Bottom 10: Without Kansas, it’s the point of no return
Inspirational thought of the week:
You’re not in Kansas anymore
Can’t be too careful that’s for sure
City lights will lead you on
Morning comes and they’ll be gone
So, write my number on your wall
And call me anytime at all
I’m so happy now, boy
You’re not in Kansas anymore
— “You’re Not in Kansas Anymore” Jo Dee Messina
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located in the safe where Mike Leach keeps the $10,000 per kid he offered for them to elope and none took it, we have spent this first week of October watching and rewatching “The Wizard of Oz” while simultaneously listening to “Dust in the Wind” and sniffing a sunflower while also gnawing on a barbecue rib.
Why? Because after spending so many years of watching bad football played in a stadium as barren as the Great Plains that surround it, now the entire college football world is migrating to Lawrence, Kansas, to see the 5-0, 19th-ranked Artists Formerly Known as the Kansas Nayhawks … and we aren’t invited.
I mean, you’d think College GameDay would at least call and ask us to sit with the Bear and provide some perspective gleaned from remaining dedicated to keeping tabs on a team that won 23 games over the dozen seasons before this one, right? A team that was as much a part of these rankings as Pillow Fights of the Week, the Coveted Fifth Spot and making fun of Randy Edsall. A program that was so bad for so long that we have annually included former head coach Charlie Weis on our Bottom 10 Playoff Selection Committee.
You really think Rece Davis has spent as much time watching Kansas over the past decade? OK, that’s a bad example. Rece watches every game and knows every player’s name and where they grew up and what their parents do for a living … but you get the point here, don’t you?
Though we may not be invited, we will be watching from afar. Like a dad on that pivotal day of high school when his child first turns to him and says, “Just drop me off at the corner and I’ll walk from there. I’m a cool kid now and I don’t want you to embarrass me.”
OK, Big Jay, have fun eating lunch at the middle table in the cafeteria with the cheerleaders and lettermen. Just know that when you inevitably snort milk through your beak when you laugh or trip over your own claws or fail to cover against the TCU Horned Frogs, the Plastics will once again turn on you. And we’ll be waiting around the corner, the ones in the repossessed U-Haul truck with bald tires, Kansas plates and the “2008 Insight Bowl Champions” bumper sticker.
With apologies to Paul Rudd, Mandy Patinkin and L. Frank Baum, here’s our post-Week 6 Bottom 10 rankings.
1. Colora-duh (0-5)
The Buffs take over the top spot, running past their instate rivals faster than Ralphie now sprints back to his trailer asking to get the hell out of Boulder and go back to his barn. Why? Because they fired not just the head coach, but the defensive coordinator as well. The interim head coach is offensive coordinator Mike Sanford, whom we all remember as the guy who led the Western Kentucky Hillstoppers to a spot in these rankings in 2018. Mike Sanford is actually Mike Sanford Jr., son of Mike Sanford, who coached unLv to multiple Bottom 10 rankings in the mid-2000’s. That whole paragraph reads better if you go back and read it aloud while also playing the theme from “Sanford and Son.”
2. Colora-duh State (0-4)
The Rams followed up their stunning Week 4 loss to Sacramento State with an even more shocking 21-3 loss to Open Date.
3. Huh-Why?-Yuh (1-4)
The Warriors managed to escape their own defeat against the Fightin’ Byes of Open Date U., but only because the visitors fell asleep on the beach.
4. Fres-No State (1-4)
How does a team jump/fall from the trailing edge of the Bottom 10 Waiting List all the way to No. 4? By losing on the road at UCan’t after being favored to defeat the Huskies by 23 points, that’s how. So, it takes over this spot that was occupied by Connecticut one week ago and UConn — wait … did UConn leave the Bottom 10 and move onto the Waiting List? That’s even more depressing than the whole Kansas thing!
5. The 13th Man (3-2)
Jimbo Fisher is slated to make $90 million over the next 10 years. In related news, $90 million was also the reported production budget for 2019’s movie version of “Cats.”
6. UMess (1-4)
The Minutemen fell to a former Bottom 10 regular, the Eastern Michigan University Emus. Over the remainder of the season, UMess will run through a banana peel gauntlet of current Bottom 10 contenders from Whew Mexico State and Arkansaw State to UCan’t and … oh looky there on Nov. 19 … it’s Texas A&M! Meanwhile, EMU faces Western Michigan before hosting…
7. Northern Ill-ugh-noise (1-4)
The Other Huskies were upset by Baller State in a clash of then-1-3 teams, the first act of a two-act Pillow Fight of the Week #MACtion Double Feature. Now everything that transpires in the MAC feels like a muddy trudge to a regular season finale that is sure to put the “thanks” in Thanksgiving, a Nov. 26 visit from…
8. Akronmonious (1-4)
The Zips lost by three at home to fellow 1-3 MAC daddy Boiling Green. Now they play Ohio Not Ohio State, which has won 13 of the past 14 against Akron. Oddly, Akron and Ohio don’t have any sort of rivalry trophy, despite being in the same state, only three hours apart. Akron and Kent State have the Wagon Wheel. Maybe Ohio and Akron should have the Wheelhouse, as in, “Here at Ohio, beating Akron is always in our Wheelhouse.”
