The Realm of Football: Part Two

And the Lord Jameis hath said: "Thou shall plow thine's woman right in her nether reigons." 

Ah, yes...Who would have thought a mere string of words could bring down the playoff hopes and dreams of an entire university? Unbelievably so, the sentence so aptly translated by David Tenenbaum (Twitter: @DTenenbaum) nearly did just that. If it wasn't for the heroics of trusty Squire Maguire and Clemson being Clemson, the mighty Seminoles would find themselves eliminated from playoff contention before the arrival of October. Instead, we will now more than likely be forced to see the realm's least liked player playing for it all in January, leaving us to forever curse the name "Dabo" for not doing the deed. Beyond the shenanigans of Lord Jameis (probably more apt to call him Jameis the Jester), there were plenty of other intriguing happenings in the realm, leaving us with a quite a bit to decipher and discuss. Here are just a few of the things on our feeble minds after four weeks of football.

1. The tide is rising in Mississippi, not Alabama.

Dak The Destroyer eviscerated The Mad Hatter's defense.

Before Paul Finebaum callers start harassing us, Alabama did some really impressive things this week against Florida. We all knew that Amari Cooper isn't from this planet, instead hailing from the some other land in our galaxy that gave birth to Julio Jones. Additionally, Blake Sims looked like a damn good quarterback, making us eat our words for ever doubting a Nick Saban QB (Greg McElroy excluded). That being said, this is what the realm is supposed to expect of Alabama: they have the best recruiting haul year in and year out, have phenomenal facilities, and the Dark Lord of Defense running their ship. Contrast that with the Ole Miss Rebels and the Mississippi State Bulldogs. No one expects anything from these units. Since the earliest days of the realm, these programs have been seen as the Hodors of college football…and now the Hodors just might be contenders for the championship. Though there are still a ton of conference tilts left to be played, both have shown themselves to be capable of going toe to toe with Alabama and Auburn. Nkemdiche's unit in Oxford looked nasty against Boise, laying hard hit after hard hit against the Broncos in the season opener. Combine that with a Bo Wallace that merely distributes and avoids the big mistakes (pray to the CFB Gods for this), and Rebels fans have many reasons to believe they could be playing for it all in Atlanta in December. However, the more impressive team from The Magnolia State is unquestionably Mississippi State. Dan Mullen's group, led by the fearsome DAK THE DESTROYER went into Death Valley, at night, and whipped the Mad Hatter and his crew into submission. Most ardent followers of the game have known about Dak for some time, making the defense's performance the most unbelievable of the night. The Bulldogs went into Baton Rouge, and didn't concede a touchdown to LSU's offense (which has two very good RBs in Hilliard and Fournette) until the fourth quarter. These Mississippi teams are for real, citizens of the realm. Do we dare say that the Egg Bowl will decide the winner of the SEC West? Hard as that may be to fathom, this could be the year that winter indeed comes. 

2. The PAC 12 has challenged the SEC to a trial by combat to decide the best conference race of the season.

Making the winning catch while apparently taking a shot to the jewels? LEGENDARY.

We're not backtracking from what we said about the SEC West a few weeks ago in the first edition of The Realm of Football. Furthermore, the SEC East looks to be wide open given the unpredictability of Spurrier's squad, and the fact that Mark Richt and Gary Pinkel are still in control of Georgia and Mizzou. Yet despite how great these races should be, if this past weekend was any indication, the PAC 12 race will give the SEC all it can handle. The final hours of Saturday night were full of west coast mayhem, as there were two fantastic contests finishing within minutes of each other. First, Pullman began to look like Lubbock, as the Ducks were able to hold off Mike Leach's pesky offense despite giving up seven sacks. Only minutes later, the Cardiac Cats from Tucson completed an unbelievable comeback that included 36 fourth quarter points, and the Hill Mary. Much like the SEC, this conference has shown us that even the bottom feeders can give the top dogs a run, which should lead to an incredible race. Just think about it: USC looked promising after beating Stanford, then fell to lowly BC; UCLA was a popular playoff pick, but has looked unimpressive, and Hundley's status is up in the air; ASU has lost Taylor Kelly for a few weeks, so who knows what the Sun Devils will look like; Utah just went to Ann Arbor and beat the snot out of Michigan in the Big House; Stanford is still a pretty good squad that should get close to 10 wins. There are a ton of unknowns right now in the PAC 12 outside of a certain dude up in Eugene, and it will be fun to watch those questions get answered over the coming weeks.

