THE BOTTOM TEN

Seven of the Bottom Ten teams won over the weekend, a catastrophe that would ruin the credibility of most rankings of losers. Luckily, the BT never had any credibility.

Bucking the disturbing victory trend, the Fighting Rash of Notre Dame fell to 0-4, despite a pregame pep talk by alum Regis Philbin, who once roomed with Knute Rockne.

Stumbling newcomers included No. 9 Louisville, which somehow lost to 37-point underdog Syracuse, and the No. 7 SMUs (1-3), who next must face the deadly University of Texas at El Intercepted Paso (2-2). No. 5 Penn and No. 19 Dartmouth face off in a must-lose game for both.

Moving from No. 13 to No. 3 were the myopic Owls of Temple, who have 14 starters returning. That’s the problem. They have the nucleus of a bad team back.

*--* RK. TEAM, RECORD LAST WEEK NEXT LOSS 1. Notre Dame (0-4) 14-31, Michigan State Purdon’t 2. Utah State (0-4) 20-23, San Jose State Utah 3. Temple (0-4) 35-48, Bowling Green Army 4. Minnehaha (1-3) 31-45, Purdon’t Ohio State 5. Penn (0-2) 14-34, Villanova Dartmouth 6. Colorado State (0-3) 27-38, Houston TCU 7. SMUs (1-3) 7-21, TCU UTEP 8. Bill & Mary (2-2) 3-44, Virginia Tech Towson 9. Louisville (2-2) 35-38, Syracuse N. Carolina St. 10. Ole Miss (1-3) 24-30, Florida* Georgia *--*

* The next 10: 11. Arkansas (1-2); 12. Arizona (1-3); 13t. North Carolina State (1-3) and North Carolina (1-3) (or the other way around); 15. Stanford (1-3); 16. Buffalo (1-3)**; 17. Iowa State (1-3); 18. Redacted for security reasons; 19. Dartmouth (0-2); 20. Florida State (2-1)***.

* Others (in alphabetical order): Utah (1-3).

*Bottom Ten has no heart.

**Could beat the Bills, though.

***Idle but had two players arrested for brawling.

* Crummy games of the week: Utah (1-3) vs. Utah State (0-4) (West regional); Penn (0-2) vs. Dartmouth (0-2) (East regional).

* Rout of the week: Ohio State (4-0) over Minnehaha (1-3).

* Why sportscasters get the big bucks: Fox Sports Net’s Petros Papadakis, analyzing the start of Pacific 10 Conference play last Saturday night: “A lot of teams could end up with losses.