By Zac Ellis

Perhaps there’s more to blue-chip recruit Jabrill Peppers than meets the eye. A five-star prospect out of Paramus (N.J.) Catholic, Peppers recently dropped a video for his rap song “Don’t Take It Personal” on YouTube.

The track, credited to J. Reall (Peppers) featuring Knew Era X, begins with the line, “It ain’t no secret through the struggle only the strong survive.” Peppers is likely referring to his recruitment here, as he continues to fend off an endless sea of scholarship offers from major-conference programs. He’s reportedly narrowed his final list of schools down to LSU, Michigan, Notre Dame, Penn State, Rutgers and Stanford. He’s slated to make his announcement on ESPNU on May 26.

Unlike previous recruits’ rap videos, this effort isn’t half bad. Peppers appears to have a bright future ahead of him on the gridiron — he rushed for 1,552 yards and 18 touchdowns as a junior — but he may have a backup career path if the whole football thing goes south.

Sorry ’bout the daymares yesterday. Here. Have some duck.

Seriously, what is it about Lil’ Red? Get seven people in your home or office to watch this video and your dreams will be safe tonight. Maybe?

If you've got some time to kill #Badgers fans, check out our updated Football video playlist on YouTube go.wisc.edu/1xvx8m—
Badger Football (@BadgerFootball) February 20, 2013

The offseason takes its toll on all of us, and we all must find our own fun to get through it in our own ways. In Wisconsin’s case, this apparently means a lively winter round of The Most Dangerous Game.

That, or dodgeball.

Assorted bests and worsts from college football’s weekend that was:

• Most ominous foreshadowing: The head of the beloved Oregon mascot whipping off and flying away in midair, not too long before the Ducks’ first loss of the season. That led, of course, to this spectacle on GameDay:

We’ve crossed over into the other side: twitter.com/Landgrant33/st…

— Land-Grant Holy Land (@Landgrant33) November 17, 2012

We should’ve seen Stanford coming. We all should’ve known.

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Assorted bests and worsts from college football’s week that was:

• Best throwback (see what we did there?): Can’t go wrong with a classic, can we, Aaron Murray?

• Unofficial Heisman winner of our hearts: AJ McCarron, but not for the football-related reasons you might think. No, Alabama’s quarterback won our undying allegiance much earlier in the day, after dropping this little number on GameDay:

AJ McCarron to ESPN on handling wrath of Saban: “I always mess with him. I always say it kind of makes you feel as small as him.”

— Jon Solomon (@jonsol) November 3, 2012

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The Boise State Broncos: 21st in the BCS standings, first in blackout showmanship. (AP)

Miscellaneous awards dispensed in honor of college football’s weekend that was:

• ALTERNATE HELMET POWER RANKINGS. After careful deliberation with some of college football’s top minds, we have selected our top three alt football hats from Week 8.

1. Boise State, whose matte black be-Broncoed helmets topped what’s maybe the best blackout uniform we’ve seen this year. (That’s a short list, but still.) It’s the malevolent orange eye on the side that elevates these from mere headwear into the realm of art.
2. Michigan State, in green “Hydrochrome,” which is shiny and beautiful, has a hint of bass-boat finish about it and also has the benefit of sounding like it was made by a G.I. Joe villain. (Not, apparently, a villain equipped with the power to beat Michigan, but we can’t all be superbosses.)
3. Northwestern, whose black and silver contraptions popped beautifully in HD but really needed some neon purple whiskers or something to be truly on-trend.

HONORABLE MENTION: Duke, whose blue-on-black helmets didn’t carry well on television but were obviously effective.

Please, those of you whose teams’ helmets were not selected, take this as a deeply personal insult.

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Assorted bests from college football’s weekend that was.

• Play of the week, offense and defense at the same time. Johnny Manziel, handing off to Christine Michael AND making a tackle. Johnny Manziel is a 7-on-7 team of his own design. We saw this happen in person and still didn’t quite believe it:

• Play of the week, miscellaneous. There’s something almost whimsical about the way this Minnesota helmet logo flutters away from the scene of a collision.

• Trick play of the week. Steve Spurrier’s fake visor toss. Diabolical.

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Assorted bests and worsts from college football’s weekend that was:

• Best Gameday surprise. This is a category that rolls deep every year, but we have yet to see much on television or in real life that tops the South Carolina mascot (the live one) being offered a glass of Steve Spurrier-branded wine. I mean:

Did Sir Big Spur sample the Steve Spurrier wine? twitter.com/gogamecocks/st…

— GoGamecocks.com (@gogamecocks) October 6, 2012

We live in the greatest country on earth, and don’t you ever forget it.

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Central Michigan scored a win for the MAC by knocking off Iowa in the final seconds. (Matthew Holst/Getty Images)

Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome:

This will mark our fifth season tracking the record of non-AQ programs against teams from power conferences, for no other reason than liking to watch where the numbers go. We’re not sure we’ve ever seen a weekend produce a winning record for a mid-major league that involved more than one or two games. But glory be to the MAC, which played seven games against BCS-favored opponents, and won four. (Yes, we’re even including Northern Illinois’ win over Kansas, even though Kansas is Kansas. COUNT IT.)

MAC teams beat one Big Ten team, two Big East teams and one Big 12 team. Directional Michigan schools had a particularly grand weekend, with Central Michigan knocking off Iowa and Western Michigan laying out UConn. Eastern Michigan also acquitted itself admirably, putting up a dogged fight against Michigan State.

The fifth big winner of Week 4 was the gaudiest: Louisiana Tech, a team with qualities we have been relentlessly touting since last December or so, mowed down Illinois on the road, 52-24. The Bulldogs currently field the nation’s third-ranked scoring offense and have two more high-profile nonconference matchups in the next three weeks: at Virginia and home against Texas A&M. Stay tuned; they’re our favorites behind Ohio to finish the 2012 regular season undefeated.

Speaking of the Bobcats: They’re through their nonconference gauntlet after a Week 4 win over Norfolk State and received 40 votes in this week’s AP Poll. The only other non-AQ teams on that list are Boise State at No. 24 and Louisiana Tech, which received seven votes.

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