Duff’d It! Rankings and Other Accolades: The 2016 Post-Thanksgiving Double Duff’d! Special

Happy post-rivalry week, everyone! We at the Duff’d It! Rankings hope your prestigious but disrespected team emerged victorious over your classless, bandwagoner rivals, and that you ultimately had a better Thanksgiving week than Charlie Strong did. We would also like to apologize for being unable to deliver on time last week. This is what happens when you’re guests in someone’s home for the holiday but the owners don’t think to leave you the Wi-fi credentials.

(Un)Fortunately, that means you get two weeks’ worth of Duff’d! for the price of one! And ohhhh boy, is there a lot to cover. So much butt. I am, of course, not just talking about the BUTT Bowl between Baylor and Texas Tech, but also, strangely, Harvard-Yale, which featured a lot of butts, for some reason. Is this the reason you pay a premium for an Ivy League education, or do the social clubs up there just have weird initiation rituals? Don’t answer that. I don’t actually want to know.

Duff’d It! Rankings

Week 12

5. Utah. Utes, you dropped 62 points on Oregon last year! In Eugene! What happened? Why was Darren Carrington open in the endzone? Are you ever going to move out of your parents basement and win the South like the rest of your friends?

4. Ole Miss. Remember when a 21 point lead was the least safe lead of all? Or maybe that was just true for Ole Miss and not for anyone else, ever, except for Georgia Tech that one time. But when that gets reversed by, say, Vandy, it’s all over for the Rebels. I guess what I’m saying here, Ole Miss, is to stop getting yourself into 21 point games. Only bad things happen to you from there!

3. LSU. You were right this whole time, LSU! Those lily-livered Gators were just too scared to play you, but you showed them! By forcing them to reschedule this game and even move it to Baton Rouge, you forced them to face their fear of winning the SEC East and having to play Alabama. Maybe next year they’ll have the intestinal fortitude to let someone else win the division instead!

2. Texas, the whole state. It was a bad weekend for Texas teams in the Big 12. TCU got stomped by Oklahoma State, which, sure, that’s reasonable. But the rest of this is bad. Baylor - where the inmates are running the asylum - got doubled up by Kansas State, and they’ve been bad, so they won’t even get a kind letter from him afterward. Texas Tech played Iowa State, and the Cyclones scored 66 points on 65 plays. I didn’t think that was possible, even in the Big 12.

Oh, and Texas lost to Kansas. Ahem,

TEXAS LOST TO KANSAS.

It hadn’t happened in 86 years! Okay, so the Big 12 is only 20 years old and they’d only played twice before becoming conference opponents, but still. Kansas! If Charlie Strong wasn’t fired before losing to Kansas, he probably almost definitely is now. (Pretend this was written and published before, you know, he actually was fired after losing to TCU on Black Friday. Strong’s players were openly weeping on the field. It was actually pretty heartbreaking.)

Hey, speaking of Texas, what happened to that one team the Big 12 was too scared to invite?

Wellllllllllllll......

1. Louisville. ....they were busy kicking the crap out of this sorry-ass team! Louisville, seriously, this wasn’t even the good Houston you got edged out by last year, it’s one that got whipped by SMU a month ago. Luckily, this is the last embarrassing loss you’ll have to deal with for a while, ‘cause there’s no way you’d lose to Kentucky on Rivalry Week or anything.

Honorable mention: Georgia Southern. What’s up, Eagles?? Georgia State now has two consecutive victories over you, putting you in exclusive company with Texas State and the Campbell Camels. And they’d already fired their coach mid-season. Hope you still think their “real GSU” rallying cry is cute, ‘cause y’all are gonna have to hear it for another year.

Bozo of the Week: Tommy Tuberville. First it was yelling at opposing fans, telling them to go to hell and get jobs (it’s really one or the other, Tubs). Now he’s yelling at bloggers and radio because they’re not being nice enough to him. Man, I hope this guy never reads my work, especially not this column from three weeks ago. He might send me a sternly worded email.

