There's still plenty of time for that narrative to reemerge over the next month, but tonight any hint of disappointment or untapped potential is a whisper beneath the blaring siren of one of the great efforts of the season -- emphasis on effort: Still clearly ailing from the assortment of nicks that essentially sidelined him last week against Charleston Southern, Spiller gashed Florida State for 306 total yards (165 rushing, 67 receiving, 74 in the return game), just a few yards shy of the school record he set two weeks ago in the Tigers' overtime win at Miami. That included runs of 45, 36 and 21 yards and a touchdown reception from 58 yards out, a couple of which he couldn't quite finish because his legs visibly stopped working at the end; on the sideline, Spiller appeared to be on the verge of hocking an organ onto the field.

He still commanded the ball, 29 times altogether, and Florida State was helpless to stop him in the second half. When his injuries and exhaustion did what FSU could not, he was the first player off the bench to celebrate when his teammates punched in a late touchdown, and his first move after the game was to seek out Bobby Bowden among the throng on the field for a handshake.

Coming into the day, only three other players nationally had put together a 300-yard all-purpose game this year; excluding last week's functional bye, Spiller's turned the trick two games in a row, against arguably the two most talented teams in the ACC, and has the Tigers back on track for the ACC Championship game -- wins over N.C. State and Virginia (or even one win and a loss by Boston College) will ice the Atlantic Division. Obviously, we've heard that before, during their November collapses with the division in their grasp in 2006 and 2007 and last year's season-long flop with a mountain of preseason hype behind them. Even as a heavy favorite against the Wolfpack and Cavaliers, this is the point in the season where Clemson regularly spit the bit with everything in its corner under Tommy Bowden. That may or may not be different under Dabo Swinney. But if he remains healthy enough to suit up, Spiller hasn't had a down game yet in '09, and there's no indication he'll be participating in any more disappearing acts.

By any measure, California had a dreadful night against Oregon State -- the Beavers quickly led 14-0 and ultimately outgained Cal by 200 yards for the game to stick the Bears with their third lopsided conference loss in six games. But none of the losses were worse than the spectacular and spectacularly painful exit of star running back Jahvid Best, who momentarily defied the laws of gravity and paid a very hard price on the Bears' only relevant score of the game:

Best remained on the ground for an uncomfortably long time, ultimately being carted away on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face; the early verdict indicates he does have feeling in all his extremities and is apparently suffering from a concussion.

Best is often compared to another all-purpose Pac-10 speedster, notorious end zone leaper Reggie Bush, and has gone airborne before. It makes for a nice picture, and if he'd somehow picked himself off the turf after this one, the shot would make Sports Illustrated and live on in infamy. It might, anyway, but hopefully as more of a cautionary tale than an enviable feat. Full-contact games are not made to be played eight feet off the ground.

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Alabama 24, LSU 15. When Tennessee held Alabama without a touchdown two weeks ago, coach Nick Saban acknowledged after the game that his team may have been "tired" after eight straight games without a bye week; after this game, he said the Tide "played well" in the first half, but was still frustrated that it could only come away with three points in six straight trips inside Tiger territory. 'Bama rolled up 223 yards today before halftime -- almost as many as it gained in the entire game against Tennessee -- but at the same time, after one half, the Tide had still scored a grand total of two offensive touchdowns in its last 14 quarters, with a single TD in 10 trips inside the opponents' red zone. "Tired" or not, Alabama was plagued by the same issues with finishing drives, and this time was staring at a rare halftime deficit at 7-3.

Against that frustrating backdrop, the second half counts as a kind of rejuvenation for the struggling Tide offense. 'Bama took the opening kickoff of the third quarter 81 yards for a touchdown, its first in almost three weeks; after being hit for a safety on a drive that started at their own one-yard line, the Tide ate up 66 yards in a little over five-and-a-half minutes for a field goal, two-thirds of it on seven carries by Mark Ingram; and still trailing 15-13 and needing a big play in the fourth quarter, they got their biggest play of the year, a 73-yard catch-and-run by the eerily quiet Julio Jones, the sudden, game-turning highlight will join Terrence Cody's blocked field goal as the defining moments of the season if the Tide run the table. (Or, in Alabama terms, the Daniel Moore Moments.)

Alabama still doesn't win, of course, without the defense; LSU had seven three-and-outs, including two with the game on the line in the fourth quarter, preceding a quick turnover on downs after just one first down to ice the game. But no part of the Tide's win was more impressive than that killer instinct on both sides of the ball -- or, maybe more accurately, the survival instinct. 'Bama never trailed in the fourth quarter during last year's 12-0 regular season, and in fact blew a late lead to Florida in the SEC Championship. This year, it's rallied to come from behind to put away Virginia Tech in the opener and now the top challenger in the West Division; in their toughest games of the season, facing their toughest spots of the season, the Tide outscored the Hokies and Tigers by a combined 32-7 in the final frame to win both games comfortably, by two scores. They blocked Tennessee's kick to prevent a burgeoning giveaway. Whatever other problems this team has, responding in the clutch obviously hasn't been one of them.

Even the Charlie Weis haters among Notre Dame fans haven't had much reason for complaint through the first two months as far as the Weis "hot seat" watch goes: The Irish were on track for 10 wins, showed a penchant for winning close, exciting games with one of the nation's most prolific offenses, were 11 combined points from beating Michigan and USC in their only two losses and ended their losing streak against winning teams by beating Boston College. All in all, a perfectly respectable year.

But still ...

Now that the Irish have lost to Navy for the second time in two years -- both in South Bend after beating the Midshipmen 43 years in a row in any location -- and forfeited any realistic opportunity at slipping into a BCS bowl, the next three games against Pittsburgh, UConn and Stanford (combined record: 18-8) may be a referendum for Weis' job. If ND drops any of them, this kid's going to have some company (again).

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Hat tip: Deadspin.

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Ohio State 24, Penn State 7. We don't know exactly how the season is going to play out -- it could very well be, for example, that Penn State just isn't very good. We didn't know much about the Lions coming in, but their offensive malaise and the quiet, steady effectiveness of the Buckeye running game followed exactly the script of Penn State's only other loss this season, in its only other game against another team at the top of the conference. With their lame nonconference schedule and losses to the only teams on the Big Ten slate that might currently fit anyone's definition of "good," there's no evidence at all that the Lions stack up to the top-15 ranking they've carried all season.

But there's not much question on my end that this is Ohio State's best win since the 2006 team finished its perfect regular season against No.2 Michigan, just before launching the "big game" curse against Florida in the subsequent BCS title game that's followed the Buckeyes ever since. OSU finally played exactly the way it wanted to play against one of the best teams on the schedule -- running for 200-plus yards, getting two touchdown passes with no turnovers from Terrelle Pryor, taking advantage of good field position and forcing seven three-and-outs from the Nittany Lion offense -- and did it on the road. It's not the national championship, but it is the first time Pryor or the vast majority of teammates can come out of a verifiably big game with their heads held high.

With Iowa's loss to Northwestern, it also sets up the Buckeyes on the track to their first Rose Bowl appearance in more than a decade: They'll be favored to beat the Hawkeyes next week in Columbus, which will put OSU in sole possession of first place in the conference with only badly reeling Michigan standing between it and Pasadena. If they manage to take two must-win conference games in a row and dispatch their hated rival for the sixth consecutive year after nearly losing control of the season in an ugly loss at Purdue, of all places, the Bucks will deserve the trip, and deserve to enjoy it no matter what other big-game demons are sure to await them when they get there.

Navy 23, Notre Dame 21. Watching a game like this unfold is almost a surreal experience when you stop to size up the absurd physical differences between these two teams, especially between Notre Dame's offense and Navy's defense. It's one thing to think about how difficult it must be for the Midshipmen's secondary to match up with Notre Dame's 6-foot-6 god of a receiver, Michael Floyd, and another altogether to actually observe the physical impossibility of it with your own eyes, even on television.

And it's not like Navy really stopped Notre Dame's high-flying offense, either, despite the final score: Floyd and receiving mate Golden Tate hauled in 19 passes between them for 275 yards, more than half of the Irish's 513-yard total, and ND didn't punt once.

But Navy was able to mitigate the damage by limiting big plays -- before Tate's 31-yard catch-and-run for Notre Dame's last (and ultimately meaningless) touchdown in the final minute, the Midshipmen hadn't allowed a play longer than 30 yards, forcing the Irish to string together long drives that more often than not ended in the Middies' favor; five ND drives of seven plays or longer ended deep in Navy territory with the Irish failing to put points on the board. More importantly, the Midshipmen forced turnovers, three of them, including a Jimmy Clausen fumble at the Navy goal line and then a pick off Clausen inside the Navy five in the fourth quarter. Most of the Irish's obscene output was sound and fury in the service, ultimately, of nothing.

The other overriding theme in the box score, of course, was the complete domination of the Midshipmen's vaunted triple-option attack, which ate up the vast majority of the first quarter and part of the second on two long touchdown drives that featured a single pass attempt (for four yards) between them; set up a 52-yard touchdown pass on Navy's third and final pass of the game to extend the lead to 21-7 in the third quarter; and finished with 348 bruising, frustrating yards on six per carry -- a dominating performance for the scheme to accompany a resourceful, resilient one by the defense, which is what physically mismatched upsets are made of.

And in this case, it's a season-deflating shocker on top of the details: Their third loss means the Irish are certain to fall from next week's polls, which essentially closes off their route to the top 15 by the end of the year, and with it any hope of returning to one of the big-money bowls in January, no matter what happens over the last three weeks against Pittsburgh, Connecticut and Stanford. With that critical benchmark out of reach, at least the Gator Bowl must be very happy, along with all the Irish haters who get to go another year without having to endure Notre Dame in a BCS game.

Purdue 38, Michigan 36. Mathematically, Michigan is still alive for a bowl game, but at this point, that's like saying "Chrysler is still solvent" or "People are still watching the new Jay Leno show." Technically, yes: At 5-5, if the Wolverines upset Wisconsin on the road or end their five-year losing streak against Ohio State, a bid to the Little Caesar's Bowl may be waiting for them.

Let's rephrase that with a few more pieces of key information: If the Wolverines snap out of a five-game conference losing streak in which they've now allowed 500 yards and 38 points apiece to Illinois and Purdue in back-to-back weeks to knock off one of the top teams in the conference, they can eke out a bid to the least prestigious postseason date in school history. That's the best-case scenario.

Today, at home against another struggling outfit struggling just to stay out of the conference cellar (Purdue was routed last week 37-0 by Wisconsin), was the chance for Michigan to end that malaise and salvage whatever goodwill remained from the 4-0 start in September. Instead, the beleaguered secondary gave up four completions of at least 30 yards in the worst aerial assault against Wolverine D (367 yards) since USC in the 2006/07 Rose Bowl. Aside from defensive end Brandon Graham, this rock-bottom defense is like last year's rock-bottom offense: Outmanned, condemned from the outset by a shockingly bare cupboard at key positions and careening quickly toward historic depths every time the ball goes in the air.

That's a sobering comparison on its face, particularly for what it implies in the big picture: Assuming the chalk holds against Wisconsin and Ohio State, Michigan is on pace not only to miss a bowl game for the second year in a row, but to finish 1-7 in Big Ten play with seven consecutive losses, a regression from the unthinkable catastrophe of finishing 2-6 in conference games last year. Rich Rodriguez's second team seemed to establish the bare minimum of its requirements -- just don't be as bad as Rich Rodriguez's first team, please -- by beating Notre Dame at the last second and avoiding another embarrassing loss to the equivalent of Toledo during that 4-0 start. Back-to-back defenses collapses to obviously reeling outfits from Purdue and Illinois, though, threaten to erase all of that: Unless the Wolverines manage to pull a stunning upset over a top-25 rival in the last two weeks of the season -- or somehow shut down the Badgers' and Buckeyes' offenses in close, spirited losses -- Michigan is going to end this season just as it ended 2008, wallowing in the Big Ten cellar with Indiana, probably looking for yet another defensive coordinator and definitely still wondering how and when it's ever going to manage to crawl its way back into the light.

Northwestern 17, Iowa 10. Anytime a nondescript, 16.5-point underdog rebounds from a quick 10-point hole to upend a 9-0 national-title contender on the road, that is a "shocking" result. There was no reason to think Iowa might lose to a team with a gimpy starting quarterback and whose marquee wins to date included unlikely, skin-of-the-teeth comebacks against Purdue and Indiana. The Hawkeyes' miracle season obviously was not supposed to end here -- next week at Ohio State, maybe, but not at home, to Northwestern.

I find it hard to believe, though, that anyone who pays greater heed to probability than to miracles is actually experiencing anything like actual shock, especially after quarterback Ricky Stanzi's ignominious exit with an ankle injury on the end zone fumble turned Northwestern touchdown that turned the game in the second quarter and collapsed the Hawkeyes' Jenga tower of a season in a matter of seconds. At some point, it had to happen: Iowa had already survived the loss of its top three running backs and a starting offensive lineman for the season, as well as its best offensive player for a crucial three-game stretch earlier in the season, and emerged unscathed after fourth-quarter comebacks against Northern Iowa, Penn State, Michigan State and Indiana. When you're saddled with one of the worst offenses in the conference, there are only so many miracles at your disposal.

As much heat as he's taken for his perfectly mediocre performance through the first two months (and his five-interception schizo act against Indiana, in particular), Stanzi's injury was the obvious breaking point. At least the resourceful junior gave the Hawkeyes a chance to move the ball: Their first three drives covered 159 yards and put 10 points on the board off a 74-yard touchdown pass from Stanzi to Marvin McNutt and a 30-yard strike to Trey Stross that set up the field goal. The final eight drives, all led by redshirt freshman James Vandenberg, covered 131 yards, entered Northwestern territory only once and produced zero points. Vandernberg's first pass was a laser directly into the chest of a linebacker that set up the Wildcats' go-ahead touchdown, and his longest completion was just 16 yards. He repeatedly missed open receivers Stanzi may have hit. The high wire snapped when No. 12 went down.

So, too, did the nation's second-longest losing streak, as well as the most plausible threat to something other than a Texas vs. Alabama/Florida showdown for the BCS championship. Well, maybe not a threat so much as a protest -- an undefeated Big Ten champion being left out of the title game carries a lot more potential for angst and vitriol than a snub against one of the would-be insurgents from the Big East, Mountain West or WAC. If Iowa had won at Ohio State, run the table and been relegated to the Rose Bowl as a consolation prize, a substantial segment of the punditocracy would have been (justifiably) up in arms, again.

But the Hawkeyes finally drew a club and the BCS doesn't have to worry about them anymore; if Stanzi isn't back for the next Saturday's trip to Ohio State, the Rose Bowl probably won't have to think about them anymore, either. Now if Florida, Alabama and Texas can only keep winning and somebody can finally do something about Cincinnati, everything will be falling into its proper order.

Today's lineup isn't really as mediocre as all that, despite the frustration of both marquee, national-interest games -- LSU-Alabama and Ohio State-Penn State -- competing with one another in the afternoon slot. Major unbeaten teams are defending their title chances early (Iowa, Texas) and late (Florida, Cincinnati) and old rivals are hooking up in Manhattan, Chapel Hill and Lincoln; the Pac-10 alone offers six of the conference's seven winning teams squaring off in Palo Alto, Berkeley and Tempe. The big games should live up to the hype, but something unexpected and interesting is going to happen outside of Tuscaloosa or Happy Valley.

What: Game day live blog. All games in play, all comments welcome and all alma maters accepted.
When: First kick at noon Eastern; chat kicks roughly simultaneously. The blog will run throughout the day, through the primetime tilts -- although, as intriguing as an evening in the Kibbie Dome may be, don't hold your breath for midnight-oil action in the WAC.
Who: You and all your rowdy friends. Come loud, proud and keeping your head on a swivel. We're not responsible for what may happen if you don't.
How: Hit "Watch Now," enter comments into the available box and do your part to accelerate the slow, agonizing death of conventional journalism.
Why: Because lobbing snarky barbs at earnest adolescents never gets old, especially when there are endless Kafka jokes on tap for the early afternoon. Football!

• Despite rumors of his reinstatement this week, suspended Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount doesn't show at all at Stanford -- not that the Ducks need him as they pile up more than 250 yards rushing on more than six yards per carry for the third consecutive week despite also allowing 100 yards to Stanford's Toby Gerhart and finishing in a six-minute hole in overall time of possession. Freshman running back LaMichael James, sitting on 918 rushing yards, goes over 1,000 for the season in the first half.

• Iowa never trails against Northwestern, yet manages to fully examine the apparent hopelessness and absurdity that seem to permeate the works of Northwestern quarterback Mike Kafka by turning the Wildcats away at least three times inside the Hawkeye 30-yard line, including a pair of turnovers by Kafka that lead him to demand the game film be burned before viewing by the rest of the team on Sunday. After throwing five interceptions in last week's wild comeback over Indiana, Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi doesn't throw an interception but still frustrates the home crowd during a stretch of at least three straight possessions without taking the offense into Wildcat territory.

• In Berkeley, Oregon State running back Jacquizz Rodgers piles up more yards than California's top backs, Jahvid Best and Shane Vereen, combined, and picks off Bear quarterback Kevin Riley multiple times in a close but convincing road upset.

• Oklahoma trails early at Nebraska but piles up more than 200 yards rushing between backs DeMarco Murray and Chris Brown and holds the Cornhuskers out of the end zone in the second half, during which Nebraska coach Bo Pelini draws a 15-yard penalty for exploding against officials following a critical call. The 'Husker offense finished below 300 total yards for the fourth time in five games.

• After allowing touchdown returns on the opening kickoff two weeks in a row in close losses to West Virginia and Rutgers, Connecticut brings down Cincinnati return man Mardy Gilyard on its first kick in Nippert Stadium, but proceeds to allow a touchdown drive that puts the Bearcats on top for good. Injured Cincy quarterback Tony Pike doesn't play, but a potential controversy for next week's showdown with West Virginia is averted when red-hot backup Zach Collaros throws his second interception of the season and completes only 60 percent of his passes after hitting 82 percent with seven touchdowns in his first two starts against Louisville and Syracuse.

• After failing to allow a single 200-yard passing effort in any of its first seven games, Virginia's secondary is sliced for more than 300 yards for the second week in a row by Miami quarterback Jacory Harris, who hits a pair of touchdowns to make up for an interception in a comfortable Hurricane win.

• Clemson holds Florida State quarterback Christian Ponder below 250 yards passing for the first time since mid-September, but FSU hits 200 yards on the ground for the second week in a row to outpace another big all-purpose game -- including a punt return that scores or sets up a touchdown -- by the Tigers' C.J. Spiller. Clemson quarterback Kyle Parker has a good game against the generous 'Nole secondary but also commits a pair of turnovers, one of which sets up a critical FSU touchdown in the second half.

• After a pair of very mediocre games and a surprising benching in last week's loss to Texas Tech, Kansas quarterback Todd Reesing returns to form with 300 yards and multiple touchdowns through the air at rival Kansas State, but KSU counters with a 100-yard effort from workhorse back Daniel Thomas and grinds out a time-consuming drive for the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter to hand the Jayhawks their fourth consecutive loss.

• North Carolina sacks Duke quarterback Thaddeus Lewis at least three times and forces multiple turnovers in Chapel Hill, holding the suddenly prolific Lewis to his worst passing day in well over a month and emphatically ending the Blue Devils' surprising three-game winning streak.

• Minus star receiver Dez Bryant for good, Oklahoma State quarterback Zac Robinson nevertheless throws for three touchdowns to three different receivers while also getting a 100-yard rushing game from Keith Toston at Iowa State. Cyclone quarterback Austen Arnaud's return to the lineup after a two-week absence is accompanied by at least one drive-killing turnover.

For the optimists, though, there are the last two weeks, in which the LSU offense has found a little life off a post-Florida bye: The Tigers racked up 31 points against Auburn, their best output against the division's other Tigers since 2002, and hung 42 points on overmatched Tulane, their first game this year with 40 points or (not and) 400 total yards. Jordan Jefferson is emerging as one of the most efficient passers in the SEC, and his backup, true freshman Russell Sheppard, is coming on as a dangerous big-play threat as a runner, with long touchdowns runs in each of the last two games to complement the between-the-tackles thumping of regular tailback Charles Scott.

And by all appearances, this is the right time to catch Alabama. The Tide's surprisingly balanced offense through their 4-0 start in September has disappeared into a cloud of dust as they get deeper into the SEC slate, carried to a great extent by the Heisman-worthy legs of Mark Ingram but still held out of the end zone entirely by Tennessee and in three of four quarters by both Ole Miss and South Carolina. Quarterback Greg McElroy has looked increasingly like the "game manager" holding down 'Bama's rankings in the preseason, and the perfect season has looked increasingly vulnerable as the weeks go by.

If you're convinced enough that the Tigers and Tide have each come that far in opposite directions over that short a period of time, LSU might well be worth your bet; if so, they're also on the verge of a late push for the SEC and national championships.

A nice thought, but I'm not sure how anyone can get past the Tigers' last effort against an elite, top-ranked defense and still consider them a threat to bring down an outfit as consistent and not prone to breakdowns as Alabama. The impotent attack on display against Florida isn't even a threat to score a touchdown against the similarly monolithic Tide D, which has matched the Gators for defensive dominance across the board on a weekly basis -- if Ingram's late fumble hadn't reopened the door for a late Tennessee touchdown, it would have been the Tide's third straight game without allowing a touchdown, an amazing streak that definitely should not be jeopardized by the conference's lowest-ranked offense.

Still, although its main responsibility here is not turning the ball over, there is some pressure on Alabama's offense to rekindle some of the spark that led to big games against Virginia Tech and Arkansas. Nick Saban said after the escape against the Vols that his team was "tired" after eight straight games without a week off, a plausible excuse for the offense's general decline and the steadily closing margins of victory. If McElroy continues to struggle with the downfield passing game, though, and the offense in general continues to settle for field goals after a bye week -- especially a bye week in which Saban specifically called for a more aggressive approach to stretching defenses vertically -- the malaise of the last few weeks will begin to look less like a temporary slide than a permanent cross to bear in the stretch run.

Admit it: Ruston is growing on you. Both teams have already made a pair of Mid-week Madness appearances on national television this season -- the Broncos laid waste to Fresno State and survived a scare at Tulsa; the Bulldogs beat Hawaii and lost to Nevada, both in fairly convincing fashion. Tonight they meet in lovely Ruston, La., home of Louisiana Tech, Elephant 6 and very little else. Don't underestimate the somnambulant effects of the 1,948-mile trip from Boise, either.

Who will protect our precious BCS landscape? Their trajectories may be entirely divergent, but don't be fooled by Boise State's undefeated record and Louisiana Tech's three wins. A lot could change tonight. The Broncos have been difficult to peg despite their early season heroic versus Oregon -- there are a lot of convincing wins on their '09 record, but they do stumble every once in a while, as evidenced by that close call against the Golden Hurricane. You're not likely to catch them sleepwalking, however -- with that schedule, one slip is all it will take to cost them a BCS bid, and they have to know it. Their No. 7 spot in the BCS standings isn't going anywhere good without some showy victories (and some luck wouldn't hurt, either, but the victories come first).

Bulldogs make the best underdogs. The upset path will not be easy. Louisiana Tech's 16th-ranked turnover margin has been a program touchstone this year, but taking the ball away from the Broncos is even more difficult; they're fifth in turnover margin themselves. But there's a grand Bulldog tradition of giving better-equipped visitors headaches for four straight quarters: They beat Mississippi State in Ruston last year, and crushed Hawaii back in September, when the Warriors still had a quarterback for their prolific passing attack.

The matchup to watch will be between Bronco quarterback Kellen Moore, who's likely to break the 2,000-yard passing mark tonight, and Louisiana Tech's Deon Young, tied for second in the conference interceptions. (This is the WAC, so that's only three picks, and he's actually surpassed by Boise State's Jeron Johnson with four, but it's a Friday night game and we take our fun where we can find it.)

Dooley Face! Still unconvinced? All right, do an image search for Bulldogs head coach Derek Dooley. Those faces? Like the one he's making up there? He does that all the time on the sideline. Make it a drinking game! See you on the couch.

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Boise State and Louisiana Tech kick off at 8 p.m. Eastern on ESPN.
Holly welcomes your adulation and veiled threats at nastinchka-at-yahoo, etc.

• They can still play defense. The Lions lead the nation in scoring defense and rank in the top six in rushing, pass efficiency and total D, as well as sacks; they've given up a total of 26 points in the last four games, including a shutout against Minnesota. In PSU's only loss, the defense picked off Iowa's Ricky Stanzi twice and held the Hawkeye offense to 13 points, 10 of them coming on drives that began inside the Penn State 25 following turnovers in the fourth quarter.

• They prefer to spread the ball around. This is a pretty balanced offense -- 36 runs per game to 31 passes, and that includes plenty of garbage-time clock-killing -- and though tailback Evan Royster is carrying the bulk of the running game, four different receivers have hauled in at least 25 passes for 340-plus yards on the season. Derek Moye is the deep threat, but Chaz Powell, Graham Zug and Andrew Quarless (as well as Royster and Joe Suhey, who have 25 catches between them out of the backfield) have all been reliable targets.

• They're healthy. The defense has endured various injuries over the course of the season, notably to star linebackers Navorro Bowman and Sean Lee, but shouldn't be missing a single starter on either side of the ball Saturday.

For a top-15 team with serious BCS hopes and lingering (though very distant, thanks to unfriendly tiebreaker scenarios) designs on another Big Ten title, that's not very much, especially where the offense is concerned. That's what you get when your schedule to date includes one team that received votes in the latest polls, and you were held to 10 points by that team. As solid as the Lions have been offensively in every other game -- including their subsequent four Big Ten games, in which they're averaging 31 points on 453 yards -- their inability to score over the last three quarters against Iowa follows overhead like one of those tiny, personal storm clouds in the old Looney Tunes shorts as they come up against the only other defense on the schedule that measures up to the Hawkeyes'.

In the two most relevant precedents for taking on Ohio State Saturday -- the loss to Iowa earlier this year and PSU's win in Columbus last year -- Penn State's offense turned the ball over four times in the former case and was held to 281 total yards in the latter, its lowest output with Daryll Clark as starting quarterback. In both games, the Lions were held three straight quarters without a touchdown and finished with grand totals of 10 and 13 points, respectively.

So it's not going out on much of a limb to suggest Penn State won't be doing much scoring against the Buckeyes' typically stout, top-10 defense, at least nothing on the order of its 31-point average for the season; the Lions may be lucky to achieve half that. But Ohio State, of course, is in the same boat: Including last year's six-point, zero-touchdown effort against PSU, the Buckeyes' last four games against top-10 opponents since the start of the '08 season have netted 45 points and only three touchdowns, two of them with Todd Boeckman leading the offense in the fourth quarter of last year's Fiesta Bowl loss to Texas. OSU was held to 265 yards and had to settle for a pair of field goals after scoring an early touchdown in the 18-15 loss to USC in September, the first of four games this season in which Terrelle Pryor has looked distinctly underwhelming as a passer. The Nittany Lions have a way of intensifying that effect -- they lead the Big Ten in sacks and haven't allowed a touchdown pass with the game still in doubt this season -- and neither Pryor nor Ohio State's offense in general has shown much to earn the benefit of the doubt against a defense of Penn State's caliber.

If it's going to be that sort of mistake-magnifying defensive standoff, then, the central question should be, which gunslinger do you trust? As a fifth-year senior (and reigning All-Big Ten pick, with much better passing numbers this year) at home, the answer has to be Clark, if only because he still seems somewhat less likely to make the killer error in a tense game, as Pryor did last year on the fourth-quarter fumble that led to the only touchdown of the game -- the game-winner for Penn State. That's not the sort of history that's particularly likely to repeat itself, specifically. But if Pryor has The Leap in him this season, this is the time for it to finally come out; against Penn State's defense, not bloody likely.