3. Speaking of that dude in Eugene…

ALL HAIL THE ONE TRUE KING, KING MARIOTA. We can't hide our Marcus Mariota bromance here at Rushing The Field. Even if Lord Jameis wasn't engaging in hijinks, he'd still be second best to the man at the helm of the dystopian duck cyborg blood machine. Despite his offensive line not showing up last week in Pullman, Mariota still went 21-25 for 329 yards and 5 TDs, which also included a key 28 yard scamper on 4th and 10 late in the third quarter when the game was tied. And his yearly stats, you ask? A mere 71 of 96 for 1135 yards and 13 TDs, plus three more scores and 214 yards on the ground. If he can continue at this pace over the next 8 games, he'll finish with over 3,000 yards passing, close to 1,000 on the ground, and roughly 48 combined TDs. Let's hope the Ducks' O-Line can shape up and keep the king upright, as we might be witnessing one of the greatest individual seasons ever. 

4. Marcus is The King, but Optimus Perine may be the baddest man in the land.

CFB's Greg Oden…Someone check this guy's birth certificate!

As West Virginia learned this past week, Samaje Perine is not to be messed with, and is not easy to bring down. College football's version of Greg Oden had his coming out party this weekend, and what a scene it was. 34 carries, 242 yards, 4 TDs. I can't even begin to tell you how many of those yards were after first contact, as the 5'11" true freshman made countless WVU defenders regret taking the field Saturday night. He may not be as dynamic as a certain former Sooner currently in trouble with the law, but he's a bowling ball of a bruiser that is going to wear down Big XII teams left and right in the weeks to come. Either way, the RB by committee experiment at Oklahoma has ended, as Optimus Perine has taken the reigns.

5. Charlie Strong inherited a sacked and smoldering House Longhorn. 

At least they gave Charlie a sweet cowboy hat. 

You know it's bad when you see Twitter debates among respected sports writers and CFB analysts about whether Mack left the program in better shape than Mackovic. Yes, John Freaking Mackovic. Mackovic certainly didn't win a national championship, and the program certainly wasn't the behemoth in terms of national attention it is now thanks to Grandaddy Mack, but when you look at the talent on this squad, you start to wonder what in the world Mack was doing in his last four years on The Forty. If you check NFL DraftScout, you'll find that only six Longhorns are projected to be drafted this season, and while it's still early and much better than last year's donut in the draft, none are projected higher than the 3rd round. It must be said that this website somehow has not included DT Malcom Brown in its rankings, and the one shining star of the Longhorns could be a first or second round pick after this season should he come out. Still, when you're the University of Texas, and you have only one guy who MIGHT be a first round draft pick, someone wasn't doing their job in both recruiting and developing talent. Keep in mind, Mackovic won three conference championships in his last four seasons on The Forty, and left Mack Brown some serious talent in Ricky Williams, Casey Hampton, Shaun Rogers, Leonard Davis, Mike Williams, and Quentin Jammer. There is nothing anywhere close to that on this year's roster. Barring the NCAA allowing Vince Young to suit up again for the Horns, it's going to take a few years for Charlie to get this program back to where it was from 2004-2009 in terms of talent. Let's just hope the burnt orange fanatics can keep that in mind while Charlie rebuilds the house.

Anyone see some Mack and DeLoss in here?

That's all for this week in The Realm of Football! We hope you are enjoying our sub-optimal blogging, and please feel free to share it with other citizens of the realm.