Week 13

5. Georgia. People think this might be a reach at 5, but i’m just gonna leap right into it, and it won’t even take 30 seconds. Y’all lost to Georgia Tech! You fired your ten-wins-per-season guy who never had a problem beating Tech (and still doesn’t at Miami) for this! You brought in Brian Van Gorder to literally do one job - game plan for an offense you deride as “high school” - and you duff’d it. I have 360 more days to enjoy this, and ohhhh, I will, very, very much.

4. Louisville. Way to make the whole conference look bad, Cards! Again. The ACC looking for its second rivalry sweep in three years versus the ACC but y’all just had to screw it up. And to Kentucky, of all teams. Kentucky! 25+ point underdogs Kentucky! Lost to Georgia Kentucky! “We’re ready for basketball after week 2” Kentucky! What did we even invite you into the ACC for? We already have enough embarrassing out of conference losses on our own.

3. Houston. Really have to give you credit here, Cougars. Y’all really tried to tank the end of your season with losses to Navy, Memphis, and SMU, but it still wasn’t enough to keep Tom Herman off the Longhorns’ radar. Y’all done duff’d yourselves into a Tier 2 bowl for nuthin’.

2. Nebraska. You know, Cornhuskers, as far as bad season endings go, bombing out of a division title with a 30 point loss to Iowa is preeeetty far up there. And the worse news is: you made it back to exactly nine wins. You’re stuck in this loop again.

1. Really, just the whole SEC, except for Alabama. The Crimson Tide are 12-0 and are going to run right though Florida in the SEC championship, over whom they are favored by more than twenty points. The rest of this conference is trash-ass. No one outside of the Tide has more than eight wins - come on, even the MAC and CUSA have two each! And we get to watch one of these teams in the Sugar Bowl! Putting an 8 win team in a major bowl is an accomplishment I thought only the old Big East was capable of. Trash-assssss.

Honorable mention: Arizona State. Man, Sun Devils, all y’all had to do to make a bowl was to put the hurt on your 2-9 rivals. How hard could that be? Apparently too hard, as Black Friday Pac-12 After Dark struck hard. Y’all even upped your heel game by pushing a Wildcat into Miss Arizona! At least she knows how to take a hit!

Bozo of the week: this guy for Baylor. I wanted to give this to someone at Texas, but since the rumors of Charlie Strong being fired all week were mostly just that, it’s difficult to pin that on anybody. Thankfully, their neighbors up I-35 once again stepped up to the challenge. Is it weird one of the most holier-than-thou schools seems to be a never ending font of terrible people? I don’t think so.

ACC Big 12 Conference Plays of the Week

Week 12

NO ONE IS SAFE FROM THE FEARSOME MIZZOU TIGERS. Not the Bert Show, and especially not you, “innocent” camera guy.

Sigh. Look, Maryland, one of the keys to a successful trick play is to know more about what’s going on than your opponent, not less. Nebraska isn’t biting on a fake offensive line with no quarterback.

Week 13

Damn it, I hate when I press the A button too early on these Mario Party minigames.

Just keep staring at that ball until it accepts it’s been bad, Toledo.

Employee of the Month of the Week

Week 12

Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Steven Taylor, LB, Houston

Lamar Jackson had a bad day in Houston, and a lot of it was thanks to Steven Taylor. With a forced fumble and 14 tackles - 8 of those being solo, and 2.5 being sacks, he’ll be seen in the nightmares of Jackson, the rest of the Cardinals, and Joey for weeks to come.

Week 13

Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Derrius Guice, RB, LSU

Who the heck is Leonard Fournette? He’s the guy looking up (and down) at Derrius Guice in the LSU record books. After setting the school single-game rushing record earlier in the season, and then having it broken by Fournette, Guice set the record again against Texas A&M, carrying the ball 37 times for 285 yards and four touchdowns on Thanksgiving night. Any Aggies thankful they don’t have to see him again should be reminded he’s a true sophomore. Now get along, Derrius: your new head coach is inviting everyone over for post-Thanksgiving gumbo, and you’re gonna love it as long as you don’t ask what’s in it.