The best and the worst of week 3

Week 3 of college football featured the usual crazy plays, fans in need of comforting (that means you, Florida State and Florida supporters), and teams taking out their frustrations on their opponents and sending them home with more than just bruised egos.

It’s time for the report cards. The same applies to last season’s grading: good grades are only given for the spectacular, and bad grades cannot be undone.

Last week’s highest marks went to Northern Illinois, which cashed in on a win over Notre Dame and a love match between quarterback and coach on the sidelines. Low marks went to the defending national champions, who are looking for an offense, and their fans, who are looking for personality and a sense of humor.

Here is the analysis of the third week on the performance of the fans, teams, players and coaches:

4 million reasons to lose

The Kent State University athletic department is obviously financially savvy—so much so that it cannot tell anyone in their right mind that it cares about what happens on the football field.

How else can we explain what happened in the first month of the season?

After next week’s game against Penn State, the Golden Flashes will have received $4.05 million in guarantees from their three FBS opponents. Their trip to Happy Valley will net them a whopping $1.6 million.

So far, the results of those checks have resulted in a 55-24 loss to Pittsburgh ($1.1 million payout) and a $1.35 million payment for a 71-0 loss to Tennessee in which the Golden Flashes gained 112 total yards and had just eight first downs — despite not losing the ball once. The Volunteers, who have gained 740 yards on offense, have been doing some extra practice ahead of their game next week at Oklahoma.

Oh, Kent State also lost at home to FCS St. Francis (Pa.).

I can’t get mad at the consistency, but at least some of Kent’s MAC counterparts are making a fortune: Toledo collected $1.2 million for its win over Mississippi State, and Northern Illinois’ surprise win over Notre Dame last week earned them $1.4 million.

Let it rain: expulsion

NCAA has a heart, at least for this week

While the NCAA can be archaic and inflexible in its approach to… well, everything—especially rule enforcement—the organization that screams about amateurism will make the right move every now and then. Not just because it makes sense, but because otherwise the NCAA would be ridiculed and become even more irrelevant than it already is.

This week, the NCAA approved the use of a helmet this season for deaf and hard of hearing players who play for Gallaudet University, a school in Washington, DC.

Helmet technology allows coaches to call plays on a tablet from the sidelines, and the quarterback can relay this information to his teammates via the screen mounted in his helmet.

“It’s great that the NCAA approved it for the season so we can work through these issues,” Gallaudet coach Chuck Goldstein told The Associated Press. “We have time and we’re excited about it — more excited than ever. And I’m just happy that we have these things and see what we need to improve.”

Let’s hope the NCAA Playing Rules Oversight Panel approves the helmets for permanent use in the future, just as it approved coach-player communication for the FBS level in April.

Pay attention: A+

Do not click Send

I’ll keep it short and sweet. Fox televises college football, but its social media team forgot which teams are actually in the FBS.

Fox’s in-game graphics team also had problems.

Google is free: F

They said it

Here’s what 57-year-old Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy had to say about how linebacker Obi Ezeigbo ended up in Stillwater after playing at Gannon University, a Division II school in Erie, Pennsylvania.

“Do you want me to go back to talking about coaches, or do you want the truth? He was very cheap,” Gundy said. “The number of players we’re bringing in who are ready to play at that level, we can’t afford.”

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“I’m just out here now so I don’t get penalized,” Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham said in his on-field interview after the win over Texas State following a bizarre sequence at the end of the game.

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Colorado State quarterback Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi, who received the Foot In Mouth Award this week, gave his thoughts on rival Colorado. The Rams lost 28-9, their seventh straight loss in the series, with Fowler-Nicolosi throwing two interceptions to contribute to the loss.

“They got a rude awakening very quickly. I think it shows that the hype, the media hype and all that only goes so far. At the end of the day, it’s 11 guys going up against our 11 guys and we’ll find out who wants it more. We’ll see how far they can get with their Instagram followers,” Fowler-Nicolosi said ahead of the loss.

The worst and the best of the rest

There is a reason why it is called the blind side:

Sandra Bullock blocked: F

Definition of butterfingers:

Fumble, Fumblelaya, Fumblerooski: A+

Yap, yap, yap, yap:

Leave the business to fans and spectators: D-

Seat is hot in Tallahassee:

Image = 1,000 words: Gap year required

Pickin’ and Sixin’:

Reservations for 6: A+

Quarterback on refereeing:

Keep on truckin’: Straight to the end

Feline outperforms the Air Force:

Cat scratch fever: A

Statistics for you

11 – Turnovers for Temple in three games this season.

17 – Age of Alabama wide receiver Ryan Williams, who recorded four catches for 78 yards and a touchdown in the Crimson Tide’s 42-10 win over Wisconsin.

66 – Purdue has allowed more points against Notre Dame than ever before in the 137-year history of football.

69 – Combined ages of Arizona State head coach Kenny Dillingham (34) and Texas State head coach GJ Kinne (35). Dillingham’s team won the game 31-28.

72 – Age of North Carolina head coach Mack Brown, the oldest coach in the FBS.

1.3 million US dollars – Payout Memphis received for the game against Florida State, which the Tigers won 20-12.

Dog of the week

(If you would like your dog to be featured, please send us a picture here.)

Now to the game: Northwestern State at South Alabama

OK, you know where this is going. Since South Alabama needed to beat someone after its first two losses to opponents from college football’s upper echelons, the Jaguars scheduled Northwestern State of the FCS as their game.

The 87-10 loss, which lasted about three hours, is laughable on its face, but it doesn’t even begin to hint at the shame of the actual game – and the fact that the pups had to sit and watch makes this fiasco even worse. The two teams agreed to play an 8-minute fourth quarter, which led to an interesting interpretation of the rules regarding sports betting and payouts. After all, the Jaguars were five-touchdown favorites, so betting on the over should have been a foregone conclusion.

Aside from the unpleasant five-hour bus ride back to their campus in Natchitoches, Louisiana, things certainly could have been worse for the Demons.

South Alabama had six – yes, six – touchdowns given back due to penalties and still set a Sun Belt Conference single-game scoring record.