College football schedule, scores, and much more for Week 13

Melvin Gordon rushing for 408 yards against Nebraska in the snow stands as a testament to his athleticism, a crowning achievement of Wisconsin’s culture, and a scathing rebuke of Nebraska’s Blackshirt defensive tradition.

However, when considered within the context of Texas A&M giving up 250+ rushing yards against five of seven SEC opponents, Texas getting blasted by BYU for 550 rushing yards in 2013, or Boston College running for 452 yards against USC, you began to wonder if there’s just an epidemic of bad run defense working its way across the nation.

After a few weeks of seeing the rankings shuffle at the top of the College Football Playoff selection committee’s top 25, things finally slowed down a little bit heading into rivalry week, the last week of the regular season for most teams. This past week, few of the nation’s top teams played anyone of significance, and there were only a handful of top 25 games total.

There was still a bit more shuffling after what we saw this weekend. The most obvious question entering Tuesday night was whether the selection committee saw enough merit in Baylor’s win over Oklahoma State to move the Bears over TCU, who they have beaten head-to-head, in the rankings. What about Florida State? After yet another close call, this time against Boston College, would the Seminoles fall yet again in the rankings, despite their undefeated record? Would Ohio State be punished for its lack of “game control” against Indiana, and would fellow Big Ten upstart Minnesota ascend into the top 20?

It’s official: The reign of the Mountain folk has begun. Colorado State still trails Marshall in first place votes, but the Rams have supplanted the Thundering Herd atop our poll.

After narrowly getting out of UAB with that undefeated record intact, the Herd have now slipped. It’s fair to note that Marshall still did what they were supposed to: win. It may not have been as pretty as it’s previous 10 wins, but their record remains unblemished. Nonetheless, after three weeks of being back on top of our poll, the Herd have fallen from the throne with only one regular season game to go.

Florida State -- if you want to address them as a whole, collective personage -- knows. They know. They know you hate them, and their quarterback, and their fans, and their fans on Twitter, and their win streak, and their war chant. They know you hate how, a year after winning a national title with landslide results and obvious dominance at every position on the field, they now escape games like a burglar leaping over the fence with one cheek of his pants in the guard dog’s mouth. They know. Oh, they know.

They know, which is why you see garnet-and-gold-themed “haters gonna hate” T-shirts floating around campus on game day, even now, when most fans are shuffling around in hastily purchased ponchos or waterproof fishing jackets. They’ll zip down the jacket just to show you: look, we are comfortable with this role. We know it now, we have the dialogue down. After offering me a shot of Fireball and cider, one tailgater tells me, “Listen, if you want to hate, go ahead. We’ll keep on winning. That’s the bottom line here: winning.” It’s rehearsed, but the line delivery is perfect and unaffected.

(We also don’t know if he asked Marcus the same question he asked coach Helfrich.)

The Florida A&M routine in question takes place at the 2:32 mark of the above video. This routine took place at the Florida Classic on Saturday. Florida A&M lost to Bethune-Cookman in overtime, 18-17.

(h/t Deadspin)

UNC and Duke may primarily be rivals on the hardwood, but there’s no love lost between the two football teams. The two play for the Victory Bell, and Thursday marked just the latest post-game incident involving the trophy.

After this year’s iteration of the game, North Carolina players immediately painted the trophy Carolina Blue (as per tradition) ... but that’s not all. The Tar Heels also left their mark on Duke’s campus after their upset win, painting the visiting locker room as well, per the Charlotte Observer.

We saw relatively little chaos in Week 13, but that was a mostly expected outcome given the lackluster slate (that tends to happen once the November SEC-FCS challenge rolls around). Still, four Top 25 teams lost Saturday (three to other ranked opponents), giving us plenty to talk about.

Florida State put together yet another lackluster performance against an unranked opponent, beating Boston College in the final seconds, 20-17. Ohio State pulled away from Indiana late, but saw their glaring loss get more glaring when Virginia Tech fell to Wake Forest. Ole Miss got blown the heck out by Arkansas, while UCLA, Arizona, and Minnesota each notched important wins over ranked opponents.

Week 13 was a relatively uneventful one, when compared to the some of the previous chaos we’ve seen in this college football season. No. 8 Ole Miss fell in a blowout to a surging Arkansas team, while No. 17 Utah, No. 19 USC, and No. 23 Nebraska each lost to another ranked team, but the top should remain stable for now.

We’re starting to get a better idea of what the selection committee values as the season progresses, but some pretty significant questions still linger.

Poor Ole Miss. The Rebels were looking like title favorites as Laquon Treadwell crossed the goal line against Auburn on November 1. But he got there without the ball, letting go of it as he felt his ankle dislocating. Ole Miss lost by four, and following a friendly against Presbyterian and a bye, the Rebels headed to Fayetteville and got ambushed, by the Hogs and themselves.

Arkansas’ defense is one of the most underrated in the country*, but the Rebels helped Arkansas’ cause. Bo Wallace suffered what looked like a nasty ankle injury of his own but tried to gut it out. He helped create five Rebel scoring opportunities. Those opportunities resulted in three interceptions (including a wacky pick six), a fumble, and a turnover on downs. It seems all of the SEC West’s good mojo currently resides in Fayetteville.

