Do you remember when Robin Williams attempts to teach Nathan Lane how to be a real man in The Birdcage? It’s one of my favorite scenes in one of my favorite movies. Williams asks,
How do you feel about that call today? I mean the Dolphins! Fourth-and-three play on their 30 yard line with only 34 seconds to go!
Today it was the Gators and fourth and one with a little under a minute to go. Either way it’s the same. I just can’t believe it. Again. How does the Heisman trophy winner fail to get a single yard? You really can’t blame Tebow, though. That game was lost on the sidelines.
It was another brutal early season weekend in college football. (Didn’t this happen last year, too?) Yes, seven of the AP top twenty-five teams lost, but that doesn’t make it any easier if you happened to be on the losing side.
Last Sunday I tore through all of Stewart Mandel’s book, Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls: Tackling the Chaos and Controversy that Reign Over College Football, on the flight home to Los Angeles from Orlando, Florida. It’s an excellent primer on the state of the game, and I highly recommend it. After reading it I now understand that the majority of the pollsters who decide the rankings are almost exactly as qualified as I am.
I am dreading the release of the polls tomorrow afternoon. Florida will drop significantly, I’m sure. It was only a one-point loss, but it came in the Swamp, where we’re supposed to be invincible. ‘Bama‘s annihilation of Georgia in their house was a much more damaging blow; but if you watched the game, you have got to admire the fact that the Dawgs were only a few ill-fated bounces away from somehow tying it, even after looking pathetic in the first half. Here’s how I would have the Top 25 if I got a vote:
| DVG | AP | USA Today | |
| 1. | Alabama (5-0) | Oklahoma (4-0) | Oklahoma (4-0) |
| 2. | Oklahoma (4-0) | Alabama (5-0) | LSU (4-0) |
| 3. | LSU (4-0) | LSU (4-0) | Missouri (4-0) |
| 4. | Penn State (5-0) | Missouri (4-0) | Alabama (5-0) |
| 5. | Missouri (4-0) | Texas (4-0) | Texas (4-0) |
| 6. | Georgia (4-1) | Penn State (5-0) | Penn State (5-0) |
| 7. | Texas (4-0) | Texas Tech (4-0) | BYU (4-0) |
| 8. | USC (2-1) | BYU (4-0) | Texas Tech (4-0) |
| 9. | Florida (3-1) | USC (2-1) | USC (2-1) |
| 10. | BYU (4-0) | South Florida (5-0) | Georgia (4-1) |
| 11. | Auburn (4-1) | Georgia (4-1) | South Florida (5-0) |
| 12. | South Florida (5-0) | Florida (3-1) | Ohio State (4-1) |
| 13. | Vanderbilt (4-0) | Auburn (4-1) | Florida (3-1) |
| 14. | Ohio State (4-1) | Ohio State (4-1) | Auburn (4-1) |
| 15. | Utah (5-0) | Utah (5-0) | Utah (5-0) |
| 16. | Wisconsin (3-1) | Kansas (3-1) | Kansas (3-1) |
| 17. | Texas Tech (4-0) | Boise State | Wisconsin (3-1) |
| 18. | Michigan (2-2) | Wisconsin (3-1) | Boise State |
| 19. | Fresno State (3-1) | Vanderbilt (4-0) | Vanderbilt (4-0) |
| 20. | Northwestern (5-0) | Virginia Tech (4-1) | Oregon (4-1) |
| 21. | Nebraska (3-1) | Oklahoma State (4-0) | Fresno State (3-1) |
| 22. | Kentucky (4-0) | Fresno State (3-1) | Oklahoma State (4-0) |
| 23. | Connecticut (5-0) | Oregon (4-1) | Connecticut (5-0) |
| 24. | Mississippi (3-2) | Connecticut (5-0) | Virginia Tech (4-1) |
| 25. | Florida State (3-1) | Wake Forest (3-1) | Wake Forest (3-1) |