College football pick-six: Ohio State's an enigma, Bama's on a well-timed break, and Georgia-Florida is great again

Cliched storyline of the week

Before we delve into the hierarchy of the undefeated and once-defeated teams that remain, let us begin in Columbus, where there is little doubt now that something inscrutably weird is happening. I know that Ohio State is nowhere near completely removed from the playoff conversation, as we’ve learned from years past: The Buckeyes are still 7-1, and they are 30-5 over the past three seasons. But three of those losses — including Saturday night’s 49-20 shellacking at the hands of Purdue (yes, that Purdue) — have come by an average of roughly 30 points.

It’s not just the losses then: It’s the way Ohio State is losing, which is now raising larger questions about whether Urban Meyer himself may have somehow — as he once did at Florida — slammed into a metaphorical wall. And allow me to advance a theory that others have touched on, if only briefly: Perhaps the pained looks on Meyer’s face are meant to tell us something. Perhaps, even before this preseason turned into a referendum on his own morality and before his best player chose (wisely or not) to depart for the NFL, Meyer had already hoovered the fun out of this program.

There was only one team that appeared to be enjoying itself and embracing spontaneity on Saturday night, and it was not on Meyer’s side of the field. Purdue’s Jeff Brohm was aggressive; his team took risks, and his team never looked tight because what did it have to lose?

At this point, the air around the Ohio State program feels heavy and weighted, as if Urban himself is waiting for another as-yet-unforeseen anvil to drop on his skull. And it’s been building like that over the course of the past couple of years, ever since the Buckeyes won a national title in 2014. While teams like Alabama and Clemson evolve year by year, Ohio State seems stuck in a rut — a victim of its own annual expectations. And we’ll find out over the course of the next few weeks if Meyer’s still capable of shaking off that heaviness.

Steadily encroaching Playoff watch of the week

Hey, this thing is starting to feel slightly less like a philosophical exercise and slightly more like an actual hierarchy!

Tier 1: Alabama. A team so astonishingly good that even its bye week — leading into a Nov. 3 date with resurgent LSU — is perfectly positioned. A blowout victory in that one, and we can safely start to wonder if this might be one of the greatest college football teams in modern history.

Tier 2: Clemson. A blowout victory over previously undefeated N.C. State made a relatively convincing case that the Tigers are once again the closest thing to an Alabama foil we may have left.

Tier 3: Notre Dame, LSU, Georgia. Can Notre Dame finish out the relatively soft tail end of its schedule without a hiccup? Can LSU somehow upend the giant up there at Tier 1? Was Georgia’s blowout loss to LSU a mere fluke that will be long forgotten by December? 

Why are you looking at me? You think I have the answers?

Tier 4: Central Florida, Michigan, Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Ohio State. Here are five teams that are probably flawed but have the potential to fix those flaws and one team that has entered the portion of the season where its athletic director writes pointed letters to television broadcasters who diss its resume.

Tier 5: Kentucky, West Virginia, Washington State. The “Hey, Isn’t That Cute, At Least Until You Prove To Me That It’s Something More Than Cute” cluster.

The "First Man" dude of the week

He’s probably a one-week Heisman flash in the double boiler, but let’s just give it up for Purdue’s Rondale Moore, a 5-foot-9, 175-pound college football dynamo who feels like he’s already capable, as a true freshman, of shaking up the very geography of the game itself. I imagine the entirely uncreative Heisman voting contingent — which I believe now includes more individuals than the entire state of New Hampshire — will wind up betrothing itself to yet another quarterback, which is fine if Tua Tagovailoa keeps up this blistering pace. But honestly, Moore might be the most purely fun dude I’ve seen play in a prime-time game this entire season.

The week in weird

Yes, Illinois is still terrible, and no, I have no idea if Lovie Smith can rescue this program from its seemingly never-ending tailspin. But there were few more inspiring sights this season than seeing a Moses-bearded Smith, during the Illini’s loss to Wisconsin, trudge along the sidelines in the midst of a snowstorm as if he’d just escaped a plane crash in the Andes.             

On another note, I don’t even want to attempt to explain what happened here: