It was nearly a disastrous weekend for Boise State. The Broncos found themselves in a fight with BYU on Thursday night, and trailed the Cougars in the fourth quarter. A Jeremy McNichols touchdown with over 10 minutes left gave the Broncos a 28-27 lead, but no game against BYU can be decided with 10 minutes left.

So there were the Cougars, lining up to attempt a 44-yard field goal with 16 seconds left that would win the game, but Boise defensive tackle David Moa -- who had been struggling to even put his shoe on over on the sideline before getting on the field -- blocked the field goal to make sure Boise State remained undefeated on the season.

And the weekend only got better from there.

Boise State and Bryan Harsin were able to relax at home on Saturday and watch as things continued to go their way.

The biggest break came on Saturday night in Dallas, where SMU surprised a whole lot of people by beating Houston 38-16. It was the second loss of the season for Houston, which lost to Navy earlier in October, and barely escaped Tulsa a week ago. The Houston loss, combined with Navy's win over Memphis, all but eliminates the Cougars from contention in the American Athletic Conference, which would also crush any chance Houston has of getting to a New Year's Six bowl game again.

And which school benefits the most from Houston's problems?

That would be Boise State. Now, the Broncos clearly still have some work to do this season, because even if they look like the best team in the Mountain West, there are still a few road blocks remaining. One of the biggest is a road trip to Wyoming next week. Should Boise get past the Cowboys, it looks like it'll be smooth sailing through most of November, as they face San Jose State, Hawaii and UNLV -- three teams that are a combined 9-15 -- in the first three weeks of the month. Then, the regular season will end on the road to an Air Force team that looked good in September, but has now lost three straight.

After that will be the Mountain West title game, likely against San Diego State, the one team in the MWC that seems to be a true threat to this Broncos team.

As long as the Broncos get to the MWC Championship Game and win it, though, they seem like a lock for the Group of Five's automatic New Year's Six berth. Western Michigan remains undefeated as well, but if you look at both the current AP and Coaches Polls, you'll see Boise State ranked at least seven spots ahead of their fellow Broncos in both polls. Odds are the College Football Playoff selection committee will see the two teams in a similar light.

Both teams have two wins against Power Five schools in non-conference, but Western's wins over Northwestern doesn't look nearly as good as Boise's win over Washington State, and wins over schools like Illinois and Oregon State are essentially a wash. Further tilting the scale in Boise's favor is the fact that, even if it's not as strong as it used to be, the Mountain West is still considered a much stronger conference than the MAC at this point.

So much so that I believe a one-loss Boise would get the nod over an undefeated Western Michigan, as long as that one loss doesn't take place in the MWC title game.

This is all great news for Boise State, obviously, but it could lead to another problem down the line.

You see, this is all good news for Boise State's Bryan Harsin as well. While Tom Herman is going to be a major target for jobs this winter even with Houston's struggles, Harsin's name is one you're going to hear coming up as a possibility at other jobs as the season goes along, just like it was with Chris Petersen before him. Now, Petersen remained very loyal to Boise State, and turned down quite a few opportunities to leave until he left for the Washington gig, opening the Boise job up for Harsin, Petersen's former offensive coordinator in Boise.

Harsin returned in 2014 and this program hasn't missed a beat on his watch. The Broncos won 12 games and a Fiesta Bowl in his first season, and although they took a step back last season -- their 5-3 mark in conference play was their worst record ever in the Mountain West -- things have clearly gotten back on track this season.

Other schools have noticed this. Harsin is now 28-6 at Boise State, and 15-4 in conference play. He's going to receive a lot of attention this winter, and one thing is for sure: Harsin's either going to find himself coaching in the Power Five in 2017, or he's going to be back at Boise with a higher salary.

So, yes, it was a very good weekend to be Boise State and Bryan Harsin.

The Worst Idea of the Week

While we're on the subject of Boise State, let's talk about a decision its opponent, BYU, made on Thursday night.

The Cougars, facing a 4th and 19, decided to run a fake punt from their own end zone. Let's see how it went.

Yeah, it went about as well as you'd expect it to. Now, lest you think this was just the idea of some rogue punter desperate for attention and glory, it was not. When asked about it at halftime, BYU coach Kalani Sitake said that's the play BYU called. When asked why BYU would call for a fake punt on 4th and 19 from its own end zone, in which it expected its punter to be able to run for 20 yards, Sitake said "on film, we thought we had it."

Which means that BYU saw something on film that convinced them their punter could cover 20 yards on a fake punt from his own end zone. I don't know what anybody could have seen on film to make them believe that, but I suppose it's always possible the film wasn't film at all, but rather a tab of LSD.

The Lamar Jackson Heisman Pose of the Week

I mean, honestly people, how perfect is this photo?

lamar-jackson-heisman-pose.jpg
Jamie Rhodes, USATSI

Lamar Jackson is the Heisman in this moment. He's not just the overwhelming favorite, he's the actual trophy itself.

