Woody's Weekly Things: Florida, USC, Clemson, Mike Leach

CLASS OF 2019 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position | Team

CLASS OF 2020 RANKINGS: Rivals250 | State | Position

LOUISVILLE FIRES BOBBY PETRINO: Five realistic candidates | Fans react to Petrino's dismissal | Five programs that benefit | Louisville AD reacts | All eyes on Jeff Brohm

Even before I started working at Rivals.com, I would spend my Saturdays watching as many college football games as possible. Now that I have interacted with most current college football players, it gives Saturday’s a different perspective. Each week, I will watch as many games as possible and share my thoughts in this space, examining weird moments and sharing some throwback recruiting stories as well.

After last week’s loss to Missouri it looked like the Feleipe Franks era in Gainesville had come to an end. He was benched in the loss to the Tigers, and all signs pointed to Kyle Trask starting in Saturday’s game against South Carolina. But a midweek injury to Trask re-opened the door for Franks, who started once again and helped lead the Gators to a come-from-behind victory over former coach Will Muschamp and the Gamecocks.

Franks' redemption story would have enough to make headlines, but it got even better for me when he repeatedly shushed the crowd after scoring touchdowns. The shush celebration is common place for opposing players, but it’s pretty rare to see a player do it to his home fans. This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you it was immature and he shouldn’t have done it and mention that he apologized after the game. But guess what, if fans are going to spend all week tweeting at Franks telling him how bad he is and how they wish he wasn’t playing, then it’s well within his right to go back at them.

Saturday’s win won’t be the end of the criticism of Franks from fans, but at least he had his day in the sun and took advantage of the chance to silence the “haters.”

Given that the Trojans were starting a freshman quarterback, it wasn’t expected that they would contend for a national championship this season. But things have gone south for USC in a year when the Pac-12 isn’t exactly strong and after Saturday’s late-night loss to Cal, it looks like head coach Clay Helton’s job is in jeopardy. The marriage between Helton and the Trojans' fan base has never been ideal, mainly because USC views itself as a college football power and many fans argue that Helton wouldn’t be considered at other schools of their caliber. As someone who grew up in Pac-12 country (or Pac-10 country at that time), I remember a time when USC wasn’t winning 10 games a year. Things obviously changed under Pete Carroll, but of all the coaches since, Helton had done the best job, leading the team to the Rose Bowl and a No. 3 ranking in 2016. Helton has earned the right to show that this season is an aberration, but I’m not sure he’s going to get it. I expect USC to be among the Pac-12’s best next season, no matter who the coach is, but right now it’s looking like it might not be Helton, whether that’s fair or not.

If you watched college football yesterday, I’m sure you’re aware that it was cold in Boston for the Clemson-Boston College game. Starting with College Gameday in the morning and throughout the other games of the day, it was mentioned that the Tigers might not be prepared for the cold weather. The main talking point was the fact that Trevor Lawrence had never played a football game north of Virginia and was particularly susceptible to the cold. As it turned out, it was a non-factor, and was never going to be in the first place. Even though Lawrence is from Georgia, it’s not like we don’t have winter down here in the South. Now if there were snow and wind, you never know what is possible, but as someone who freezes on sidelines on a weekly basis in the south, I can tell you that temperatures below 40 aren’t that out of the ordinary.

Washington State coach Mike Leach is having a terrific season, and so is his quarterback Gardner Minshew, leading to mustache mania in Pullman, Wash. However, it appears that Leach isn’t on board with the trend and didn’t seem to care to talk about it after the Cougars' win on Saturday.

Every week in this space I’ll share my thoughts on the top four and how I think things should shake out when the rankings are released.

1. Alabama – The Tide continue to dominate and can likely lose one of their last two games and still make the playoff.

2. Clemson – The Tigers easily beat Boston College despite the aforementioned weather concerns, and appear to have a clear path to the playoff.

3. Notre Dame – No Ian Book, no problem. The Irish deserve a spot in the field at this point and have their biggest hurdle left on the schedule next week when they play Syracuse at Yankee Stadium.

4. Michigan – The Wolverines made quick work of Rutgers and continue to steamroll toward the end of season showdown with Ohio State.

The rest: Georgia continues to wait in the wings and controls its own destiny if it can beat Alabama in the SEC title game. West Virginia is my No. 6 team, followed by Washington State, Oklahoma and Ohio State.

UCF Watch: I thought the Knights would move up a spot to No. 11 last week, but I was wrong, as their win over 5-4 Temple wasn’t as impressive as Oklahoma’s win over 5-4 Texas Tech. With Kentucky losing, I think UCF moves up to No. 11 this week and will have the entire country watching when they host College Gameday and play in the ABC primetime game against Cincinnati next Saturday.

Can I take credit for Patterson, a consensus five-star that was nationally recognized for his talents as recruit? Not really, but I have to stay I was always a staunch advocate of Patterson during the ranking process. The most controversial time was when I advocated for Patterson over Jacob Eason after watching both compete side-by-side at an elite quarterback event in Atlanta. In the end, Patterson did end up edging out Eason in the rankings and while they’ve both had unusual career paths, Patterson has had the better college career to date. In Saturday’s win at Rutgers, Patterson threw for 260 yards and three touchdowns and is now completing 67 percent of his passes on the year with 17 touchdowns to just three interceptions.

Bush was ranked as a two-star prospect out of Norcross, Ga. a team that featured future NFL Draft picks Christopher Herndon and Lorezno Carter. I got plenty of chances to see Bush play, but was never sold on him as a quarterback. Once he got to college, Bush bounced around, starting at Nebraska, then heading to junior college, then to Virginia Tech and finally to Illinois as a graduate transfer. While it’s hard to argue his two-star ranking wasn’t accurate, Bush did have a career game on Saturday, setting the Illinois school rushing record for a game for a quarterback with 187 yards and three touchdown in Saturday’s loss to Nebraska.

Another memorial edition of the hot seat of the week, as Petrino was fired before I could finish writing this column. He had a good run in his second stint with the Cardinals, but it’s clear now that Lamar Jackson was making up for a lot of flaws at the program. The Cardinals have their sights set on Jeff Brohm, but landing him won’t be a slam dunk.