Giger: The definition of insanity is ... football

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The original headline of this story was "The definition of insanity is ... college football." But then the ridiculous Steelers game unfolded Sunday afternoon, and so I took the word "college" out of the headline.

I'll leave all the Steelers details to DK, Dale Lolley and Chris Halicke from Cincinnati, save for this: That game was absolutely bonkers. Here's how I described it on Twitter:

This nation is addicted to football. We cannot get enough of it, because we know there is always the possibility for something absolutely to insane to happen. The Steelers game reinforced that after we saw a Saturday filled with nearly unbelievable results across college football.

Massive upsets turned the sport upside down, including Notre Dame losing at home to Marshall and Texas A&M losing at home to Appalachian State. But one other upset took the cake, because it brought with it major consequences.

Here's a hodgepodge of somethingness from the wild and wacky weekend:

• First and foremost, this guy below had to be fired. Just had to be. And Sunday, following an unacceptable 45-42 home loss to Georgia Southern, Nebraska cut ties with Scott Frost, whose tenure was an unmitigated disaster (16-31 record in 4 1/4 seasons).

I grew up with Nebraska being a national power. For decades. But I do not believe the Cornhuskers will ever be able to return to anything close to that level of excellence for any consistent period of time.

I don't say this to be mean. I really don't. It's just the nature of the beast in college football: Why would any star high school recruits go to Nebraska? Let alone enough star players to turn around the program and make a consistent national threat?

Nebraska was able to bring in all the right pieces for many years to run its lethal I-bone option offense. But as football evolved and more teams went to the spread and started throwing a lot more, Nebraska's way of doing things quickly became a thing of the past.

Now, after struggling for years, and with the way football is played, it's just hard to imagine the Huskers ever being able to return to their glory days.

I do hope I'm wrong. It would be good to see Nebraska football return to a prominent level because those folks out there are good people and they love their football and tradition.

• Is there any coach in America who gets less out of more than Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M? They have all the money in the world down there to throw at the football program, including Fisher's $9 million salary, and yet the Aggies frequently underachieve at a remarkable level.

Saturday, Appalachian State stunned No. 6 Texas A&M, 17-14. The headline on this Dan Wolken column from USA Today says it all: Jimbo Fisher continues to rob Texas A&M in broad daylight.

• Former Penn State assistant coach Charles Huff picked up an enormous win as his Marshall team went in and stunned Notre Dame, 26-21. The Fighting Irish had been ranked in 80 consecutive AP polls dating back to the 2017 season, which had been the fourth-longest streak in the nation.

A lot of people loved that Brian Kelly left Notre Dame for LSU, because they deemed Kelly to be a slimy guy. And everyone loved the hiring of Marcus Freeman to take over. But Freeman is now 0-3 as the Irish's head coach, going back to last year's bowl loss to Oklahoma State and also this year's opening loss to Ohio State.

It's gonna be very interesting to see if Freeman can right the ship this season, and if he doesn't, if fans will turn on him immediately.

As for Huff and Marshall, that's just a phenomenal win. Huff is a very well-respected coach in college football, leaving Penn State for Mississippi State and then Alabama, and this is his first head coaching job. He went 7-6 last season, and if the Thundering Herd have a big year, look for bigger programs to be interested in luring Huff away in a few months.

Charles Huff (left) shakes hands with Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman following Saturday's upset victory.

• Of all the craziness that did happen Saturday, we were able to avoid complete chaos as Alabama rallied in the closing seconds for a 20-19 win at unranked Texas. The Tide played about as pedestrian of a game as they can play, and yet still found a way at the end to win.

Had they lost, it could have had an enormous impact on the season with regards to the College Football Playoff.

I wrote this column last week on Bill O'Brien's legacy at Penn State, 10 years after he became head coach. I got a lot of great feedback from fans about that piece, so thank you to everyone. O'Brien is now the offensive coordinator at Alabama, and he would have been under intense scrutiny down there had the Tide lost to Texas. It wasn't a very good offensive performance for O'Brien's offense, but he at least was able to avoid even more scathing criticism thanks to Bryce Young leading a game-winning drive.

• I have gone back and forth over the years about Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz, the longest-tenured FBS coach in the country. He's done a good job there and has won a lot of games, compiling a record of 179-111 with the Hawkeyes.

Here's my problem with Ferentz: His style of football is awful to watch. Sports are about entertainment, and I've got to know: Are Hawkeyes fans ever entertained watching their team? Even when Iowa wins, it's often more like pulling teeth than anything remotely close to being enjoyable.

The awful to watch thing has never been more true than this season. Iowa slogged through an opening 7-3 win over South Dakota State despite not scoring a touchdown (two safeties and a field goal), then the Hawkeyes scored just seven points again in Saturday's 10-7 loss to rival Iowa State.

Ferentz's son, Brian, is Iowa's offensive coordinator, and he is taking a lot of heat for being, well, a terrible offensive coordinator. But despite all the claims of nepotism and whatnot, which are valid, the real problem here is Kirk, not Brian. The son is merely running the same offense that dad has always run, and probably doing exactly what dad wants by keeping things extremely conservative and vanilla.

Kirk (right) and Brian Ferentz

I will say one thing in Ferentz's defense. You see what's happened to Nebraska, which is really no longer relevant in college football? What Iowa does -- as ugly as it is to watch -- has worked OK for a long time. And if the Hawkeyes ever decided to overhaul things and try to become sexier on offense, there's a good chance they'd never be able to pull it off and could fall into the same kind of abyss as Nebraska.

Iowa doesn't have a fertile recruiting ground nearby, and has to do things a certain way in order to sustain any level of success. But goodness gracious, it can be really painful watching the Hawkeyes and Ferentz sometimes.

6-4 anyone?

SINGLETON, ALLAR ON WIN

Nicholas Singleton rushed for 179 yards and two TDs on 10 carries, and quarterback Drew Allar looked poised and impressive in Penn State's 46-10 win over Ohio on Saturday. The media doesn't get to talk to freshmen, but Singleton and Allar did speak to Brian Tripp from the school's in-house media.

“First off, I want to give a shout out to the O-line,” Allar said. “Without them, we couldn’t operate, and it makes it easy when I’m playing with guys like Nick Singleton out there, just having to turn around and give the ball to him and he’ll take it to the house. It just makes it really easy on me.

"And then as far as with the pass game, I was just trying to keep it simple, stick to my read keys that coaches have been installing throughout the whole spring, since I’ve been here and this week with the game plan that we had coming in, so I was just super excited how we performed out there when I was out there."

DOTSON CATCHES WINNER
Jahan Dotson, a first-round draft pick, caught two TDs including the game winner for the Washington Commanders in their 28-22 win over the Jaguars. He finished with three catches for 40 yards.

What an impressive catch this was to win the game.

SAQUON BEING SAQUON

Saquon Barkley had an excellent game for the Giants in their 21-20 win over the Titans. Barkley finished with 164 yards and one TD on 18 carries, plus he caught six passes for 30 yards. He caught the go-ahead 2-point conversion to give the Giants the victory, and he had this exciting 68-yard run.