The Top Whatever: Fat and happy teams fell on hard times

The Top Whatever is a weekly ranking of only the teams that must be ranked right this second.

1. UCF. Champs stay champs, even if it happened to be in a one-point, come-from-behind win over a 4-3 Memphis. UCF should be in the College Football Playoff, but will instead have to blow out Auburn in a bowl game again.

You know this is a joke because I said Auburn is going to make a bowl game.

2. Qaadir Sheppard, Ole Miss.

One:

Two:

3. LSU. Cracked Georgia 36-16 in the most shocking result of the day. Playing a close game against Georgia and pulling it out would have made sense. LSU plays nothing but close games, and the idea of the Tigers getting deep into the fourth quarter and catching a break? That could have reasonably happened.

But this didn’t make sense, based on literally anything anyone has seen from either team. For example:

Georgia was so broken by the time the fourth quarter rolled around that they allowed LSU QB Joe Burrow to pull the ball on a zone read, ramble into the open field, and then sprint untouched. Joe Burrow is a fine, sort of mobile quarterback. He is not someone who should ever run 59 yards through the Georgia defense without a police escort.

LSU ran for 275 yards on the day, controlled the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball, and forced Georgia to rely on Jake Fromm to pass them out of trouble. Spoiler: Fromm, at this point in his career, is not capable of just passing Georgia out of trouble with ease.

LSU made Georgia into something they had not been for the better part of two years: helpless, controlled by the other team, and playing on terms they could not change. When that happens, the Tigers can win any game they want. When they win any game they want, they can play any song they want.

And when they play any song they want, they play “Neck.”

P.S. When Alabama was asked to stop cussing during the return of “Dixieland Delight,” most of them seemed to obey. Meanwhile, the LSU administration had been asking students to stop yelling profanities for a decade during “Neck.” When the Great Hunger comes, l will choose the real ones at LSU because unlike some self-styled freedom-lovers, they actually don’t obey anyone.

P.P.S. It’s also possible that LSU and everyone in Louisiana in general don’t even understand the entire concept of authority, much less that they would obey it in the first place. Which is also fine. Geaux Tigahs.

4. Michigan. Flattened Wisconsin 38-13. Reduced Alex Hornibrook to a turnover-spitting shell of himself. Ran for 320 yards, which is not only the thing Wisconsin is supposed to do, but is also the most ground yardage given up by a Wisconsin defense since 2011’s Rose Bowl against Oregon. Didn’t pass the ball really well, but that’s like having a subject in your sentences. Not really necessary when you’re flexing like Michigan is right now. Kinda superfluous to be honest.

5. Iowa State. Whooped up on West Virginia, 30-14.

Something that happens every single year: one week when teams that have been through real hardship run into teams that have experienced none. This was that week.

Take the case of Iowa State, a team that’s been through things. They’ve already played an entire football game with Iowa, as unpleasant an experience as anyone can have. They’ve slogged out games with TCU and gotten strafed by Oklahoma. They’ve experienced bad things.

Meanwhile, West Virginia’s been living high on the hog, scoring 3,000 points a game and breezing through defenses with ease.

So when the two of them met, the possibility for vengeful ugly was real already. How real did it get? So real that the Mountaineers weren’t even given a chance to try on offense, much less turn the game into a shootout. Iowa State had 498 yards of offense and 25 first downs, mobbing possession and keeping the Mountaineer defense on the field.

Iowa State held the ball so long, the West Virginia offense didn’t even get a chance to exist. In a regulation American football game, West Virginia only ran 42 plays on offense and only got seven first downs on the day. West Virginia barely got to throw a punch before Iowa State hammered them into a corner for an hour.

And now, bad things have happened to you, Mountaineers. The Iowa State band members in T-Rex suits? They were a warning, not a joke.

6. Arson. Huge week for arson, the celebration of choice for the discriminating state college fan.

Michigan State is still the Undertaker because a.) their matches are sometimes unwatchable, and b.) they will always find a way to come back from the dead in a season after being written off completely.

Do the Spartans need a Turnover Coffin? YES THEY ABSOLUTELY NEED A TURNOVER COFFIN. Make this happen, Michigan State people. It would be weird for any other team besides the perennial Dead Man of college football.

HLAFTIME FOR THE TOP WHATEVER.

Okay, we cnotinue.

7. Oregon. 30-27 in OT over Washington.

Washington and Oregon were both overdue for this. Washington’s credit rating plunged over the last month with lackluster performances against UCLA and Arizona State, and the heavy devaluation of their Quality Loss™ to Auburn to open the season. Oregon’s sole loss to Stanford, meanwhile, was way, way flukier than it looked and hinged on a single bad/weird bit of time management by the Ducks.

Which is to say that the predictions of Washington going on a decade-long win streak against Oregon were greatly exaggerated, and Oregon became the first team in the Pac-12 to actually call the Huskies out for being incapable of pulling away from comparably talented teams.

Also, Washington gave up that unearthly catch by Jaylon Redd off an equally unreal throw by Justin Herbert at the end of the first half, and if you give up TDs with time expiring in the first half, it’s almost 100 percent a sign that your team is doomed. It’s like giving up a safety: it’s not a guarantee that your team has suffered an irreparable core breach, but it’s definitely not a good sign.

8. Alabama. 39-10 over Missouri. The story of Alabama’s 2018: after an injury scare to their otherworldly dual-threat QB, the Crimson Tide were forced to put in their national championship-winning, 2016 SEC Offensive Player of the Year quarterback who can squat over 500 pounds, bench 405, and run a 4.5 40-yard dash.

What passes for drama for Alabama is for anyone else the definition of disgusting luxury.

9. Ohio State. A bad, 30-14 win over Minnesota? The Golden Gophers have one of the least productive offenses in the country and spent the better part of three quarters putting real digits up against the Buckeye defense. Like, their best yards per play of the year (7.07 per play) in a season when the Gophers opened with New Mexico State.

QB Dwayne Haskins can throw for a quarter of a mile per game, and it won’t matter when the Buckeyes continue to play like a Big 12 team that’s taken up guest residence in the Shoe. If only there were a team capable of playing defense on their schedule BY GAWD THAT’S MICHIGAN STATE’S MUSIC.