Prescott, Pitt, Playoff and Perry
— -- So how about that for a half-season of college football? Are you not entertained? Did the sport make you an offer you can't refuse?
What lays ahead? Who the heck knows. If you believe your team is still alive for the inaugural College Football Playoff, you've got to ask yourself one question: "Do I feel lucky?"
Well do 'ya?
Our list of top-25 surprises, shockers, random factoids and bits of nuttiness thus far.
25. Guess which now fired coach is being paid like he's headed for the College Football Playoff? Charlie Weis was fired at Kansas on Sept. 28, but don't cry for him. His combined severance from Notre Dame and Kansas in 2015 will be nearly $4.6 million, which will rank him among the 10 highest paid coaches in the country.
24. No Coker and a smile: When Jake Coker opted to transfer to Alabama from Florida State, many immediately penciled him in as the Crimson Tide starter. Those sentiments only intensified when Seminoles coach Jimbo Fisher said Coker was the most talented QB Nick Saban had ever had at Alabama. Yet Blake Sims prevailed in their closely watched competition, and is still leading the Crimson Tide offense.
23. Texas Tech was supposed to be a hot team under coach Brad Pitt: After going 8-5 in his debut, including an upset win over Arizona State in the Holiday Bowl, folks had coach Kliff Kingsbury and Texas Tech as a potential factor in the Big 12 race. Or at least they'd be competitive in the middle of the pack. Well, the Red Raiders and their GQ coach are 2-4 overall after losing four in a row and are 0-3 in Big 12 play, with TCU, Texas, Oklahoma and Baylor remaining on the schedule.
22. This catch is not possible: Every week there are great plays. But this grab -- play of the year? - by LSU WR Travin Dural doesn't even seem possible. It's not just that he made a one-handed grab for a TD, it's that he made a one-handed grab on a fade route while getting mauled by a Florida defender. It's a combination of concentration and athletic ability you will rarely see.
21. Temple is 4-1!: Guess who is tied for first in the AAC? That would be Temple, which went 2-10 last year, its first under coach Matt Rhule. The Owls opened the season with a 37-7 blowout win over Vanderbilt -- an SEC team! -- and are riding a three-game winning streak.
20. Big 12 ... almost: The Big 12 had three superpowers, all presently ranked in the top 7 of the AP poll, on the ropes but couldn't close the deal. West Virginia put up a stout battle against Alabama before yielding 33-23, Oklahoma State gave Florida State a scare in a 37-31 loss, and Kansas State missed three field goals in a 20-14 defeat to Auburn. Oh, for one or two more plays, what might have been. ...
19. Virginia is 4-2: Here's a good way to get yourself off the hot seat. After going 2-10 and 0-8 in 2013, Mike London has the Cavaliers in first place in the ACC Coastal Division at 2-0. Game at Duke on Saturday has real ramifications.
18. East Carolina and QB Shane "Pick a" Carden/Marshalling the forces under Rakeem Cato: Here we tip our cap to the top-25 teams from outside of the Power 5 conferences, who both happen to be led by outstanding quarterbacks. East Carolina and Shane Carden, with a far tougher schedule, including wins over Virginia Tech and North Carolina, is the favorite to play its way into a major bowl game, but Rakeem Cato is worth looking up. Heck of a player.
17. Kentucky is Stoops-ing to conquer: Only a year ago, some dipstick rated Kentucky the sixth worse college football job in America. Of course, that guy is so dumb he had to call 411 to get the number for 911. Under second-year coach Mark Stoops, Kentucky is 5-1 and riding a three-game winning streak. It's also 2-1 in the SEC. Last time the Wildcats had a winning SEC mark? 1977. The schedule ahead isn't easy, but the Wildcats may have a few more surprises in them.
16. Boykin is a QB? Yesss! While the loss at Baylor on Saturday was dispiriting, there's no question that one of the biggest surprises this year is TCU QB Trevone Boykin and a resurgent Horned Frogs offense. New O-coordinators Doug Meacham and Sonny Cumbie have transformed an athlete playing QB into a QB who happens to be a great athlete, one who ranks seventh in the nation with 353.6 yards of total offense per game. TCU, a traditional defensive power, ranks third in the nation with 45.8 points per game with Boykin behind center.
