While sadness blankets the bayou to the plains in the Southeast, euphoria stretches from Athens, Georgia, to South Bend, Indiana, to the Music City and outposts beyond.
College football's winners were big ones this weekend, but its losers had it worse.
Heat checks will result in broken thermometers in places like Auburn, Alabama, Madison, Wisconsin, and Tallahassee, Florida, among others.
Long, miserable weekends, too, in Lincoln, Nebraska and South Beach, after Matt Rhule's Nebraska Cornhuskers and Mario Cristobal's Miami Hurricanes were summarily dispatched by decided underdogs Minnesota and Louisville, respectively.
Hugh Freeze's Auburn Tigers are mired in a four-game skid in which they've lost by a combined 29 points to Oklahoma, Texas A&M, Georgia and Missouri.
Freeze, like Mike Norvell at Florida State and Billy Napier at Florida and Luke Fickell at Wisconsin, was asked about his job status following Auburn's come-from-ahead, 23-17 overtime-loss to visiting Missouri.
"That's a ... you know, listen: we all know what we signed up for. I certainly know that we fit what Auburn is all about, but Auburn is also about winning football," said Freeze, who's now 5-15 in SEC games since taking over at Auburn before the 2023 season. "And, you know, we're going to come to work Monday and get our kids ready to play Arkansas and these kids are playing their guts out and I know that we've changed the talent level here, but at the end of the day at some point you have to win football games. You know, I don't make those decisions, those calls. I just know that God's called me here to lead these young men through a very challenging and difficult time. I'm not enjoying it, a whole lot of that part of it, but yet, when you're called to have backbone and stand and walk through and do a job that you've been asked to do, you're going to do it faithfully and really well, or as well as you can, until that time does not exist.
"I know we're close, and I know we'll get it over the jump. ... We're close, but I know that people are tired of hearing that because I'm tired of saying it and feeling it."
Norvell's FSU squad, after an opening win against top-10 and now top-five Alabama, has plummeted into obscurity. The latest? A 20-13 loss late Saturday night -- Sunday morning in the Eastern Time Zone -- at Stanford, which entered the contest as almost a three-touchdown underdog.
There's discussion of Norvell's buyout, which is well more than $50 million. Napier's pact at Florida now calls for him to be paid approximately $21 million if he's fired today -- or anytime moving forward after the Gators' lethargic homecoming-win Saturday against Mississippi State.
Wisconsin would owe Fickell around $31 million, and relative newcomer to the potential Walking-The-Green-Mile list is Michigan State's Jonathan Smith, whose Spartans have spiraled. Smith's owed around $31 million.
But not all the news this weekend in college football was remotely of the imminent job displacement around the sport.
Alabama continues to surge, Diego Pavia continues to make Vanderbilt nationally relevant, Notre Dame's season remains alive with a sweeter-than-usual rivalry win against USC and Ohio State and Indiana continue to dominate, Texas A&M survived Arkansas to remain unbeaten and Oregon quacked all over Greg Schiano's fading Rutgers program.
It's all this discussion and more in this week's FootballScoop College Football Week 8 Rewind:
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