As for how Jackson performed in the game, it was just another ho-hum performance, as he finished with 355 yards passing, 76 yards rushing, and four total touchdowns. Jackson has now thrown or run for 34 touchdowns this season, and just in case that number doesn't already blow your mind, I'll drive the point home further by saying his 34 touchdowns are more than 102 teams have scored on the season. Yes, that's right, Lamar Jackson has more touchdowns by himself than 79.7 percent of the teams in the FBS.

He's ri-damn-diculous.

Motivational Tactic of the Week

Here's something that the smartest college football coaches know: by and large, college athletes are broke. Yes, they're afforded some spending money with their scholarships, and they get some free meals, but for the most part, money is hard to come by.

Also, college athletes love to eat. So if you're a coach looking to give your team a reason to show up and play its hardest on any given Saturday, you offer them free food, and I don't mean the kind you find in the cafeteria.

Once Mike MacIntyre told his players they could get free In-N-Out if they won, Stanford never had a chance.

Random Ranking of the Week

Well, we're already on the subject of fast food, so it seems like a perfect time to rank fast-food chicken joints. These are the definitive rankings. If you disagree with them it just means you're wrong.

1. Popeye's Chicken

2. KFC

3. Raising Cane's

4. Chick-fil-A

5. Church's Chicken

Photo of the Week

There were plenty of big moments in college football this weekend, as there always are, but there was none larger than this one in Happy Valley.

Mathematician of the Week

This week's award -- which is very much tongue-in-cheek -- goes to Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz, who seems to have had some difficulty understanding how many points you can get with only one touchdown. You see, late in Iowa's game against Wisconsin, the Hawkeyes were trailing the Badgers 14-6. Iowa had put together an impressive drive, but things stalled at the Wisconsin 20-yard line. So, with 5:25 left in the game, and Iowa facing a 4th-and-5, Ferentz made a peculiar decision.

He decided to attempt a 38-yard field goal. Even though a field goal would make the score 14-9, and Iowa would still be in need of a touchdown. Now, Iowa would miss the field goal, making matters even worse, but no matter the result, it was an odd decision.

Thankfully Ferentz cleared it all up for us in his press conference.

Oh, yeah, that totally makes sense. Thanks, Coach.

Tweet of the Week

This week's award goes to SMU, which showed no chill mocking Houston's "#HTownTakeover" hashtag following its upset win over the Cougars on Saturday night.

Deleted Tweet of the Week

There's something you may not know about all the sports journalists you see on your television, or read on your computer. Roughly 90 percent of them went to one of three schools: Syracuse, Northwestern or Missouri. Then there are the other 10 percent like me. The ones who learned everything they know by just randomly mashing keys until words came out.

Anyway, for the members of the 90 percent that went to Missouri, they can't be too proud of their alma mater right now.

Before Missouri took on Middle Tennessee for Homecoming on Saturday night, Missouri's journalism school sent out a not-so-friendly tweet. In that tweet, it instructed its graduates to remain objective and impartial in their coverage as Missouri stomped Middle Tennessee.

The problem was that Missouri did not stomp Middle Tennessee. It didn't even scrape by Middle Tennessee. It just straight up lost to Middle Tennessee 51-45, and as you'd imagine, plenty of people on Twitter had fun with the school's tweet following the loss.

How did Missouri's school of journalism handle it? Did they just own the mistake, or print a retraction like they undoubtedly taught so many of their graduates to do? No, they just deleted the tweet.

This should make for an interesting case study in next semester's Ethics in Journalism course.

Funfer of the Week

Do you know what a funfer is? It's a delightful event that doesn't happen very often. Any time a college football team finishes a game with five points, this is what the college football literati refers to as a funfer. They're rare, so when a funfer occurs, we must celebrate them.

So even if Stanford didn't enjoy itself during a 10-5 loss against Colorado, they can take solace in knowing they broke the funfer-less streak.

Stanford's funfer was the first funfer in college football since Nov. 12, 2008. That's when Texas lost to Missouri 17-5. Before that game, the last funfer had been on Oct. 25, 2008, when Florida crushed Kentucky 63-5.

In fact, since the 2000 season, there have only been 15 funfers on the FBS level. Think of how many games are played on any given weekend, and how many weeks there are in a season, and you understand that 15 is a very low number.

What's scary, though, is that there were 11 funfers in the six seasons between 2000 and 2005, or nearly two per season. In the 11 seasons since, there have only been four. Two in 2008, one in 2011, and now Stanford's against Colorado.

It seems funfers are dying at an alarming rate.

College Football Playoff Projection of the Week

1. Alabama

2. Washington

3. Clemson

4. Michigan

Until the next Monday After!