15. California has risen from the dead: Cal went 1-11 last season and didn't win a Pac-12 game. It was outscored 551 to 276. The Bears might have been the worst team playing Power 5 conference football last year. Yet they are presently 4-2 overall and 2-2 in Pac-12 play -- a Hail Mary pass at Arizona from being 5-1 and 3-1, in fact. While the 31-7 home loss to Washington on Saturday showed the Bears haven't fully arrived, their turnaround is as dramatic as any in the nation.
14. Rutgers has achieved legitimacy in Year 1 of Big Ten play: Rutgers is 5-1 overall and 1-1 in its first year of Big Ten membership, a 13-10 loss to Penn State away from being undefeated. Much-malinged QB Gary Nova presently ranks 14th in the nation in ESPN.com's Total QBR. While the toughest part of the schedule lies ahead, coach Kyle Flood has led the Scarlet Knights to a respectable start as they transition out of the AAC, where they went 3-5 last season.
13. North Carolina is awful: Remember when ESPN pundits Travis Haney, Brock Huard, Tom Luginbill, Todd McShay and Mark Schlabach made a "Future Power Rankings" for college football that ranked North Carolina 21st? And remember when I wrote this? No? But guess who does remember? UNC, ranked 23rd in the preseason, is presently 2-4 and 0-2 in the ACC, having lost four consecutive games, and it owns pretty much the nation's worst defense.
12. Duke, Minnesota and Baylor are - gasp! - still good: Imagine that you fell asleep after the 2007 college football season and woke up Sunday morning and went to your local sports bar because that's what everyone would do after a 7-year nap. In 2007, Duke went 1-11, Baylor went 3-9 and Minnesota went 1-11, so you'd immediately start comparing every team that was bad to Duke, Baylor and Minnesota. But everyone would look at you like you were crazy. "Duke, Baylor and Minnesota are a combined 16-2," baffled folks would tell you. You'd then faint and sleep again for seven years, in the meantime becoming a staple piece of said sports bar's feng shui.
11. Halliday ... celebrate ... it would be so nice ... but you lost: Washington State QB Connor Halliday set a new FBS passing record with 734 yards against California, breaking the mark of 716 set by David Klingler of Houston in 1990. Breaking a 24-year-old record in such a major category is unquestionably a landmark moment, but Halliday was a bit saturnine after the game for a significant reason: His team lost 60-59, missing a 19-yard FG for the win.
10. Katy Perry has a real chance to become a star! When College GameDay landed for the first time at Ole Miss, it invited an obscure pop singer on set and, wow, did she make an impression. This Katy Perry, who successfully picked the Rebels to beat Alabama, really has some upside. We're going to project big things for her future. Of course, we have some advice on how she might improve her brand, pick up a few Twitter followers, increase her name recognition and maybe get on the radio every once and a while. Katy, call us (my wife said it's OK).
9. Bruins cruising for a bruising: UCLA started the season ranked No. 7, and more than a few folks viewed the Bruins as a candidate for the College Football Playoff. But after two consecutive losses, UCLA is unranked and struggling. Adding to the perception of the team coming unwound was a prolonged and spirited sideline spat between head coach Jim Mora and defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich during the loss Saturday to Oregon.
8. Star-crossed lovers in Tuscaloosa: Nick Saban and Lane Kiffin got married in the offseason, and immediately folks began looking for comparable couples: Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton or Liberace and Scott Thorson or Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen or Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake or ... well, fill in the blank. It's been hot -- 42 points and 642 yards against Florida -- and cold -- 21 points over the past two weekends. But it hasn't been boring, even if Saban doesn't let Kiffin talk to the paparazzi.
