Most of the nation's top teams were in action, but many were against easy opponents and not in any real danger of losing. What made up for this were some compelling conference games between ranked opponents. Those games ended up creating the surrealism that would define this past weekend's action.
The weekend's biggest college football news broke Sunday, when Les Miles was fired as coach of the LSU following the team's 18-13 loss to the Auburn Tigers on Saturday night. The loss moved LSU to 2-2 for the first time in around 15 years. The game's final play was a game-winning touchdown pass from LSU that was nullified on instant replay due to not getting the snap off in time.
Miles ends his career at LSU with a record of 114-34, 7-4 in bowl games, and one national championship (2007).
The Ole Miss Rebels' defense finally coming through (big time) for their team after already blowing two leads of more than 20 points this season, college football's most exciting player (Christian McCaffrey) being held in check at The Rose Bowl, and the eighth-ranked Michigan State Spartans suffering their worst home loss of this decade.
Then there were the two SEC games between ranked opponents that were right out of Jekyll & Hyde.
The Florida Gators began their road trip to Knoxville by handling the first half with ease and building a 21-3 lead. The Tennessee Volunteers answered this by scoring 35 unanswered points on their way to a 38-28 win, their first over the Gators since 2004.
Later, the tenth-ranked Texas A&M Aggies and Arkansas Razorbacks were in a back-and-forth struggle for the game's first thirty minutes, one that the Razorbacks mostly controlled.
Then Aggies quarterback Trevor Knight and running back Trayveon Williams took over, combining for four touchdowns in the second half and both finishing with over 150 rushing yards in a 45-24 win. Finally, a rare occurrence fell between the cracks of this crazy weekend: Notre Dame and USC each moved to 1-3 with last-minute losses to the Duke Blue Devils and Utah Utes respectively.
This was the first time both of college football's most storied programs have started so poorly since 2001.
