'Great' teams turn to pumpkins well before Halloween

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- How crazy was it in the last 24 hours? By Saturday night Xavier Lee had upstaged Sam Bradford, Patrick White, Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow.

In order, those four represent the nation's No. 2 passer (Oklahoma's Bradford), a Heisman candidate (West Virginia's White) the Big 12's offensive newcomer of the year in 2006 (Texas' McCoy) and Florida's Superman.

On this Saturday, Superman is ... Xavier Lee? (US Presswire)

Exactly.

We'll worry about a career backup quarterback for an unranked former superpower later. For now, consider that five top 10 teams went down way before October, four of them before sunset on Saturday. No. 3 Oklahoma, No. 4 Florida, No. 5 West Virginia, No. 7 Texas and No. 10 Rutgers couldn't make it out of September undefeated. Their national championship hopes dashed, for now.

That leads to only one logical one conclusion:

There are no great teams.

A few good teams, but certainly not any great ones. No. 1 USC played its closest game of the season, toughing out at 27-24 victory Washington. Les Miles of No. 2 LSU was making those terse, tense faces Les Miles tends to make when his Tigers aren't playing well. Which is to say he almost inhaled himself when LSU fell behind Tulane 9-7 in the first half before winning 34-9.

No. 6 Cal narrowly avoided an upset by No. 11 Oregon when a replay executed by Pac-10 officials in Autzen Stadium late in the game (sound familiar?) this time went against the Ducks.

No. 9 Wisconsin got to 5-0 after beating Michigan State by three. That after struggling with The Citadel and suddenly putrid Iowa.

We're left with the most surprising weekend of the season. At this time a year ago the top 10 remained unchanged after the games of Week 5. After five weekends this season, the top 10 will be shuffled more than a six-deck shoe in Vegas.

In the BCS it's better to lose early, but there are going to be some long, hard climbs back into contention.

Tebow's Superman campaign took a serious hit in a last-second loss to Auburn. So did Florida's chances of defending 1.) the SEC title and 2.) national championship.