Best and Worst Saturdays: Rebels, Jackets and Faux Mascots

By Chris Marler

Every year when the calendar turns from October to November it feels like there are a few things inevitable to happen. Time change, arguments at Thanksgiving dinner, and College Football getting turned upside down for at least one weekend are unavoidable. 

Navigating November for college football coaches, teams, and contenders is about as easy going as navigating a conversation with your wife after she says “I”m fine.” Good luck. Here are my power rankings for who had the best and worst Saturdays in Week 11.

Best Saturdays Ever Top 3

1. Ole Miss

2. Georgia Tech

3. PETA

The “Mondays” of Saturday/Bottom Five 

1. Omar the Tiger

2. Mormons

3. Dog years

Best Saturday Ever

1. Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin

Hot take: we don’t need to Make America Great Again, we need to make America 2014 again. I’m speaking strictly from a college football and Kanye West standpoint. Saturday felt like a blast from the past in Oxford and that all-time upset of Alabama in 2014. College Gameday was there, Katy Perry was there, Hugh Freeze was there, and even better, Hugh Freeze’s call girls weren’t.

Saturday didn’t have Katy Perry or College Gameday, but it did have a rogue squirrel and a program that turned a corner. Whether you’re a fan of Kiffin or not, Saturday was great to see him, his program, and his portal experiment not only play to their potential, but play to a standard that dominated the premier program in America.

2. Georgia Tech

Miami is good for college football, and I think it’s more fun when The U is relevant. The truth about this team, though, is they are just atheist Notre Dame. They have caught every break imaginable so far this season. Saturday, their luck ran out in Atlanta as Brent Key and Haynes King now own the state of Florida. I don’t make the rules.

3. PETA

I honestly can’t imagine anyone at PETA ever having a fun Saturday or fun time in general. However, I bet those blowhards were happy with what happened in Baton Rouge after the Louisiana Governor brought a live jungle cat to Tiger Stadium on Saturday. I’m telling you, when those Subaru Outback enthusiasts finally turn off MSNBC and go outside, they are going to be thrilled about Alabama’s big win.

Worst Saturday Ever

1. Omar the Tiger

2. QBs at former Big 12 schools

3. Mormons and emotional stability

1. Omar the Tiger

Man, all that tiger wanted in his life was what every 70-year-old New York retiree wants, to go to Florida and be left alone. Insert Louisiana Governor–and tax dollar allocation extraordinaire–Jeff Landry. Like most normal, sober adults, Lnadry has been hellbent on getting a live tiger inside of Tiger Stadium for months now. The idea was never met with resounding excitement. It was much more the vibe of someone in a group chat saying “hey we should all get matching tattoos because I’m going through something that isn’t at all relatable and I need to do something loud and irrational. Who’s with me?!”

Omar was brought to Death Valley for this weekend’s Alabama game. He was paraded around the field before kickoff like the women’s cross country team being recognized for their 4th place finish during a TV timeout. We don’t need to get into the details of what happened next, but Omar’s first college football game resulted in the most embarrassing home loss for LSU under Brian Kelly. And now, like a plus one who accidentally clogged a toilet at a dinner party, Omar will always be remembered and never be invited back.

2. QBs at former Big 12 schools

Missouri and Oklahoma played in what can only be described as the drunkest game in years Saturday night. It was a crazy, sloppy train wreck that ended in a blaze of glory and not one, but two last-second fumble returns for touchdowns.

However, that part was fun drunk. The quarterback play from these two former Big 12 rivals was “please don’t throw up on me and fall into the bushes” drunk. At halftime, Missouri’s starting quarterback had 23 yards passing, and Oklahoma’s Jackson Arnold had 43. Arnold was tied for the most passing yards in the game with Oklahoma’s punter who also had 43 yards passing on one pass attempt. Later in the game, Oklahoma had to use another non-quarterback to complete a touchdown pass.

It was like watching Auburn play another Auburn.

3. Mormons and emotional stability

If you went to bed early after Bama-LSU like a responsible adult, you missed a wild ending with the Mormons out west. Not the TikTok moms from the Hulu documentary. BYU and Utah played in an instant classic that saw BYU keep their college football playoff dreams alive thanks to a last minute, game winning drive aided by a bail-out of all bail-outs on fourth down from the one inch line for BYU.

Afterwards, Utah’s athletic director went off during a press conference where he minced no words and said that the Utes were flat out cheated out of a win. That was the final event of the college football weekend that was. And while I don’t care about Utah football at all, the athletic director having a full on meltdown felt relatable. Listen, between the election and Kirk Herbstreit’s dog dying, it was a bad week for emotional stability everywhere, not just in Utah.