Editor's note: The video above is a preview of Jared Goff and the Cal Bears facing off against Josh Rosen and UCLA
The Top 25 More Or Less hated this week’s college football schedule; I mean, if the marquee game is Ohio State-Rutgers, the sport does not deserve to exist.
Harsh? Yes, but sometimes as the saying goes, you have to be cruel to be cruel, and I’m perfectly good with cruelty in the defense of cruelty.
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1. TOLEDO (7-0, 6-0-1, 2-5): When you always cover, you are beloved in the eyes of the life force that guides us all.
2. HOUSTON (7-0, 5-2, 4-2-1): When you almost always cover, you are liked a lot by the life force that guides us all. This is true for all three members of the AAC-is Of Evil.
3. MEMPHIS (7-0, 4-2-1, 5-2): When you push against South Florida, the life force that guides us all will get a little irked from time to time.
4. TEMPLE (7-0, 5-2, 3-4): The old “But they don’t play anybody” argument doesn’t work here because based on this season, nobody plays anybody, because nobody is anybody.
5. CLEMSON (7-0, 4-3, 4-3): Overcame the Al Golden Must Be Fired air fleet over Sun Life Stadium to maul Miami.
6. BAYLOR (7-0, 4-2, 5-2): Should have covered against Iowa State. Didn’t. As V.T. Lombardi once said, “Winning isn’t everything, but damn it, Iowa State.”
7. OKLAHOMA STATE (7-0, 4-3, 3-4): Beat Kansas 58-10, which is still paying Charlie Weis.
8. TCU (7-0, 3-4, 4-3): Gary Patterson spent his bye day gnawing the trunk off a tree.
9. IOWA (7-0, 5-2, 4-2-1): Equally inert, idle and indolent. Kirk Ferentz had a beer and combed his hair seven times.
10. STANFORD (7-1, 7-1, 4-4): One of the end zone shots of Stanford’s second touchdown made it look like Stanford’s short yardage formation should be called the Wall Of Ass. This may just be because white pants tend to make you look wider when you’re hunched down and about to run into someone with a similar body type, but it cries out for some student entrepreneur needing a grade in his or her design class to get to work on a T-shirt.
11. SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI (5-3, 7-1): That 7-1 makes them the safest bet in the nation next to Toledo, right up until the last day of the year against Louisiana Tech.
12. NOTRE DAME (7-1, 7-1, 5-3): Did nothing. Risked nothing. Call it the ultimate push.
13. MICHIGAN STATE (8-0, 2-6, 4-4): Covered against Indiana Saturday, and the Hoosier punting game was not needlessly embarrassed in the deed.
14. GEORGIA TECH (3-5, 3-5, 5-3): On the other hand, the Jackets did that very thing to the Florida State field goal kicking unit, so there’s that.
15. LSU (7-0, 4-3, 6-1): You couldn’t believe in them until the big win over Western Kentucky.
16. JOHN TORTORELLA (1-1, 1-8): Took the Columbus Blue Jackets job, promptly lost to the best team in hockey and then beat one of the poorest in true 49er-y fashion. It won’t last, and ultimately Torts will Tort up some classic Tortery before Christmas. This is going to blow up good, blow up reeeeal good.
17. ALABAMA (7-1, 3-5, 3-5): Nick Saban can get cranky too, but Tortorella would squeeze his head into spackle with a hard stare by the second question.
18. MARSHAWN LYNCH (27 carries, 122 yards, one touchdown): Lots of people do that, but Lynch’s splits were interesting -– 39 yards and a score before puking up his guts, 83 yards after. Beat that, Leonard Fournette.
19. ABC: Ohio State 49, Rutgers 0. You deserve everything you get for this one, kids.
20. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA (4-3, 4-3, 4-3): Judging by the nauseating “this is why USC is a great job for any coach” love from the Twitterigentsia, USC is the equivalent of great sex with a really lousy companion.
21. NEW ZEALAND (13-0): Rallied to beat South Africa, 20-18, to reach the final of the Rugby World Cup, and waited patiently to see if Australia could beat Argentina on Sunday to make it the championship of the southwestiest corner of the Pacific Ocean, and all the destroyed taverns on three large islands plus Tasmania.
22. MARSHALL (7-1, 5-3, 3-5): Projected to play Temple in the Miami Beach Bowl December 21, which means an attendance of mostly people who went to neither school.
23. WASHINGTON STATE (5-2, 4-2, 3-3): Losing to Portland State in Week One didn’t seem to break Cap’n Mikey’s pirate soul.
24. SANDI TOKSVIG (unbeaten): This means nothing to any of you, but in 2016 she will inherit Stephen Fry’s role as host of QI, the smartest yet funniest TV show ever devised (YouTube it, and you don’t need YouTube Red to do so). She would have rated higher here, but the news is almost two weeks old.
25. OLD DOMINION (3-4, 0-7, 2-4-1): If you always fail to cover, you’re almost as useful to us as if you always cover –- never forget that.
Now go away.