Expecting the college football gods to give us a second helping of last week’s madness is asking a lot. Four undefeated Top-10 schools fell, and three different crowds rushed the field, with the Vols starting a GoFundMe-type deal for their goalposts that were dumped into the Tennessee River.
You don’t dare ask your parents to go back to Disney World a week later, nor is it smart to seek permission from your better half for another guy’s (or gal’s) weekend before the booze from a bachelor (or bachelorette) party in Vegas is even out of your system. The most you can hope for is maybe a trip to the arcade (if those are still a thing), or a round of golf with your work buddies. Let’s not get greedy, and simply be thankful for what we’ve been given.
And that is unbeaten UCLA visiting a one-loss Oregon team. How about another matchup of flawless teams (at least record-wise) in upstart Syracuse looking to knock off ACC overlord Clemson? There’s also the Insufferable Coach Bowl with Brian Kelly’s LSU squad hosting Lane Kiffin’s 7-0 Ole Miss. TCU has its fourth-straight game versus a ranked opponent as Deuce Vaughn and Kansas State come to Fort Worth. Even though Alabama is a 21-point favorite over Mississippi State, the Tide’s pass defense has been shredded by good passing games, and Will Rogers leads the SEC in passing.
It might not be 48 hours of euphoria, and that’s OK. If every weekend was a quest to one-up the last, we’d constantly be let down. It’s like Peter La Fleur said in “Dodgeball”: “I found that if you have a goal, you might not reach it. But if you don’t have one, then you are never disappointed.”
So with that, let’s take a whip around these games.
