EDSBS'S BEST IN CLASS: WEEK 4

In which we reward the highlights and lesser luminaries of Week 4.

  YOU TRIED! We love Florida International to distraction this season. They're winless, but for at least one quarter all year they've managed to put the fear of god into three Big Six teams in a row (Rutgers, A&M, and Maryland). We're straight up calling for them to beat Pitt next week, and you know in your heart of hearts it could totally happen.

  ADEQUATE! Seriously, we're happy for Toledo and all, beating up on an ostensible Increasingly Inaccurately Named Big Ten Team, but if anyone has any information about this "Purdue" team, we'll be eternally grateful. They're not in our files.

  GOOD HELPER! Steven Threet, who threw three touchdown passes against Oregon and then four picks right back to be a good host. THREET LEVEL MIDNIGHT JOKES ARE BACK BABY <-- he also helps us too, see?

  IMPROVING! Yeah, you could say UCLA's turned a corner. So has Texas. Very different sort of corner, though.

  HAND UP! Or leg up, rather. Brian Maddox, we have no idea what the hell this was, but we like your moves.

  TAKE TURNS! Houston's new quarterback, the improbably-named Terrance Broadway, necessary heir to the permanently-sidelined Case Keenum and Cotton Turner, completed 19 of 28 passes for 174 yards against Tulane. He was also sacked five times. By Tulane. Enjoy Missy State's D-line in two weeks!

  SUPERSTAR! Chad Spann of NIU, who rushed for 223 yards and two touchdowns ON 15 CARRIES. Beating Minnesota is far from a lofty achievement, OK, but GOD DANG.

  SIT STILL! Denard Robinson, please rest those interstellar techology limbs you call legs this week. Rich Rodriguez may have a job in February thanks to you, and watching Michigan conservative mumblemouths come to terms with that is better than going to the movies.

  GRAPE JOB! Stephen Garcia, you are really, actually killing us. You too, Ryan Mallett. You made us look so smart with our Sakerlina-Arkansas title game prediction, for a very little bit, and then you made us unsmart. Stop that.

  CREATIVE! We still have a creeping suspicion that LSU is terrible at football. We can't prove this. (We also love LSU and Baton Rouge and things cooked in iron kettles to distraction, we remind you, so stow the pet threats.) Patrick Peterson will have a baller game (he did), and then they'll rack up 120 penalty yards (they did). With four ranked teams remaining on the schedule, all of whom actually deserve to be ranked, we're about to find out what the Tigers are actually made of, unless they coast through on a flotilla of unfounded lucky breaks (they might). (Oh, and prepare for them to look like quality again this weekend. Govawls!!)

  BUSY BEE! Trey Burton, we salute you. Scoring one touchdown for every eight yards gained on the ground against Kentucky, he's a model of efficiency.

   TEACHER'S PET! Out of all the games that went terribly, horribly wrong Saturday, and they were myriad, the Boise State-Oregon State game hummed along as if it had been scripted. t's crossed, i's dotted, and a close-ish game that ended with the No. 3 team in the country on top of the No. 24 team by a two-ish score margin. Order is restored.