College football Bottom 10 after Week 7: James Franklin’s last act

Inspiring thought of the week:

“Are you surprised?”

“Surprised, Eddie? If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn’t be any more surprised than I am right now.”

— Clark Griswold and Cousin Eddie, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation”

Here at Bottom 10 headquarters, located behind the storage trailers that hold all the makeup and rubber noses needed to try to make Glen Powell even slightly unattractive in “Chad Powers,” we, like Chad’s Georgia Catfish teammates and coaching staff, sometimes have trouble recognizing who and what is actually standing in front of us. Then, when they reveal their true identities, which we assume Chad will do at some point, we find ourselves standing with our jaws on the floor and our faces in our hands like Hugh Freeze on another replay.

See: The highly anticipated pillow fight of the week of the year, last week’s Mega Bowl, between what was then bottom 10 minuets UMess, third, and Kent State, fourth. And we weren’t the only ones anticipating a close game. The smart guys in the desert with their calculators next to the shrimp buffet had Kent as a 1.5-point favorite, and our ESPN Analytics team’s Ouija Board Win Probability Index thought UMass had a 43.9 percent chance of emerging victorious.

Final score: Kent State 42, UMass 6.

See, Part 2: Penn State, which just three weekends ago came within a whisker of beating Oregon in overtime, was facing its second straight Top 10 contender, Northworstern, after losing to then-UCLa Boo’ins the previous week. And the Nittany Lions lost again, their third straight loss, then fired James Franklin, who had dragged them to within three points of playing for the national title just 10 months ago.

Let’s check out what’s going on at Penn State… pic.twitter.com/btJn0BbtgK

– Ryan McGee (@ESPNMcGee) October 11, 2025

The fact is that no one knows what we are talking about. But talking about it is so much fun. Well, for us it’s so much fun. In Amherst, Massachusetts, and State College, Pennsylvania, they look out the window at the silent majesty of a winter morning and a man in a bathrobe, flushing chemical toilets down their drains.

With apologies to former North Texas tight end Robert Griswold, former Northwestern tight end Bob Griswold, Cousin Eddie George and Steve Harvey, here are the bottom 10 rankings after Week 7.

The Menuetmen are currently ranked 130th in points against, 135th in rushing yards and 136th in points. They are also ranked 111th in passing yards. Do you think these other units look at the guys passing by and say, “Stop making us look bad”?

The Beavers went to North Carolina and lost to Appalachian State, then hosted and lost to another North Carolina team in Wake Forest, then fired head coach Trent Bray, who wasn’t even the biggest Trent coach to lose his job this week…

The good news for the Bearkats is that they came as close as they came to achieving victory all season before succumbing to Jacksonville State and not Jacksonville City 29-27. Next up on the schedule is Conference USA’s pillow fight of the week. Who are they competing against? Keep scrolling…

Yes, it’s the Miners, who will travel to Sam Houston State on Wednesday night. Hopefully someone reminds them that Sam Houston State isn’t actually in Houston; it’s an hour north of Huntsville. I hope someone reminds them that it’s not Huntsville, Alabama, it’s Texas, a city in Arizona, and I hope someone reminds them that it’s Arizona, Texas, not the state of Arizona.

Sources tell Bottom 10 JortsCenter that when James Franklin was driving home from the office with his box of stuff, he was greeted in the driveway by Charlie Weis and Bobby Bonilla, who gave him a signed copy of Scrooge McDuck’s “How to Make a Mattress with Your Stack of Money.”

The Woof Pack started the year with a loss to Penn State back when Happy Valley was still happy, and followed that up with a win against Sacramento State. The rest of the year was like another old Reno-based late-night show, HBO’s “Cathouse.” And just like that brothel reality show, we never admit that we watched it, but secretly we can’t look away.

If you were wondering when MTSU and Novada might play in their own version of the Pillow Fight of the Week, we have some bad news. It’s already happened. The Blew Raiders scored two touchdowns in the final six minutes to win 14-13 in Week 3.

When Trent Dilfer was fired by UAB, he went down to the locker room to tear up a bunch of stuff, but after 2½ seasons of him exploding like the red guy from “Inside Out,” there was nothing left to break.

This week’s pillow fight, Y’all Edition, is the college football equivalent of that Spider-Man pointing meme, as Georgia State Not Southern travels to Georgia Southern Not State, which is 2-4. The winner retains exclusive rights to “GSU” for the following year. The loser must change all their logos to “GUS”.

For those of you – and we’re talking to you here – who are still disappointed with the lack of substance in the UMass-Kent State game, imagine in your mind Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda sitting on a Dagobah log while Luke Skywalker flies off to get his butt whipped by Darth Vader. “This boy was our last hope.” “No… there’s another one.” These other Huskies travel to UMass on November 12…and host Kent State over Thanksgiving weekend. Also, how cool would it be to see Obi-Wan and Yoda wearing #MACtion gear? Speaking of the Midwest, many Wisconsin fans have told me that the Bad-gers should be in that place. Yeah, I saw your schedule. You’ll be there soon enough. To quote Luke’s father – Skywalker, not Fickell – this is your destiny.

Waiting list: Kent State, EMU Emus, South Alabama Redundancies, Oklahoma State No Pokes, Charlotte 1-and-5ers, Wisconsin Bad-gers, Bah-stan Cawledge, UNC Chapel Bill, clapping with fingers.