The Top Whatever: Indiana won the football game
The Top Whatever ranks precisely as many college football things as ought to be ranked.
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1. The Indiana Hoosiers, by Jason
The destination doesn’t matter without the journey. Please bear with.
The 2014 Indiana Hoosiers:
Led #6 Ohio State by six until 17 minutes remained, then lost by 15.
Led #8 Michigan State in the second quarter, then lost 56-17.
The 2015 Hoosiers:
Lost by a touchdown to #1 Ohio State.
Lost by eight to #10 Iowa.
Were within two of #7 Michigan State in the fourth quarter, before losing by 26.
Led #15 Michigan by a touchdown in double overtime, just for good measure.
Had long since earned the internet nickname CHAOS TEAM.
Lost a bowl, their first postseason game in a decade, due to New York City lacking goalpost upright lasers.
The 2016 Hoosiers:
Lost by five to #10 Nebraska.
Led #12 Penn State 31-28 in the fourth quarter before losing by 14.
Led #4 Michigan in the third quarter before losing.
Lost another bowl game on a field goal.
The 2017 Hoosiers:
Hosted College GameDay, led #2 Ohio State 21-20 in the third, and lost by 28.
Took #17 Michigan to overtime but lost.
Led #4 Wisconsin by 10 in the second before losing by 28.
The 2018 Hoosiers:
Pulled within seven of #24 Michigan State in the fourth, then gave up a 75-yard run almost immediately.
Trailed #3 Ohio State by a TD at the half before losing by 23.
Recovered an onside kick with a chance to beat #18 Penn State, but came about 50 yards short.
Led #4 Michigan at the half and were within a TD late, but lost by 11.
The 2019 Hoosiers:
Tied #25 Michigan State with two minutes to go, then lost by, uh, nine.
Trailed #9 Penn State 27-24 in the fourth and would score again with 13 seconds left. Unfortunately, PSU also scored in the interim.
Led bowl game 23-9 with five minutes to go. Lost bowl game.
That was terrible, wasn’t it?
But now we’re there.
The 2020 Hoosiers:
Are
1-0
after beating
#8 Penn State
in overtime
despite being outgained
by 277 yards.
2. THE QUATRODOINK, by Spencer
The last time the planets of our solar system all appeared in the same night sky happened in 949 AD. If you were not around for that, then go ahead and mark May 6, 2492 down on the calendar, because that is the next time. Set a reminder if you need to.
The matter of all the planets being visible in the same sky is rare, but it will happen. A field goal attempt in which the ball hits all three posts, then revisits the crossbar before bouncing short? That’s the ultra-rare QUATRODOINK, an event most of us believed to be purely theoretical.
Until this weekend:
Rice can now claim two cosmic achievements. First, they helped inspire the Moon landings by serving as half of John F. Kennedy’s metaphor for why we should try difficult things: Not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
Second, their kicker hit all three bars on a failed field goal attempt. This shouldn’t count as a missed field goal. To the contrary, this improbable feat should have given Rice an instant victory — but only if the kicker called a QUATRODOINK before he booted the ball, and only on completion of the QUATRODOINK.
Appreciate it for what it is: A miracle not just of football, but of human achievement.
3. Justin Fields, by Richard
Enough with simply “Tank for Trevor.” This has been pissing me off all season, but I decided to hold my tongue because Fields had not taken the field yet.
But from here on out: Y’all are on notice. Y’all who make the sick editzz jersey photoshops, y’all who are part and parcel to the Draft-Industrial Complex, and y’all who insist it’s fait accompli that the Jets will take Lawrence first in April. Fields exists too, and he’s very good. He just went 20-of-21 against Nebraska to open the season.
He also had 12 true rushing attempts. I think you’ll see that number tick up, if Ohio State continues to struggle getting the run game going. He has a stiffer test against Penn State in prime time next weekend. Seems like a perfectly good time to get reacquainted with him.
I know it’s been a long 10 months, so perhaps you have forgotten, but Fields was basically a route miscommunication away from meeting LSU in last year’s national championship. When we’re talking about who will have the ignominious task of quarterbacking the Jets next season, Fields and Lawrence should be 1 and 1A.
4. The Sonic Boom Doink, by Spencer
Plenty of teams miss field goals. Very few hit the upright so hard they sound like the Windows error noise. Even fewer sound like a passenger plane crashing into the side of an aluminum warehouse. The rarest — like this harbinger of doom for the Nittany Lions — make the same sound as a wrestler’s body hitting a particle board table after falling from 20 feet off a cage.
Penn State’s kicker battered this so hard, the upright should have come down. (If this happens, it represents another situation in which a standard field goal miss actually wins the game.)
5. Texas Tech’s MEGAPUNT, by Alex
That there is a punt that traveled well over 100 yards off the foot of the Red Raiders’ Austin McNamara. It goes in the books as an 87-yarder, a bit off the record of 99, set by Nevada’s Pat Brady against Loyola Marymount 70 years ago this week.
But McNamara gets additional points for the pressure. West Virginia was within about a foot, or less than half a second, of sending it back into McNamara’s own end zone.
