A warning to those of you who only come here for good-natured schadenfreude — this week's column concludes with an entire section devoted to Notre Dame commenters. It is not recommended for anyone, and anyway you aren't good enough to read the brilliant and brave arguments put forth by Indiana's top Hawaii Bowl representative.

ACC

We've reached that stage in the season where it feels like every ACC team has already played every other ACC team, so when you see "Pitt 21, Virginia Tech 16," your brain stops for a moment. It's like a very specific form of deja vu where nobody can pass the ball. And that detachment from reality is seeping over into life at The Key Play:

I just don't know. I don't know how to make anything better.

Neither do any of the other Hokie fans. In just four comments, they've reduced Virginia Tech from a division contender to finishing second or third in the Coastal to playing in a crummy bowl game to missing the postseason altogether. All while the game was still going on.

This drive is for the season. There is no way Georgia Tech loses two more ACC games. Lose now and lose the Coastal.

Dude, we are not winning this division one way or the other.

HA! We are playing for the music city bowl now.

Doubt we're even bowl eligible.



Alert the American Chemical Society: the half-life of Virginia Tech football is far, far lower than we previously thought.

If there's one thing you can call Virginia fans at Streaking The Lawn, it's efficient. They needed just one comment to describe the first half of their loss to Duke...

Oh I get it

London is intentionally making them play shitty so Cutcliffe doesn't make his famous half time adjustments

...and just one to describe the second.

God, we're going to suck just enough to lose this, aren't we?

Sucked a bunch, then sucked less... then sucked just enough to lose.

It's the Neapolitan ice cream of suck!

Several Georgia Tech fans at StingTalk had some spleen to get off their chests in the wake of a loss to UNC.

Next time I feel like watching GT football I'll just schedule a colonoscopy instead.

I mean, it's not the unhealthiest alternative.

What a ööööing embarrassment. Defense should have their scholarships pulled and Roof should be sued for fraud.

That's a trial I would enjoy.

"Mr. Roof, isn't it true that you bamboozled my clients into believing that you were a talented football coach?"

"Not at all. I put '6-45 RECORD AS HEAD COACH AT DUKE' on my resume, as you can clearly see."

(gavel bangs) "I'm dismissing this suit and ordering the plaintiffs to pay Mr. Roof's attorney fees."

We SUXXXX!!

Well its official we sux just check it out. We will never be any better just tell me different. I USED to like PJ but his arrogant and few like him. After Richt beats him 51-7 this year I will listen to your point. We expect to get beat and it will happen. Why would you come to GT?

But if you want true Yellow Jacket sadness, you need to find this commenter at From The Rumble Seat:

Braves/Falcons/Tech fan

I will never be happy in life.

This poor person has probably placed several Laff-A-Lympics wagers on Team Really Rottens. DAMMIT PAUL JOHNSON GET THE BALL TO MUTTLEY.

Big 12

Most Baylor supporters, including the majority of those at BaylorFans, walked a reasonable line after the Bears lost in Morgantown. The officiating was far from the highest quality, but the loss was due to many more factors within Baylor's control. This column, however, is not titled "This Week In Carefully Considered Words."

I don't give a ****. Neg me. This team played like ****. Petty is so mother****ing inconsistent. When he goes on the road, it's a whole NEW Petty. Our recievers are supose to be the best in the country, but can't ****ing catch ****! This coaching staff should have done a better job on play calling, getting these players ready for war and leading this team to victory. This defense played like ****. Were was the defensive line at? Oakman? You are considered a Top 10 pick on many boards and you play like this. Shameful D-Line performance. Secondary. Why? Why do you never turn the **** around?

So what I'm hearing is that special teams did an awesome job.

Oklahoma lost its second game and now faces a difficult road to a playoff spot. How difficult? LandThieves commenters would be happy to tell you.

Not sure why I drink the Kool-Aid every year because this program and this coaching staff have perfected the fine art of the Choke...just another year of being an overrated pretender...

What a ****ing embarrassment. Worst ****ing season under stoops. Just a whole other level of "I just don't give a ****" displayed by our coaches and players

**** this heartless, poorly coached piece of shit excuse of a sooner football team. I officially have better shit to do on Saturdays this fall. Starting now... OUT

Yeesh. On the plus side, at least it didn't get violently person-

I hope Michael hunnicutt gets hit by a bus tonight. ****ing **** ass **** kicker

Dammit.

