NCAA Week 5: Good Snark, Bad Snark

Back in the day before the day, when William Blake wrote, people paid attention.

Consider his tome, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, which produced this observation:

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.

The Doors took note.

So should college football's pollsters. Until then, we're stuck with strange days.

Again, we get it.

Polls are simply clickbait that keep the sport on Front Street during the week. That's all well and good, but when they morphed into a bikinis-&-sashes exercise that glorified eye tests, they got taken too seriously.

Especially as they've been criteria for mythical and alleged actual national championships, which is why The Daily Player will continue its quixotic and totally futile campaign to get them the hell outta the equation and back to the weird little world where they belong.

Good snark: Rosary time ... Blessed art a receiver who can riseth above a forest of outstretched arms and hauleth in a prayer:

Didn't know Butch Jones was Catholic. Can't be doing a Kaepernick. No tune. And incidentally, that third verse does suck.

Bad snark: The Cyclone that doesn't touch down touchdown ... Another coach, same result. Iowa State's good for throwing a scare or two into road favorites every season and occasionally picks one off. That's why they're everyone's favorite trap play.

This time, though, unless Baylor was looking past them to a bye and then getting set to rock and chalk the Jayhawks, the Cyclones damn near took it to 'em. But there's that qualifier: damn near.

And so it goes.

Good snark: Hoosier daddy? ... Playing Iowa State's role in the Big Ten is usually Indiana. Lotsa points, but little to show for them. However, this time, the Hoosiers heard the legendary battle cry of Buzz Lightyear:

Could it be the pieces are finally coming together in Bloomington?

Bad snark: Adversity ... Can the matriculating student-athletes at many of America's finest universities take a few hard looks into a thesaurus?

At the very least, can they stop using adversity to describe football foibles in a world of harsher hard knocks?

One dude gets a free pass from this rant, though:

Getting canned comes marginally close to adversity. For the Gators. Safe to say, Bill Muschamp will get by.

Good snark: What having big hands really means ... For better or worse, Oklahoma State knows how to keep itself out there this season. It's not every day a team blocks three kicks.

The Cowboys must've seen something Notre Dame did to Texas on what are usually the most boring plays in football. Not in Stillwater. Especially this one:

Holy what? Was that a Longhorn joke?

Bad snark: Speaking of ... Who was one of only two coaches -- besides the amateur biker -- to post 10+ wins in a season at Louisville? Thought so.

Did moving to the nation's richest athletic department make Charlie Strong dumb, or what? Seems like his biggest failing is he's not named Nick Saban.

This is what Strong gets for being straight about the job in progress.

Dude hasn't even had a chance to recruit a full team of his players, but Longhorn admins and boosters are already talking about pulling the plug. Maybe they haven't realized yet that Notre Dame isn't a signature-win opponent anymore.

Maybe they should.

Good snark: On the other hand ... Chris Petersen was a genius at Boise State, and moving to Montlake didn't affect his IQ one bit.

He's only had two seasons to stock his own squad, enduring 8-6 and 7-6 campaigns while installing his system. It appears patience is paying off:

There are only 14 seniors on the Huskies' roster.

Bad snark: All Ducked up ... Seems to be Warm Butt Week. As opposed to Strong, Oregon's Mark Helfrich inherited a well-oiled machine, and the farther he gets from the day he got handed the keys, the dodgier the results look.

It definitely didn't help that he hired Brady Hoke to rebuild the defense. Not working. Not popular.

Giving up six rushing scores to Wazzu's pass-first, pass-second, pass-24/7 Air Raid offense is not a sign things are going well.

Not gonna improve with Washington coming to town on Saturday.

Good snark: Hammer it over the horizon ... North Carolina was knocking on the door of elite status all last season. This year, the Tar Heels seem to be kicking it in.

Literally.

A Tomahawk chop in Carolina blue? They might remember that in Tallahassee. Good thing the kicker's got wheels ... and a senior.

Bad snark: El Bitcho Grande ... TCU's Gary Patterson was less than enamored with Big XII reffing in the Horned Frogs' defense-optional loss to Oklahoma:

Couldn't tell it from that highlight package, but Patterson didn't care for the officials' perspectives.

Maybe if he pulled out all the stops, he could've altered those judgment calls.

Perspective's this week's theme, dude. Get with the program.

Snarkalicious: Harbaugh's trains ... Coulda called it the ultimate I-formation, but centipede seems to have prevailed. Michigan's coaches call it trains, which is supposed to extend the wonderment of defensive players expecting a smash play to the goal line.

But with five linemen, three tight ends, a fullback, and a running back breaking the huddle, Wisconsin didn't need help from Sherlock Holmes to know what was coming.

And that's how a No 4-ranked team beats a No 8.

According to some.