Bottom 10: Where Jimbo Fisher can finally be appreciated
Inspirational thought of the week:
You must think on a different level, like the CIA does.
We’re through the looking glass here, people.
White is black.
And black is white.
— Kevin Costner as Jim Garrison, “JFK”
Under the supervision of the reverse vampires,
they are forcing our parents to go to bed early,
In a fiendish plot to eliminate the meal of dinner!
We are through the looking glass here, people.
— Milhouse Van Houten, “The Simpsons”
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located in Jeff Saturday’s just-vacated wardrobe closet at ESPN, we spent last weekend crystalizing our already-strong feelings that when it comes to knowledge, we know nothing.
The Vanderbilt Commode Doors have been a mainstay of the 2022 Bottom 10, whether they were ranked or sitting on the Waiting List, the losers of 26 straight SEC games long having put the “mean” in “It Just Means More.” Then they beat No. 24 Kentucky in Lexington.
It was just two weeks ago that we promoted/demoted #gobc, aka Boston College, into these standings, after four straight losses. Then they beat No. 16 NC State.
By The Time I Get To Arizona knocked off No. 12 UCLA. The Artist Formerly Known as Pur-don’t upset No. 21 Ill-ugh-noise. And in Storrs, Connecticut, the team we used to call U-Can’t totally U-Did, extinguishing the AP’s 19th-ranked Liberty Flames to become bowl eligible for the first time in seven years.
Assume yes, always https://t.co/9UL9iRZQQs
— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) November 12, 2022
But to be clear, this is no conspiracy theory. This is real. The Bottom 10 multiverse is legit. We know this because we walked through the looking glass. OK, we actually walked into a sliding glass door, but when we were asked, “How many fingers am I holding up?” she definitely had 12. We’re sure of it.
With apologies to Dr. Steven Strange, Oliver Stone, former Alabama A&M quarterback Aqeel Glass and Steve Harvey, here are the post-Week 11 Bottom 10 rankings.
1. UMess (1-9)
The Minutemen lost the Pillow Fight of Week at then-No. 8 Arkansaw State 35-33 when a late rally came up just short — like, half a yard short of a 2-point conversion that could have forced overtime. It was also the second time in three weeks that we had an unexpected Bottom 10 bureau reporter on site to watch UMass lose. Now the Minutemen face an unexpected opponent in the year’s most unexpected edition of the Pillow Fight of the Week. But to find out who that foe shall be, you’re gonna have to keep reading and wait a minute, man.
#Bottom10 Bureau Reporter Christopher checking in from UMass at Arkansas State https://t.co/mhe7P1kXB0
— Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) November 12, 2022
2. US(notC)F (1-9)
The Bulls cashed in their Bottom 10 Hey We Just Fired Our Coach FastPass one week ago and followed that up with a coach-less loss to SMU. Now they travel to face Bottom 10 Waiting List member Living on Tulsa Time, which is still suffering from a totally understandable year-long Myrtle Beach Bowl championship hangover.
3. Akronmonious (1-9)
The Zips dropped their home finale with a loss to Eastern Not Western Or Central Michigan, but their Bottom 10 title hopes took a hit when then-No. 7 Northern Ill-ugh-noise had the audacity to earn its third win of the season, over Western Not Eastern Or Central Michigan. That stole some zip from their Thanksgiving weekend season finale, which had had serious Bottom 10 Megabowl potential.
4. Colora-duh (1-9)
The Buffs continued their “How can we help your Heisman candidate?” goodwill tour, as they allowed a five-touchdown performance by USC quarterback Caleb Williams on the heels of allowing a five-touchdown performance by Oregon quarterback Bo Nix. I’m no Nostradamus, but I’m here to say that this weekend Washington quarterback Michael Penix Jr. will account for five touchdowns against the Buffs.
5. The Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (3-7)
Have you seen this trend within collegiate athletics where big donors have coaching positions and even entire position groups named for them? For example, Stanford head coach David Shaw is the Bradford M. Freeman Director of Football and Notre Dame’s Tommy Rees is the John and Bobbie Arlotta Family Offensive Coordinator/Quarterbacks Coach. Well, we’d like to extend an invitation to our friends in College Station to make this the John James “Jimbo” Fisher Jr. Coveted Fifth Spot. Perhaps we could make the announcement during halftime of this weekend’s Pillow Fight of the Week vs. UMass.
