[Editor’s note: A trio of Power 5 programs join our list of Bottom 10 regulars, all setting up this week’s colossal showdown between UConn and Vanderbilt.]
Inspirational thought of the week:
There’ve been times in my life
I’ve been wondering why
Still, somehow I believed we’d always survive
Now, I’m not so sure
You’re waiting here, one good reason to try
But what more can I say? What’s left to provide?
Are you gonna wait for a sign, your miracle?
Stand up and fight
This is it!
Make no mistake where you are
This is it!
Your back’s to the corner
This is it!
Don’t be a fool anymore
This is it!
— “This Is It,” Kenny Loggins
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located in an abandoned apartment above the Fantastic Sams where the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers get their mullets trimmed and bleached, we, like all living mammals, live our lives by the clock and the calendar, constantly counting down to the next monumental milestone memory by which we mark the progress of our lives.
Weddings. Funerals. The birth of our children. UConn visiting Vanderbilt.
The rest of the college football world spent the summer looking at preseason college football magazines and started using a highlighter pen to mark the likes of Clemson-Georgia and Oregon-Ohio State. But we had already circled this date with a thick, black permanent marker and a pad full of those yellow and red “SIGN HERE” arrows that we pulled off all the cease-and-desist letters we’ve received over the past decade from Randy Edsall’s attorneys.
The time is here. The time is nigh. The Huskies are finally flying to Music City. Someone let the manager at Tootsie’s know that Broadway is about to hear some blues sung the likes of which haven’t been crooned since Hank Williams Sr. died.
With apologies to Anthony Sherman, Jay Cutler and Steve Harvey, here’s the 2021 Week 4 rankings.
1. UMess (0-4)
Wait … are we really going to do that whole long, elaborate intro about UConn and then replace it in the top bottom spot? Yes, we are, and our reasoning for doing so is as sound as the sounds of anguish that emanated from the shores of South Carolina on Saturday night. That’s where the Minutemen were squashed like a piece of gum on the Myrtle Beach Boardwalk, edged out by Coastal Carolina 53-3. What’s more, this weekend they face the Toledo Bottle Rockets, who were in the Bottom 10 last week, and two weeks from now travel to Florida State, which is in the Bottom 10 again this week. In between, the Minutemen host the team they just displaced in this spot, but we don’t have to go far to find them …
2. U-Can’t (0-5)
The Huskies snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, holding a six-point lead over undefeated Wyoming late into the fourth quarter … then falling behind by eight … then scoring with four seconds to go to trail by two … then failing on the two-point conversion and losing 24-22. Randy Edsall scheduled a postgame news conference to discuss the loss, but it was canceled after the guy from “Mean Girls” shouted from the crowd, “He doesn’t even go here!”
3. Florida State Semi-No’s (0-4)
After trailing Louisville by 24 and rallying to lose 31-23, coach Mike Norvell used his Monday media availability to make an impassioned speech about the first FSU team to start 0-4 since 1974, two seasons before Bobby Bowden was hired. Meanwhile, Miami coach Manny Diaz was giving a nearly simultaneous talk from his podium in Coral Gables, where the Canes are now 2-2. When FSU and Miami meet Nov. 13, the game will be called the Dude Drinking Coffee In Front Of The Fire Gif Bowl.
4. By The Time I Get To Arizona (0-4)
We pulled out the Bottom 10 Media Guide to find the last time two Power 5 teams were ranked in the Bottom 5, but someone spilled grape Fanta all over it, and we couldn’t get the pages unstuck. Also, if you are a Power 5 team that is in the Bottom 10, should we pull the plug on your use of the word Power? Would that make you a Cower 5 team? A Sour 5 team? A Dour 5 team?
5. Clempson (2-2)
The Tigers land in the Coveted Fifth Spot after losing to NC State, a long, bitter rivalry between two of the most passionate football programs in the seven-decade history of the ACC. They call it the Textile Bowl. Over the next three weeks, Clemson plays Big East defectors Boston College, Syracuse and Pitt. In Upstate South Carolina, they call those the Carpetbagger Bowls.
6. unLv (0-4)
The Fightin’ Tarks caught Fresno State in the middle of a heavy, post-UCLA-win hangover and nearly pulled off the upset, leading halfway through the fourth quarter, before finally falling 38-30. That loss easily prevented Fresno State from covering the 30-point spread. Perhaps that’s why when the team plane landed back in Las Vegas later that night, the bus was being driven by a guy named Tony Two Toes, who said he wanted to have a word.
7. Ohio Not State (0-4)
The Bobcats faced Bottom 10 Waiting List resident Northworstern, which squeaked out a 35-6 win. Despite that, the mysteriously mystical magic FPI computers say that Ohio is a 63% favorite in this week’s Pillow Fight Undercard matchup with Bottom 10 Waiting Lister Akron-monious, which is 1-3 with a lone win over Bryant Air Conditioning, er, University, and just lost to Ohio State Not Ohio in a 59-7 nail-biter. In related news, our Bottom 10 computer says that Akron is favored in that game, but then again, our computer is a Commodore 64 that we found at a garage sale.
8. Vanderbilt Commode Doors (1-3)
Van-duh-built’s loss to Georgia was such a ship-sinking that the headline accompanying our story on the game was, “The box score doesn’t show how badly Georgia Bulldogs beat Vanderbilt Commodores.” The game against UConn this week will be televised on ESPNU at 7:30 p.m. ET and will re-air on Screambox, the all-horror movie streaming service, until the end of time.
1:47
Auburn comes back late to prevent the upset against the Georgia State Panthers.
9. Georgia Southern Not State (1-3)
The Eagles fell to 1-3 after a loss to Louisiana, fired coach Chad Lunsford and then suspended a senior nose tackle after video surfaced of him standing atop the team bus as it drove to that third straight loss, during which he caught a beer tossed to him from the crowd and shotgunned it. In related news, next week is the 93rd anniversary of the release of the legendary record “Statesboro Blues” by Blind Willie McTell, as in “Hey, Willie, please McTell us about the time that guy from Statesboro bus-surfed his way to a 28-20 loss to the Ragin’ Cajuns.”
10. Whew Mexico State (1-3)
The then-Bottom 10 Wait Listed Other Aggies hosted the then-10th-ranked How? Why? Yuh Warriors in 2021 Pillow Fight of the Week IV and lost by 20 points. But they get a rematch at Hawaii one month from now as part of a rare in-season home-and-home series. They say that revenge is a dish best served cold, but even if you don’t get the revenge, you might as well have it served to you from a Honolulu beach barbecue pit.
Waiting list: #MACtion East (plus Baller State), Kansas Nayhawks, Warshington State, Ill-ugh-noise, Muddled Tennessee State, Ar-can’t-saw State, The Yew, FI(not A)U, Old Duh-minions, Minute Rice, Southern Missed, North Texas Armadillos, Colora-duh State, Georgia State Not Southern, COVID-19.