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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
Inspirational Thought of the Week:
When the chips are down
Back against the wall
There is nothing left to give
Because we gave it all
It seems impossible to get away
But we are far from the beginning
We are halfway there
We are looking good now
And nothing is going to get in the way
We are halfway there
And now look back
I never thought I would ever say
We are halfway there
— “Half There,” Big Time Rush
Here at Bottom 10 headquarters, ensconced in a private investigator’s van full of lie-detector machines that Sean McDonough takes on the road with him to sniff out poorly-acted fake injury flops, we’re crashing at the halfway point of the college football season while driving my mom’s during the parallel parking portion of my driver’s license test. Olds Delta 88 around the corner from the DMV building.
Halfway means there’s still time to turn things around. There are only enough pages left on the refrigerator calendar so you can save the season and turn into the opposite of “The Matrix: Resurrections,” which started out amazing and then turned into a science lecture.
Halfway means you can still put enough distance between you and where you came from so that September dumpster fire disappears over the horizon in your rearview mirror until it becomes a distant, thin column of smoke where you emerge. where you are going
Just make sure you don’t look in that mirror and remember to keep your eyes on the road. Lest you drive your bottom 10 family truckster off the road and into a tar pit, a slowly sinking season will be uncovered by archaeologists years later.
“Dr. Grant! Are these Velociraptor bones?”
“No, they appear to be the remains of an Aggie.”
“New Mexico State or Utah State?”
“Both.”
With apologies to John Hammond, Michael Crichton, Boston College wide receiver Dino Tomlin and Steve Harvey, here are the Week 7 Bottom 10 rankings.
The Golden (Plated) Flash lost last week’s edition of the Pillow Fight of the Week, falling 37-35 at home to Ball State, who entered the game 1-5. This is just the first stanza of a #MACtion banana peel that will see Kent slide through an upcoming schedule that includes 2-4 Boiling Green, 2-4 My Hammy of Ohio and a Nov. 19 pre-Thanksgiving Turkey Bowl 1 vs. 6 Akronmonious, Who occupied this very top/bottom spot just a few weeks ago. I had already started calling “College Gameday” that weekend, but apparently they blocked my number.
The minors fall to the Western Kentucky Red Blobs and begin a seabiscuit-style chase for the goal they see ahead, aka Kent State, through their own wacky Bottom 10 obstacle course. It starts this weekend against 2-4 FI(not A)U, followed by dates with three other teams currently in this ranking: fa-la-la-la-la la-la-la-tech, meh- Dole Tennessee State, and…
The New Owls on the Block (NO²TB) enjoyed their bye week like all owls, seeing how far they could turn their heads and using their night vision to see the walls surrounding the practice field of their Tuesday night opponent, meh-team Tennessee.
Alas, they flew into that wall, fell to the ground — and the Blues fell to the Raiders by an absurd score of 14-5.
The good news for UAB head coach Trent Dilfer is that no one is paying attention to the fact that he looks permanently angry from the “inside out” because in Athens, Georgia, player-Kerby Smart made Dilfer “look like winning from the inside out.”
Note to USC and, heck, UCLA, too: If you’re going to turn college football on its ear and inside out because you spent 2021 frustrated with the state of Pac-12 football, the best you can do in return is, oh, I don’t know, 2021. Stop playing Pac-12 football.
TU, Temple University, played UT, University of Tulsa at home this weekend in PA, where MO SC, aka Santa Claus, is going to yell, “FU!”
These days it’s cool for minor league baseball teams to name temporary mascots for a few weekends each season. The Minuetmen employed that strategy last weekend, becoming Massachusetts chiropractors, as they welcomed Missouri to Amherst and gave the former top-10 team all the right adjustments to get their season back on track after a brutal loss to Texas A&M. .
The other Aggies provided the same relax-the-back service to unLv, which looked to bounce back from its only loss of the year and was outshot 50-34. Now the OOAs face former Bottom 10 member Huey Mexico before Mexico State looks to be a pillow fight of the year candidate, time for a trip to Halloween to face weight lister Ken-OMG-ing. For that, I would dress up like an Aggie, but I’m not sure what one yet.
The great news is that the Blue Raiders won for the first time since Week 1 against FCS foe Tennessee Tech. The not-so-good news is that they beat third-ranked Kennesaw, which isn’t an FCS foe, but was An FCS foe like 10 minutes ago and yet a new FBS foe that they have yet to beat another FBS foe or FCS foe this season. But hey, fly that “w”! Yes, lower case.
But … Tuesday night at the Museum, another Conference USA team, the Bulldogs, pulled a loss from a win, falling to Huey Mexico State in double overtime and falling off the waiting list and into this position. La Tech beat MTSU a week ago but started a three week stretch of Tuesday night matchups with their NMSU loss and next Tuesday they face…second ranked UTEP. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some C-USA, but these people have no interest in watching me live on “Dancing with the Stars.”
Waiting list: Minute Rice, Kansas Nyhawks, Pur-Don’t, UCLA Boo-ins, Flori-Duh State Semi-Nose, Baller State, Southern Missed, Who Mexico State, Whoo Mexico Not Who Mexico State, Miss Sue’s Hippie State, My Hammy of Ohio, Akronmonious, Why-OMG-ing?, Troy Bolton State, shoving players.
