CFU Week No. 6 — "Holy #$%@!"

I spent most of Saturday eating Spicy Italian subs from Subway, translating what Lou Holtz was saying, watching—in HD, of course—most of my favorite teams lose, cursing and sending and replying to texts of utter disbelief. "OMG!" one read. "NWRUS?" read another. Several, from Gator fans in particular, read "WTF?!" And when asked who would not have put Xavier Lee in sooner given his obvious talent and athleticism, I couldn't resist replying, "IDK MY BFF BOBBY BOWDEN."

A friend of mine says that he doubts that even God Almighty had seen this coming. Not my words, but it does capture the unpredicted chaos and absolute mayhem of this past weekend where, in just over 48 hours, we saw seven of the top thirteen teams fall hard, four to unranked teams. Insane? That would be an understatement. And as the smoke clears, several things become clearer.

Look at how absurd preseason rankings appear now. Of the preseason top ten, only three teams remain undefeated, and of the other seven, five have lost one game and the rest have lost two. That's nine losses in total, six against unranked teams and one against an unranked, D-II team. And there it is, folks, you're preseason top ten! C'mon, college football is at best unpredictable during the season, so why a bunch of old men think they can to any degree of success predict who's the best before a single down is ever played escapes me.

Remember how I said (http://psu.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=5240267210) that the top four teams at the time—USC, LSU, Florida, and Oklahoma—were "four sure"? Yeah, well, not so much. And I don't mean that just for the two that actually lost, either.

Florida and Oklahoma getting thumped by unranked Auburn and Colorado, respectively, was plain embarrassing. But by no means did either USC or LSU blow us away, either.

USC struggled and just barely left Seattle with a win against a Washington squad that looked a lot like Notre Dame sporting those navy jerseys and gold helmets. And at halftime LSU was only up by one point on Tulane. And, no, that is not a typo.

A few good things did happen.

First, Wisconsin fans had a blast at Camp Randall in their win against Michigan State. Watching the entire stadium "Jump Around" was pretty awesome. Second, after whooping West Virginia, now everybody knows that South Florida is no longer a team to be taken lightly; those guys are fast, determined and play to win. Also, with K-State and Colorado knocking off Texas, who lost even with VY on the field, and Oklahoma respectively, the Big 12 North is back. Now, the only two unbeatens of the Big 12 live in the North. Notre Dame actually showed vital signs on offense, but not with Jimmy Clausen under center. But at 0-5 they continue to make school history in a bad way. With the Cal-Oregon thriller, the boys out West gained a few more reasons to be dubbed the best conference in the nation. And Florida State finally gave Xavier Lee a chance to prove himself, which is exactly what he did. Jimbo Fisher just might have discovered the missing piece of the puzzle and Bobby Bowden might have just found his dadgum quarterback.

Pandemonium comes to mind when I think of this past Saturday. And only halfway through the season, we ain't seen nothin' yet. There will be more subs, more Holtz-to-English translations, more HDTV, more cursing, more shocking texts, more surprises and even more chaos.

They say fact is stranger than fiction. And at least within the bounds of college football, they're right.

—R. Cooper