by 2.5   Rice by 1/2

Dec 26
Illinois v Louisiana Tech:            LT by 11.       LT by 9.1.       LT by 6.          LT by 4
Rutgers v North Carolina:          NC by 3.          NC by 2.7.         NC by 3.            Rut by 1/2. 
N Carolina St v UCF:                    NCS by 1.      UCF by 3.3.      UCF by 2.         UCF by 2 1/2

...and we'll pick up the second week later in this week. But for Bowl Season, we're scoring a little differently...or at least, a little additionally! We'll ALSO keep a tally of which of these four highly esteemed methodologies picks the highest number of game winners, straight up. To the victor belong the non-existent spoils! 

In one of the least shocking election results of the year...

...Marcus Mariota of the Oregon Ducks won the Heisman Trophy tonight as the outstanding ball-handling college football player from a really good team in the country. (Don't deny it. That's what it's been.) Mostly, it's been quarterbacks over the years, especially the last decade-plus, when except for 'Bama's Mark Ingram, every winner in years starting with a "2" has been a quarterback.

The top players at each position were singled out over the past week at the various award shindigs, with these consensuses (consensi?) reached:

Top quarterback: Marcus Mariota, Oregon. Lots of great QBs out there - why, Ohio St has a slough of them! - but Mariota absolutely deserves every accolade he gets.
Top running back: Melvin Gordon, Wisconsin. Great from start to finish, but it was his 408 in three quarter against the vaunted "Blackshirts" that was his Mona Lisa.
Top receiver: Amari Cooper, Alabama. In a year of great receivers - and great FRESHMAN receivers in particular! - Cooper lived up to his hype week after week, and deserved his moment in the Heisman spotlight today.
Top tight end: Nick O'Leary, Florida St. A great TE is ideally both a great blocker AND has great receiving skills. O'Leary does.
Top center: Reese Dismukes, Auburn. We'll be honest: we have no idea who the best offensive linemen are. But we know which teams have the best lines, and Auburn and Iowa certainly are on that short list.
Top interior lineman: Brandon Scherff, Iowa.

Top defensive player: Scooby Wright, Arizona. A spectacular player. Magnetized to the ball, as he always seems to be around it. But it wasn't one of those years when there was a serious defensive threat to the MVP campaigns of Mariota and others, as there is on the NFL side.
Top defensive end: Nate Orchard, Utah.
Top linebacker: Eric Kendricks, UCLA.
Top defensive back: Gerod Hollimon, Louisville.
Top placekicker: Brad Craddock, Maryland. This was our biggest surprise - Robert Agouyo at Florida St was the defending "best" and certainly didn't do anything to lose the title.
Top punter: Tom Hackett, Utah. As an Aussie football player, Hackett's skills there serve him extremely well punting - not kicking for height but to place the ball where he wants to place it.


Top scholar/athlete: David Helton, Duke.
Top coach: Gary Patterson, TCU. As always, a crowded field: hard not to include both Mississippi coaches, Jerry Kill at Minnesota, David Cutcliffe at Duke, Paul Johnson at GT, Urban Meyer at Ohio St... But Patterson may have been the only one who transformed his own style to fit the circumstance, to great success.

Do you agree? Comment and let us know!

All 38 bowl games in one place!

(Sorta...)

Here's Graham Watson's obligatory piece rating the lo-oo-ong list of bowls from most to least interesting to watch. (This one's from Dr. Saturday on Yahoo...I'm sure ESPN and SI.com will have theirs up any moment now.) 

On our list, we particularly like the Arkansas/Texas matchup of the old SouthWest Conference rivals in the "Texas Bowl", as well as the Utah/Colorado St matchup in Vegas. Both games have teams right next to each other in our rankings, and are regional rivalries with a great deal of interest. West Virginia/Texas A&M in Memphis' "Liberty Bowl" should be a blast as well. Finally, as a Group of Five proponent, we are partial to the meeting of the C-USA and MAC champions, Marshall/Northern Illinois, in Boca Raton, Florida - two very good teams, no matter what level they're on. (We'll have much more on the bowl games down the road, including our projections for all of them.)

