Brian’s College Football Top 5: Week 3

Photo by Randy J. Williams

It was a weekend people had marked on the calendar as soon as the schedule came out, for reasons we will get to, and it sure did deliver.

Here is the top 5 from week 3.

But first, we have to make a quick pit stop elsewhere.

Dishonorable Mention: NC State Wolfpack

NC State is winning by 3 with 6 seconds left.

It’s 4th down. They’re backed into their own end.

They decide that the best course of action here is to waste as much time as possible and then take a safety.

Ideally, you waste all 6 seconds. But even if you don’t, you give Vanderbilt absolutely no time on a punt return to try and get a win.

There are many ways you could take the safety.

You could run straight backwards. You could throw it away high in the air to waste even more time and take an intentional grounding. You could simply stand there and then fall over.

But no.

NC State QB CJ Bailey decided to run right, panic, dive forward, and fumble the ball.

Vanderbilt recovered. Vanderbilt won.

NC State suffers one oft he most embarrassing and humiliating losses in my lifetime, right up there with Michigan-Michigan State in 2015, and the Miami-Georgia Tech game where Mario Cristobal forgot how to tell time.

Horrible loss.

Now, let’s get to the good stuff.

5. Toledo Rockets

Toledo was down 14 to Temple with a minute left in the game.

They scored a touchdown to make it a 7 point game, got the onside kick, scored again in two plays to tie the game, all within the span of 11 seconds.

They then staved off a two point attempt by Temple in OT to somehow, someway, pull off a miracle win.

That’s a great win for the Rockets.

4. West Virginia Mountaineers

Year one in the Rich Rod 2.0 era for West Virginia wasn’t great.

A large part of that was a significant lack of a running game, thanks to an early injury to Jaheim White and no mobile QBs.

The Mountaineers hit the portal this offseason to get Michael Hawkins Jr from Oklahoma and Cam Cook from Jacksonville State.

And on Saturday night, those two ran wild over a ranked Virginia team in a way that brought back flashbacks of the Pat White-Steve Slaton days.

Who knows how the rest of the year will go, but that’s what a Rich Rod offense is supposed to look like.

3. Mississippi State Bulldogs

The Bulldogs went on the road in a tough environment in South Carolina, fell down 13-0 early in the game, before young stud QB Kamario Taylor went off and made a huge statement for the Bulldogs to start SEC play.

Reminded me an awful lot of a young Dak Prescott putting Mississippi State on the map with a dominant road win against LSU back in 2014.

Now, I’m not saying Mississippi State will be number 1 at any point this season.

But watch out. There’s clearly something here.

2. Kentucky Wildcats

Will Stein put it all on the line last week.

He begged Kentucky fans to come out to the game against Alabama, make some noise, make it loud, and make it uncomfortable. He wanted the fans to see the new era of Kentucky football he was ushering in.

And the result of that game was…bad.

Alabama won 45-17, and it felt like the same ole, same ole.

But Kentucky did lead at halftime of that game, and it turns out, that wasn’t a red herring.

Because Kentucky then went on the road to College Station to face Texas A&M, and upset the Aggies 31-21 in a game where they were just flat out the better team.

Will Stein wanted to make a statement, and he did.

He was just a little too early.

1. Ole Miss Rebels

This was the game everyone was waiting for.

The Lane Kiffin return to Oxford, Mississippi, after essentially saying it was impossible to win at Ole Miss and he needed to go to LSU to succeed, and taking a bunch of the coaches and players with him to Baton Rouge.

Shockingly, that didn’t go over so well with Ole Miss fans, nor their now head coach Pete Golding who was the defensive coordinator under Kiffin last year.

The atmosphere, and the game, lived up to expectation, with the Rebels holding on for dear life at the end thanks to a 4th down interception up 8, followed by a beautiful moment of the Ole Miss defenders running right in front of Lane Kiffin and rubbing his nose in it to really twist the knife, and show that Ole Miss was not good because of Lane Kiffin.

Ole Miss is just good.