Only a year and a half into the job, Turner Gill's days as Kansas' head coach might be numbered.

After Saturday's 59-21 loss to rival Kansas State in the Sunflower Showdown, Kansas athletic director Sheahon Zenger didn't exactly praise Gill for giving it the old college try — again.

"I don't expect any player, coach, administrator, fan or alum to accept today's performance or the performances in recent weeks," Zenger told media after the game. "We will get this thing fixed."

Kansas has lost five consecutive games after starting the season 2-0 with wins against McNeese State and Northern Illinois. The Jayhawks are allowing an average of 50.4 yards per game and have lost by an average of 32.6 points. But Gill remains optimistic about the future of the program with him in it.

"I'm here to coach and teach," Gill said. "I still believe in my ability to coach. I still believe in my ability to develop. I believe in this staff's ability to teach and develop. I feel good about it. It's just

In this, the year of the crazy uniform combinations, it seems like every team is trying something just a little out of the ordinary.

Add Tulsa to that list.

For Saturday's game against Rice, the Golden Hurricane wore alternate blue and white fiber-like helmets for, as far as we can tell, no particular reason. But the change worked as the Hurricane defeated Rice 38-20 to keep pace with Houston in Conference USA's West Division. (It also worked in getting us to actually notice Tulsa's win over Rice.) Tulsa and Houston are both 3-0 in conference play and meet in the final game of the regular season.

It was the first time the Golden Hurricane had worn non-gold helmets since 2009. That year, they wore blue helmets for three games and won all three.

Rice also had slightly altered helmets. In honor of breast cancer awareness month, the tradition "R" on the side of the Owls' helmets was pink.

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Graham Watson is on Facebook and Twitter: Follow her @Yahoo_Graham.

Houston 63, Marshall 28.
Marshall defenders said they wanted to find out who Houston's backup quarterback was, presumably by knocking starter Case Keenum out of the game.

Well, Marshall did meet Cougars' backup Cotton Turner, but only after Keenum had his way with the Thundering Herd completing 24-of-28 passes for 376 yards and six touchdowns in a 63-28 win.

To add insult to injury, Keenum also set the NCAA career total offense mark formerly held by Hawaii's Timmy Chang. His total now sounds at 16,910 yards since 2007, and counting.

Earlier in the week, the Huntington Herald-Dispatch ran a story quoting Marshall players who said their goal was to get Keenum out of the game early by injuring him in some way.

"As a defense, that's our key to the game," Marshall nose tackle Delvin Johnson told the paper. "We try to kill the head of the snake every game. Putting out the quarterback is a real big deal for us."{YSP:MORE}

Keenum and the Cougars appeared to take those comments personally as

East Carolina has had a rough season so far this year, but Saturday's performance by quarterback Dominique Davis is something of which the Pirates can be proud.

Davis set two NCAA records against Navy and more important, earned his team a 38-35 win.

Davis completed his first 26 passes to set an NCAA record that was previously shared by Tennessee's Tee Martin in 1998 and Cal's Aaron Rodgers in 2004. Both players completed 23 in a row.

Davis also came into the game having completed his final 10 passes against Memphis last week, and his 36 total completed passes in a row also broke Rodgers' mark of 26 consecutive passes spanning two games.

[Related: College football's Week 8 Winners and losers]

Overall, Davis completed 40-of-45 passes for 372 yards and two touchdowns. His 88.9 completion percentage is the second-highest completion percentage among passers with at least 40 completions.

While coaches and players will say it's not about the individual performances, this is certainly one that

Minnesota didn't need further proof that the universe was against it this season, but just in case there were any doubts, a strange first down play by Nebraska that set up the game's first touchdown made the College Football Fates' message pretty clear.

On fourth-and-1 early in the first quarter, Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez pitched a backward pass to Aaron Green, who fumbled the ball forward out of bounds.

Of course, Minnesota celebrated because it was fourth down and the ball can't be fumbled forward, right?

Wrong.

Even though Green fumbled two yards behind the line of scrimmage, the ball actually rolled out of bounds at the 11, one yard past the first down marker.

The ridiculous play resulted in a Nebraska first down.

"The play had a backward pass that ended up going forward," the official explained. "By rule, first down Nebraska at the out of bounds spot."

Even the announcers, who also thought the play was going to give Minnesota the stop and the ball, were flummoxed by

The goal of every college football defense is to get to the quarterback, but few are as outspoken as Marshall about actually wanting to knock the quarterback out of the game. And the quarterback in their sights this weekend is Houston's Case Keenum.

"As a defense, that's our key to the game," Marshall nose tackle Delvin Johnson told the Huntington Herald-Dispatch. "We try to kill the head of the snake every game. Putting out the quarterback is a real big deal for us."

Brazen talk for a defense that's facing the nation's top offense and a quarterback who's carved up opposing defenses like Thanksgiving turkeys this season. And not to get all preachy, but it's also unsportsmanlike.

"He's the first-string quarterback for a reason," Marshall free safety Omar Brown. "And a second-string quarterback doesn't bring as much to the table as the first-string. So, it kind of slows them down in a way, which is a good thing for us.

"He's one of the top quarterbacks in the nation. For them to lose a

Stephen Nelson is bitter.

The sophomore receiver from Beaverton, Ore., came to SMU hoping that the change in football culture sparked by coach June Jones and back-to-back bowl trips would have been enough to get the fans on board with a football program that has been a national doormat since repeated NCAA violations earned the program the "Death Penalty" in the late 1980s. So far, it sounds like he's been utterly disappointed.

In an op-ed for the student-run Daily Campus, Nelson calls out SMU fans, mostly the student body, for their poor showing during last week's 38-17 win against defending Conference USA champion Central Florida:

The UCF game was a testament to how stubborn and pathetic our student body is, and how our school has completely failed to capture the attention of a city.

It wasn't halfway through the second quarter when students began to whine about the heat and leave. I'm sorry you guys had to sit in your air conditioned homes during the summer while my teammates and I

Connecticut women's basketball coach Geno Auriemma wants everyone to know that he loves Jesus, but he's a little upset with Notre Dame right now.

In a vintage Auriemma rant, he blamed Notre Dame football for the realignment of the Big East stating that had the Irish joined the league in football 17 years ago, the conference would have had stability. As it stands, all of the Irish's sports are in the Big East except for football, which remains independent.

"In this whole thing, there is only one sure thing: Notre Dame doesn't play football in our league — and that's a bone of contention with a lot of us," Auriemma said during Big East basketball media day. "That's the only thing you're sure of: They don't play in our league and they never want to play in our league and for a lot of us that's a huge problem.

"They've been in our league (17) years, so how long are we going to date before we just decide this ain't working. And I'm not happy about it. That's not the opinion of the