Florida coach Urban Meyer was fined $30,000 by the Southeastern Conference for his public comments concerning officiating, Commissioner Mike Slive announced Friday.
[...]
"Coach Meyer has violated the Southeastern Conference Code of Ethics," Slive said. "SEC Bylaw 10.5.4 clearly states that the coaches, players and support personnel shall refrain from public criticism of officials. The league’s Athletics Directors and Presidents and Chancellors have made it clear that negative public comments on officiating are not acceptable."

Give the league this: It stepped up to enforce its stated policy, and brought enough heat to finally bring the escalating series of mini-scandals over the last month to an end. Meyer apologized for publicly suggesting officials failed to flag Georgia for an illegal hit on Tim Tebow last Saturday in the Gators' 41-17 win, and the SEC's other 11 coaches will think five or six times before calling out the refs with a microphone in their face again.

It's the "again" part, of course, that made the fine necessary, and the SEC's decision to repeatedly, publicly undermine its own officials opened the door to those circumstances. Meyer was the sixth coach to publicly criticize conference officials in the last three weeks, following Arkansas' Bobby Petrino, Mississippi State's Dan Mullen and Tennessee's Lane Kiffin (all of whom were publicly reprimanded by the conference) as well as Vanderbilt's Bobby Johnson and Tennessee assistant Ed Orgeron, after the SEC itself publicly acknowledged a bad call at the end of Georgia's loss to LSU on Oct. 3 and then suspended the same crew for several sketchy calls in Florida's win over Arkansas two weeks later. The conference's sudden willingness to acknowledge mistakes to the media obviously emboldened coaches to point them out, too, and the conference felt compelled after reprimanding Kiffin to raise the stakes of such insolence by mandating a fine or suspension for the first offense.

So the end result of the SEC's effort to bring "transparency" to the policing of bad calls is the coach of the No. 1 team in the country being fined $30K over a comment he made at a press conference -- in response to the suspension of his own player for a bit of unnecessary roughness -- about a play barely anyone would have ever remembered in a game that was decided by 24 points. Now that the league has made its point clear to the coaches, maybe it will keep its own opinions about bad calls behind closed doors from here on.

"We've seen a jump in bookings to Los Angeles and Burbank after every Texas win," Southwest spokeswoman Ashley Rogers said. "The biggest was after the Oklahoma win."
[...]
Jon Berry, who works at Square 1 Bank downtown, already has his plane tickets to California and a welcome to stay with friends in Los Angeles.

Berry also has reserved the right to buy a game ticket at the $275 face value using the official Pasadena Tournament of Roses Web site. He paid $90 for that right, before the season began. As of Thursday, reservations to buy end zone seats were going for $520 and up.

The last sentence of the article -- "The Longhorns take on the University of Central Florida at 11 a.m. Saturday at Royal-Memorial Stadium" -- plays almost like a punch line in its irrelevance. Who are we kidding with this Central Florida/Baylor/Kansas charade? By any realistic standard, Texas is playing against itself from here on.

And it should be noted that the 'Horns have consistently lost that battle -- three years in a row, Texas has entered November with long winning streaks and major goals intact, and blown games as a significant favorite down the stretch all three years. In 2006, UT rebounded from an early loss to No. 1 Ohio State to beat Oklahoma and was steaming toward a national title shot before being suddenly upended at Kansas State, then knocked from the Big 12 Championship game by Texas A&M in the regular season finale, relegating the Longhorns to the Alamo Bowl instead; in 2007, they blew a five-game win streak and a BCS shot with another stunning loss to A&M in Dennis Franchione's last game with the Aggies. Last year, of course, riding high at No. 1 after putting away the Oklahoma-Missouri-Oklahoma State trifecta in October, UT was done in at the last second by Texas Tech, and never recovered in the polls as Oklahoma hit the gas over the last four weeks. In fact, if there's a theme to Colt McCoy's otherwise brilliant tenure as the Longhorn quarterback to date, certainly the "inexplicable November choke" has replaced "Vince Young's shadow."

Not that this team's pending ascension to the title game isn't worth putting a few hundred bucks on, if you're dead set on accompanying it out: The defense, last year's Achilles heel, has added a real throat-stomping streak that, along with the still-dominant offense and consistently dangerous return game, has made Texas both the highest-scoring team in the country and the one with the widest average margin of victory at 28.2 points per game. All of which makes Texas nearly identical to last year's championship outfit from Florida (though not this year's much less explosive edition of the Gators) and likely two-touchdown favorites, minimum, in all of their remaining games. These 'Horns haven't given any indication that they're the self-destructive type.

Still, there's going to be local product Todd Reesing putting up 40-plus passing when Kansas comes back to his hometown in two weeks, and suddenly rejuvenated Texas A&M gunning for (probably) its eight victory and a winning conference record in College Station on a short turnaround on Thanksgiving night. Then the Big 12 Championship, where the Longhorns blew a championship shot back in 2001. All menial tasks en route to the promised land, of course, but if they get too far ahead of themselves, also the stuff nightmares are made of.

The Lowdown.
Cal is a bit of a unique critter when it comes to tailgating, in that there's not a lot of traditional tailgating happening at all. The stadium is situated right in Berkeley; there are no massive parking lots and no fleets of RVs with grills on their trailer hitches streaming in on Thursday afternoons. If you're looking to make new friends, you'll find tailgaters in bars around town (none of which are remotely close to the stadium), frat houses and wherever someone can scare up a patch of green space. For a school whose geography makes standard mob revelry kind of impossible, though, they do know how to throw a party. I've been three times in the last three years and can remember very little from any of those trips, so they're doing something right.

If you're smart, you won't even get near campus with your car. We promise you don't have the booster cred to drive anywhere near the stadium, so be smart and take the BART train in or get your student buddies to pick you up and ferry you in to the action. Don't bother trying to find a street space in the residential areas, either; fines often double on football Saturdays. And please note: Wherever you land, you're going to be walking, a lot, and there are seemingly nothing but hills on this campus. Leave the stilettos in the closet. There are gameday trolleys around, but they're slow and crowded. Hoofing it is your best bet, and a fine way to work off the many delicious microbrews you'll be plied with.

Music follows you in some form everywhere you go in Berkeley. The Cal Band sings, plays, and dances its way across campus (stopping at one point to scream at a library for reasons that are unfathomable to visitors, but it's highly entertaining nonetheless). You'll also meet wandering bands of a capella singers serenading picnickers wherever the mood strikes them:

The music doesn't stop there. The student section at Cal has a hive mind like no other, and their precision can be seriously intimidating despite the relatively low volume levels in the stadium. If this sounds like too much, you can always catch the game from Tightwad Hill overlooking the field.

What To Wear.
Fly casual, and wear something you don't mind getting snagged on ancient stadium seats or a tree branch. Berkeley has nice warm football weather year-round. But whatever you do, don't wear anything red, lest the aforementioned organizational powers of the student section focus on destroying you. Cal has what one of our Bear correspondents calls "A great history of attacking opposing team mascots," so you don't want to be rocking anything that could possibly identify you with, say, the Stanford Tree. (Pieces of its 1996 costume are still on display in fraternities.)

Pregame Stops.
• Henry's, 2600 Durant Avenue. Located in the Hotel Durant, stop here for hangover breakfast.
• Bear's Lair, 2475 Bancroft Way. This is the campus sports bar on Lower Sproul Plaza, a favorite hangout of students, faculty, and alumni alike that gets absolutely mobbed on game days. Stop in for some pizza, beer, and scores of interest if you can get in the door.
• Top Dog, 2534 Durant Avenue. If you find yourself craving when you get back home, this Cal institution also peddles its wares by mail order.

Postgame Stops.
• Jupiter, 2181 Shattuck Avenue. Brewpub built in a converted stable filled with church pews, eerie ambience, good beer.
• Berkeley Karaoke, 2284 Shattuck Avenue. I once saw a men's choir take over the mic for "Rock of Ages," and I'm not sure I've ever recovered.
• Pyramid Brewery, 901 Gilman Street. A little ways out from campus, but if you're at loose ends on Sunday stop by for a tour.

What To Drink.
While Cal doesn't have its own signature cocktail (as with Oregon, we recommend a local microbrew or some Pyramid Apricot Ale), it does get to boast its own official signature drinking song:

Dressing up to mock-vomit: This is our kind of party.

- - -
Thanks this week to the crackerjack staff and readers of California Golden Blogs.
Holly welcomes your adulation and veiled threats at nastinchka-at-yahoo, etc.

• Black on the helmets, green on the minds. Joining Ohio State's throwback motif and possibly countless other Nike clients, Florida State will be unveiling a new uniform product for its Nov. 21 game against Maryland. The "Pro Combat" look -- designed neither for professionals nor combat -- will feature black helmets, intricately logo'd gloves, a four-way stretch twill that provides superior moisture wicking, strategically placed padding zones (i.e. thigh and hip pads), dual-density foam cells, high-tenacity yarn and, of course, that enduring symbol of the spirit of unconquered marketing, the Swoosh. Quarterback Christian Ponder seems to think they're schweet.