McNamara also had a 74-yard bomb in the first quarter. That one led to Tech getting the ball back near midfield before scoring a touchdown. The 87-yarder made sure the ensuing 34-yard WVU drive only got the Eers as far as Tech’s 46. The punter was arguably the difference in a 34-27 win.
6. Letting them score, by Richard
I want to go into the most key decision in Indiana’s win: letting Penn State score a touchdown.
Indiana failed on a fourth down late in the game, but what followed was a lengthy targeting review. This is basically a time out, and when used wisely, teams can take advantage of a game situation. Indiana was down one point at the time, so a touchdown by the opponent would retain a one-possession deficit (assuming the opponent wouldn’t risk a two-point attempt) and preserve time (1:42 left on the clock).
Penn State took over, knocking on the door, and Indiana just let ‘em waltz right in. Watch Penn State’s running back realize at the 1-yard line that he should take a knee, except it’s too late.
The commitment to the bit is exceptional. Watch these two players. After the snap, they actively do not run fit:
Kudos to buddy right here for just watching the proceedings go ahead:
And the multiple Indiana defenders celebrating the fact that they just allowed a touchdown.
I dub thee the Bloomington Honeypot for ever and always. The Nittany Lions fell for it, and the gambit paid off when the Hoosier offense tied the game and won in overtime by the slimmest of margins.
And then one day later, the professionals did the same thing:
7. Auburn Jesus, by Richard
Auburn’s 3-2. They’re definitely not a great team, but I’m not even sure they’re a good team. There’s a very good argument that the Tigers should be 1-4.
It is well documented that Bo Nix broke the sport with the backward spike debacle a couple weeks ago. But what happened near the end of their win over Ole Miss was much easier to miss.
With a little under six minutes to play, Ole Miss scored to go up one point and kicked off. The kick bounced harmlessly into the end zone for a touchback …
… or did it?
Of course you know the rest. Auburn’s final touchdown meant they ended up winning 35-28, instead of merely tying (as would have been the case if this play had been adjudicated correctly).
Auburn might once again be trafficking in the purely spiritual. Instead of an “Extend Gus” year or a “Fire Gus” year, we might just have an Auburn Jesus year on our hands. It might not take the Tigers to the mountaintop, but a higher power is at least keeping Auburn’s head above water.
8. A Rutgers Big Ten win, by Alex
Rutgers gets clowned a lot because it represents some of the lamer things about college sports. Playing in a conference it probably shouldn’t be in, only because it’s close to a major media market and can make more money for everyone else? Check. Failing to win regularly in most sports in that conference? Yeah. Getting particularly wrecked in the one sport most people in that league use to judge institutional success, and doing it basically year after year? Check. Hiring Greg Schiano in 2020, because he was good for them in 2006? Check.
None of that’s the fault of Rutgers’ players, though. It’s not on them that they’re badly overmatched in a division with Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State. And it certainly shouldn’t preclude us from celebrating their successes, especially against the programs in their new conference that have more talent and resources (read: all of them).
So cheers to you, Knights, on a 38-27 opening win at Michigan State. Rutgers was 0-18 in the Big Ten the last two years, a streak that’s over after one game of the second Schiano era. It is legitimately awesome when players who only know losing get to celebrate winning:
Rutgers got outgained both in the aggregate and per play and needed a preposterous seven turnovers by the Spartans to win by 11. That might matter if you’re a person concerned with what Rutgers football will do in the future. But that’s not a healthy kind of person to be. A much healthier way to live is to remember Rutgers is playing with house money for the rest of 2020.
9. Jacksonville State, by Jason
These 3-1 Gamecocks defeated FIU, the only FCS-over-FBS win this “season,” and are hereby crowned FCS autumn co-champions, along with 1-0 North Dakota State.
10. Vacuum-sealing your sweatshirt into your pants, by Spencer
Oklahoma State is now 4-0, thanks primarily to its defense. Most people might think that makes a weird season for the Cowboys, a team that in the Mike Gundy era has relied primarily on its long string of productive offenses.
Most people do not have the gigantic galaxy brain of an OAN-binging mind genius like Gundy, however. Gundy knew this was coming because he can speak to animals who tell him the future. Gundy knows the Big 12’s conspiracy to keep Oklahoma State from being too powerful, which is why he hasn’t taken other jobs, and why he spends most of the offseason hiding from the Big 12’s plotting agents and hunting snakes in the underbrush of Osage Country. Gundy grew his mullet to shield the back of his neck, not because he loves an ironic honky-tonkin’ haircut, but to prevent the government from installing a Matrix plug in the back of his neck.
Gundy takes powerful brain supplements. That is why he’s okay with winning Big 12 games with defense, and why he remains the only coach I’ve ever seen tuck a sweatshirt into his pants and then belt it — something he has done on at least two occasions. (The airtight waist keeps Lincoln Riley’s evil Sooner nanobots from invading Gundy’s body.)
Also receiving votes: Two reminders of what we’re fighting for, by Jason
If by chance you might like to unplug from the world for a number of hours, here is a pretty good ebook mostly about college football.
I'm going to sample that Penn State "doink" as a kick drum for my upcoming industrial album
#6 just proves that the NFL has no original ideas and takes everything they learn from college football.