College FB Championship Chase: Week 9 Stock Report

Some things we learned from Week 8...

               
Enron. Bernie Ebbers. Jayson Blair. Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney in “Say, Say, Say.” The Cal Golden Bears.
    
What do all of these have in common?
 
They pretended to be something they weren’t.
          
A real company. A real CEO. A real journalist. A pair of traveling salesmen hawking an elixir that gives real strength.
 
And an actual Top 25 Division I-A football team with spine, pride, and defense.
               
In short, they were all frauds.
            
More prosaically...

You can’t spell “chokies” without “Hokies.” Oregon can play a little defense, and Southern Cal is—dare we say it?—a fine 9-3 team.
 
Wow.
             
Somewhere, Dennis Erickson has a portrait of himself coaching an 0-8 team. At some point, someone (Saturday, Oregon?) will show him that portrait—and Erickson and his Sun Devils will dissolve in the sunlight.
 
South Florida is a bunch of punks. Georgia’s Mark Richt turns out to be—and this is surprising—classless.
 
And we still know not one thing about Kansas.
          

The Big Board (as per the BCS rankings)

        
1. Ohio State: UP

You know how you can scrape Wite-Out off a surface with your fingernail?

Penn State put on a white-out on Saturday. The Buckeyes might still have a little Nittany under their nails.
         
2. Boston College: UP

There’s no doubt that QB Matt Ryan put on a show in the last two minutes of Thursday night’s game.

There’s also no doubt that Virginia Tech bent over, grabbed their ankles, and, unsolicited, offered Boston College something that's usually taken by force the first night in a federal prison.
          
3. LSU: UNCHANGED

This just in: Les Miles spent the off-week sitting in the corner of his living room, rocking back and forth while switching the light on and off, listening to opera.

In clown makeup.
   
4. Arizona State: UP

The first act is the pledge. The second act is the turn. The third act is the prestige.

What’s up Dennis Erickson’s sleeve?

We’ll find out Saturday vs. Oregon.
        
5. Oregon: UP

The Ducks are looking less and less fraudulent with each passing week. Maybe I should stop being so hard on them.

Naw.
            
6. Oklahoma: UNCHANGED

The Sooners struggled mightily against their toughest opponent to date...but managed to outlast Bye Week in the waning minutes.
         
7. WVU: UP

After a satisfying demolition of Rutgers, the Mountaineers kick back and relax this Saturday—watching Arizona State and Oregon beat each other down the rankings while getting healthier for payback against Louisville on Nov. 8th.
         
8. Kansas: UP

Nice season you got going there. Shame if anything happened to it...
            
9. Missouri: UP

Now in the Top 10 in football AND journalism!
          
10. Georgia: UP

Wouldn’t it be funny if Georgia ended up in a BCS bowl game against WVU again? What do you think would happen?

Yeah, that again.

             
Delisted from the Big Board
             
No. 11 Virginia Tech: Sometimes, clichés are true—the prevent defense prevents you from winning.

 
Hot Stocks to Watch
          
No. 13 UConn: The Huskies started too far down, have no big-time road victory, and, of course, will be destroyed by WVU on Nov. 24th...but right now they're flying high.

Sort of like Enron, just before the Wall Street Journal started writing those pesky stories.