The Noles' makeover will come just one week after the Terps trot out their own special unis, a camouflage get-up by Under Armour to promote the Wounded Warrior Project for their game against Virginia Tech on Nov. 14. So much for the Great Recession, I guess.

• Cav crowds, it's time to Grow for Groh. It seems like Al Groh has been pulling himself out of the fire for years now at Virginia, and might have been on his way again after rebounding from another awful start with three straight wins over the first three weeks of October. Off two straight losses, though -- including the Cavs' second straight stumble against Duke -- athletic director Craig Littlepage was "cast[ing] an ominous cloud" Thursday in a conversation with the Associated Press, less about the Cavs' losing record than the fact so many fewer people have been on hand to see it:

"Our goal is to have our fans support the team realizing that the players continue to respond to their coaches," [Littlepage] wrote in an e-mail. "The players are working hard every day to represent the University of Virginia. Fans have various options for how they spend their Saturday afternoons; we’d like for our fans to be in the stadium supporting our program."

Since their opener, when 54,587 watched the Cavaliers lose 26-14 to William & Mary of the Football Championship Subdivision, crowds have dwindled at the 61,500-seat stadium. Last week, 41,713 saw Virginia lose 28-17 to Duke, its second consecutive loss in the series. It was the smallest crowd since the stadium was expanded for the 2001 season.

Through five home dates, the average crowd of 46,605 is almost 15,000 below capacity. More telling, perhaps, is that the average is down more than 7,200 from last year’s 5-7 team.

The NCAA sorts attendance by percentage of stadium of capacity, and Virginia ranks 72nd at about 75 percent per game, worst in the ACC outside of Miami. Scott Stadium was more than 87 percent full for a similarly foundering team in 2008, but such is fate when losing seasons begin to mount.

Maryland athletic director Debbie Yow wasn't exactly offering up votes of confidence in coach Ralph Friedgen during her appearance on D.C. radio, either.

• God is hoping for the top ten. After Dez Bryant's high school coach told local reporters Wednesday that the suspended All-American was already beginning preparation for the draft, ESPN's Joe Schad caught up with Bryant for confirmation that, yes, he's going pro: "It's what God wants me to do. I'm going to start my training Tuesday in Tampa."

Bryant's stock hasn't changed despite his suspension last month for lying to the NCAA about his (apparently appropriate) relationship with Deion Sanders: Dez is still considered a top-15 pick and far and away the best receiver on the board.

• More rumors of BCS demise. New Big East commissioner John Marinatto has quickly proven himself as an unusually outspoken oracle of the BCS' demise from the inside, reiterating in an interview with AOL FanHouse Thursday that the Series may not make it past the end of its current contract in 2013. But he has not been oracle of progress, i.e. a playoff:

"It [the BCS] is such an entity where there's so many diverse things that come together that make it work," Marinatto said. "I don't know if all that will continue to go on the way it is. If they're pressured to create a playoff, they would simply go back to what the system used to be like and have it as an at-large, free-for-all where people can go [to whichever bowl] they want.

"I don't think the pressure would cause people to create a playoff. I think it would cause them to go back to where we used to be [before the BCS]."

Marinatto is hardly the first insider to suggest a return to the bad old days of postseason free-for-all -- and it's a legitimate debate whether that would actually constitute a regression, given the annual controversies within the BCS -- but the BCS has driven profits up to the point that it's hard to believe TV would allow the death of such a cash cow.

Quickly ... Cal running back Jahvid Best expects to play despite missing time with a "mild" concussion. And Cal professors passed a resolution Wednesday asking the cash-strapped university to stop subsidizing the athletic department ASAP, which could mean some major athletic cuts in Berkeley, including entire teams. ... Banged-up Washington quarterback Jake Locker will start at UCLA after displaying his "trademark blazing speed and agility" in the Thursday's practice. ... Tennessee safety Janzen Jackson, "The Next Eric Berry," won't suit up against Memphis for unspecified reasons. ... Ole Miss offensive lineman Rishaw Johnson, a former starter, has been suspended for the season for unspecified reasons. ... Michigan receiver Martavious Odoms will miss the Wolverines' must-win game with Purdue with a sprained knee, his second straight week on ice. ... South Carolina defensive end Cliff Matthews is likely to miss two more games with a shoulder injury. ... Army and Rutgers will play the first major college game in the new Meadowlands stadium next October. ... Offensive tackle Cory Brandon, relegated to the bench as one of the goats of Oklahoma's season-opening loss to BYU, is set to make his third consecutive start. ... Jim Tressel had nothing to do with Ohio State's throwback motif against Michigan, which will feature "mostly white" helmets to honor the 1954 national champions. ... Urban Meyer hasn't heard from the SEC regarding his criticism of officials in the Georgia-Florida game. ... The L.A. Times looks at UCLA's social media problems. ... Oft-injured West Virginia linebacker Reed Williams has high hopes for the rest of his final season. ... And will Penn State lift the recall on those "Terrelle Cryer" t-shirts so Terrelle can get a few before the game?

If you're a bigger fan of fictional football than the real thing, of course, Leach probably seemed more like a random loon at the gas station whose sudden appearance and stammering delivery wouldn't even qualify as "awkward" by professional standards. And let's face it, as far as Coach Taylor and the internal world of the show is concerned, Leach's character could have very well been credited as "random loon at the gas station." As most people Leach encounters in his daily life seem to react to react to him the same way, though, it was probably a pretty realistic interpretation of his average pit stop -- I can see Leach at the end of the scene, asking the director, "So when do we start rolling?"

I would assume Taylor dispatched Leach's speech verbatim to Dillon quarterback Matt Saracen, who proceeded to throw for 450 yards and six touchdowns in a 59-24 playoff win, but the show's football scenes have never been very realistic.

- - -
Hat tip: Dave Matter.

East Carolina took a swig of the briny deep early on with back-to-back losses to West Virginia and North Carolina, but last season's giant (and Hokie) killers are on a roll since hitting Conference USA play -- ECU's taken four of its last five -- and ought to have a crew of their best mates out to make the Hokies kiss the gunner's daughter during the Pirates' only real national showcase of the season. Virginia Tech, meanwhile, is going the other way: ECU has no bearing on Tech's finish in the ACC, but after two straight, nationally televised losses to Georgia Tech and UNC, the Hokies are getting a little desperate to beat anyone. In Blacksburg, three losses in a row counts as a catastrophe.

What: Thursday night live blog, Virginia Tech at East Carolina. Landlubbers welcome.
When: Game kicks at 7:30 p.m. ET, give or take some pregame banter; blog kicks roughly simultaneously. And they repeat "It's Always Sunny ..." like three times throughout the night, you know, so there's no excuse for skipping out early.
Who: You and all your rowdy friends. Come loud, proud and bearing your most prized booty.
How: Hit "Watch Now," enter comments into the available box and do your part to accelerate the slow, agonizing death of conventional journalism.
Why: Because lobbing snarky barbs at earnest adolescents never gets old, especially when it's another school night with the ACC. And Conference USA! Football!

"He was here this weekend," Lufkin High coach John Outlaw said. "We talked for a long time. He's going to Tampa to get himself ready for the (NFL) combine."
[...]
Last week, Bryant was ruled ineligible until September 2010 and OSU appealed to the NCAA's Student-Athlete Reinstatement Committee. That appeal was denied on Thursday.

That decision, coupled with Bryant's likely departure to the NFL, represents the end to a superb collegiate career. He had 147 catches for 2,425 yards and 29 touchdowns during his Cowboys' career. He also added three touchdowns as a punt returner.

Bryant's numbers, spectacular as they are, don't quite do justice to his smooth acrobatics as the latest (and one of the greatest) in the long line of tall, high-flying receivers that emerged this decade along with increasingly sophisticated passing attacks. He led an all-star lineup of Big 12 receivers as a sophomore in yards and catches and in yards per catch among players with at least 30 receptions, and was well on his way again through the three games he played this year; on top of 29 touchdowns, he had 29 catches of at least 25 yards in less than two-and-a-half years. He certainly couldn't be covered man to man.

Athletically, Bryant is a certain first-round pick and likely destined to be the top-ranked receiver in the draft unless the league looks on his suspension (or any other part of his very rough background) as a "character issue," a real possibility when the other prolific Big 12 receiver associated with Sanders and his agent, , is ex-Texas Tech star and current 49er Michael Crabtree, who missed training camp and the first month of a season in a holdout. That association might scare teams off, but if he drops, it definitely won't be anything he's done or hasn't done on the field.

Bottom of the barrel:
Is it too much to say ... the entire SEC? It's Homecoming week for several schools in the conference, so we suppose we can't begrudge them all their creamy-middled fun, but does it ever make for a boring, bloody weekend slate. On tap down thataway:

• Tennessee Tech (5-3) at Georgia (4-4)
• Eastern Kentucky (5-3) at Kentucky (4-4)
• Furman (4-4) at Auburn (6-3)
• Memphis (2-6) at Tennessee (4-4)
• Northern Arizona (5-3) at Ole Miss (5-3)

Very gracious of the lesser luminaries to accede the spotlight to LSU-Alabama, no? (Although, in the case of my Vols, I'm frankly grateful -- with that strength of schedule and a defensive line full of holes, we could use the break, and we're surely not the only ones.) Florida, by the way, also draws Vanderbilt this week, which isn't exactly a cupcake game but with a five-touchdown spread might as well be.

