Bottom 10: S-E-C! S-E-C?
— -- The Bottom 10 inspirational thought of the week:
Maybe it's been crazy and maybe I'm to blame
But I put my heart above my head
We've been through it all and you loved me just the same
And when you're not there I just need to hear...
Hello, my friend, hello
It's good to need you so
It's good to love you like I do
And to feel this way
When I hear you say, hello...
-- "Hello Again" by Neil Diamond
It was July 4 and I was sitting on the beach with my stack of college football preseason magazines. You know the ones. As I devoured them page by page a steady stream of foot traffic trucked by back and forth, ignoring me as I ignored them.
Then a guy in a Roll Tide tank top stopped and shouted. "Hey, man. I've been walking by here all week and I've seen you reading those magazines every day! But you're always reading the back pages. I ain't seen you looking at the front of one of them yet. What the hail are you doing?!"
"Research," I told him, flipping my Lindy's around to reveal the page I was reading, the one with the corners folded over, highlighter marks all over it, and a big photo of Kansas safety Fish Smithson. "Rock Chalk, son."
Listen, any schmoe can start up in the high rent end of a magazine that proudly proclaims "WE RANK ALL 128 FBS TEAMS!" But here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located in the storage room where Paul Finebaum stocks the Turtle Wax for his head, we believe in starting with team No. 128 and climbing our way up.
It's like Bruce Wayne when he had to get out of that cave prison with a broken back. It's excruciating. But did you see that look on the Dark Knight's face when he finally emerged? Sure, he had no idea where he was and still had to travel thousands of miles to get back to Gotham City only to have a weird fight with an unintelligible bad guy, get stabbed in the ribs and die in a nuclear blast ... but hey, he still looked relieved, right?
Over the weekend you may have recognized that same look on the faces of UCF, Texas State, Eastern Michigan, Louisiana-Monroe and, yes, Kansas. All were contenders for the 2015 Bottom 10 crown and all emerged in 2016 as winners. We certainly saw that look on the faces of the Jayhawks fans, who stormed the field after the team's first win in 15 games. Sure, it was against Rhode Island, a bad FCS school. And sure, they still have to go to Memphis, Texas Tech, Baylor and Oklahoma all before Halloween. But hey, they still looked relieved, right?
Anyway, like Neil Diamond dialing the phone creepily at 2 a.m., we're glad to have them back on the line as we emerge from the darkness of summer.
With apologies to Yussel Rabinovitch and Steve Harvey, here's the first Bottom 10 of the 2016 season.
1. Huh-why-yuh (0-2)
Hawaii made a 10,000-mile round trip to lose to Cal 51-31. Then Hawaii made a 9,000-mile round trip to lose to Michigan 63-3. If my math is right -- and it rarely is -- the Rainbow Warriors have traveled 19,000 miles to become the nation's first 0-2 team. In related news, on Sunday I ran around my house 40 times in 100 degree heat and then had my wife hit me in the face with a shovel.
2. North Texas Forty (0-1)
For all of the talk of the Greatest Opening Weekend Ever and the pats on the backs of the folks in Atlanta, Green Bay and Arlington for putting together great early season matchups, we here at Bottom 10 HQ are feeling a little slighted. We worked hard to get this earliest-ever Pillow Fight of the Week on the calendar between North Texas and SMU, both of whom finished last year in the top bottom six of the Bottom 10. And while Jerry Jones and Chick-Fil-A may have offered up millions of dollars to book their teams, we simply offered a promise to the winner of our game that they would receive: (A) A free pass from our Week 1 rankings and (B) a sandwich bag full of tokens from Chuck-E-Cheese. So, if you need Chad Morris, he'll be at the Skee-Ball pit.
3. Charlotte 0and1'ers (0-1)
Speaking of great matchups, we here at Bottom HQ are already lobbying the producers of College Gameday to do their Week 3 show from Eastern Michigan at Charlotte. And by lobbying I mean being hung up on, having my Twitter blocked and having all emails from my address flagged as spam.
4. Warshington State (0-1)
What was it Crash Davis said to Nuke Laloosh? "Your shower shoes have fungus on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with fungus on your shower shoes. Think classy, you'll be classy. If you win 20 in the show, you can let the fungus grow back and the press'll think you're colorful. Until you win 20 in the show, however, it means you are a slob." Somewhere someone is saying to Mike Leach, "Your opening weekends have FCS losses on them. You'll never make it to the bigs with FCS losses on your opening weekends. Think classy, you'll be classy. If you beat an FCS team on opening weekend, you can talk like a pirate and quote Geronimo and the press will think you're colorful. Until you beat an FCS team on opening weekend, however, it means you are weird."
5. S-E-C! S-E-C!
Maybe you heard, but the conference had an interesting weekend. In all fairness, five of the seven teams that lost were arguably the five teams expected to be at the bottom of the league standings and the ones really locked down the year's first Covered Fifth Spot. But it wasn't so much that they lost. It was how they lost. Just like it wasn't so much that the other teams won. It was how they won. With the exception of Alabama, the victorious teams and their fans all looked like they were playing and watching their games after a colony of fire ants had been dumped into their pants.
6. Buffalo Bills, er Bulls (0-1)
Not only was this the first time that Albany defeated Buffalo in a non-Division II game, it had to be the only time that a Great Dane ever beat up a Bull.
7. New Mexico State (0-1)
The Other Aggies lost to former Bottom 10 stalwart UTEP. Now it's on to the game so awesome it has two nicknames, the Rio Grande Rivalry and the Battle of I-25. New Mexico State and New Mexico have been meeting on the football field since 1894. New Mexico was merely a U.S. territory until 1912. Little known fact: Back then they were known as New Mexico Not Yet A State Aggies.
8. UMess (0-1)
Heads up ... only 81 days until UMass visits Hawaii.
9. Northwestern (0-1)
I was honestly torn here. Which was the worst B1G outcome, Northwestern losing to Western Michigan or Rutgers being housed by Washington? In the search for an answer I took it the streets via the inaugural Bottom 10 Poll of the People on Twitter. The Wildcats were the overwhelming choice, 70 percent to 30 percent. So, hey at least they won something, right?
10. Kansas (1-0)
Yes, I am fully aware that in the intro I applauded the passion of Kansas fans and even compared them to Batman. Yes, I am aware that the Jayhawks are currently undefeated. But yes, I am also aware that when the small group of students who actually bothered to show up for the game decided to storm the field, the public address announcer publicly shamed them by declaring over the loudspeakers: "This is a new era of Kansas football, an era in which you should expect to win." He could have saved oxygen by just saying "Get off my lawn!"
Waiting list: Temple of Doom (0-1), Tulane to Turn Back Now (0-1), UVA (0-1), I-OW-uh State (0-1), Stuck in a Rutgers (0-1), FI(not A)U 0-1, Colora-DOH! State (0-1), replay delays so long you could go mow the lawn, cheap shot late hits when games are over.