Excitement continues to build over the first ever FBS playoff, but don’t forget about the little guys. Four teams? Try 24. The FCS playoff is an annual must-watch event, and the full bracket and schedule has arrived. This is just the second year with a 24-team field for the FCS. The eight seeded teams all get first-round byes.

Full bracket via the NCAA (all times ET):

1. Oregon

This is all a forecast, so let’s get meteorological. Things look clear for Oregon through the next week or so, after their 44-10 defeat of Colorado this week. They even look pretty nice through the 14-day forecast as they head into the Pac-12 Championship, likely against UCLA, a team the Ducks beat pretty soundly in October. Their only opponent in between is Oregon State, a team who by rule will make a “passionate, but ultimately futile” effort against a superior team.

No. 3 Florida State 20, Boston College 17

Unbeaten FSU has already been jumped twice in the Playoff rankings by one-loss teams. While it’s hard to imagine it happening again, the Noles didn’t make up any ground by winning tight against another lesser team, especially with No. 2 Oregon breezing past Colorado, 44-10. Two more wins, against Florida and Georgia Tech, and FSU’s ranking doesn’t matter, though.

The Big Ten is known for trophy games. Iowa and Minnesota play for a bronze pig. Ohio State and Illinois play for a wooden turtle. There’s the Old Oaken Bucket, the Little Brown Jug, and the Land of Lincoln Trophy. Both Minnesota-Wisconsin and Michigan-Michigan State play for Paul Bunyan-related artifacts.

Each comes with a story of how it came into being, generally set in pre-war times and based on an event that has taken on mythical status.

Down by four with no time left on the clock. How do you get announcer Robert Kekaula to freak the hell out? A game-winning touchdown pass from Ikaika Woolsey to Marcus Kemp should do it.

Alabama, Oregon, and Florida State will remain in that order in the Playoff rankings on Tuesday, unless someone misspells a team on his or her ballot or something. And if all three win out, that’s your Playoff top three.

For the No. 4 spot, where I had Ohio State last week, I’m going back to Baylor. It’s still really close, with TCU also in there, but the Buckeyes now have an immediate transitive loss to Wake Forest, maybe the country’s worst power-conference team. OSU’s Virginia Tech loss, which was becoming respectable, is now awful all over again. Beating an Indiana team that beat Missouri surely helps, but there’s no way to know how much.

We associate Boise State with one play, the Statue of Liberty, and we associate the Statue of Liberty with one team, Boise State. Of course, the Broncos ran the play to beat Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl. Saturday night, they went back to the well... and it worked!

No word on whether Jay Ajayi proposed to his girlfriend after the TD scamper.

One of college football’s biggest rivalry games went out with a relative whimper Saturday night, as No. 9 UCLA took down No. 19 USC with relative ease by the score of 38-20. Brett Hundley passed for over 300 yards with four total touchdowns in the victory (three passing, one rushing), leaving the Bruins one win away from a Pac-12 South title. The quarterback is now 3-0 in his career against the Trojans.

USC got on the board first with Anthony Sarao’s pick six, but then made a mistake of its own to help the Bruins score a touchdown. The Trojans muffed a punt within their own 10-yard line, setting up Brett Hundley’s 10-yard touchdown pass to Devin Lucien, tying the game.

It was not clean or easy for the Tigers. Missouri was called for 14 penalties, and Mauk completed just 12 of his 25 pass attempts. Baggett, who entered Saturday a perfect 36/36 on extra points, missed two PAT attempts. But Butch Jones’s Volunteers were not able to capitalize on Missouri’s mistakes, thanks in no small part to an opportunistic Missouri defense that held Tennessee to just 193 yards of offense and 2/10 on third down.

Tennessee (5-6, 2-5 SEC) now needs a road win over Vanderbilt next week to attain bowl eligibility. The Volunteers have not posted six wins since a 6-6 regular season record and Music City Bowl berth in 2010. A loss to the Commodores would leave the Vols 5-7 for the fourth consecutive season.

“Don’t Stop Believin’” came on with Virginia up 30-7 on Miami, and this guy sang into his goose.

It’s been a real banner week for college football goose content.

A student at O’Hara Catholic School, a Eugene school that goes from preschool to eighth grade, had the opportunity to ask Mark Helfrich a question after Oregon’s blowout 44-10 win over Colorado.

The question itself went kinda poorly -- he asked if Helfrich knew whether Marcus Mariota would be coming back to school after this year, and although the general consensus is that he will, Helfrich isn’t allowed to speculate on that and wouldn’t say anything if he knew -- but the repartee afterwards was AMAZING.

One of college football’s silliest arguments revolves around the decision of many SEC schools to schedule FCS teams in November, rather than the usual late August/early September games played by most FBS programs. These games usually come one week before Rivalry Week, allowing programs like Alabama and Auburn to play some tune-up games before their big season-ending matchups.

ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit was particularly vocal about the practice Saturday on College GameDay. The former Ohio State quarterback called it the worst thing happening in college football, and caught the attention of one FCS head coach.

Here’s linebacker Eddie Vanderdoes:

Here’s punter Matt Mengel, who henceforth will be known as BRAVEPUNT