The rest of the worst:

• Maryland (2-6) at North Carolina State (3-5)
The Terps have got some legwork to do if they're going to magically conjure up their traditional, inexplicable seven/eight-win seasons. Of course, the way NC State's been playing (four straight losses, including a notable thrashing at the hands of Duke in Raleigh), we wouldn't put it past them to somehow lose twice on Saturday.

 • New Mexico (0-8) at Utah (7-1)
In one corner, a New Mexico squad in complete disarray, winless and disjointed to the point of pushing the university for hush money in the wake of a coach-on-coach assault. In the other, a nondescript Utah outfit we're absolutely positive is en route to collapse after barely surviving Air Force and Wyoming the last two weeks. One-sided Mountain West slapfight!

 • Purdue (3-6) at Michigan (5-4)
Pick your wounded Big Ten pony this week: The one that was shut out in a 37-0 loss at Wisconsin, or the one that had the audacity to cede a lopsided victory to Ron Zook for its fourth straight conference loss? Wolverine fans are a characteristically somber lot, anyway, and will be potentially despondent Saturday as they watch another team trudge toward the glue factory.

• Utah State (2-6) at Hawaii (2-6)
A pair of two-win WAC teams that combined to go 1-8 in conference games in October, on pay-per-view well past primetime? Where do we sign up?

Western Kentucky Line Watch.
Tracking the odds against I-A's newest cubs.
After giving up 60-plus points two weeks in a row to Middle Tennessee and North Texas, another hopeless slog awaits the 0-8 Hilltoppers this week, when they find themselves 24-to 25-point underdogs to the high-flying scoreboard-busters at Troy. The Trojans have won 11 of their last 12 Sun Belt games and are on their way to their fourth straight SBC title; WKU is still looking for its first league win as a full-fledged member.

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

In fact, with a remaining lineup of Louisiana Tech, Idaho, Utah State, Nevada and New Mexico State diluting the Broncos' strength of schedule even further and keeping them firmly off the national radar over the last five weeks of the regular season, the WAC is shilling for a public relations firm to help keep Boise in the mix for any big-money game, period:

The role of Scott Peyron & Associates is to keep Boise State in the forefront of the minds of the media. It does not lobby voters or coaches. It does email a weekly list of talking points regarding Boise State's accomplishments to members of the national media. It also sets up interviews for WAC commissioner Karl Benson and prepares statistical information for him to use to make a case for the Broncos.

"We've found that people just want to go back to the Fiesta Bowl win in 2007 and talk about that being a fluke and haven't really done their research in terms of [Boise State's] home game winning percentage or other interesting facts over the years," said Doug Cole, a group practice leader with the firm.

Boise may be right to be worried: If the rest of the season plays out as expected, the Broncos will forfeit the lone automatic BCS bid for high-ranking non-"Big Six" teams to TCU; assuming the SEC runner-up is assured of landing in one of the other three at-large slots, that potentially leaves Boise to fend for one of the other two against heavyweights USC, Notre Dame and the winner of Saturday's Ohio State-Penn State showdown, any of which is capable of overcoming the Broncos' advantage in the polls with guarantees of big ticket sales and TV ratings (and the WAC's history with at-large opportunities suggest the bowls will go for the sure thing). If TCU keeps winning, even the highest ranking in school history won't guarantee Boise a berth. But maybe the Peyron and Associates can bridge the gaps the ranking in and of themselves cannot.

This has been a persistent issue for Boise State in the past, of course (see their BCS snubs behind undefeated Utah in 2004 and again last year, when undefeated teams were relegated to the Liberty and Poinsettia bowls, respectively) and will continue to be until it buffs up its non-conference schedule enough to overcome the always dicey WAC slate -- a tall order when most prestigious opponents want nothing to do with BSU, for obvious reasons. The Broncos are opening up next season against Virginia Tech in Washington, D.C., but have no "Big Six" conference schools on their 2011 schedule and seem to be running into walls in every direction in their effort to add one. Either way, frankly, if the same walls are still standing after four unbeaten regular seasons in six years and arguably the biggest regular-season win in school history this year, over Oregon -- and there's a good chance that the Ducks might eventually jump BSU in the polls if the keep winning, as they already have in the computer polls -- I can't imagine a realistic scenario in which they're going to come down.

In the span of a little less than a month, the SEC has gradually devolved into the Twilight Zone where the league's officiating is concerned, culminating this week with the legitimate possibility of Urban Meyer, respected, championship-winning coach of the No. 1 team in the country, being fined or suspended by the conference for publicly criticizing a non-call on a hit against his star quarterback. How on earth did the Chosen Conference back itself into this corner?

Here's a short timeline of all hell breaking loose:

• Oct. 3: Officials threw two ridiculous flags for illegal celebration following successive touchdowns by Georgia's A.J. Green and LSU's Charles Scott in the final two minutes of the Tigers' dramatic win in Athens:

The call against Green, in particular, drew enough heat to force the league to issue a public mea culpa admitting that Green's celebration didn't warrant a flag. (It was silent, oddly, on the equally bogus flag against Scott.)

• Oct. 17: After a quiet week (CBS' nationally televised game on Oct. 10 was Alabama's wholly uncontroversial, 22-3 beatdown at Ole Miss), the same officiating crew that drew so much scrutiny at Georgia two weeks earlier flung itself back in the kiln with a series of sketchy calls on an eventual Florida touchdown drive to tie Arkansas at 20 in the fourth quarter of the Gators' last-second, 23-20 escape, particularly phantom pass interference and unnecessary roughness calls against the Razorbacks in a span of three plays:

Feeling accountable to fans to uphold its "integrity," the conference summarily suspended the crew for three weeks, specifically citing the "lack of evidence" for a flag on the unnecessary roughness call against Malcolm Sheppard. Some pundits applaud the move for its transparency and responsiveness; other (ahem) suggested repeatedly undermining officials in public would open a Pandora's box that opened every routine bad call to a round of criticism and mini-scandal, and that retribution and acknowledgment of mistakes should remain behind closed doors, through private channels. The conference also reprimanded Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino for publicly criticizing the same bogus calls that the head office itself had just publicly deemed worthy of suspension.

• Oct. 24: Officials in Florida's win over Mississippi State fail to overturn a Gator touchdown despite an obvious fumble by UF's Dustin Doe before he crosses the goal line, and also fail to throw a flag on Alabama's Terrence Cody for tossing his helmet after blocking Tennessee's game-winning field goal attempt at the gun, though the ball was still in play. Both MSU coach Dan Mullen and Tennessee coach Lane Kiffin publicly criticize the no-calls; both are swiftly reprimanded by the league office. Tennessee assistant Ed Orgeron and Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson both take public shots at the refs, too, but don't draw any response from the conference. (Maybe if Vandy's loss at South Carolina had been on national television ...)

Commissioner Mike Slive, tired of the sudden spate of belly-aching from his coaches, swears off warnings and reprimands in favor of an immediate fine or suspension the first time any SEC coach dares to criticize the officials for anything.

• Oct. 31: Florida's Brandon Spikes gets a little dirty against Georgia's Washaun Ealey in a pile-up:

The obvious personal foul went unnoticed by officials in the game and likely would have gone unnoticed, period, if not for the alert zooming of CBS' cameras, which helped turn a rather forgettable 15-yard penalty in an uncompetitive game into the SEC officiating scandal du jour. Dragged under by the rising tide of suspensions, Florida vowed to sit its star for the first half this Saturday against Vanderbilt; facing added backlash for perceived leniency, Spikes volunteered to sit for the entire game. (What a guy.)

But let's go to the tape! Was Spikes poked in the eye himself? Was Ealey playing dirty, too? Did Georgia hit Tim Tebow late with no repercussions? How can you single out one dirty play in a game chock-full of them?

That's what Urban Meyer wants to know, specifically regarding an alleged late hit by UGA's Nick Williams against Tebow:

"That should have been a penalty in my opinion. Obviously it should have been. You've got to protect quarterbacks. That's the whole purpose. It's right in front of the referee.''

As Kiffin was quick to point out Wednesday -- and he would know, obviously -- that's a violation, Urban. (And p.s.: You may be wrong about the rule, anyway.)

So here is the end result of "transparency" when it comes to policing bad calls: Two days before one of the biggest games of the season, everyone who follows the SEC is consumed instead by poring over run-of-the-mill "cheap shots" on obscure plays from a ame that ended five days ago and wondering whether or not the conference actually has the guts to drop the hammer on its most visible, most successful and highest-paid coach. Over a comment he made at a press conference about a play barely anyone would have ever remembered in a game that was decided by 24 points.

This is stupid. It's been stupid from the beginning -- as bad calls go, every play in question over the last month is fairly routine, exactly the kind of familiar griping and frustrated sniping that goes on after close losses as a matter of course. (As opposed to a truly egregious killer like the Fifth Down or the Oregon-Oklahoma onside kick in 2006 or, if you think it was a bad call -- I don't -- the pass interference flag that kept Ohio State alive in overtime against Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl.) In the end, none of the bad calls in the SEC this year directly affected the outcome of a game. None of them resulted in an injury. These were ordinary mistakes, the kind officials have been making (and will continue to make) for decades, and that fans gripe about for a couple days and move on. The extraordinary media reaction, in the current environment, might have been expected. But for the SEC to voluntary and unnecessarily open a box that it can only close by fining or suspending Urban Meyer is stupid. And it's too late to turn back now: Either Meyer gets what's coming to him or the lid is blown wide open to non-stop complaints about anything and everything for the rest of the season. This is exactly what the league asked for when it decided to repeatedly, publicly acknowledge ordinary mistakes in the first place.

