Almost every football coach in the known universe professes a desire for perfect balance, the desire to be able to run and pass in equal proportion and with equal quality.

Week 9 of the college football season created balance of a different sort: It gave us a particularly interesting mix of lovely, close games and huge statement performances. (It also gave us a few potentially season-altering quarterback injuries, but I guess that comes with the territory.)

The SEC alone gave us four one-score finishes, five fourth-quarter comebacks and a Hail Mary completed at about the 1-inch line. It also gave us Texas A&M's resounding second-half surge against LSU that both erased the aura of Tiger Stadium at night and put LSU's Brian Kelly on the hottest of hot seats .

The Big Ten gave us tense,

See Full Page