Week 6 college football schedule, scores, fun stuff and more

Lesson learned: never complain about a lack of college football anguish and gnashing of teeth. We got spleen for DAYS this week, people.

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Last Week: 25 carries, 163 yards, two TDs; two catches, 24 yards; 1-for-1, 50 passing yards; defeated Vanderbilt, 44-17

2014 Season: 94 carries, 773 rushing yards, eight TDs; 147 kick return yards, TD

Current Odds: 8/5

Todd Gurley did this last week:

Times are tough in Tuscaloosa. Alabama is alone in fifth place in the SEC West (no, really), and the Tide’s margin for error in the Playoff race has all but evaporated after a 23-17 loss to Ole Miss. In the resultant sturm und drang, Alabama fans have been second-guessing everything about the program, in particular the Crimson Tide’s offensive philosophy.

Former quarterback AJ McCarron, now with the Cincinnati Bengals, addressed this while taking calls on his weekly radio segment in Tuscaloosa. Here’s more from AL.com:

Let’s try and figure out which team tops each group after the craziest weekend of the year.

Rushing the field after Ole Miss’ huge upset win over Alabama had its costs. The SEC fined the school $50,000 for allowing the field rush (it’s a safety hazard) and new goalposts are expensive. So the school put up a fundraising website for fans to pay for the mess they made:

What’s impressive to me isn’t that they raised the total so fast, it’s how people donated. This wasn’t a bunch of people donating five bucks -- 142 people gave at that level -- it was a bunch of people giving a lot of money. The school planned to give away 50 three-inch sections of post for $500 donations, but had to increase the amount after initial demand. (They also sold 10 six-inch sections for $1,000.) So that’s $45,000 right there. The school listed the value of new goalposts at $11,000 a pop, so they actually made money off the posts getting brought down.

The 6’0, 195-pounder came through for his coach and his team late in the third quarter, when Tennessee held onto a 9-0 lead with the ball near midfield. On 2nd-and-5, Durkin dialed up a cornerback blitz and Tabor was free on the quarterback, who was looking down the field to his left and never saw the Washington, D.C., product coming from his right. As Tabor arrived at the quarterback, he raked at the football, jarring it free and pouncing on it for the big recovery.

Overall, the Florida secondary played much better with Tabor in the lineup, holding Worley and the Tennessee passing offense to 205 yards while producing two interceptions. Neither of the interceptions was credited to Tabor, but the true freshman did provide five tackles (four solo) and two pass breakups, one of which saved a touchdown that would’ve tilted the game in favor of the Volunteers.

Michigan State has been outscored by a 40-21 margin in the fourth quarter this season, and by a 71-58 margin in second halves.

Northwestern lost to both California and Northern Illinois at home in non-conference play. And after a 20-14 win over Wisconsin on Saturday, the Wildcats are now 2-0 in Big Ten play. Go 1-1 over the next two weeks -- at Minnesota, Nebraska at home -- and they might become the Big Ten West favorites.

SAFETY NOTE: The following dissection of a June 2014 Wild Sportspinion by Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi was done by a trained professional in a controlled environment. We at SB Nation do not recommend you attempt this difficult procedure on your own; stupid is contagious and has no known cure.

Writing opinion pieces is about taking chances and being unafraid of failure. Sure, you’re going to have some misses. But as long as you’ve thought through your argument carefully and presented it strongly, you should be ok.

Last week: Lost to Rutgers, 26-24

This year’s record: 2-4 (0-2 B1G)

Record at Michigan: 28-17

Contract: $3.25 million through 2017

Buyout: $3 million

How fired is Brady Hoke? It’s legitimately surprising that he’s not already gone, especially after the Shane Morris concussion disaster. Even if athletic director Dave Brandon (who’s got his own job security to worry about) looks past the litany of issues that led to a concussed player staying on the field on two separate occasions, he has to contend with the fact that Michigan just looks like arguably* the worst-coached team in a lackluster Big Ten.

This slam isn’t violent like the Bama fan chokeslammed in the stands, but there’s something wonderful about these police officers keeping a hurried Nick Saban safe.

It’s more of a Vulcan nerve pinch, if we’re being honest. Who knew the SEC had so many Trekkies?

Phyllis from Mulga had heard enough. She listened to Colin Cowherd say Alabama’s dynasty was over following a loss to Ole Miss. The dyed-in-the-wool Bama fan suffered the indignity of being told Nick Saban would be “owned” by Auburn. She patiently waited for her chance to call Paul Finebaum, fire building in her stomach, ready to unleash the dragon.

It’s a little too much like your last rant, Phyllis.

Week 6 was college football’s wildest slate of games yet, with an incredible 11 of the Top 25 teams losing (including five top-10 teams).

Expect Oregon, Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas A&M to fall, but who replaces them at the top? Florida State is still undefeated, as are Auburn, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State. Could Notre Dame sneak into the top four after a win over Stanford? What about TCU, sitting at 4-0 after upsetting the Sooners? This is the first time this college football season that there are real questions surrounding the week’s new polls.