In the meantime, the WAC has suspended a replay official for a bad call in Boise State's 45-7 win over San Jose State. Good luck with that, guys.

  • Doug Gillett: Oregon State (+7) over Cal.
Everybody seems to have assumed that Cal has righted the ship after those two ghastly losses to USC and Oregon, but what have the Golden Bears accomplished, really? Big win over a bad UCLA team, blowout over abysmal Washington State (in which they didn't cover the spread), last-minute win over Arizona State? Explosive as Jahvid Best is, he hasn't gotten it done against the better run defenses Cal has faced (69 total yards at Oregon, 52 in the loss to USC) and Oregon State's (third in the conference against the run, allowing only 108 yards per game) certainly qualifies. I think Beaver workhorse Jacquizz Rodgers will outpace his Cal counterpart on the ground and propel OSU to the win.

Also: Florida Atlantic (+6.5) over UAB, because I've seen UAB and, well, that's just what they do the week after an upset win; and Virginia (+13.5) over Miami, because we've all seen Al Groh and, well, the inexplicable, season-salvaging upset is just what he does, period.

  • Holly Anderson: Indiana (+10.5) over Wisconsin.
The Hoosiers are 4-5 and the Badgers 6-2, but their positions could be so easily reversed it's laughable. Indiana, erstwhile Big Ten punching bag, has come out swinging this season, to almost no avail: The Hoosiers have endured achingly close losses at Michigan (36-33 with a late controversial call breaking against them) and Northwestern (where they watched a 28-3 lead turn into a 29-28 defeat in the closing seconds) on the books as well as last week's bizarro tilt at Iowa, also featuring some sketchy officiating.

Wisconsin has made a habit of winning the close ones, beating Northern Illinois and Michigan State by eight points each, edging Minnesota by a field goal and needing overtime to handle Fresno State in Madison. The Badgers have also lost convincingly to their only quality opponents thus far, by 21 points at Ohio State and 10 to Iowa. Though they outstrip the Hoosiers statistically by significant margins in the major offensive categories, the Badgers appear to be playing below their preseason potential while Indiana plays above theirs. Eventually, that's going to have to bear out on the scoreboard.

BONUS PICK! Washington (+4.5) over UCLA
Same story here. The Bruins and Huskies have identical 3-5 records and UCLA's somehow coming out as a favorite despite dropping five in a row in Pac-10 play after starting 3-0 outside of the conference. To date, the Bruins have beaten a 4-4 Mountain West team (San Diego State), an early Tennessee team still struggling to adjust to a wholesale coaching change, and Kansas State, which needs no introduction. Followed, again, by five straight conference losses.

Washington's had an Indiana kind of season, losing to LSU by eight, at Notre Dame in overtime, and at Arizona State on a last-second bomb, all respectable losses, and the latter two of which were downright bad luck. Oh, and you might have heard that the Huskies did manage to beat USC.  The standings just don't tell the story -- the records are the same, but the timbre and trajectory of these teams could not be more different.

• Matt Hinton: Florida State (+8.5) over Clemson
FSU's defense pretty much guarantees a shootout -- excluding I-AA Jacksonville State, the 'Noles are allowing 33 points per game and have been ripped by very mediocre outfits from Boston College and North Carolina -- but quarterback Christian Ponder's presence in the lineup at this point pretty much assures that Florida State will be able to keep pace. Ponder is still the ACC's leader in yards per game, completion percentage and touchdown:interception ratio after what passed for a "down" game (26-of-40, 277 yards, 1 TD, 2 INTs) with bruised ribs in last Saturday's shootout win over N.C. State. The FSU running game showed up against the Wolpack (278 yards, 5 TDs on 8.4 per carry) for the second time in three weeks and put the 'Noles right back in the thick of the ACC Atlantic race by helping deal the division-leading Tigers the regularly scheduled November choke. The inexorable march toward a Boston College-Duke showdown in the ACC Championship practically commands it.

Obviously, there's a murmur of dissent in the crowd. If Hopalong could have donned the Swoosh, though, I'm sure he would have rocked it with pride and humility. We'll see in a week and a half of so how closely the leaked version resembled what they actually roll out.

• Baby blue to match Buffalo blues. There are no official uniform changes in the works at Colorado, but a handful of fans are hoping to turn back the clock in the stands Saturday against Texas A&M to protest the program's collapse under Dan Hawkins:

During the early 1980s the University of Colorado Football Teams were some of the worst in the history of this Top 20 All-Time Winningest Program. During those dreadful years, our team wore POWDER BLUE. That's right: POWDER BLUE.

This year will be our 4th losing season in a row, which hasn't happened since 1979-1984 (6 seasons) when we wore that disgusting powder blue for a few seasons.

Wearing POWDER BLUE to the game this Saturday (Nov. 7) against Texas A&M Aggies will show our University Officials where we think our current regime stands. With the worst of the worst.

The Buffs were a dreadful 14-51 from 1979-84 (before Bill McCartney turned the program into a championship-winning powerhouse by the end of the decade), significantly worse even than Hawkins' 15-29 record in Boulder since 2006, although who knows where CU might be in two years if Hawk manages to hang on past the ongoing catastrophe of the current season. Nearly 1,200 "confirmed guests" have signed up for the "Wear POWDER BLUE to the CU game!!!" Facebook page, all of whom are specifically encouraged to show up for the game: It's a protest, not a boycott.

• We don't get much attention here. Yarr. In other uniform news, keep an eye on East Carolina fans tonight when the Pirates host reeling Virginia Tech for a nationally-televised affair on ESPN, for which a group at ECU has been planning a "Pirate Out" for months. (Also be sure to check in during the game for the Doc's regular Thursday night live blog.)

• Bowden makes the call, says Bowden. A day after his longtime defensive coordinator, Mickey Andrews, announced his retirement at the end of the season, Florida State coach Bobby Bowden assured reporters Wednesday that Andrews' replacement would be Bowden's decision -- with offensive coordinator/coach-in-waiting Jimbo Fisher's input, of course.

Assuming Bowden himself will be back in 2010, the choice could cause some friction with Fisher, who insiders say is adamantly opposed to promoting another longtime Bowden crony, assistant head coach Chuck Amato; if Bowden insisted on Amato, Fisher would be forced to start from scratch when he assumes the head coach's chair in 2011. At this point, though, the notion of Bowden retaining final authority over any decision as critical as hiring a defensive coordinator next year may be a laughable one -- with half the fan base and at least some segment of both the local press and the university power brokers already aligned against Bowden's return, his 35th season may only come with an agreement (possibly an official, public agreement) to turn over most of the real authority to Fisher and enjoy the season as a figurehead. And with a defensive coordinator who is neither Mickey Andrews nor Chuck Amato.

Quickly ... Quarterback Rusty Smith, the most visible player in Florida Atlantic's short history, elected for season-ending shoulder surgery that will also end his FAU career. ... Florida State's smallest home crowd in 15 years against N.C. State meant a big economic hit on the community. ... LSU cornerback Patrick Peterson wants another shot at Julio Jones after Jones won last year's battle between the hyped recruits as true freshmen. ... Steve McNair Jr. is on his way to Southern Miss. ... With Michigan State fighting for its bowl life, Mark Dantonio was kind of cryptic about the Spartans' depth chart at his weekly press conference. ... LaGarrette Blount's potential reinstatement, expected to be resolved earlier this week, is still up in the air. ... Athletic director Damon Evans extends the dreaded vote of confidence to Mark Richt. ... The Oklahoman plays up a "showdown" very few will notice Saturday between elite defensive tackles Ndamukong Suh and Gerald McCoy. ... The Associated Press talks to college coaches about giving up the punt. ... And AnnArbor.com looks at the possibly muddled origins of "The Victors." It also gets several assessments of Michigan's surprising lack of talent on defense, but somehow failed to ask this guy about it.

But every time they think they're out, the Locksley-Gerald altercation keeps pulling them back in:

University of New Mexico officials alleged Wednesday that assistant coach J.B. Gerald demanded $500,000 from the university in exchange for remaining silent about the Mike Locksley altercation. Evidence in the case was destroyed, UNM officials told the (Albuquerque) Journal.
[...]
A timeline distributed by the university states that on Oct. 1, "university receives letter from J.B. Gerald's attorney offering continued media silence in exchange for a $500,000 settlement figure."

Why Gerald would try to extort six times his salary in hush money a full three days after his statements in a police report hit the headlines is a mystery. The allegedly destroyed evidence in the case includes "original notes" of interviews with witnesses that the school claims were carelessly tossed by an athletic department employee, according to the Journal (which really, really wanted to see those notes).

Gerald still hasn't spoken to the media about the incident -- for his part, Locksley admits a physical but denies punching or choking his much smaller assistant -- but presumably has not seen any money from it, either. Revealing his cash grab has the whiff of the university attempting to undercut a pending lawsuit, which remains speculative. With conference heavies Utah, BYU and TCU making up three of the Lobos' last four games, there's a good chance this won't be resolved before Locksley notches his first win, if he sticks around that long.

