Regime change

Think I saw your Heisman Trophy winner down in Tuscaloosa yesterday, and his name wasn't Tua. And he wasn't a quarterback for Oklahoma named Baker or Kyler or Jalen, either.

His name was Joe.

He plays quarterback for LSU.

And what he did, this Guy Named Joe, was go into the thundering cauldron of Bryant-Denny Stadium and set Nick Saban's mighty legions on fire. Torched the Alabama Crimson Tide for 339 yards and three scores on 31-of-39 passing, Joe Burrow did, as the Tigers hung 46 points on the Tide in a 46-41 win. It was LSU's first win over Saban in the last nine tries, and, at least for now, knocked Alabama out of the College Football Playoff picture.

For which we should be sending Joe Burrow and the rest of the Tigers a decorative fruit basket, or some such thing.

This is because college football should never be as easy to predict as sunrise, but that's what was happening. For the last few years it's been Alabama and Clemson and all them others, to the point where the only questions left to ponder at the front of every autumn was who was going to play in what Chicken Sandwich/Radial Tire/Military-Industrial Complex Bowl. The two seats at the national championship table, it seemed, were already occupied.

Well ... not so much.

Oh, defending national champion Clemson is still undefeated and untried, and the Tigers will likely be back on the CFP grid this week as a consequence of 'Bama's fall. But for the first time in awhile, the best-team-in-the-country debate is not confined to South Carolina or Alabama.

The best team in the country right now, it's pretty clear, is Ohio State, which dropped a 73-14 nuclear device on poor Maryland yesterday. And if the Buckeyes aren't the best team in the country, then LSU is.

Meanwhile there are all these others out there scrambling for position, some of whom have arrived deliciously from left field.

I mean, who saw Minnesota coming? And what the hell is going on down in Champaign-Urbana?

The Golden Gophers took down No. 4 Penn State 31-26 yesterday, and now they're 9-0. The Gophers haven't been 9-0 since 1905. They haven't won even a share of the Big Ten title since 1967. And the last time they won a national title, if you want to dream big up there in Minneapolis, Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House.

That was 1960. Vietnam and the Beatles and Muhammad Ali hadn't really happened yet. November 22 was just another date on the calendar. So was September 11.

And in Champaign-Urbana, meanwhile, University of Illinois Fighting Illini football was the usual cruddy self it had been since Red Grange left for the Bears.

But strange things are happening there under Lovie Smith's watchful eye, like getting down 28-3 to Michigan State and then roaring back to win 37-34. It was Illinois' fourth straight win, and it meant Lovie's boys have somehow jacked around and gotten to 6-4 on the season. This doesn't sound like much until you realize Illinois only won nine games combined in the previous three seasons. Two years ago, they were 2-10.

So, yes. Weird stuff -- weird, wonderful stuff -- is happening these days, and hooray for it. Indiana, for instance, is 7-2 and looking squarely at 8-4, minimum. Indiana hasn't gone 8-4 in 26 years.

Weird. Wonderful.