6. North by Northworstern (1-9)
Shoutout to back in the day — like, I dunno, two years ago? — when the Mildcats would look at regular season-ending matchups with Purdue and Illinois and already be buying bottles of sunscreen for their inevitable holiday trip to a Florida bowl game. Now they are looking at those games and are already buying bottles of Lysol for their inevitable holiday trip to an Evanston toilet bowl.
7. Whew Mexico No-bos (2-9)
The Mountain West invasion of these rankings begins New Mexico Not New Mexico State, who have lost seven in a row and already have their Bottom 10 eyes trying to focus on two weeks from now when they face Colorado State. But …
8. No-vada (2-8)
Colorado State isn’t ranked in this spot because it beat Nevada back in Week 5 and the very next week the Oof Pack lost to …
9. Huh-why-yuh (2-9)
The Warriors have won only twice this year, but one of those was that Week 5 win over Nevada, which they immediately followed up with a loss to …
10. Colora-duh State (2-8)
So, to recap, the Rams beat Hawai’i and Nevada and will host New Mexico in the Black Friday season finale. Our plan to sort it all out is to bribe the people over at ESPN Stats & Information research, begging them to input all of this into their computers to see what FPI says about it. Bribe them with what? Some deep-fried Cajun turkey leftovers from Thanksgiving. Have you ever seen the fire that erupts from one of those fryers if you don’t thaw the turkey all the way? That’s exactly what that FPI machine is gonna look like when the Mountain West is done with it.
Waiting list: Charlotte 2-and-9ers, Arkansaw State, Texas State Armadillos, Virginia Tech No-kies, Old Duh-minion, Northern Ill-ugh-noise, Western Not Eastern Or Central Michigan, Temple of Doom, both sides of the Big Game.
-
Mark Schlabach, ESPN Senior Writer
ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia coach Kirby Smart wouldn’t say if being ranked 12th by the College Football Playoff selection committee motivated the Bulldogs to prove a point in Saturday night’s game against No. 7 Tennessee.
Coming off last week’s ugly 28-10 loss at Ole Miss, their second defeat of the season, the Bulldogs would be the first team left out of the playoff if the 12-team bracket was based on the current rankings. No. 13 Boise State would have received the automatic bid as the fifth-highest-ranked conference champion and have jumped them.
That’s probably not the case anymore, after Georgia manhandled Tennessee 31-17 at Sanford Stadium.
“I don’t know what they’re looking for. I really don’t,” Smart said of the CFP selection committee. “I wish they could really define the criteria. I wish they could do the eyeball test where they come down here and look at the people we’re playing against and look at them. You can’t see that stuff on TV, and so I don’t know what they look for. But that’s for somebody else to decide. I’m worried about our team.”
For the first time in a while, Georgia looked pretty good on both sides of the ball against Tennessee. The Bulldogs fell behind 10-0 in the first quarter but came back to tie the score at 17 at the half. Tennessee had only eight first downs and didn’t score in the final 30 minutes. It was the ninth time a Josh Heupel-coached team has scored fewer than 20 points; four of them came against Georgia.
The Bulldogs won their 29th consecutive game at home and defeated the Volunteers for the eighth straight time, all by double digits.
“Our kids showed resilience,” Smart said. “I’m proud of them. Look, it was a week ago, a couple of hours, that we were dead and gone. People had written us off. It’s hard to play in this league, week in and week out, on the road.”
After the Ole Miss loss, Georgia fell from third to 12th in the CFP rankings. Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, the chairman of the CFP selection committee, said the Bulldogs’ inconsistent offense and turnovers were reasons why.
“They’re not in that environment,” Smart said. “They’re not at Ole Miss in that environment, playing against that defense, which is top five in the country with one of the best pass rushers in the country, and they’re fired up. They got a two-score lead, and they’re coming every play. They don’t know. They don’t understand that.”
Georgia has played the most difficult schedule in the FBS, according to ESPN’s College Football Power Index, and has the third-best strength of record, which reflects whether an average Top 25 team would have a team’s record or better against its schedule.
The Bulldogs also lost 41-34 at Alabama on Sept. 28 after falling behind 28-0 in the first half. They defeated Clemson 34-3 in their opener and won 30-15 at Texas on Oct. 19.
Adding a dominant victory over Tennessee should help Georgia’s CFP chances. It closes the regular season with two non-SEC games at home, against UMass on Saturday and rival Georgia Tech on Nov. 29.
“It’s just the tale of each week, and we’re trying to be the cumulative, whole, really good quality team and not be on this emotional roller coaster that’s controlled by people in a room somewhere that may not understand football like we do as coaches,” Smart said. “We as coaches, look at people and say, ‘What can we do better? How do we get better?’ I respect their decision. I respect their opinion. But I mean, it’s different in our league.”
One of the big reasons for Georgia’s success against Tennessee was quarterback Carson Beck, who completed 25 of 40 passes for 347 yards with two touchdowns and no interceptions. He had thrown 12 interceptions in the previous six games.
Beck also scored on a 10-yard run that gave Georgia a 24-17 lead with 5:32 left in the third quarter.
“I didn’t really feel any pressure, to be honest,” Beck said. “I stood up in front of the team on Monday and talked to them about how I felt about how our season has gone. I told them that whatever has happened has happened and that all we can control is what we can control moving forward.”
Georgia’s offensive line didn’t allow a sack, while the Bulldogs sacked Volunteers quarterback Nico Iamaleava five times. Georgia had 453 yards and went 5-for-5 in the red zone.
“I think everybody understood the situation that we were in,” Beck said. “When our backs are against the wall, the only way out is through what is in front of you.”
-
Pete Thamel
-
Eli Lederman
Close
Eli Lederman
ESPN Staff Writer
- Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
Julian Lewis, the No. 2 player and quarterback in the 2025 class, decommitted from USC on Sunday, sources told ESPN, sealing a seismic development for one of the nation’s top prospects in the closing weeks of the recruiting cycle.
Lewis’ decommitment, which had been expected, comes the day after the 6-foot-1, 195-pound quarterback took an unofficial visit to Georgia for the game against Tennessee. He also visited Colorado on Oct. 26 and expressed interest in Indiana throughout his recruitment.
The plan remains for Lewis to commit in the upcoming weeks and enroll early in school, according to sources. He’s the top uncommitted player in the class of 2025 and his choice looms as one of the biggest stories of the early signing period with Colorado, Georgia and Indiana expected to contend for his signature before the signing period opens Dec. 4.
Sources also told ESPN on Sunday that four-star Texas A&M quarterback pledge Husan Longstreet, No. 47 in the 2025 ESPN 300, has flipped his pledge to USC in the wake of Lewis’ departure from the Trojans’ incoming class.
USC quarterbacks coach Luke Huard attended Longstreet’s playoff game at Corona Centennial High School in California on Friday night, and ESPN’s No. 4 pocket passer visited the Trojans during their game against Nebraska on Saturday.
Lewis had been verbally committed to the Trojans since Aug. 22, 2023. Yet questions had swirled over his recruitment from the summer into the fall and all the way through to his decommitment from USC on Sunday.
Lewis’ move marks the latest blow to a USC class that has now lost six commitments from the 2025 ESPN 300 in this cycle.
That list of high-profile departures from Lincoln Riley’s incoming class includes five-star defenders Justus Terry and Isaiah Gibson, and Lewis’ exit stands as USC’s third recruiting loss in the past seven days following the flips of defensive lineman Hayden Lowe (Miami) and cornerback Shamar Arnoux (Auburn).
The Trojans sat ninth in ESPN’s latest class rankings for the 2025 cycle prior to Lewis’ decommitment.
With the move, Lewis instantly regains status as the one of nation’s most sought-after uncommitted prospects. He first entered that realm in 2022 when he burst onto the national scene with 4,118 yards and 48 touchdowns while leading Carrollton to the Georgia 7A state title game in his freshman season.
That debut campaign earned Lewis a place as the No. 1 prospect in the 2026 class before he reclassified into the 2025 cycle earlier this year, several months after his commitment to USC last August.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports8 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Environment1 year agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway