Syracuse Returning to Spotlight -- For All the Wrong Reasons

Each week, I present what the past weekend in college football has taught us, if anything. Forget your SportsCenter and early-morning highlights. This is where I break down what countless Americans learned from watching collegiate football over the weekend. If you've missed the last installment, you can find it here.

If we learned anything this past weekend in college football ...

1. It's that hair gel beat the Huskies this weekend when Rutgers astonished the nation this past Saturday, leaving East Hartford with a last-second win. UConn is 13 points away from being 8-0. Yes, I am biased. So what?

2. It's that Ole Miss is the Bernie Madoff of college football: a fraud! But instead of stealing pensions, they stole the dreams of plenty of Mississippi fans, who for the first time in a long time thought that the Rebels would be a serious contender. Wrong, wrong, wrong. They got shellacked 33-20 at Auburn on Saturday and will now be lucky to find themselves in even a marginally legitimate bowl game.

3. It's that Duke, while maybe a tad elitist, is in fact capable of playing hard-nosed football. Just ask Al Groh and the Virginia Cavaliers, who dropped one to the Blue Devils on Saturday.

4. It's that the Syracuse Orange are relevant again. No, they aren't winning games -- let's be real. Instead, they lost their best player and helped propel Cincinnati up three spots, back to No. 5. Well done, Orange.

5. It's that Rich Rod is to Michigan as Coke Zero is to my taste buds: not quite living up to the hype. After the weekend's bad loss to Illinois, they have to win two of their last three to finish better than 6-6.

6. It's that the only thing worse than going to the University of Akron is playing football there. This weekend marked their sixth straight loss. Go Zips! (What the heck is a Zip, anyway?)

7. It's that there might be a chink in USC's armor -- or some other clever Trojan/gladiator analogy. I still love Pete Carroll, but losing to Oregon by 27 must have really hurt.