Bottom 10: Not enough fight in Notre Dame
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Ryan McGee, ESPN Senior Writer
Inspirational thought of the week:
Woke up this morning my house was cold
Checked out the furnace she wasn’t burnin’
Went out and hopped in my old Ford
Hit the engine but she ain’t turnin’
We’ve given each other some hard lessons lately
But we ain’t learnin’
We’re the same sad story, that’s a fact
One step up and two steps back
— “One Step Up,” Bruce Springsteen
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located in Room 02 on the second floor of a building located at address 0 2nd Street, we find ourselves after Week 2 obsessed with the number two. Like, we are sitting alone at a two-person desk, wearing a Deion Sanders No. 2 Florida State jersey, shakily holding a No. 2 pencil and scribbling on a double roll of two-ply toilet paper our 200-word, two-act play about two-time All-SEC running back Deuce McAllister.
Why such two-facedness? Because after two weeks of across-the-nation play, the long-term candidates for Bottom 10 residency are beginning two, er, I mean, to ease into a second lane of their own. And how do we identify these teams who are singing to a different twoon, er, tune? They are the ones who already have two losses. And of the 134 teams that play FBS football, their number is already down to 18, and all but one of those are 0-2. (No-vada, at 1-2, is out there rolling a lopsided snake eyes after its Week 0 kickoff.)
Now that peloton of two-loss squads heads downhill into Week 3. How many will continue to match losses with the week number like an octogenarian hoping to shoot their age on the golf course? Stay twoned, er, tuned. We already have our No. 3 Joe Montana college jersey at the ready, certainly more ready than his alma mater was for Week 2.
With apologies to Al Toon, Dave Duerson, Washington Huskies twins Jayvon and Armon Parker, Monmouth defensive back Deuce Lee and Steve Harvey, here’s the post-Week 2 Bottom 10 rankings.
The Zips continued their march through the Big Ten, following a season-opening 56-6 loss at Ohio State with a 49-17 defeat at Rutgers. This week they host Colgate, which is good timing because they need someone to help repair all the teeth that were knocked out of their mouths during those first two weeks.
The Owls made their FBS home debut, hosting the Ragin’ Cajuns of Louisiana and losing 34-10. Now they sing, “Do You Know the Way to San José?” as they go West to face the Spartans, a team they’ve never played before, who in turn are singing, “The First Time Ever I Kenne-saw Your Face.”
After an 0-2 start, the L-obos failed to cover the spread against the Fightin’ Byes of Open Date U. Now they travel to The Plains to face Coveted Fifth Spot contender Auburn, which means an uneasy phone call over to archenemy Whew Mexico State, which has beaten Hugh Freeze the past two years, once when he was coach at Liberty and once when he was at Auburn. Beep. “Um, hey guys, I know we had that whole thing last winter when we banned you from using our facilities for bowl practice because your QB peed on our logo and we know we play in two weeks in our most vicious rivalry contest but, well, um, LOL, bygones and all that, could you send us your Auburn film? Preferably without it being peed on?”
The last two examples of a 21+ point underdog winning a game by 21+ points:
New Mexico St over Hugh Freeze in 2022 (at Liberty)
New Mexico State over Hugh Freeze in 2023 (at Auburn)— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) November 19, 2023
Our second-highest flying parliament of Strigiformes continues its pursuit of Kennesaw for Bottom 10 Owl air supremacy, following up their 48-point Week 1 loss to longtime pass-slingers Oklahoma with a 27-point defeat at Navy, which hasn’t thrown a pass since Roger Staubach graduated.
The Northern Ill-ugh-noise Huskies went to South Bend and: A. Ran the ball 45 times. 2. Committed no turnovers. Thirdly. Won nearly every other statistical category. IV. Cashed a check for $1.4 million. And E. Not only dropped Notre Dame into the Coveted Fifth Spot, they also produced a psychological sequel to Texas A&M’s Week 1 nightmare, “Notre Dame Loss 2: Electric NIU Boogaloo.”
The Minors were tunneled under at home by Southern Utah of FCS in OT. It was the best showing for a group of Thunderbirds in El Paso since the Air Force’s legendary fighter jet demo team did a flyover of the Sun Bowl and immediately realized they were at the wrong bowl game.
The Minutemen continued their march to MAC membership in 2025, opening the season with a home loss to Eastern Not Western Michigan and a Week 2 defeat at Toledo. Now they travel to see the Buffalo Bulls Not Bills, ahead of midseason trips to My Hammy of Ohio and Notre Dame’s daddies in Dekalb. Wait, are we 100% sure they aren’t already in the MAC and we just didn’t realize it?
Speaking of #MACtion, the Bronc-nos are in fact currently a MAC member, though thus far 2024 feels like an audition for the Big Ten after opening with trips to Wisconsin and Ohio State. However, after losing by a combined score of 84-14, this audition is like the time I tried out for “American Gladiators.”
The Cowboys are an FBS program that for whatever reason people back East always seem to think is an FCS program. Meanwhile, the Idaho Vandals were an FCS powerhouse who moved up to FBS, and during that time, they played Wyoming frequently but could never beat them. Then, in 2018, Idaho became the first program to voluntarily move back down to FCS, thus a lot of people still think it’s in FBS. So, when Idaho finally beat Wyoming on Saturday, it was one of three FCS-over-FBS upsets over the weekend, but one that people either knew was an FCS-FBS upset but thought it was the other way around or didn’t realize it was an FCS vs. FBS game at all.
Meanwhile, everyone knew that Kent State’s loss to the St. Francis Red Flash was an FCS-over-FBS upset because their reaction to the 23-17 score was: “What in the name of St. Francis is a Red Flash?!”
Waiting list: FSU Semi-no’s, Snore Eagle, Big (Black and) Blue Nation, Minute Rice, UCan’t, Not The Jacksonville You Think It Is State, FA(not)I U, Charlotte 0-and-2ers, Sam Houston we have a problem, Actual Houston we have a problem, flopping.
