Inspirational Thought of the Week:
(Cole Trickle drives his wrecked Chevrolet Lumina into the pit stall)
Buck Bretherton: “Well, how about this? Something we don’t need to fix!”
(Crew Chief Harry Hogg walks up and kicks a dent in the side of the car as Bretherton looks at it)
Harry Hogge: “I don't want you to go bad, Buck.”
— “Days of Thunder”
Here at Bottom 10 headquarters, located behind the locker on the College GameDay bus where Nick Saban keeps his secret stash of Vanderbilt “Anchor Down” football apparel, we're starting to worry that maybe those of you who attend these rankings, as the kids say, “regularly,” might be like those who benefited from Saban's time in Tuscaloosa. You become a little spoiled.
Just two weeks ago we had a huge Mega Bowl Pillow Fight of the Week match between UMess and State of Kent, winners of many of the last 10 titles. (We tried to find out exactly how much, but someone leaked Yoo-hoo onto an archived floppy disk.) Then, last week, the Sam Houston Bearkats cut it up with UTEPid. Now the stage is set for a third straight PFOWY as South Alabama is being cut in Georgia rather than down south. And, as you will read in the following words, this is just the tip of a sinking iceberg season of upcoming little games, as the lookout on the Titanic shouted too late, “Go!”
So, with all the talk of Power Autonomous Haughty Four conference reorganizations, conference planning, reading CFP committee summaries, and headlining showdowns that all of the above seem to entail, how about some props for the same thing happening here with us? By props I mean rubber chickens, whooper pillows, and one of those plastic Groucho Marx things with a plastic nose on the glasses.
With apologies to former Wichita State wide receiver Mike Proppe, former Drake tight end Hal Proppe, USC defensive end Prophet Brown and Steve Harvey, here are the rankings for the last 10 weeks through Week 8.
The Minuetmen continued their Backtion on the #MACtion schedule by playing former top ten emcee, Buffalo Bulls Not Bills. With 59 seconds left, the Amherst Amblers made a steal that seemed to seal the 21-20 victory. With ESPN Analytics Ouija's board saying they had a 90.9% chance of winning, UMass players continued to defiantly wave goodbye and pose as fake snow angels in celebration, which resulted in an unsportsmanlike conduct fine. After a three-and-out followed by a punt, the Minuetmen gave up a four-play, 50-yard, 22-second touchdown drive to lose in the final seconds, their lead as real as that snow.
Bad news? The Bearkats lost the Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year. Episode II: Attack of the Moans” UTEPid 35-17. Good news? If they didn't tell anyone it happened, no one would likely ever know because the crowd they were playing in front of was so small that time could have been saved before the game if the announcer had introduced the starting lineups to the people in the stands rather than the starting lineups to the people in the stands.
Official attendance for Sam Houston vs. UTEP: 671.
Smallest crowd in SHSU history https://t.co/rnNmBetqfQ
— UTEPnews (@theUTEPnews) October 16, 2025
What a stretch for the Bivs. They eventually won the game, defeating the Lafayette Leopards, the current leaders of the Patriot League. After a week of matchup against Fightin' Bye of Open Date U, they will play their first home-and-home doubleheader of the season against Washington State, who they are currently tied for first place in 2Pac. They then host Sam Houston State in Pillow Fight of the Week Episode IV: “The New Drug”.
The Minors won their second game of the season, but their boat is still stuck in the bottom four because Pillow Fight victories over other bottom four teams yield lead trophies. Plus, that pickaxe of theirs always accidentally punches holes in the boat.
Ah, the rites of autumn. You can set your watch for their inevitability. Cool drop in evening temperatures. Changing leaf color. Suburban moms prefer pumpkin spice. The Miami Hurricanes break off their latest “We're back!” campaign with a mid-season defeat that saw them finish in a coveted fifth place. And these Kane fans don't understand what that coveted fifth place is, even though they're here every year and raise Kane this way, filling my social media feeds with strings of curse words stronger than Cuban coffee.
The Woof Pack continues to lose close games, most recently a two-point loss to New Mexico. But you know what they say. Up close, only horseshoes and hand grenades count. And the atomic bomb tests that took place about 300 miles east of Reno. Feels pretty close to us.
Just as we should all keep a safe distance between ourselves and atomic bomb testing, the Blew Raiders have a built-in buffer between Murfreesboro and the bottom five in the form of Novada, whom they edged by the narrowest of margins, 14-13, back in Week 3. But their visit to Sam Houston on November 22 does have the makings of a possible knockout pillow fight of the week of the year. Episode VII: Farce Wakes Up.
Meanwhile, in the Everyone's Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year competition, Georgia Southern Not Southern beat Georgia State Not Southern. Last week I joked that the loser would have to change his name from GSU to GUS, but I was angrily informed that this game already had GUS in the form of the Georgia Southern Eagles mascot named, yes, Gus. The most disgusting letter I received was not signed, but was covered in white feathers.
Our second favorite red, white and blue team, the USA, returns to this rankings just in time for a matchup with Georgia Non-Southern, a meeting of the last-place teams in each division of the Fun Belt, also known as the Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year. Episode V: The Empire Looks Stupid.”
I'm picturing a Massachusetts man who got his heart broken by the Red Sox to start the MLB postseason… so he decided to go to a UCSB game to clear his head, only to see the Eagles get hit by the artist formerly known as U-Can't… but then he had the thought, “Hey, I can get to Amherst on second time!” and started waving goodbye at 0:59 when he thought UMass would win and watched the Minuetmen blow him… so when he finally got home to Southey and after getting bitten by the dog, he felt better, opening a six-pack of Sam Adams and going to the new ESPN app to watch a replay of the loss Bill Belichick's Tar Holes to Cal when he fumbled the ball near the goal line late in the fourth quarter.
Waiting list: Northern Terrible Noise, Kent State, Emu Emu, Oklahoma State No Pokes, Charlotte 1-and-6ers, Wisconsin Badgers, Akronmonius, UNC Chapel Bill, USC-Notre Dame Series Finale.
