Poll-axed, from the top down

Tommy Trojan to Brutus Buckeye:

“Are we back in it?”

Brutus: “I think everyone’s back in it.”

Gee, what took so long for the season to get so knee-deep in nutty?

Two weeks after Ohio State (allegedly) surrendered its national championship dreams over at USC, and two days after No. 1 USC (supposedly) gave away the Bowl Championship Series store in Corvallis, the top dropped out of college football . . . in a matter of hours.

No. 3 Georgia got weed-whacked Saturday by No. 8 Alabama, 41-30, in Athens, and afterward Bulldogs fans had to be kept away from ledges, not hedges.

No. 4 Florida lost at home to Mississippi, which was 0-8 in the Southeastern Conference last year.

No. 9 Wisconsin had a 19-0 lead at Michigan, but then the Badgers didn’t have it. Final score: Michigan 27, Wisconsin 25.

Four top 10 schools lost this week and now you can throw all the contenders’ names back into Bear Bryant’s houndstooth hat.

Northwestern is 5-0; Duke is 3-1.

What’s going on?

What we know now that we didn’t know Thursday at 10 p.m. Oregon State standard time:

Top-ranked USC’s 27-21 defeat to the Beavers wasn’t the beginning of the end -- it was only the end of a beginning.

In order, it was USC losing first and then Florida, which heard Ole Miss scream “Block that kick!” as the Gators set up for the tying extra-point attempt.

You know that cheer never works.

But this time it did, with defensive lineman Kentrell Lockett’s deflection preserving a 31-30 Ole Miss upset in the Swamp.

“It’s awful, it’s bad,” Florida Coach Urban Meyer said of the defeat. “It’s bad stuff.”

Nice weekend for Ole Miss. Friday, the school hosted the presidential nominees and Saturday the football team figured prominently in another national debate.

Wisconsin was the third team to get cow-tipped, blowing a seemingly insurmountable lead in Ann Arbor.

“This one really hurts,” Wisconsin defensive back Allen Langford said. “We got up, but we didn’t play four quarters. . . . We started fast, we just didn’t finish fast.”

And just so you have this straight: Navy, which lost to Ball State and Duke, defeated No. 16 Wake Forest, which on Sept. 6 beat Mississippi, which on Saturday upended Florida.

Harris Poll and USA Today voting coaches now have to get off their couches and make some interesting decisions.

Put Oklahoma, 4-0, on top, and then what?

Does Alabama zoom from No. 8 to No. 2? Or should Louisiana State or Missouri get the second spot?

Bump No. 7 Texas up, No. 12 Penn State too.

Put Georgia in the poll pound for now and then consider some old familiar faces.

The temptation for voters to hammer USC for losing a game it was supposed to have won by 25 suddenly gets more complicated.

Was USC’s road loss at Oregon State worse than Florida’s home loss to Ole Miss?

Was it worse than Georgia’s being blown off its home field by an Alabama team with an offense that scored one touchdown against Tulane?

Does a voter drop USC below one-loss Wisconsin?

Is it possible USC might not drop out of the top 10?

One thing is certain: Schools that want back into this title chase need to have short memories.

“There’s some devastated players in there,” Meyer said of his Florida team.

So what now?

“Come back tomorrow, get it going,” Meyer said.

As for schools prematurely getting tossed to the has-been heap . . .

Ohio State was excoriated after its Sept. 13 loss to USC. Smart people stood on the Coliseum floor afterward and insisted Ohio State had no chance of getting back in the title chase.

Even though Ohio State, in less than a month last year, climbed back from No. 7 in mid-November to No. 1.

Steering clear of the top 10 calamities above, No. 14 (for now) Ohio State improved to 4-1 with a Big Ten win against previously undefeated Minnesota.

With tailback Chris “Beanie” Wells returning to the lineup with a 106-yard rushing day and freshman quarterback Terrelle Pryor getting better by the minute, the Buckeyes no longer seem the sad sacks they appeared to be only a fortnight ago.

Of Pryor, Minnesota Coach Tim Brewster said, “He has a tremendous future. I saw No. 10 of Texas [Vince Young] play and they’re similar players.”

In hindsight, maybe Ohio State Coach Jim Tressel should have started Pryor against USC.

Didn’t Young once have a good game against the Trojans?

No telling where the season goes from here, but you might want to go along with it.

Any time a good team loses once, it puts that team one defeat closer to two losses, and two-loss teams tend to slide down the rankings, and one-loss teams tend to slide up.

The physical and psychological hurt of USC’s loss at Oregon State had not yet subsided as early-season chaos unfolded Saturday across football lawns.

For USC, Thursday was a dark room with the curtains drawn.

Two days later, though, it wasn’t curtains at all.

It was another crazy Saturday . . . with several more, probably, to come.

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chris.dufresne@latimes.com