Oklahoma State was undefeated in conference play entering last Saturday. Tell us how close they came to holding on to that distinction, OrangePower commenter!

Fun fact: if we had gained 400 more yards of offense we still would have been outgained by TCU.

Ok, but total yardage is a pretty limited statistic. Points are really what matters in the end, yes, Cowboys Ride For Free citizens?

A score of 9, in college football, is

the indication you are not good. There are few ways to get there and they all indicate ‘bad'

So Yao was just being a jerk?!?!?

Let's get one last piece of Cowboy wisdom:

My grandma was a simple southern Kansas farmer's wife. She used to say "Sometimes you just need a good fire". I think she was right, and apparently we are about to experience the Inferno.

I don't mean to be rude, but there's a possibility your grandma was a serial arsonist.

Iowa State almost beat Texas. This is the moment on Wide Right Natty Lite when almost got added to that sentence.

Oh, how prophetic the Oracle's warning to protect ones nuts turned out to be.

I didn't think we could drive down the field as fast as we did, but once we made it I knew...

I knew in my heart of cyclone hearts that the nut shot was coming...that it was imminent. That a cold texas horn would gore my gonads. My beloved cyclones never fail in letting me down.

If Cyclone fans keep suffering reproductive injury at this rate, they'll go extinct within 45 years.

Big Ten

Spleen is never in short supply at Black Heart Gold Pants when Iowa loses, but the lyric quality of this comment really stuck with me.

Listen, the defense had a rough day, but so do most in CFB these days. Unless you are playing Iowa. Teams score. It happens, offenses are much better than they were 10, 5, even 2 years ago. Unless you are playing Iowa. Packaged plays and tempo means that it's never been harder to play defense. Unless you are playing Iowa. There is so much space to cover both vertically and horizontally, coaches have gotten really creative with running QBs and the huge variety of read option concepts. Unless you are playing Iowa. Tempo is used as a weapon to wear out defenses. Unless you are playing Iowa.

It works with almost anything! "Maybe I'm just like my mother / Unless you are playing Iowa / She's never satisfied / Unless you are playing Iowa / Why do we scream at each other / Unless you are playing Iowa / This is what it sounds like when doves cry / Unless you are playing Iowa"

Pac-12

Like their Ames brethren, Cal came close to pulling off an upset. And, like the Iowa State entry, we have the moment at California Golden Blogs when that upset ceased to be:

But the interception that seemed to seal UCLA's win against the Bears had to be reviewed first. See if you can guess based on these Cal commenters what the final decision was!

FUCK THIS MOTHERFUCKING TOTAL BULLSHIT MOTHERFUCKERS GODDAMN SONOFABITCH

Fuck Millen, fuck UCLA, fuck Mora, fuck everything that is not Cal

Fuck the pac-12 refs and that stupid excuse of an interception

My concluding thoughts

ANGER!!!!!!!

RAGE!!!!!!!

FUCK EVERYONE!!!!!

If you guessed the call was upheld, you win!

Washington's now lost eleven straight games to Oregon, but there's no reason to give up hope for the future. Unless you're a commenter at UW Dawg Pound, that is.

nothing like tradition

this is not a rivalry. This is like a grown man beating up a little kid year in and year out.

when are we going to be competitive

Every team in the conference has figured out UO in the last 10 years except UW. It is embarrassing, frustrating, and I'm still pissed off. I need to just treat UO week as a bye, and come back for the next game. I'm so tired of this. This is an entire program problem. Scouting, recruiting, preparation, practice, planning, offseason, film room.... I'm not sure what happens to the Husky program during UO week, but we just fall apart. I'm not sure what is going to take the sting away from this one. Can we even make a bowl game this year? This 2014 program is not competitive.

Aged spleen really is some of the finest you can find.

SEC

Things got baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad for Texas A&M in Tuscaloosa. Like start a doomsday cult bad. Though I guess the Aggies have always sort of tilted that way, even at Good Bull Hunting.

These kids are quitters.

The freshmen are the only ones not quitting.

The offensive line was getting beaten all day by a THREEEEEE lineman rush!!!!!!

Three on five and they sack the slow, lumbering turnover machine? Dress it up any way you want. Argue about "is it the offense or defense", but this team quit and it ain't comming back.

We can't beat ULM.

Our coaches are too stupid. Using our biggest slowest back is just embarrassing...

We could have had 11 five-star recruits on the field on both sides of the ball today and we would have still gotten beat. There is no fire, no spirit and certainly no aggression coming from this group. Maybe it is time to turn of the rap music at practice and maybe all the players suspended for smoking pot should drop the joint, and get themselves some crystal meth???

Auburn is much better than Bama. They are going to bust the clock on us, that game is on the road and they owe us a blowout from two years ago......

In the Aggiepocalypse, rap music shall turn to dust and crystal meth will separate the pure from the unclean, but not in the way you expect!

We didn't just quit

We avoided making plays. There were many times that we were in position to attempt tackles & just stood there & let guys run by us. I'm not a conspiracy guy but I think they were letting them score. Something's wrong in that locker room. They're trying to get Snyder fired or something. Just my opinion so flame away

IT IS A SIGN! THE STATUE DEFENSE INDICATES THAT AGGIEPOCALYPSE IS NIGH!

Elsewhere in SEC assbeatings, Florida had the kind of Homecoming against Missouri that usually leads to a lifelong inability to form meaningful relationships with others. It broke one man so badly that he said something nobody could possibly have expected. And others at Alligator Army began to lose their entire sense of reality.

OH MY FUCKING GOD!!!! Will Muschamp is literally pissing in Foley's face

"That can't be the literal truth," you scoff. But how can you be sure? Were you there? If you were, doesn't that call into question your sanity and reliability as an eyewitness in the first place?

Maybe we all exist in Muschamp's nightmare.

All he ever wanted to do was coach Georgia, but now he coaches Florida. All he wants to do is escape this prison of a job, but he can't. No matter what he does he is damned to coach this team.

WILL. WAKE UP. YOU HAVE OVERSLEPT FOR YOUR SCORING TOUCHDOWNS FINAL.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse

That's actually not a comment. It's the official hashtag for 2014 Florida Football. #JWITICGAW

Ok, this is your last warning. Turn back now if you are unprepared for South Bend Bile.

NOTRE DAME

All of the following comments were taken from ND Nation, a website for which I will not offer a link because you don't need that in your life. Don't try to find it on your own. This is not a warning you should ignore because it will lead to action and thrills like an adventure movie. This is a warning you should heed because it will lead to pain and disgust like a horror movie.

(Scott Tenorman of the Week? Tears of Unfathomable Sadness? They all go here. Just all of it.)

Item 1.

Here's the problem. If roles had been reversed and it was FSU that ran that last play down 4, is there any chance in all the universe that any ref on that field would have thrown that flag? Of course not.

This is just garden variety we're-special-and-that's-why-they-hate-us-and-treat-us-worse-than-others. It does not get better from here.

Do any of you know a good lawyer or have $$ I volunteer to make the drive up to Tallahassee tonight and beat Jimbo and Winston, Shawshank style. Spending the rest of their days eating through a straw

"Hello, good lawyer? I need you to take defend me in a criminal prosecution for assault. Hmm? Did I post ahead of time that I was going to commit this act? Um...

...no?"

Every school in the ACC has a financial stake in FSU making it to the NC playoffs. Doubtful that escaped the ACC officials.

WAKE FOREST STRIKES AGAIN.

All this episode has done is convince me we will never get the benefit of the doubt or a fair shake. I really, truly believe that. When we get screwed, everyone says we weren't. When some other team does not actually get screwed against us, everyone says that they were. Crazy pills indeed.

It's true. No bad call has ever favored Notre Dame and, if it were to happen by accident, Notre Dame would do the right thing and demand that the right call be made or forfeit the game.

Is college football greed & corruption at an all-time high?

Watching the broadcast from Faustian Soul University last Saturday night, it struck me again how much money is involved in this whole enterprise of intercollegiate athletics, and the money has never been greater than it is today. I used to look back to the old Southwest Conference of the '70s, or Oklahoma under Switzer, or SMU's pay-for-play scandal in the early '80s as the height of college impropriety. But with the explosion of big TV money, the coaching salary and facilities arms race, and the entire fanbase of most Southeastern Conference schools tying their identity in with the success of the large state school's football programs, it seems like the corruption is probably higher than it's ever been. My question is whether it's as bad as I think it is? Or was it worse back then?

I also think college football would be better if the coaches were paid minimum wage and the games were only broadcast by the stations that bid the least for the rights. Welcome to the Iron Bowl, brought to you by QVC!

here's yet another bullshit aspect of the blown call that no one has addressed. Watch Procise's body movement after the jam. He is moving sideways, not squared up, with his hips at a 45 degree angle, putting his left hip behind his right hip. Now, he is either trying to move to the inside, on a route, or that is the piss poorest blocking technique I've ever seen. And that DB is the biggest pussy I've ever seen, because, as a martial arts practictioner for a huge portion of my life, I know it is the easiest thing in the world to take down or break way from an opponent who is in such an unbalanced position. That DB was yielding and pulling Procise with him, another widely used technique in martial arts, because Procise is so easy to manipulate at this point. And that was the objective of the DB, to take PRocise out of the play. And sonuvabitch, Fuller's man moved to Fuller's inside before the pass. So now you're telling me all a DB has to do is jump in the way of a receiver and it's pass interference? Man, is that fucked up or what?

Did you know it's illegal to be a martial arts practitioner and not bring it up all the time?

I'm over it

I think the event did what ACross and Bruno (as well as many others) noted: put us on notice as to how things might operate in the ACC. Perhaps this is their way of strong arming us into fully joining. Perhaps if we did, we'd benefit from these calls against the lessers of the conference. Or perhaps the officials are incompetent. But at this point, it ain't going away. I'm reminded of how Knute handled being shunned by the Big 10: by taking his program on the road and beating the piss out of everyone. Anger can be a blessing in life. We've seen it work in the past. My hope is that we will see it again. At a place like Notre Dame, it would seem to me that a football player would be motivated by a number of factors to be successful: for yourself, for your future, for the community and school, for your family, etc. I'm not saying all that goes away. But everything might now be simplified: we want to be successful because f@#$ them, that's why. I'm sure there's disappointment, and hopefully with the bye week, that disappointment will morph into anger. I want the team to watch that 4th and goal play over and over again, with an internal mantra of "Take it out on Navy. Take it out on ASU. Take it out on . . ." until all they can think of and all they can envision is leveling violence upon the opposing team as recompense.

I mean, everything else at Notre Dame is motivated by an unhealthy attachment to the past, so I see the logic here.

I feel confident that the FSU coaches instructed the DB on Prosise to engage and make damn sure it looked like he was setting a pick if they lined up in that trips formation again. Fuller's was inconsequential. Between that instruction and alerting the refs (which works - roughing the snapper), FSU played the refs like a fucking violin.

C O N S P I R A C Y

getting in bed with southern Teams and southern redneck one wheel in the ditch culture has consequences. Jimbo is as personally corrupt and contemptible as Switzer was. In some ways, even more so, that greasy, charlatan, sociopath-coddling, felony-ezcusing, chitterling-eating, beady eyed rednecked dwarf. I bet Swarbrick will blackball that crew from ever reffing another ND game. But the other ACC f/k/a Southern Conference refs will be just as bad. We should spearhead a few "unaligned" crews of refs.

Notre Dame is about tradition, and unbridled contempt for Southerners as a means to confirm your own sense of self-righteousness is definitely a tradition.

I think we made a big mistake affiliating with the ACC. We don't belong in the south. We are not welcome there, and their values when it comes to football shouldn't be welcome here. These people have no problem screwing us and laughing about it. Winston's accuser was an FSU student. They fought dirty against her, because she didn't play football. That's Florida State and the ACC We do not and should not belong there.

Implicitly comparing your football program to someone who filed a sexual assault complaint is a new one, though.

The most damning evidence of ESPN bias that has ever been When ND beat Stanford two years ago, the EPSN media machine went out of their way to play up the contreversy. you couldn't see any write up on the game that didn't mention controversial call in big bold highlights...why? because hey its cheap attention grabbing propaganda. It gets people clicking and reading websites. Yet here we are with an even more controversial ending, and all ESPN can do is go out of their way to diffuse a controversial call. It goes completely opposite of what a news media machine should be doing with the story. They are even going out of their way to say that ND shouldn't have had their first touchdown. I am convinced that if that were any other two teams in the country, this would be a nonstop media cycle of controversy and discussions of should that be called, and when should that be called and if you always called that Peyton Manning would have 100 less touchdowns and still be chasing Favre.

Notre Dame is good enough to be your clickbait, ESPN.

NEXT WEEK: Michigan. Is. Back.