
The Top 25 More Or Less is brought to you this week by the United States Department of Justice – where you will go for daily fantasy sports once they finish giving Draft Kings and Fan Duel the business.
1. LEONARD FOURNETTE (LSU, 20-158): Tried to auction off his game jersey from LSU’s win over South Carolina to flood relief efforts IN SOUTH CAROLINA, and then announced that he was told by the NCAA that he couldn’t because the NCAA is Satan’s caterer.
2. THE NCAA (12-358,303-5 straight up and against the line): Announced later Saturday than Fournette could in fact auction his jersey, but stopped short of saying it would buy the jersey for about a million bucks and send the money to South Carolina itself.
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3. BAYLOR (5-0, 3-1): Playing well enough to be No. 1 by nearly any metric, but failing to cover the 36 against SMU in Week One is a moral and ethical disgrace for which the Bears must pay, and pay, and pay.
4. UTAH (5-0, 3-2): Beat Michigan, now Cal – proving that the Utes are the best team in the country when given nine turnovers at home by ranked teams. Let that be a lesson to us all.
[RELATED: Goff throws five picks, Cal falls to Utah]
5. TCU (6-0, 2-4, 4-2): Gary Patterson will now eat a live Komodo dragon in hopes of having someone else who can make him angry.
6. IOWA (6-0, 4-2): Holding up the dignity of bettors everywhere by not only winning but covering in a conference where the other two unbeaten teams, Michigan State and Ohio State, are 1-11 against the line and therefore hate puppies.
7. MICHIGAN (5-1, 4-2, 1-5): Even though he managed to beat the total against Northwestern by an entire point, Jim Harbaugh is now 14-24 against the total in his last two years plus this season. Does anybody in this malapportioned conference even care about the only thing that makes football tolerable?
[RELATED: Harbaugh, Michigan shut out third straight opponent]
8. CENTRAL MICHIGAN (2-4, 6-0): You think covering every week with a mediocre team is easy?
9. CHASE UTLEY (1-0): Really could have done Joe Torre a favor by interrupting Torre’s presser and saying, “Look, I don’t know whatever the hell you’re telling them, but I meant to put Tejada into left field. I ALWAYS mean to put the second baseman into left field, because I’ve gotten put into left field plenty of times. We won. Bite me.”
[RELATED: Controversial slide, call help Dodgers beat Mets]
10. CUBS FANS: Three games in and you’re already irritating the hell out of the rest of the country like you were Red Sox fans. I’m sure you’ll come to realize this when you’re hit on the heads with beer steins when you’re explaining how you knew how great Jake Arrieta would be when he was with Baltimore.
[RELATED: Five-run second propels Cubs past Cards]
11. GIANTS FANS: For keeping your yaps shut about the postseason so far.
12. ALABAMA FANS (5-1, never satisfied): A lot of pressure to keep their focus after the phony Lane Kiffin rumors and Nick Saban’s media tantrum. Barely beating Arkansas will not assuage their rage any more than knowing that Auburn still hasn’t covered this year.
13. WAKE FOREST (3-3, 3-3, 2-3-1) AND BOSTON COLLEGE (3-3-, 2-3-1, 1-5): Played in a game with the lowest total in memory (35.5) and went under by 32 ½ points. Both teams have been running the quarterback-optional offense all year, but this is just spectacular. And by “spectacular,” we mean the football equivalent of a Ziploc bag of catsick.
14. CLEMSON (5-0, 3-2): Beat Georgia Tech and celebrated by having coach Dabo Swinney complain about the increased use of the verb “Clemsoning,” which is the phenomenon whereby highly regarded team lose inexplicably to inferior teams at the worst possible time. Great, another Saban on our hands, taking the bait instead of pretending the media actually doesn’t exist as the coaches’ handbook insists.
15. KATIE NOLAN (record unrecorded, though she’s always a pretty good over bet): Robbed of a chance to horsewhip the NCAA on “Garbage Time” when NCAA decides not to do the hilariously venal and stupid thing. She must be royally pissed.
16. PORTLAND STATE (4-1): Throat-punched hopeless North Texas (0-6, 0-6), 66-0. There’s some numerology thing here that I would look up if I weren’t mailing this week in.
17. DON CHERRY: Back for another year of cornea-searing fun.
18. OHIO AND TOLEDO (10-1, 9-1-1): How ‘bout those Browns?
19. CHRIS PETERSEN (Washington, 3-2, 4-1; 11-8, 11-8, 5-14 against the total): Apparently he can have the USC job if he’s stupid enough to want it.
20. WASHINGTON STATE (3-2, 3-2): Put the final knee in Oregon’s season, and are now only three touchdowns worse than Utah in a comparison point that has never been of any value, because math.
21. THABO SEFOLOSHA: The accomplished Atlanta Hawk was acquitted of charges that he gave money to a homeless person and then broke his own leg.
22. TERRELL OWENS (41, still a hero in the mirror): Announced on Philadelphia radio that he could still help the Eagles. Among the people who can’t make this up is, well, everyone ever.
23. LAQUAN MCGOWAN (6-7, 410): As a tight end who doubles as a Ford Edge, he will be a 49ers’ future draft choice – you may bet the house on it. If he injures his knee between now and his draft day, bet the kids, too.
24. LANDON DONOVAN: He can now demand the death penalty for Jurgen Klinsmann . . . and will. Just ask him.
25. COLUMBIA (1-3, 1-24): Broke a two-dozen-game losing streak by beating Wagner. This is the same team that assembled a 44-game losing streak in the ‘80s, so stopping at 24 seems, well, half-hearted.