For college football's best, it's the calm before the storm

This is a week when you look at the college football schedule and find that your level of excitement is lukewarm at best. Alabama and Auburn are resting up for their clash next week by taking on Western Carolina and Samford, respectively, while Georgia prepares for the stretch run against Charleston Southern. According to the Associated Press, only one of the top seven teams in the College Football Playoff rankings is favored by fewer than 20 points, and that's Florida State giving 191/2 to Boston College. Thus ESPN's College Football GameDay goes to Cambridge, Mass., for Harvard-Yale, and Lehigh and Lafayette capture the spotlight by choosing Yankee Stadium as the site for their 150th game.

Ah, but all is not lost in the excitement area. Thanks to Arizona State's loss last week to Oregon State, the Pac-12 South has been thrown into chaos with five teams having a shot at the division title with two weeks to play. UCLA controls its own destiny needing wins over Southern California and Stanford to reserve its spot in the Pac-12 championship game. USC needs to defeat the Bruins on Saturday night or its chances are toast. Arizona State isn't out of it but first the Trojans must win at UCLA. Then you have Arizona and Utah still mathematically in the mix with the Utes, believe it or not, prevailing in a five-way tie at 6-3. Talk about chaos.

Baylor fans continue to mutter about their team still no better than seventh in the CFP poll with Texas Christian ranked fifth despite having lost to the Bears. A lot of things - particularly the teams in front of them losing - must happen for the Bears to make the top four. They do have their final three games at home, including a Dec. 6 contest against Kansas State. Coach Art Briles said the best way to "politic" to the committee is for his team is to win. "That's what it comes down to," he said at his weekly news conference. "I don't need a calculator to figure it out. If we win out, we're in great shape."

Yes, Marshall (10-0) still is undefeated with no shot at finishing in the four-team CFP. So the Thundering Herd need to keep winning and hope they can earn the Group of Five's (American Athletic, Conference-USA, Mid-American, Mountain West, Sun Belt) lone seat in a prominent bowl selected by the CFP committee. Right now, Marshall and Colorado State are leading the charge for that spot, but Thundering Herd coach Doc Holliday said his team's sole task is to focus on the next game and "try to eliminate the noise."

Justin Hardy was an overlooked high school wide receiver in Vanceboro, N.C., with only one scholarship offer - from a Division II school. But East Carolina invited him to walk on, and Hardy began an amazing story that could lead him Saturday to setting the FBS career receptions record. Hardy, who had 88 catches as a sophomore and 114 as a junior, needs four catches against Tulane to break the record of 349 set by Ryan Broyles of Oklahoma in 2011. "I probably won't think about it," Hardy said in an AP story. "Once gametime starts, it's like I'm locked in."

Lehigh and Lafayette have moved college football's most played and longest continuous rivalry to Yankee Stadium, where the teams will meet for the 150th time. The Leopards (4-6) lead the series 77-67-6 after taking a 50-28 victory last year at Lehigh (3-7). The rivalry dates back to 1884 with the teams meeting twice a year (three times in 1891) until 1901 and once a year for the most part since then. The game has been played every year since 1897, making this the 118th consecutive year they will meet. More than 49,000 tickets reportedly have been sold for Saturday.

Four local teams will be in action Saturday when the NCAA begins playoff competition in Division II and Division III. West Chester (10-1) the fourth seed in Division II, will host Slippery Rock (9-2) as it begins what it hopes will be a deep run like last year when the Golden Rams reached the national semifinals. In Division III, Widener (10-0) is at home against Muhlenberg (10-1), Delaware Valley (9-1) takes on Christopher Newport (7-3) in Doylestown and Rowan (7-3) travels to Johns Hopkins (10-0).

Lehigh junior LaQuan Lambert, a 6-foot-1, 200-pound free safety from Chichester High School, is the Mountain Hawks' No. 2 tackler with 56 and also has snatched two interceptions. Lafayette freshman Brandon Bryant, a 5-11, 205-pound linebacker who played his high school ball at Cherry Hill East, has 50 tackles to rank fifth on the Leopards, with 5.5 of those tackles being for loss along with two blocked kicks.