by Adam Jones

My sister brought me a family bible on Saturday. Just like in the Willie Nelson song. The inside front noted that my great grandmother gave it to my grandfather in 1926, long before the BCS permanently screwed up college football. There were four book marks in it and part of me wonders what Granddad Joneswas looking up in the fourth chapter of II Kings. This is where the Moabites are overrun, knocking them out of bowl contention and resulting in the son of the king being slain as a burnt offering. Talk about being fired. The bookmarks in the Gospels land on my grandfather's favorite parables, which are a tad bit more heartwarming. I'm very thankful my sister found this. But it's not the artifact I have been looking for since Granddad died in 1994.

What I really want is a trashcan. A wastepaper basket, actually. I have no idea where it ended up but the polished tin cylinder used to sit in the corner of the upstairs room where my father grew up and it was stamped with college football pennants. The can must have dated to the 1920s because all of the major powers were included: the Big State U's, the Ivy League, Army and Navy (no Air Force), Rice, Wake, Northwestern, Chicago, Rutgers...Miami and Florida State where nowhere to be seen. Sort of like today, come to think of it. What a wonder autumn is when the old becomes new again.

Wake Forest 21, Boston College 14.

With a game-preserving end zone pick, Wake Forest went to 8-1 for the first time since 1944. Would you like to guess how many times Wake has exceeded eight wins since then? I'll take "Everything's Coming Up Zero" for 200, Alex.? Mind you, this eight-win start is without Wake's season-starting quarterback and with them down to their third tailback. And remember, Clemson barely escaped Wake Forest on a spectacular game-turning play by Gaines Adams or the Deacs would be 9-0. Tobacco Road: It's not just for basketball season anymore.

Never have I seen a pair of college teammates with a greater shared capacity for both brilliant success and unfathomable failure (usually in the same game and sometimes on the same play) as LSU's pitch and catch duo of JaMarcus Russell and Early Doucet. The viewing audience hasn't had this much fun since Martin Lawrence and Will Smith were paired in the original Bad Boys. Brilliant success won out in Saturday's best game. Russell. Doucet. Touchdown. Victory. LSU 28, Tennessee 24.

Ball State at Illinois would be a pretty competitive game. Too bad they didn't play on Saturday. Instead Ohio State thrashed Illinois pretty good. Or cruised to easy victory anyway. Or established a comfortable lead and slowly bled the clock out as the back-ups got in some playing time. No? How about "played season-ruining football in the second half allowing a terrible conference opponent to get within seven while nationwide AP voters started to wonder what all the fuss about this Troy Smith kid is about?" Yeah, that's it. Ohio State 17, Illinois 10.

Ball State, for their part, traveled to the Big House and they didn't get blown out any more than Illinois did. As a matter of fact, the Cardinals (that's Ball State's nickname if you weren't aware) actually held a lead on the Michigan Wolverines in the fourth. Michigan prevailed 34-26, causing their fans to resort to the old saw: "the other guys give scholarships, too." Well, yes, but there's not a damn one of the "other guys" who could crack Michigan's two-deep. Lack of focus? No more than a bat with glaucoma, I guess.

The Thursday night MEGA game was endlessly illuminating with over 1000 watts of total offense and a stadium electrical failure in the third quarter. Louisville eventually blacked out West Virginia with a high voltage offense and a number of Mountaineer short circuits as super tailback Steve Slaton couldn't connect with the football and WVU shanked a low current punt that Louisville powered in for a game-charging touchdown. Shocking. Despite the Cardinal zap, crackle and pop, the best player on the grid was 'Neer QB Pat White, who provided the viewers plenty of ohms and amps. But at the end of (de)regulation the bill came with the 'Ville generating plenty of sparks, zapping West Virginia 44-34.

I mentioned last week that Vanderbilt was a legitimate D-I football team. Legitimate and "playing to within six points of Florida" are two entirely different things. Nevertheless, the Gators will happily take their 25-19 road win and, due to the Tennessee loss, the slot in the SEC title game that goes with it. Next.

As opposed to falling behind by a few touchdowns just to make it exciting, Texas actually lined up and beat the crap out of a conference opponent. I'm just as surprised as you are, but probably not as surprised as Oklahoma State; the Cowboys did nothing on offense and were on the wrong end of 36-10.

USC finally had a weekend to work on the relationship. How does it make Pete Carroll feel when his team loses to an unranked opponent? What are his emotional needs? Where is this going? Do the players really love him? Enough to blast Stanford 42-zip anyway. But is that an empty physical gesture offered out of guilt? The session will continue next week against Oregon. The Ducks impressively destroyed Washington 34-14.

