The town of Calhoun City, Mississippi, is an unassuming blip on the map.\u00a0 Mississippi Highways 8 and 9 junction in the center of the town, which had a population of 1,774 in the 2010 census.\u00a0 It is perhaps best known for being the birthplace of Dave Parker, the 1978 National League MVP and a two-time batting champion.\u00a0 However, it has another distinction this week.\u00a0 It\u2019s the closest city the writer can find to the midpoint between the towns of Starkville and Oxford, which gives it the unofficial honor of being the current epicenter of the college football universe.<\/p>\n
I wonder if Bruce Dickinson\u2019s fever has subsided yet.\u00a0 There is plenty of cowbell in Starkville these days, as Mississippi State is on an historic run.\u00a0 With their wins over LSU, Texas A&M, and Auburn, it\u2019s the first time in MSU history that they\u2019ve beaten three straight top-ten teams.\u00a0 The Bulldogs completed the quickest rise from unranked to #1 in the 78-year history of the AP poll, doing so in five weeks.\u00a0 It is also the first time that Mississippi State has been ranked #1 in the AP poll.\u00a0 But don\u2019t overlook their neighbors to the south!\u00a0 Ole Miss is only two poll points behind Florida State for the #2 ranking. \u00a0The Rebels are riding the second-best scoring defense in the country (11.8 points per game) to their first 6-0 start since 1962.\u00a0 The Egg Bowl, the annual rivalry matchup between the two teams, is looking to be the biggest in the series history, and certainly one of the most expensive: the current lowest-priced ticket for the game that I found? $295.<\/p>\n
In other, non-Mississippi news, you might have heard of this little game that\u2019s going to be played in Tallahassee this week.\u00a0 Florida State and Notre Dame enter the week as #2 and #5 in the polls respectively, making it the second straight week we\u2019ll get a top-five showdown.\u00a0 This will be the eighth game between the Seminoles and the Irish; Florida State holds a 5-2 advantage.\u00a0 This gives the Seminoles the distinction of being only one of four teams currently playing football to own a winning record against Notre Dame in a series with more than five games. (Michigan, Nebraska, and Ohio State are the others; LSU, Penn State, Syracuse, and Tennessee have .500 records against the Irish.)\u00a0 This will be only the second matchup in Tallahassee (the other was in 2002), but the fifth in the state of Florida.\u00a0 The buildup for this one is almost as big as the famous 1993 game, which Notre Dame won 31-24.\u00a0 Florida State got the last laugh, however, as Notre Dame lost their next game to Boston College and the Seminoles ended up regaining the #1 spot and the national championship.<\/p>\n
The Marshall Thundering Herd (still one of my favorite nicknames in college football) have a proud tradition.\u00a0\u00a0 They\u2019ve won two I-AA national championships and won five out of six MAC conference championships once making the leap to I-A.\u00a0 But things had slowed down considerably for several years until last year, when Marshall had their first 10-win season since 2002.\u00a0 But that pales in comparison to what they\u2019re accomplishing this year.\u00a0 While their strength of schedule will not be winning any awards, the Herd is currently 6-0 and outscoring opponents by an average of 48-17.\u00a0 They have the second-best offense in terms of yards and points in the country (second to Baylor in both categories), and the eighth-best scoring defense.\u00a0 They are ranked for the first time this week.\u00a0 Looking at their schedule, it would not be surprising to see the Herd thundering along to a perfect 12-0, and only East Carolina stands ahead of them in the race to the \u201cbest Group of 5 Conference\u201d major bowl bid\u2026<\/p>\n
In small school news, it\u2019s about that time of year for me to include my annual \u201cMount Union is a *really*<\/strong> good Division III team\u201d paragraph.\u00a0 This year\u2019s version of the Purple Raiders currently stands at 5-0.\u00a0 Their closest game was their first, a 58-7 win over Bethany (WV).\u00a0 The average score of their games thus far this year? 64-4.\u00a0 As it seems to be every year, it will probably come down to a one-game season for Mount Union: the Division III championship game in recent years has tended to feature Mount Union versus Wisconsin-Whitewater.\u00a0 (This year, UWW is also currently 5-0, with an average margin of victory of 48-5).\u00a0 Other amazing records: Mount Union has not failed to win their conference championship since 1992.\u00a0 Their record (counting this season) since the start of 1992? 303-13, a .959 winning percentage<\/span>.<\/p>\n Congratulations to Allison<\/strong>, who wins week 7 with 128 points!\u00a0 JagRag<\/strong> was second with 127 points, and there was a three-way tie for third between JG Bama<\/strong>, maestro<\/strong>, and JHutto<\/strong>, each with 126 points.<\/p>\n Overall standings after seven weeks:<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a couple of tough weeks to pick, and this week doesn\u2019t get much easier: four top-25 matchups highlight the slate of games.\u00a0 Pick wisely and well!\u00a0 The first game this week is Utah at Oregon State, Thursday, October 16 @ 10 PM ET<\/strong>, so make sure to get your picks in by then!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The town of Calhoun City, Mississippi, is an unassuming blip on the map.\u00a0 Mississippi Highways 8 and 9 junction in the center of the town, which had a population of 1,774 in the 2010 census.\u00a0 It is perhaps best known for being the birthplace of Dave Parker, the 1978 National League MVP and a two-time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":246,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n 1st<\/sup><\/td>\n Allison <\/strong><\/td>\n 1175<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 2nd<\/sup><\/td>\n maestro <\/strong><\/td>\n 1174<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 3rd<\/sup><\/td>\n JagRag <\/strong><\/td>\n 1173<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 4th<\/sup><\/td>\n AUBrian <\/strong><\/td>\n 1165<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n T-5th<\/sup><\/td>\n pachyderm <\/strong><\/td>\n 1159<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n T-5th<\/sup><\/td>\n JHutto <\/strong><\/td>\n 1159<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 7th<\/sup><\/td>\n SicEmFrogs <\/strong><\/td>\n 1157<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 8th<\/sup><\/td>\n The Tradition <\/strong><\/td>\n 1156<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 9th<\/sup><\/td>\n GODAWGS <\/strong><\/td>\n 1155<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 10th<\/sup><\/td>\n Bamagirl25 <\/strong><\/td>\n 1152<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n