Alabama did lose last night to Texas A&M but as tiggerdad said, our dearly departed friend, Arnold/GrumpyAggie, a former poster who is no longer with us, is probably smiling wherever he is.
It's proof yet a gain that, while it's not uncommon to win the national championship as an undefeated team, it's VERY uncommon to win back-to-back championships. Bama did it in the 2011-2012 seasons and to find the next back-to-back you have to go back to the poll-only era. Bama's not out of it yet: in 2012 Bama lost to A&M (Johnny Manziel was the QB) and still won the national championship. But sitting here, in mid-October at #5 in the polls, it's gonna require some help to bump a team out above us to get into the playoffs. There is STILL, however, a lot of football to play.
Finally, regarding our game, if Saban had to lose to a former assistant coach after winning against them 24 straight prior times, I'm glad it was Jimbo Fisher who won it (and not Lane Kiffin or Kirby Smart or somebody else). Now we can stop talking about that topic.
Penn State/Iowa and Texas/Oklahoma were both great games to watch. And Auburn managed to score a touchdown against Georgia while still losing handsomely. It strikes me that Georgia's defense is good enough to allow their offense to play Stetson Bennett at QB because he's "solid" and "good" and doesn't appear to make dumb mistakes. He may be the QB going forward for the rest of the season. The Bulldogs should win the rest of their regular season games.
Ed-O went down as expected in Lexington. I think the buyout will be negotiated down and he'll be paid off and let go of. LSU plays Florida and Ole Miss next then has a week off. Assuming he loses those two, I've seen in-season firings sometimes at the start of an off week to give the team two weeks to get used to an interim head coach. The Tigers play Bama in Tuscaloosa after the off week.
It was a great slate of games this past weekend.
Ed