Guess who got a free pass…

The beauty of the bye week. You get to watch everybody else, enjoy the upsets and live off your last game – which in Miami’s case is a 37-29 win over arch rival Florida State.

So what went down this weekend in college football? Check it:

Let’s start with the melee above. Georgia goes up on Florida in the early moments of the game and the Dawgs clear the bench and celebrate in unison, doing the ‘jump around’ in the end zone. Georgia rolled on to a 42-30 win and has caught zero grief for the Mark Richt-planned celebration. Dare I say, imagine the reaction had that been Miami.

The Canes would’ve been dubbed “thugs” and out of control, while any other program or coach is seen as being savvy this being a great motivational tactic against a program that’s had their number over the years.

I don’t mind the motivational rant because 1) Richt is a former Cane QB and 2) I hate Florida. Still, treat everyone the same straight across the board. Georgia got a pass that many others wouldn’t have. That ain’t right.

All that aside, the real story here is loss #3 for the defending champs. No repeat performance, Gators. Florida looked one-dimensional offensively and the gimmicky ways of Urban Meyer are showing that outside a miracle season in 2006, the spread offense can expect at least three losses per year. Florida has been hit or miss all season.

Safe to call all your Rutgers pals and let ’em know the Cinderella season hangover is in full effect, as everyone outside Piscataway predicted. Waxed 31-3 hosting West Virginia today, the Scarlet Knights were finally sent back down to earth losing their third of the season.

Greg Schiano doesn’t like the genius he was prematurely referred to last season and I doubt there’s a Canes fan alive who would rather have Jersey boy over Randy Shannon.

Great ‘no show’ by South Florida today. Anyone care to still woof about this being the best team in the state and a National Champion contender? Please. Sure, the win at Auburn was nice, as was the upset of West Virginia – but back-to-back losses to Rutgers and now UConn after a big time scare against Florida Atlantic? Come on now.

The Bulls are full of it. Until USF beats Miami, Florida State or Florida head-to-head, let’s can all the speculation and overhyping of this program.

Nice little run this year, but get to a BCS game and win some titles like the Big Three before all this ‘best in the state’ crap. Hell, beat UConn for starters.

I’m no Oregon fan, but I’ll take another USC loss. Living in So Cal, I’ve grown tired of the locals white-knuckling that bandwagon the past five years. San Diegans hate everything L.A. – except for winning sports franchises. Seems everyone and their mother suddenly had a relative who graduated a Trojan and they blindly followed the program, not seeing an end to the gravy train.

The Trojans in 2007 are simply the 2003 version of the Canes. Stellar defense yet an inconsistent offense. You can’t replace a Leinart/Bush/White or a Dorsey/McGahee/Johnson without some sort of drop off. USC is finally seeing that. College football is cyclical. No one stays on top forever.

I love the notion that the Trojans and Gators have pretty much played themselves out of the BCS (barring a miracle) when both programs and fan bases had such lofty expectations.

Now someone just needs to take out Ohio State… which will have to be Michigan or their foe in the National Championship game. Penn State got manhandled at home tonight. Not a pretty sight for Buckeye haters.

In ACC-related news, Miami now has reason to crack a smile. As if Thursday night’s Boston College win over Virginia Tech wasn’t good enough, NC State rose up and knocked off Virginia today. With the Chokies and Cavs both falling, the Canes control their destiny in the ACC Coastal, facing both head-to-head in November. Win out, and Miami will be in Jacksonville.

Odds aren’t in the Canes’ favor, but better to control your destiny than to hope others get the job done for you.

All in all a great week. U can’t lose to “bye”, your team has a week to get healthy and you get to watch those around you fall. Not as thrilling as a win, but infinitely better than a loss.

.:Canes305:.

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C. Bello

Longtime Miami Hurricanes columnist. Wrote for CanesTime.com, Yahoo! Sports and former BleacherReport featured columnist. Founder of allCanesBlog.com no longer toeing any company line. Launched ItsAUThing.com to deliver a raw, unfiltered and authentic perspective of all things "The U".