What is a rivalry?

A rivalry is NOT someone you compete against every season.
It is NOT just proximity.
It is NOT hatred, enmity, or animosity.
It is NOT sharing a conference, a city, or a state.

What a rivalry IS...is a pair of teams who can literally "throw out the records" whenever they play.

Consider the games today: Ohio St v Michigan, which was 17-22 points in the Buckeyes' favored column...way too much for a rivalry game. Currently 28-21 OSU, back and forth all game long....Kentucky v Louisville, in which UL was favored by 9-14, but which was at 28-26 in the fourth last check....Georgia Tech v Georgia, where underdog GT leads 21-17 with under three to go...and apparently the two teams brought into the Pac-12 together, Utah v Colorado, where the Utes should have won rather easily but the Buffaloes lead by two in the third quarter. Watching the Civil War tonight (Oregon v Oregon St) or the most fascinating intersectional rivalry in football, Notre Dame v USC, or either of the SEC  matchups: Mississippi St/Ole Miss in the Egg Bowl (games w names usually are trying to be rivalries!) and the Iron Bowl which cannot top last year's everevereverever, Auburn v Alabama.

There are certainly other examples: Arizona/Arizona St (42-35 yesterday), Stanford/Cal, UCLA/USC, Harvard/Yale, Florida St/Miami-Fl, and you can probably name many of your own. Sometimes they arise from personality meshes: in the NFL, New England v Indianapolis were big rivals because they were both top of the division teams, but more because they had Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, the two great quarterbacks of their generation.

And sometimes, rivalries are manufactured - rarely successfully, but once in a while... For example, Nebraska entering the Big Ten, they're playing new teams up and down their schedule, and so there are several teams who might serve as a rival for them. But, watching the wild game against Iowa yesterday (which went to overtime before UN won 37-34), they may have found a rival after all!

Sometimes, rivalries can die, too: it used to be that Boise St v Idaho was one of the great unsung rivalries in the nation, through there D2 days, then the Big Sky days, then they move up into the Big West together in the FBS, and finally into the WAC....but as the Broncos continued to improve, winning conference championships left and right, the Vandals sputtered to losing seasons, fell out of conferences altogether for a year before scrambling back into the low-level Sun Belt and a 1-10 season again this year. When Boise won its tenth or twelfth straight over U of I, it became clear that the critical element of "any given day" was long gone. And therefore, so was the rivalry. There were still sports where the two teams are rivals, but not in football.

HE DROPPED THE BALL? What was he THINKING?

Missed this last night (watching the Alabama/LSU classic at the time!), but talk about slitting your own throat! Watch this Utah mistake last night! Instead of going up on the Ducks 14-0, Utah gave Oregon a tie game, which they eventually lost after being within three in the fourth quarter. How would THIS have changed the landscape?

Looking forward to Week 9 in college football with our SCIENTIFIC tools!

There are some great games coming this weekend, the first one on Thursday night when Tier F Louisville hosts Tier A Florida St! By tiering, the best game of the weekend should be Auburn @ Ole Miss, where the polls have the Tigers above the Rebels, but we have Ole Miss in Tier A and Auburn a rung lower in B; hence, we're favoring Ole Miss (and, if we were actually making bets, "taking the points").

Other marquee games include TCU @ West Virginia (tiers A vs. C), Kentucky @ Missouri (tiers D vs. E; unlike the oddsmakers, we like the Wildcats), Arkansas @ Mississippi St (tiers H vs. A), Arizona @ UCLA (again, they're favoring the lower tiered team, so we'll take tier C Arizona and the points over the tier E Bruins), and Stanford @ Oregon.

Going strictly by tiers, and using the old saw about home field being about a three-point advantage, we've noticed that the point spread for this week's games generally matches up very well with our 20-tier system. As a general rule, the expected margin of victory will be somewhere between 1-2.5 points per tier, plus or minus the three points for the home field. The actual average is 1.75 points per tier, with the median at 1.5 points per tier. So, if two teams are four tiers apart on last week's listing, expect the higher team to be favored by 4-10 points, most likely 6-7, + the three points for home field.