This has been a pretty big week for the state of Mississippi. In fact, it’s probably the best time to be a college football fan in that state’s history. After Ole Miss took down Alabama and Mississippi State absolutely demolished Texas A&M, the Rebels and Bulldogs are tied for third place in this week’s AP Poll. But the fun didn’t stop on the field.

The governor even declared Saturday to be “Football Celebration Saturday.“ All in all, as Steven Godfrey chronicled, it’s been a pretty great week to be a Mississippian. How did we get here, to where Mississippi is the center of the college football universe? Bill Connelly explained that Monday, both in written form, and on Outside the Lines.

Update: The Big 12 announced that it has fined Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard $25,000 for his rant against the officials after Iowa State lost (by 17) to Oklahoma State on Saturday. Pollard suggested that there is some sort of Big 12 conspiracy, which is pretty ridiculous, and obviously, the Big 12 took exception to it. Here’s what commissioner Bob Bowlsby said:

Original: This isn’t a shocking rant of an athletic director that’s gone postal. It is, however, Jamie Pollard giving the Big 12 and its officials a strong talking to after his team was kinda screwed on a call by the refs against Oklahoma State.

It’s not every year that you see both Ole Miss and Mississippi State undefeated on Oct. 4. Why not celebrate two of the biggest wins of the year by proclaiming a day in their honor?

Suck it, Oct. 9 “Renewable energy day,” there’s a new kid on the block.

Katy Perry was the guest picker on College GameDay this past weekend, and did quite well, all things considered. One of her only missed picks was Oklahoma over TCU, decided in part, she said, because of Sooner quarterback Trevor Knight’s good looks.

Perry went so far as to (probably jokingly) ask Knight to call her, and she may have very well jinxed the quarterback in the process. Perhaps Knight had the pop star’s request rattling around in his mind when he threw the game-clinching pick six against TCU. The Horned Frogs won the game, 37-33.

Alabama running back Kenyan Drake went down with a terrible ankle injury in the first half against Ole Miss.

As Drake was tumbling to the ground, Ole Miss defensive back Trae Elston, No. 7, made a curious leg motion. I have no way of knowing what his intentions were at the time, but it did not appear to be a common football maneuver. He could’ve perhaps been kicking at the football, which would’ve been pointless for multiple reasons, among them Drake being on the ground already.

1. Considering everything that happened on Saturday, you’d be forgiven for glossing over Washington State and Cal bringing flamethrowers to a football game, aiming them directly at each other’s defenses and special teams, and laughing while lighting everything in sight on fire. It was late -- a 10:30 p.m. ET start -- and most of the country had already been overloaded with very good football throughout the day, including a Hail Mary in the USC-Arizona State game during the early moments of the Cougars-Bears slugfest.

2. Don’t ever skip out on Pac-12 football at night. This cannot be emphasized enough: If there is a Pac-12 game on at night, no matter the day, find a television and watch. Arizona-Oregon, USC-Arizona State, and WSU-Cal are exhibits A, B and C from this week. Drop what you’re doing and find the drunk football on the West Coast. It’s the most entertaining thing going.

That was a college football week for the ages, wasn’t it? Eleven ranked teams go down, including eight to unranked or lower-ranked opponents, and the balance of power in college football is ... well, where is it, exactly? Florida State’s in the playoff picture, pretty much by default, and from there the rest gets awfully murky.

The good news is that a loss in Week 6 is not a death sentence for championship aspirations, especially with a four-team playoff making the postseason landscape incrementally more permissive of slip-ups.

In my August trip to England, I wrote, “In a continent that has seen wars, plagues, and disaster, you don’t tear down and rebuild your history; it is what it is, and you live your life around it.” Your history is never past, but it’s still history. That defines everything you see in England. Here’s where this awful thing happened, and next to it is one of the most beautiful things you’ll ever see.

As strange as it feels to say, perhaps no state resembles England in this regard more than the Magnolia State, right down to its scenery, tortured past, and use of a popular sport to both propagate divisions and build bridges with the rest of its region.

They’re also the only blue jerseys not in the gang hanging off the legal edge of the sideline. The pair is mulling around behind the kicker’s net.

“Hey ... Did he get that? Did he get in?” Wunderlich asks, grabbing a fistful of Fletcher’s jersey. Fletcher says nothing.

Disaster struck in Provo, Utah, this week as BYU’s stud quarterback Taysom Hill suffered a fractured leg early in the Cougars’ loss to Utah State. The result? A massive shuffle in the power dynamics of the Underdogs Poll.

The Cougars have dropped out of No. 1 -- a spot they’ve held since Week 1 -- and the ECU Pirates are now the top dogs by a healthy margin. Ruffin McNeill’s squad struggled a little bit in its AAC debut this weekend against a bad SMU team, but the duo of Shane Carden and Justin Hardy showed us all once more that the Pirates have the offense to make up for any defensive miscues.

How many Mississippi teams pulled off big wins in college football’s wild and wacky week 6? The Jackson Clarion-Ledger knows!

Well done, Mississippi. Your teams win the day on Saturday, your newspapers win it on Sunday.