7. The Ole Ball Coach is miserable: Steve Spurrier is a college football treasure and he's done a great job building South Carolina from an SEC and national afterthought into a contender. Yet the Gamecocks have looked awful this year, other than a win over Georgia, which is more about his long-standing voodoo curse on the Bulldogs than anything else. To open the season, they were stomped at home by a Texas A&M team that has since been unmasked as pretty middling, and are presently riding a two-game losing streak, including a loss at Kentucky. Rumor has it his trademark visor is presently upgrading its health insurance, anticipating some epic throws at the climax of sideline tantrums.
6. Michigan, Texas and Florida are a combined 8-10: Michigan and Texas rank Nos. 1 and 3 in all-time wins. Florida owns three national titles since 1996. All three are recruiting superpowers and have won national titles over the past 20 years. Yet the best you can say about any of the three is Florida is almost mediocre -- as the only one of the troika with a winning record -- and Texas and Michigan showed some scrappiness last weekend. While first-year Texas coach Charlie Strong is obviously in the midst of rebuilding growing pains, many would rate the seats of Michigan's Brady Hoke and Florida's Will Muschamp as scorching hot.
5. Sakes alive, look at the top 5! The preseason top 5 looks pretty much nothing like the present top 5. The only common team is Florida State, and the Seminoles have been pretty much "Days of Our Lives" all season -- though FSU fans' soap opera of choice would be "Dynasty." Preseason: 1. FSU; 2. Alabama; 3. Oregon; 4. Oklahoma; 5. Ohio State. Now? It's: 1. Mississippi State (unranked preseason); 2. FSU; 3. Ole Miss (preseason No. 18); No. 4 Baylor (preseason No. 10); 5. Notre Dame (preseason No. 17).
4. Dak attack! Big Dak has some special sauce! Dak the halls with boughs of holly! Let's face it: Dak is a cool name. We should do a check on Mississippi hospitals to see how big the uptick for "Dak" baby names is. Yet in the preseason Dak Prescott was merely the second-best returning QB -- behind Auburn's Nick Marshall -- in an SEC that was almost comically devoid of proven, quality QBs. Now? He's only the Heisman Trophy frontrunner leading the nation's No. 1 team. It also helps that he's got an inspiring backstory and seems like a high-character guy.
3. Wacko in Waco: When TCU jumped ahead of Baylor 58-37 with 11:38 remaining Saturday, every reasonable person believed the Bears were cooked at home, no matter how fancy-pants their offense is. The math-y folks at ESPN Stats & Information rated their chances of winning at that point at 1.9 percent. Or slightly above none at all.
Yet when the smoked cleared, and struggling kicker Chris Callahan was true on a 28-yard field goal as time expired, Baylor prevailed, erasing that 21-point deficit with 24 unanswered in a 61-58 victory, the scoreboard making like a Vegas slot machine on a Saturday night.
That was the most unlikely victory this season, based on win probability.
2. Rosary beads are trending up: When Roger Staubach, Catholic former QB of the Dallas Cowboys, said of his last-second, game-winning connection with Drew Pearson from midfield against the Minnesota Vikings on Dec. 28, 1975, "I closed my eyes and said a Hail Mary," a football term was born to describe a miraculous finish on a long, desperation pass.
By definition, a "miraculous" play should, you know, not happen very often. Well, as nothing is typical about this season, Power 5 teams are 4-of-12 on Hail Marys with three touchdowns in 2014, including three touchdown tosses in the space of three weeks in the Pac-12, two of which were game-winners: Arizona's 47-yard TD pass from Anu Solomon to Austin Hill for a 49-45 win over California and Arizona State's 46-yard TD from Mike Bercovici to Jaelen Strong for a 38-34 win over USC.
Over the previous three seasons combined, there were just five TD passes on 92 Hail Marys among Power 5 teams, according to Stats LLC.
1. Dan and Hugh went down to the crossroads/Fell down on their knees ... Now, we're not going to imply Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze and/or Mississippi State counterpart Dan Mullen went all Robert Johnson on us near Dockery Plantation in Mississippi blues country at midnight and cut a Faustian deal, but there simply is no equivalent shocker in the recent history of college football than the Bulldogs being ranked No. 1 and Rebels No. 3 -- and with unquestionable legitimacy. Both have earned their high place with dominant victories over the longtime Lords of the SEC West.
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