9. Charlotte 1-and-5ers
It could be worse. They could be Charlotte’s other football team, the Carolina Panthers.
10. Whew Mexico State (1-4)
The Other Aggies made a statement by beating Hawai’i and leaving the top bottom spot in these rankings. But then they made another statement by losing to Bottom 10 Waiting Listers FI(not A)U at home. What kind of statement will they make this weekend when they play no one? Because you could make a pretty good argument that they already played no one over the past two weeks and they still only hit .500.
Waiting List: U-Can’t, US(not C)F, Georgia State Not Southern, Arizona Skate, Strandford, FI(notA)U, Utah State Other Other Aggies, Lose-iana Tech, firing a guy who had you in the Rose Bowl like 10 minutes ago.
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Dan Wetzel
As victims go, Lane Kiffin doesn’t seem like one.
He could have stayed at Ole Miss, made over $10 million a year, led his 11-1 team into a home playoff game and become an icon at a place where he supposedly found personal tranquility. Or he could’ve left for LSU to make over $10 million a year leading a program that has won three national titles this century.
Fortunate would be one description of such a fork in life’s road. The result of endless work and talent would be another.
But apparently no one knows a man’s burdens until they’ve walked a mile in his hot yoga pants.
Per his resignation statement on social media, it was spiritual, familial and mentor guidance that led Kiffin to go to LSU, not all those five-star recruits in New Orleans.
“After a lot of prayer and time spent with family, I made the difficult decision to accept the head coaching position at LSU,” he wrote.
In an interview with ESPN’s Marty Smith, Kiffin noted “my heart was [at Ole Miss], but I talked to some mentors, Coach [Pete] Carroll, Coach [Nick] Saban. Especially when Coach Carroll said, ‘Your dad would tell you to go. Take the shot.'” Kiffin later added: “I talked to God, and he told me it’s time to take a new step.”
After following everyone else’s advice, Kiffin discovered those mean folks at Ole Miss wouldn’t let him keep coaching the Rebels through the College Football Playoff on account of the fact Kiffin was now, you know, the coach of rival LSU.
Apparently quitting means different things to different people. Shame on Ole Miss for having some self-esteem.
“I was hoping to complete a historic six-season run … ,” Kiffin said. “My request to do so was denied by [Rebels athletic director] Keith Carter despite the team also asking him to allow me to keep coaching them so they could better maintain their high level of performance.”
Well, if he hoped enough, Kiffin could have just stayed and done it. He didn’t. Trying to paint this as an Ole Miss decision, not a Lane Kiffin decision, is absurd. You are either in or you are out.
Leaving was Kiffin’s right, of course. He chose what he believes are greener pastures. It might work out; LSU, despite its political dysfunction, is a great place to coach ball.
Kiffin should have just put out a statement saying his dream is to win a national title, and as good as Ole Miss has become, he thinks his chance to do it is so much better at LSU that it was worth giving up on his current players, who formed his best and, really, first nationally relevant team.
At least it would be his honest opinion.
Lately, 50-year-old Kiffin has done all he can to paint himself as a more mature version of a once immature person. In the end, though, he is who he is. That includes traits that make him a very talented football coach. He is unique.
He might never live down being known as the coach who bailed on a title contender. It’s his life, though. It’s his reputation.
One of college sports’ original sins was turning playcallers into life-changers. Yeah, that can happen, boys can become men. A coach’s job is to win, though.
A great coach doesn’t have to be loyal or thoughtful or an example of how life should be lived.
This is the dichotomy of what you get when you hire Kiffin. He was on a heater in Oxford, winning in a way he never did with USC or Tennessee or the Oakland Raiders.
That seemingly should continue at resource-rich LSU. Along the way, you get a colorful circus, a wrestling character with a whistle, a high-wire act that could always break bad. It rarely ends well — from airport firings to near-riot-inducing resignations to an exasperated Nick Saban.
LSU should just embrace it — the good and the not so good. What’s more fun than being the villain? Kiffin might be a problem child, but he’s your problem child. It will probably get you a few more victories on Saturdays. He will certainly get you a few more laughs on social media.
It worked for Ole Miss, at least until it didn’t. Then the Rebels had to finally push him aside. This is Lane Kiffin. You can hardly trust him in the good times.
If anything, Carter had been too nice. He probably should have demanded Kiffin pledge his allegiance weeks back, after Kiffin’s family visited Gainesville, Florida, as well as Baton Rouge.
Instead, Kiffin hemmed and hawed and extended the soap opera, gaining leverage along the way.
Blame was thrown on the “calendar,” even though it was coaches such as Kiffin who created it. And leaving a championship contender is an individual choice that no one else is making.
Blame was put on Ole Miss, as if it should just accept desperate second-class hostage status. Better to promote defensive coordinator Pete Golding and try to win with the people who want to be there.
To Kiffin, the idea of winning is seemingly all that matters. Not necessarily winning, but the idea of winning. Potential playoff teams count for more than current ones. Tomorrow means more than today. Next is better than now.
Maybe that mindset is what got him here, got him all these incredible opportunities, including his new one at LSU, where he must believe he is going to win national title after national title.
So go do that, unapologetically. Own it. Own the decision. Own the quitting. Own the fallout. Everything is possible in Baton Rouge, just not the Victim Lane act.
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