Not much has happened in the college football world so far this season.
Duke finally won a game (oops). Napoleon is winning some games down in Bama. USC is good. LSU is better (take that, Napoleon). The Big Ten is better than expected and the ACC is horrendous.
But the biggest story of the college football season is the rise of the little guys.
The college football season began with Appalachian State beating Michigan. Three weeks later the Appys lost to Wofford – meaning Michigan is woeful, Penn State is bad and Notre Dame is as bad as it can be. And I-AA Northern Iowa beat Iowa State, who beat Iowa, meaning I lied – the Big Ten is still bad.
And there were the I-A nobodies racking up upsets. Duke beat NU (oops again), Syracuse knocked off Louisville, Utah stomped UCLA and Troy thumped Oklahoma State.
What does this mean?
Well, it could be that college football is down this year. Or, due to the reduction of scholarships, it’s easier for bottom dwellers to work their way back to contention earlier because the top teams can’t hord all the top recruits.
Whatever it means, it’s good for college football. It’s boring to have the same Top 25 every single year. It’s annoying to have to care about Nebraska because of college football. It’s painful, especially coming from a UCLA family, to see USC on top of the polls at some point of every season.
Since USC is still at the top of the polls college football obviously hasn’t gone that wacky, but these upsets could be the calm before the storm. College football could be headed to a college basketball level of parity.
I know what you’re thinking. Stop.
PLAYOFFS? You want to talk about playoffs? (Said in a whiny yet surprisingly screamy voice). Just because there is parity doesn’t mean college football should leave the bowl system. Bowl season is great. Well, no it’s not, but because there isn’t a playoff every Saturday is exciting and could eliminate someone from national championship contention. So who needs playoffs? Collegefootball already has a system that works much better.
And now you’re ready to be actually informed by reading the rest of Gameday!
Gameday editor Abe Rakov is a Medill Senior. He can be reached at [email protected].