Given those parameters, and strictly using our wisened separation tool better known as "guessing" where teams should fall, we took a look at the 54 FBS games scheduled this weekend for "outliers" to see if there were some easy predictions we could make based on this statistical creation:

Predictions based on our tier system and the Vegas odds...

*Iowa should be favored by more than 4 at home against Northwestern.
*Rutgers shouldn't be eleven point underdogs at home against Wisconsin (more like 2).
*Florida International shouldn't be 6 1/2 point dogs at home to Rice (also about 2).
*Why is Duke not favored over Pitt? Tier D over tier I? They should be giving points!
*North Carolina will be closer to the Hurricanes than seventeen points...
*Boston College shouldn't be getting points from Virginia Tech (or, at least not three)!
*Eastern Michigan shouldn't be more than about a touchdown underdog to Central Michigan (not 16 1/2 points, anyway!). 
*Louisiana Tech should be a much bigger favorite over Tier R Western Kentucky - six points at home isn't sufficient.
*Virginia at Georgia Tech shouldn't be just the three point home field advantage...the Yellowjackets deserve at least a TD spread in their favor.
*Part of the continued over-valuing of the Cougars after Tayson Hill's injury: Middle Tennessee should NOT be the underdog at home again BYU.
*And Kentucky should be favored over Missouri - or at least, not down six!
*We see both UNLV and Ole Miss as higher tiered teams at home (against New Mexico and Auburn, respectively), and with the three-point home bump should be more than one and two point faves, in turn. More like five each.
*Oklahoma St will be a one TD underdog to Kansas St, not two.
*Arizona will flat out beat UCLA in Los Angeles, not lose by four.
*Fresno St may be favored at home, but Wyoming shouldn't be getting 10 1/2 points!
*See previous comment with Utah not getting five points against Arizona St!
*Finally, it's hard to estimate what the trip to the islands does to a team, but we think Utah St deserves more love than a three point spread when they play at Hawaii late Saturday night!

We'll see how those predictions go this weekend! Eighteen chances to be proven wrong! A prognosticator's dream!

Interesting games this weekend...

Here are the college games that will keep us attentive this weekend...

In Blacksburg, a critical ACC matchup looms Thursday between traditional powerhouses Miami-FL and Virginia Tech, both 4-3 and (most crucially) 1-2 in conference. Another loss dooms either of them; 2-2 (and 5-3 overall) gives them life. We agree that the Hurricanes are the slight favorite, but we're excited to watch it!

Similarly, in the American conference, South Florida goes to Cincinnati Friday, each with a conference loss and pretty much out of hope for a title with a second this week. The Bearcats are the deserved favorite, but we don't trust them...

Also on Friday night:
Boise St without their best receiver (and on the blue) > BYU without their QB.
Oregon anytime, anywhere > a much improved California, our fave to watch!

Memphis by 23 over SMU? It would be really nice if the Mustangs stay that close...With the new allegations of fraud at North Carolina, Virginia should win, probably by more than a TD...

Will Kansas St really be ten points better than the fabled Longhorns of Texas? They should be much more than that, but it depends on how the purple shows up in bright light that's in question.

We'd love to see 6-1 Minnesota start to impress the critics more. They're only a TD favorite against a mediocre Illinois team that they shouldn't have any problems with, even on the road.

Akron's only a 2 point favorite over regular Bottom-Feeder Ball St? Hmm...

What would Marshall have to do to make us believe they could be competitive with the Tier A teams? Win by fifty? Learn to fly? (Play somebody with a pulse?) They're favored by four touchdowns over FAU; would it matter if they won by eight? Fourteen? GaTech/Cumberland scores?

How about Sparty over Big Blue? Would Michigan St have to win by thirty to impress, or is any win over the legendary maize and blue of Michigan credit-building?

Two of our favorite SEC teams, Mississippi St and Kentucky, square off in Lexington Saturday as a 2-TD spread in favor of the Bulldogs, and rightly so - but it's going to be a fun game! (Vanderbilt @ Missouri should also be interesting!)