Meanwhile Cal beat UCLA 38-24 behind Marshawn Lynch, who should probably garner a Heisman invite and DeSean Jackson who appears to be faster than anyone on the UCLA punt team.

Auburn's offense still stinks but that hardly matters when playing Arkansas State. 27-0 War Eagle.

The Real Arkansas went up early on South Carolina behind Darren McFadden, arguably the nation's best running back with Adrian Peterson on the shelf, and hung on for a 26-20 win.

Kentucky didn't really upset Georgia 24-20-the home team simply won in a match-up of evenly ranked teams. That says a good deal about both squads.

Nebraska took control of the Big 12 North by taking out Missouri, 34-20. Nebraska's a good football team, but the Tigers are clearly regressing.

What's the old saying about bringing a knife to a gun fight? Or leaving a bullet in the chamber or going in against a Sicilian when death is on the line or getting into a land war in Asia? How about never playing for field goals when Bob Stoops is on the other sideline? Trust me on this one, Dennis Franchione (I watched every play of Chris Simms' career at Texas), not only do you have to always play to kill the Oklahoma Sooners, you also need to go back and poke them with a stick to make sure they are dead. Otherwise...OU 17, Texas A&M 16.

Clemson has gone from "hot team of the moment" to "tough luck hangover loss" to "The Meineke Car Care Bowl Welcomes you to Beautiful Charlotte" in the span of 14 days. Maryland 13, The Other Inept Offense Coached by one of Bobby Bowden's Sons 12.

Virginia Tech beat Miami 17-10 in a game so ugly fans of both sides were begging for it to end.

Georgia Tech took out NC State 31-23 behind about a jillion (168) receiving yards from Calvin Johnson. Johnson is not the only player that Georgia Tech has. Really, he's not.

Joe Paterno went down to injury in an ugly sideline collision and Wisconsin went to 9-1 with a 13-3 throttling of the Nittany Lion offense.

Northwestern 21, Iowa 7-at Iowa. I don't get it.

Don't look now, but Boise State is a step closer to undefeatedville, which this year translates to BCS-ville because of the kindness of corporate sponsors and the good lawyers counseling the NCAA on anti-trust issues. Broncos 45, Fresno State 21.

Speaking of anti-trust issues, God's Gift to College Football beat Nawth Klina 45-26 as Heisman Default Quinn went for 349 and four scores, including one to Geddy Lee that made him ND's all-time leader in receiving touchdowns, breaking a tie with Derrick Mayes, Regis Philbin and Bishop Sheen.

Rutgers was the only team in the top 25 to take the day off. Next Thursday, the undefeated Scarlet Knights will host Louisville in yet another battle for Big East supremacy. This gives me four days to think of more clever electricity metaphors.

Impressive Showing of the Week: LSU

1. Ohio State: Good spin is that the Buckeyes never trailed Illinois and you never had the feeling they were going to lose. Bad spin is that Jim Tressel and the best QB in the nation could have just lost to Ron Zook.

2. Michigan: There is no good spin. Ball State isn't even a good MAC team; they came into the game 3-6 with a loss to North Dakota State. Both Central Michigan and Western Michigan beat Ball State worse than Michigan Michigan did.

3. Florida: Best resume in the nation, would have given them Michigan's slot had they pummeled Vandy.

4. Texas: The Longhorns are just sort of hanging out watching Colt McCoy throw touchdowns like he's trying to win a stuffed bear at the county fair. The pass defense was competent against Oklahoma State - that's a change.

5. Louisville: Do I think they could beat Texas or Florida in a winner take all? No, but neither do I think the defense is as bad as the national media would like to portray. It's not. West Virginia would make a lot of teams look bad and so will Louisville if given the chance in bowl season. They still could lose at Rutgers.

6. Arkansas and California: The SEC and Pac Ten traded butt-kickings in week one with USC embarrassing Arkansas and Cal being embarrassed at Tennessee. Fast forward nine weeks and I think these two are better than the two who whipped 'em. It's a funny game.

8. USC: We will all know how good a coach Pete Carroll really is this time next week after the Oregon game.

9. Notre Dame: If they switched uniforms, Notre Dame would look a lot like Louisville. Now that would be an interesting match-up.

10. LSU: Welcome back. We are now at the point of the season where it means something to be the best two-loss team in the country. Oklahoma fans, of course, would argue that their team doesn't really have two losses yet, but I wouldn't take the Sooners over the Bayou Bengals.

Next week is chock full of good stuff. Tennessee going to Arkansas is the best of the lot, but I will be very intrigued by Wake Forest at Florida State. Of course Ohio State and Michigan going to Northwestern and Indiana apparently aren't gimmes anymore, now are they?

Copyright 2006

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