NC State's improbable loss to Vanderbilt could go down as one of the worst betting outcomes ever.
Page S2From§Eachthe matinee edition — 20 September 2026
Vanderbilt 'cheated the football gods' beating NC State the same week LSU fell out of the top ten.
Hot Mic Moment
Somebody tell the political desk a single sitting judge is now positioned to decide eligibility rules governing an entire American sport, without the players holding a union or a seat at that table — that decision belongs to Congress or a labor board, not whichever docket the SEC happens to land in, and this reporter would like that story instead of this one.
Gushis side
College football's Week 4 arrived like a dropped filing cabinet, papers everywhere. Ole Miss climbed to No. 4 in the AP Top 25 by beating LSU, a program the Rebels had not beaten, this reporter recalls, since 2003.
Lane Kiffin's Tigers, by contrast, dropped clean out of the top ten in the Coaches Poll, while the 3-0 Florida Gators climbed back into the rankings behind them.
None of this cracks the record books, mind you — the AP pulled a stunt this size back in 2005, a tidy dozen ranked clubs reshuffling overnight, a quaint afternoon by comparison.
Then came the weekend's real demolition: Vanderbilt over NC State, a result the New York Post says "cheated the football gods," a bad beat this reporter is prepared to call the worst Saturday in the history of wagering.
None of this chaos is happening in a vacuum: days ahead of this season, a judge was already weighing whether former professional football players could walk onto a campus like LSU's and suit up, a ruling CBS News flagged as capable of reshaping college sports governance outright.
Trudyher side
The receipt gives you no such date, Gus — CBS Sports simply says Ole Miss now owns two of the best wins in the sport this season. That's the whole sentence. No 2003 anywhere in it.
That one you got right, for once — it happens about as often as a Saturday without a controversy.
2007, Gus. That October's wire shows four top-ten teams and eleven ranked teams overall moving or dropping off, and LSU took all 65 first-place votes — the first unanimous No. 1 since December 2006. "Quaint" is not the word.
It landed Sunday, September 20th, the date on every item here, and the Post never puts a number on it. Their words were "one of the worst betting outcomes ever." Borrow the quote, not the calendar.
That ruling was only set to be decided, Gus, not delivered — CBS News dated it September 3rd, before a single game in this column got played.
Get off the mic, sugar, before Standards hears you angling for a lateral move — but the receipt backs it: CBS News reported September 3rd that a judge's ruling on former pro players' eligibility could reshape the governance of all college sports, full stop.
“Whole town loses its shirt betting against Vanderbilt while a judge two states over decides who gets to suit up for LSU. Same weekend, same racket — the house always finds a way to get paid, sportsbook or booster club, doesn't matter which building it's in. The players still don't get a seat at that table.”
“A judge stepping in to settle college eligibility is just the system working the way it's supposed to — courts resolve disputes, that's function one. And the players don't need a seat at any table, they've got scholarships, room, board — did I say it like they're getting paid in everything but a paycheck? Forget I said that. Point is, poll chaos happens every September, nothing here that needs Congress.”
The receipts
Lane Kiffin and the Tigers fell out of the top 10 after Saturday's loss to Ole Miss, while the 3-0 Gators returned the poll
The Rebels now have two of the very best wins in college football up to this point
· U.S. college football: On the heels of last week's historic AP Poll shakeup, another one of comparable size occurs, in which four Top Ten teams and eleven ranked teams overall move down the list or of from the morgue, 7 Oct 2007
· SEC legal battle with LSU could reshape college football and governance of all college sports from the morgue, 3 Sep 2026
· Coaches Poll top 25: Ohio State slips from No. 1, Oregon tumbles in Week 3 college football rankings from the morgue, 13 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.