Temple might be less than the 7 point dog the line makes them at UCF, but we can also see them losing by thirty...Hard to picture Wyoming losing to rival Colorado St by the 18 points the line has, too....

The prime time games are worth setting the evening aside for! Ole Miss at LSU? Good luck, Rebels...you're favored by three, and here's hoping you pull it off! (We're hoping for an undefeated Egg Bowl here at FF!) But that's going to be an awfully tough environment, and every break goes the way of the Mad Hatter, Les Miles, when you go into the Bayou!

South Carolina's fallen so far that they're a 17 point dog at Auburn (deservedly so, too).

The most intriguing thing about Alabama's jaunt into Tennessee, of course, is the return of Lane Kiffin to the Volunteers headquarters. We truly hope that it's an uneventful visit - Kiffin's been punished many times over at this stage for his incompetence, and there's no point in revisiting a past you don't really want to think about any more than you have to!

Can Ohio St make a charge towards the playoff? Can it start by handling Penn St, a good team but one the Buckeyes should be able to defeat (the line is 13 1/2 points at the moment).

Is USC for real? What about Utah? One of them will look more real after their game Saturday night in Salt Lake City; that's for sure! Similarly, we'll get a reasonable look at Arizona St, who goes to Seattle to play U-Dub, aka the University of Washington, who should give them a legitimate test.

The Tiers have NARROWED for Week 7!

As we reach the halfway point of the season, we're narrowing the tiers again, down to SIX teams per tier. Eventually we'll get down to four, and at season's end we'll submit our final ranking order, from 1-124...but it's premature and unnecessary to do so now.

Tier A hosts the top six school teams as of now: three undefeateds (Mississippi St, Ole Miss, Florida St*) and three teams whose one loss was narrow, on the road, and to a top tier team (Alabama, Notre Dame, TCU). Hard to deny them - almost hard to think there will be ANY unbeatens at season's end except for minor league champ Marshall.

Tier B contains six one-loss power teams, any of whom we could see beating even the Tier A teams on a given day: Auburn, Baylor, Georgia, Michigan St, Ohio St, and Oregon.

Tier C has Arizona, Duke, LSU, Nebraska, USC, and West Virginia. The Wildcats, Blue Devils, and Cornhuskers have one loss each; the others have last twice. But none of the nine losses were what you'd call embarrassing or 'inappropriate' - losing to good teams, no blowouts, and so forth. They'll hold their own against almost anyone, but we'd make them underdogs to the Tier A and B teams in a heartbeat.

When we get down to Tier D, some of these losses are a bit less excusable. These equate to rankings #19-24 in a conventional poll: Arizona St (5-1), East Carolina (5-1), Kansas St (5-1), Oklahoma (5-2), UCLA (5-2), and 5-1 Utah.

Tier E is essentially the equivalent of the fourth tier in last week's divisions, if comparisons are important to you: 5-2 Clemson, Colorado St (6-1), Kentucky (5-2), undefeated Marshall, Minnesota (6-1), and 5-2 Oklahoma St.

Tier F hosts six teams that (while not deserving grades of "F"!) have been disappointments at one level or another, more recently in particular: Georgia Tech (5-2, losers of their last two), Louisville (6-2), Maryland and Missouri (both 5-2), idle 4-2 Penn St, and free-falling Texas A&M, losers of three straight to three Tier A teams! What a killer schedule!

Now we've reached the levels of "receiving token votes" in the conventional polls, but these teams all have successes to boast of this year: Boise St, Miami-FL, Oregon St, Rutgers, Washington, and Wisconsin. All except the U have two losses; the Hurricanes have three. So, that's Tier G.

Tier H changed in drafts several times, but we've settled on Arkansas (4-3 in the toughest division in CFB history), Iowa (5-2), 4-3 Stanford and South Carolina and Utah St and Virginia.

The last level matching up with last week's divisions is Tier I, which features these competent teams: Air Force, Boston College, California, Northern Illinois, Pitt, Virginia Tech.

