The Notre Dame Fighting Irish paid the Northern Illinois Huskies $1.4 million to take the bus from DeKalb to South Bend. A gimme win. A tune-up game for one of college football's most historic blue bloods.

Then the Irish faltered. The Huskies slammed the gas pedal to the floor. A team of, quite literally, guys I played youth football against marched into Notre Dame stadium and upset the boys in gold 16-14 for the Huskies' most impressive win in program history.

Likewise, the leg of a 19-year-old kid from Dubuque, Iowa booted the Cyclones into the history books --- upsetting the Iowa Hawkeyes 20-19 to bring the Cy-Hawk Trophy back to Ames.

Syracuse toppled a ranked Georgia Tech. Boston College shot into the rankings for the first time since 2018. Nebraska bested the much-hyped Colorado Buffaloes.

College football is all the fucking way back.

And we're pickin' em. After a week of play, the Pick-'Em Power Ranking (PEPR) is in. With a busy middle of the pack, Andrew Taylor has pulled out as a favorite, while the Litskys are in a race for biggest loser:

Rank	Name	Points
1	Andrew Taylor	7
2	Sarah Woodams	6
3	Maya Brosnick	5
3	Alyssa Koh	5
3	Justin O'Connor	5
3	Ethan Schnittert	5
7	Marla Litsky	3
8	Henry Litsky	2

10 points were up for grabs this week. Some big deciding factors in the PEPR were the Iowa State-Iowa and Virginia-Wake Forest games, both of which Taylor and Woodams managed to pick correctly.

Everybody picked Georgia Tech to beat Syracuse, but the Orangemen led by Kyle McCord (formerly of a certain school in Ohio) beat back the bees. You should all be ashamed of your lack of regional loyalty.

Now we really know the shape of the football landscape, so next week is primed to be interesting as well.

Michigan's no good this year. That's okay, I can always ride with my second favorite team, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. They beat Texas A&M, how could they ever lose?

Oh, Northern Illinois beat them? The school for all the dumb people I know that is somehow not good at football either? Oh great, that's so cool.

Well, I don't know about you, but my will to live is certainly diminishing! Here are some tips on how to avoid ending it all after your favorite 19 year olds lost the big game!

1. Bet a bunch of money on NFL games to feel something

Lord knows this strategy has worked for me thus far. Redeeming a FanDuel promo and placing 13 $25 bets can be just as good as a heroin shot to the arm or the memory of a warm hug from your late grandmother.

Go for it, kid. Shoot for the stars. The Patriots could win the Super Bowl, sure. Deshaun Watson 7+ passing touchdowns against the Jags this week? Sounds like a lock to me.

Never stop mining for those diamonds. Never.

2. Get hopped up on Pink Whitney and text an old flame

Can you hear that? The vodka whispering in your ear? You know that old middle school love was meant to be.

How can you just walk away? Keep drinking. Type it out. "Your eyes glimmer with the beauty of ten thousand poems." Go win them back.

They're the only thing that can fill the Notre Dame-shaped hole in your heart.

3. Just fiddle around with your gun

You know how the big gangly freak Ansel Elgort played in The Fault in Our Stars used to carry a cigarette in his mouth without smoking it? To gain power over death or whatever?

Try doing a similar thing by sucking on the barrel of a Remington Model 870 Synthetic Tactical Ghost Ring Shotgun with XS Ghost Ring Sights.

Just don't pull the trigger, big guy! That's how you gain power over death. Make sure it's loaded.

I really hope Notre Dame wins this week.

The overwhelming favorite among the gang for worst college football mascot --- being picked by Justin O'Connor, Marla Litsky, Maya Brosnick, and Andrew Taylor --- is the Stanford Tree.

He often places high on national lists, too, for good reason. However, in all fairness, he's (it's?) technically the mascot of Stanford's band. Stanford football doesn't have a mascot, and the annoying school's even more annoying band kids have seized that power vacuum to trot out this monstrosity of their very own.

We're all rooting for California's wildfires to win.

Henry Litsky: Ohio State's Brutus Buckeye

Mr. Litsky has quite honorably chosen Brutus Buckeye, Ohio's most beloved toxic nut. I initially thought this to be an odd pick because of how ingrained in college football he is, but Brutus is weird if you really look at him and think about him for more than a second.

Sarah Woodams: Nebraska's Lil' Red

Yeah this pick knows ball. A very good pick. Not only is Lil' Red a creepy baby, he also has no history and is the second string mascot for Nebraska, a football program that hasn't been good since our racist uncles were kids.

We gotta punt this little corn-fed freak back into the shadow realm.

Uga shot out of the barn after Bevo, pounding his little legs into the hard dirt to propel his stout body forward.

Quickly, he came upon a herd of Texas football fans conglomerated around Texas Memorial Stadium. He couldn't see a damn thing. You'd think a bull would be easy to spot, but Texas football fans are so fat, stupid, and loud that the distinction isn't as clear as it seems.

Goddamn it Bevo, where are you? thought Uga as he stared at nothing but a sea of human calves at his eye level.

Just as he had the thought, his worst nightmare came to pass.

"Yo! JT! Bro check it out, it's fucking Uga!" a bleach blonde white boy with a mullet called out. He scooped up the little dog and jogged to his group of friends. Uga snarled and nipped at his arm, but it was no use.

"Bro that's crazyyyyy," said JT while sporting a Texas Longhorns shirt. "We've gotta take his ass back to the house."

Unhand me, you trifling buffoon! thought Uga as the frat boys ogled and teased him by sticking their fingers in his mouth and dodging his nips.

Quickly, the boys slipped Uga down into their backpack and zipped it up. They began their march towards frat row. Uga sat in the darkness, uncertain for the future.

Damn you, Bevo! Why me, oh why me? he asked God in the darkness.

Read next week's Penny-Saver to find out what happens.

Poll released Sept. 9:

Rank	Team	Movement	Points
1	Georgia	-	1566 (54)
2	Texas	+1	1492 (4)
3	Ohio State	-1	1476 (5)
4	Alabama	-	1331
5	Ole Miss	+1	1323
6	Missouri	+3	1125
7	Tennessee	+7	1107
8	Penn State	-	1090
9	Oregon	-2	1077
10	Miami (FL)	+2	1073
11	USC	+2	1022
12	Utah	-1	1010
13	Oklahoma State	+3	734
14	Kansas State	+3	702
15	Oklahoma	-	672
16	LSU	+2	521
17	Michigan	-7	503
18	Notre Dame	-13	427
19	Louisville	+3	383
20	Arizona	-	381
21	Iowa State	Newly Ranked	309
22	Clemson	+3	292
23	Nebraska	Newly Ranked	142
24	Boston College	Newly Ranked	116
25	Northern Illinois	Newly Ranked	114

Kansas, Iowa, Georgia Tech and NC State fell out of the rankings.

Others receiving votes: Illinois 101, Boise State 77, Texas A&M 68, Syracuse 63, Memphis 38, Washington 27, Iowa 24, Kansas 22, Vanderbilt 18, South Carolina 10, Liberty 9, Wisconsin 9, UNLV 7, North Carolina 7, California 3, BYU 2, UCF 1, TCU 1.