Well, boys, the day started normally enough with two game outcomes that warm our Heathen hearts: Charlie’s Irish dropped to 0 and 5 against the still-undefeated (yet unranked) Purdue, 33 to 19. They’re completely helpless, and will likely remain so for a while: the next three Notre Dame games are UCLA, #7 BC, and #2 USC. Welcome to the land of 0 and 8, Charlie. (They did manage to notch a passing TD this week, and (as we’ve said) no one can take that away from them.)
To add to this righteousness, we travel to the wilds of Illinois to see Joe Pa get whipped again, this time by Illinois to the tune of 27-20. This one gives the Illini their first win against a “ranked” team since 2001, though if anything ever deserved as asterisk in the annals of sport, it’s this distinction. Formerly ranked 21, the Lions dropped off the list on the “strength” of this loss.
These two may have been the only two “normal” outcomes all Saturday, since by now you’ve heard of the huge passel of upsets we saw. #3 OU got topped by Colorado; #7 Texas fell to KSU; and somehow Urban Meyer couldn’t get it done against Auburn. Another top-10 team, Rutgers, also fell (to unranked Maryland, 34-24), but that’s less surprising given the overall punyness of the Big East. The upset that almost happened was with USC, who only barely escaped unranked Washington 27-24. More on this later.
Comes now the bad news: Somehow, Saban managed to blow what should have been a win against the Seminoles, who walked away with a 21 to 14 win and their first-ever victory over the Tide. We reckon FSU and Bowden wanted it more, but it still bites — and, of course, it hurts the Nick Saban PointsPerMillion calculation. Our winning points total falls to 53 after deducting the 7 point margin here, so the new value is 1.656. Let’s get this value up, Nicky! Times a-wastin’!
Finally, the big news: The AP sees LSU in the top spot, dropping USC to #2, then Cal, Ohio State, Wisconsin, South Florida (!), BC, Kentucky, the fallen Gators (still the highest-ranked team with a loss), and Oklahoma. Texas falls to 19; Rutgers is in at 21. USAToday sees it a bit differently, but even there LSU’s only 30 points from the top spot (1483 vs. 1454).