Bottom 10: Digital bullies from Michigan earn their spot
— -- The Bottom 10 inspirational thought of the week:
And if I should falter,
Would you open your arms out to me.
We can make love not war,
And live at peace with our hearts.
Don't you tell me no.
Soul, I hear you calling.
Oh baby, please give a little respect to me.
-- "A Little Respect," by Erasure
At the top of the college football food chain, they called it Separation Saturday. It was a weekend-long clash of the would-be playoff titans that produced improbable, impossible finishes. Here at the other end, at Bottom 10 HQ, located in a Rubbermaid storage shed next to the warehouse where Danny Kanell keeps all his tweed vests, we called it Shakeup Saturday. For we, too, had plenty of improbable, impossible finishes.
We had teams, like, winning and stuff.
Georgia State Not Southern won. Why, Oming? won. Tejas State ... Fres-No State ... the Army Black Nots ... winner, winner, winner! A handful of the teams that still lost managed to make a game of it. Yeah, we saw you, Kansas and UCF.
And in the middle of it all, as typically happens during this, the middle of the season, an annual phenomenon took place. Like the annual migration of the wildebeest, the complaints about a team being shown no respect by being included in the Bottom 10 are replaced. By what? Demands that a team be shown due respect by being included in the Bottom 10.
Like @tcatsuko lobbying for Tulane, retweeting the fact that the Green Wave posted more penalties (11) than first downs (10) in their loss to Houston.
Or Tyson Woodford (aka @skoshtheyosh) stating his case for Nevada, the team that fell to Wyoming.
Or @NickAnders pushing for Nebraska, via the Huskers' four losses in the final 15 seconds or beyond.
Then there was our favorite correspondence of the year, maybe of all time:
In the end, that's what this is all about. Educating the people and allowing them to educate us.
That's called mutual respect.
With apologies to Aretha Franklin and Steve Harvey, here's this week's Bottom 10.
1. UC(not S)F (0-7)
The Knights pushed undefeated Temple hard, leading 16-14 all the way into the start of the fourth quarter, but lost 30-16 after a pair of Jahad Thomas TDs. The Fightin' O'Learys take over the top spot this week after becoming the first FBS team this season to reach seven losses. I suppose we should have expected a psychological letdown after the tumultuous roller coaster of emotion that was the Civil ConFLiCT. Not sure what the excuse was for the previous six losses.
2. North Texas Forty (0-6)
As the frog sang, it's not easy being green, even when it's Mean Green. The team's first game without coach Dan McCarney looked pretty much identical to the five with him. This weekend, UNT travels to Marshall to determine, once and for all, who is Conference USA's greenest green? They should let both teams wear all green and see if they vanish into the turf during pregame calisthenics.
3. Kansas (0-6)
The Nayhawks put a genuine scare into Texas Tech, so much so that at halftime Kliff Kingsbury actually changed his face from blue steel to magnum.
4. New Mexico State (0-6)
The Other Aggies fell to conference leader Georgia Southern. This weekend brings another one of those classic regional rivalries that only the Fun Belt can provide, as Troy visits Las Cruces. Thankfully, it's Troy University and not my cousin Troy. He's a jerk.
5. Digital Tough Guys from Michigan (0-1)
Speaking of jerks, anyone who sent ugly tweets and death threats to Michigan punter Blake O'Neill after the Michigan State loss should be invited to attend all of the Wolverines' remaining 2015 home games. They can scrub the toilets with toothbrushes.
6. Troy (1-5)
We told you it was Shakeup Saturday. We could have called it Swap Meet Saturday, because three teams that had the audacity to actually win moved out of our rankings, making room for a trio of new squads to move in. That triumvirate traverses the standings and trails the Trojans of Troy, who travel transcontinentally to try to trip up the tricky team of New Mexico State. If you're scoring at home, this will be Pillow Fight of the Week of Year 5 (PFOWY5).
7. Louisiana Monroe (1-5)
Drafting in behind Troy (NASCAR term!) is ULM, which will get on a plane to go face Idaho, the team it just replaced in our rankings. That game is at 5 p.m. ET. The Troy-NMSU game is at 8 p.m. We were tempted to declare back-to-back PFOWY5's, but the Bottom 10 bylaws prevent us from doing that. At least we think they do. We weren't actually able to read the bylaws because Bottom 10 selection committee chairman Watson Brown spilled Yoo-hoo all over them.
8. The Boys From Oopsilanti(1-6)
A year ago these rankings were an all-out open-field throwdown between the Sun Belt and the MAC, like a "Lord of the Rings" battle if it had been fought on banana peels. But this year, the Eagles have been left alone to defend the MACtion's honor against a Fun Belt invasion. No ... wait ... who is that coming over the ridge?
9. My Hammy Of Ohio (1-6)
It's the Redhawks, riding in to help EMU like Gandalf at Helm's Deep! OK ... I want to apologize for totally nerding out there. Someone in my house has TNT on the TV.
10. FA(not I)U (1-5)
The House That Schnellenberger Built hasn't been a happy place of late, hosting a 33-17 loss to Marshall just one week after a soul-crushing 27-26 defeat at the hands of Rice in the Owl Bowl. This weekend, they travel to UTEP to complete the Pillow Fight of the Week tripleheader. Wait y'all, I just realized something. There's a really good chance that Troy-NMSU, ULM-Idaho and FAU-UTEP will all overlap around 8 p.m. All due respect to Han Solo, but in my world, that moment will make Monday night's "Star Wars" trailer premiere feel like a joke. And it also might be the moment that my world explodes like Alderaan.
Waiting list: Tejas State (1-4), U-Mess (1-5), Pur-don't (1-6), SMU (1-5), R.O.C.K. in the UTSA (1-6), Why, Oming? (1-6), UNLV (2-5), Huh-why-yuh (2-5), Ohio State stealing the Miami Sharks' uniforms.