In the unofficial "tiery-eyed teams in waiting" green room are such teams as Bowling Green, fast-falling BYU, Florida, Houston, Northwestern, Tennessee, Texas, Cincinnati, Indiana, Memphis, North Carolina, North Carolina St, Temple, and Texas Tech.

*If the Tallahassee police and FSU compliance officers truly put justice ahead of football success, do you think the Seminoles would still be undefeated?

And on the flip side, the Bottom Eight becomes the Bottom Six (plus seven more)... The undisputed master of the B6 is the lone winless team left in the FBS, the coachless SMU Mustangs, joined by Georgia St, Idaho, Kent St, New Mexico St, and Troy. "Congratulations" to those clubs, some of whom were so far down that even a win didn't get them out of the basement!

Waiting for entrance to the exclusive club are Appalachian St, Ball St, Eastern Michigan, Miami-OH, North Texas, UConn and UMass. Actually, three of those just escaped the B8, so "waiting" is inappropriate...

Oh-for-three is a GREAT way to start Week Seven!

So, the Jets looked better than they've looked all season...so, Utah pulled out an overtime victory on the road after all...so Pitt isn't the pits after all.

We are reminded at this moment of our continued and resounding failure to project the near-future of football of two things:

1) That's what makes football so much fun! We simply never know from one week to the next what will happen, although it's so much fun to guess!

2) Gregg Easterbrook, the brilliant writer who pens TMQ: Tuesday Morning Quarterback for ESPN.com, always appends his disclaimer to his picks: "Remember, all predictions are guaranteed to be wrong, or your money back!"

If you continue to be foolhardy enough to rely on our preferences, we choose Fresno to lose to Boise tonight. Since we picked Fresno yesterday, ONE of our choices HAS to be right...doesn't it?

UPDATE: So of course Boise won Friday night, 37-27, making us 0-4 so far this week... Here's hoping we do better on Saturday!

Tonight's American Football menu for your dining pleasure...

"Appetizer, sir or madam? Would you care to try our ACC game? It's very good - Virginia Tech at Pitt. Or perhaps you would prefer something more...westerly? We also have this delightful Pac-12 matchup, with Utah visiting Oregon State if you'd like?

"My recommendation? M'sieur, I would not be so bold as to suggest what m'sieur prefers. But if it were my place to recommend, I would like the turkey and the beaver, myself (the Hokies and the Beavers) as they are under valued, in my humble opinion...

"Very good, sir or madam; very good. 

"Now, for your main course this evening? Our specialty is delightful - a steaming hot plate of Rex Ryan, boiling in New York Jets green sauce, heaped onto a delicious pile of New England Patriots, with a side of Belichick and Brady to agitate it, give it some spice! Yes? No?

"Ah! Just like me! You'd prefer it with more Patriot and less Jet? Don't worry - that's what you'll get tonight: lots of New England with just a very tiny amount of NYJ,

"Magnificent! And for dessert? Can we bring you something on the blue? Perhaps some Fresno Bulldog? With a side of Boise State? No? Hold the Boise? Well, that would be a ten-yard penalty, but we expect much more Fresno than Bronco in this dish tomorrow night.

"Ah, very good, sir or madam. It is a pleasure to serve you!"

College Tiers after Week 6! (Part A)

Another truly exciting weekend of college football, culminating in the fourth straight victory for the state of Mississippi over a top-notch SEC team! The two Egg Bowl participants are a combined 12-0, and sit in the drivers' seats in the hardest division in football, the SEC West!

Leveling up this week from last.... Oregon and TCU (despite their first loss, they proved they belong in the big leagues) to Tier 1; LSU up to Tier 2; Clemson, USC, and Duke up to Tier 3; Kentucky and Utah up to Tier 4; Washington and Minnesota up to Tier 5; Boston College, Iowa, Utah St and Miami of Fla all moved up to Tier 6; and Bowling Green and Tennessee move into Tier 7.

Those who fell at least one tier include Auburn, Arizona, Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, Missouri, Louisville, Penn St, Oregon St, BYU, Air Force, Wisconsin and California.

The full Tier listing comes up in the next post in a few minutes...