Snap judgments on Saturday's best.

Teachers' Pet: Toby Gerhart. (It's always the quiet ones.) The unfolding parity of the Pac-10 has been great television this year, and with 223 yards and three touchdowns against Oregon, Stanford's thundering senior back put the Cardinal squarely in the conference championship discussion with a 51-42 dismantling of Oregon that at times looked even less competitive the final score might have you believe (thanks, again, largely to Gerhart). Quarterbacks Jeremiah Masoli and Andrew Luck put on an air duel that would have made for entertaining football on its own, with 585 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions between them.

Raise your hand if you thought the Pac-10 standings would look like this in November: 1. Oregon (5-1), 2. Arizona (4-1), 3. Stanford (5-2), 4. USC (4-2)

If you even started to put your arm up, take your things and go sit in the hall, because you're a lying liar.

Most Unlikely Couple: Ram Vela and Notre Dame quarterbacks. You remember Ram Vela, don't you? Evan Sharpley does. And Vela just can't stay away from the Irish offense, picking off Jimmy Clausen, recovering a fumble and helping seal up Navy's upset of Notre Dame in shipshape fashion.

Most School Spirit: C.J. Spiller, the triple rushing/receiving/return threat who hauled Clemson onto his back and carried the Tigers to the tune of 306 all-purpose yards and a 40-24 victory over Florida State. In a season that's included close losses to Georgia Tech, TCU, and Maryland (Maryland?), Clemson's now riding a four-game win streak and sits atop the Atlantic division. Viva ACC!

Most Creative: Les Miles, whose masterly postgame softshoe would make Mack Brown flush with envy. Faced with questions about a blown interception call late enough in the game to make a big difference, Miles calmly acknowledged, "Speculation is rampant." And well it ought to be. We're sick to death of discussing SEC officiating. Almost as sick as we are of the officiating itself.

Mister Personality: Texas, who's winning big but winning ugly. The 35-3 drubbing of Central Florida had its share of facepalms:

The home crowd was late showing up for the 11 a.m. kickoff and the Longhorns’ offense was slow waking up. Early miscues included a rare missed field goal by Hunter Lawrence and a bobbled pitch by (Colt) McCoy on a flea flicker. Catch the ball and he had John Chiles wide open behind the defense for an easy score.

“We went into the game expecting a fight,” McCoy said. “We should have come out with more of an edge to start the game.”

Actually, with a remaining slate consisting of Baylor, Kansas, and Texas A&M, a honed edge might not be necessary, but the postseason will be another story altogether. Look alive, Longhorns.

Grape Job! It's not the promised ten wins, but Dan Hawkins will take his third victory with a polite smile. (We think it's politeness. It's Hawkins, so it's entirely possible he didn't notice he just allowed the nation's 91st-ranked defense to sack his quarterback eight times.) The Buffs' second conference win is good for third place in the Big 12 North, by the way. That's not a typo.

Most Popular: So Iowa finally loses one. We've been wondering for weeks what it would take. The answer, apparently, is "a nasty high ankle sprain for Ricky Stanzi and a Northwestern squad that hadn't beaten a team with a winning record." Big 12 and SEC partisans owe the Wildcats some serious fruit baskets for knocking the Hawkeyes out of national title contention, but while you're at it, send some roses to Stanzi. Anyone who can throw five interceptions in a single game and still not come out a screaming liability to their team is a favorite son of chaos, and we do love some good old-fashioned upheaval of reason around here.

Drama Queen: Miami, which lolled around against Virginia yesterday murmuring how everyone hates them just long enough for everyone to pay attention and tell them how pretty they are, then blew the lid off Virginia, 52-17. The Cavs were held to 149 yards of total offense and 10 first downs. Jacory Harris passed for 232 yards and Graig Cooper ran for 152. Also, this happened:

The pain experienced by his crack-back'd players on that play is just the everyday toll of existence for UVA coach Al Groh, especially now that a winning season is out of reach.

Class Clown: Kansas, you scamps. Todd Reesing throws for 241 yards and you still only score 10 points against Kansas State? And that's actually due largely to Reesing's three turnovers? Hilarious! (Seriously, what's happened to Reesing? Last week's benching at Texas Tech seemed goofy at the time, but with the total disappearance of the Jayhawk offense in KU's fourth straight conference loss, we wonder.)

Most Likely To Succeed: Ohio State is back in control of the Big Ten and has only to skirt an Iowa team missing its quarterback and then foundering Michigan to book itself a slot in Pasadena. After losing convincingly to Purdue. We're as bewildered as you are.

- - -
Holly welcomes your adulation and veiled threats at nastinchka-at-yahoo, etc.