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Hat tip: Sports by Brooks

Matt Hinton
 • Ohio State 31, Miami 24 (Jan. 3, 2003): It would be hard to invent a team as dominating as the Hurricanes -- defending national champions on a 34-game winning streak, overflowing with All-American and future NFL talent -- or a team that seemed to belong less in a winner-take-all championship than Ohio State: The Buckeyes had survived five of their last six regular season games by a touchdown or less and statistically looked like a team that should have been playing in the Outback Bowl rather than for No. 1 in the Fiesta against a monolitcally talented outfit that barely been tested.

The win, though, was quintessential Ohio State -- the defense held the Hurricanes' high-flying offense in check by forcing five turnovers, while the endlessly resourceful Buckeye offense converted one improbable fourth-and-long pass in overtime and drew a controversial pass interference flag on another to keep an eventual touchdown drive alive and force a second round of OT, from which it emerged triumphant as the patron saints of winning ugly.

• Arkansas 58, Ole Miss 56 (Nov. 3, 2001): One test of a great game that doesn't have especially far-reaching consequences is when you can remember almost everything about it except which team actually won. And after four and a half hours and seven excruciating overtimes in Oxford, no one here deserved the ignominy of defeat.

Of 16 total touchdowns and 114 points for the game, 12 touchdowns and 80 points came in the extra frames, which were twice extended when both teams converted two-point conversions, twice extended when both teams failed to convert two-point conversions and extended once when, somehow, neither team managed to score at all. Eli Manning set a school record with six touchdown passes, five of them in OT, and when Ole Miss tight end Doug Zeigler was stopped short of the goal line on the Rebels' two-point attempt to tie in the seventh overtime, it was like a kind of shock. Nobody seemed to see any good reason that it had to end.

Chris Brown.
 • Northwestern 54, Michigan 51 (Nov. 4, 2000): When the documentaries are made about this decade, it will be known as the age of the spread offense. And while the late nineties saw a few renegade buccaneers (including one future head pirate) experimenting with the spread, it was Northwestern's sudden resurgence in 2000 that really deserves notice as the tipping point for the spread's promulgation to every corner of the country, and the Wildcats' dramatic, 54-51 over the mighty Wolverines stands out specifically as ground zero.

The perception had been that spread schemes were the exclusive domain of pass-happy coaches, a legacy descended from the defunct (and largely discredited) run and shoot. And, sure enough, in Northwestern's upset, quarterback Zak Kustok had over 300 yards through the air. But there was another stat that made everyone take notice: Northwestern also had more than 300 yards rushing against a vaunted Michigan defense coming off back-to-back shutouts in its previous two games, led by 268 yards from Damien Anderson in a wild, back-and-forth affair that wasn't decided until the final minute. Kustok's 55 yards on 16 carries -- mostly on the innovative zone read -- also announced something new to coaches: You can run the ball from the shotgun, and with a somewhat mobile quarterback, it may even be preferable to running from under center. Randy Walker, Northwestern's coach, had installed the scheme based on visits with Clemson offensive coordinator Rich Rodriguez, and the rest was history: Less than a decade later, the zone read is at least a small part of almost every offense, even at powerhouses like Florida, Texas and, yes, Michigan.

• Texas 41, USC 38 (Jan. 4, 2006): Flash forward five years for the true arrival of the spread on possibly the most outsized stage in college football history. There aren't really adjectives that can do the '06 Rose Bowl justice: It was one of the most thrilling bits of football a major bowl game had seen in years, between two historically great teams at historically great programs, and it cemented Vince Young as one of the few truly mythical players in the amateur pantheon.

At the time the game was billed as a star-studded matchup between supremely talented, undefeated teams that routinely hung 50 points on opponents and came in loaded with top-shelf stars like Young, Michael Griffin, Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush, LenDale White, Dwayne Jarrett and dozens more who are still making a living on Sundays. But I see the legacy of the Longhorns' heart-stopping, triumphant fourth-quarter comeback as this: The pure, zone-read spread offense was completely adopted not only by the renegade, lesser talented teams as a way to compete with and confuse the big boys, but also by the big boys themselves, led by the typically conservative Longhorns. (The 2005 season also saw cloud-of-dust bastions Penn State and Ohio State begin utilizing the zone read to take advantage of their athletic QBs, and Urban Meyer's introduction of the spread at Florida.) And with Vince Young, the spread had the perfect triggerman -- he was definitely the most terrifying runner out of the gun, which helped him complete 30 of 40 passes and roll up 467 yards against a USC defense that tried to defend the whole field, and never could.

Doug Gillett
 • Boise State 43, Oklahoma 42 (Jan. 1, 2007): I count myself very fortunate to have been able to watch this one from start to finish, and what people forget in all the breathless discussion of Boise's overtime heroics is just how amazing the game was in regulation: There was the shock of the Sooners finding themselves in a 28-10 hole in the third quarter, followed by the shock of them digging themselves out of that hole to tie the game with less than a minute and a half left. Then, of course, you had Boise quarterback Jared Zabransky throwing the world's ugliest pick-six to give OU the lead, then rebounding to throw the fourth-and-long pass that was famously lateraled for the tying touchdown -- in a span of less than a minute. After all that, the fourth-down trick-play TD in overtime and the winning Statue of Liberty two-point play were almost gravy:

The upset angle obscures what an amazing game this would have been even if it hadn't involved a hopelessly outmanned WAC underdog defeating the Big 12 champion.

• Georgia 24, Auburn 21 (Nov. 16, 2002): When I die, I'm going to ask God three things: 1) The meaning of life, 2) Who really shot JFK, and 3) What Georgia offensive tackle Jon Stinchcomb said in the locker room at halftime of the 2002 Georgia-Auburn game, probably the most memorable game I've ever attended, not to mention one of the absolute coldest. From a 14-3 halftime deficit, a Georgia team with its first-ever SEC East championship on the line clawed back to within four points, and then the fourth quarter settled into perhaps the most nerve-wracking 15 minutes of football I've ever witnessed: Seven punts, one first down, a fumble and a failed fourth-down conversion by Georgia, all in Auburn territory. With a minute and a half left and everything on the line, David Greene completed the go-ahead fourth-down TD pass to Michael Johnson known to this day as the "Prayer on the Plains," a new generation's Buck-Belue-to-Lindsay-Scott, opening the door for the Bulldogs' first SEC championship in 20 years. A non-Georgia grad probably wouldn't have nearly as much reason as I do to consider this one of "the best," but I know my heart has never pounded harder and my throat has never been sorer from screaming than it was that night.

Holly Anderson
 • West Virginia 48, Oklahoma 28 (Jan. 2, 2008): It doesn't quite have the feel-good on-field marriage proposal angle of Oklahoma's horrific Fiesta Bowl ending against Boise State a year earlier, but Bill Stewart's first win as head coach at West Virginia is made all the more poignant by the briefly proud program's decline in his hands since. With architect Rich Rodriguez already bound for the head job at Michigan following the shocking home loss to Pittsburgh that cost the Mountaineers a certain bid in the BCS title game in the final hours of the regular season, the vivisection of the heavily-favored Sooners was the mountaintop for Rodriguez's handiwork at WVU, even if he wasn't on the sideline to experience it.

It's also a peak West Virginia's not likely to see again anytime soon sans Rodriguez and hall-of-fame quarterback Pat White, but at least the Mountaineers will always have Owen Schmitt's "runaway beer truck" moment and tearful post-game tribute to remember it by.

• LSU 28, Florida 24. (Oct. 6, 2007): This had all the big-game trappings -- two top-10 rivals, Saturday night in Tiger Stadium, etc. -- but is memorable mainly as the game in which right-thinking observers became convinced that LSU coach Les Miles' genius lay entirely with the whims of a chaos-peddling trickster god. There's no other explanation for the Tigers' rally from 10 points down in the second half, which required every one of four successful fourth down conversions to finish off three separate touchdown drives -- including two critical fourth-and-one plunges by running back Jacob Hester to extend an epic 60-yard, 15-play, eight-minute march that would come to define the Tigers' championship season when Hester went straight ahead for the winning touchdown with just over a minute to play.

LSU would go on to finish three other fourth-quarter comebacks and have a BCS Championship berth against Ohio State fall into its lap at the last possible second, an appropriate ending for a coach who proved against the Gators that the twenty-sided die he keeps tucked under his hat is every bit as good as some elaborate game plan.

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• Previously on "Best of the Aughts": Best Upset, Best Scandal, Best Innovation, Best Villain.
• Have an offbeat category you'd like to see tackled in the series? Drop me a line: sundaymorningqb -at- yahoo, etc.

Now in its fifth year, the Blog Poll is a weekly effort of dozens of college football-centric Web sites representing a wide array of schools under the oversight of founder/manager/guru Brian Cook at MGoBlog, and now appears on CBS Sportsline. It’s an effort to provide a more rigorous check on the mainstream polls that actually, like, count toward the mythical championship, and enthusiastically shines a light on its voters' biases. But mainly, it’s fun.

This week's ballot is brought to you by Fox News anchor and proud Ole Miss alum Shepard Smith, who reminds readers that the South has already risen, so there's no need to keep chanting about it, a'ight?

As always, the lineup is constructed exclusively on resumé to date, with no regard to predictions, abstract notions of inherent strength or any previous rankings this season; it's only reflective of games played so far.

• Because the facts keep changing. With the exception of a short, solid run with Alabama, I've swapped my No. 1 team on a near-weekly basis for various, usually fairly arbitrary reasons, and I'm back with the SEC after a brief fling with Iowa last week. The Hawkeyes' big strength-of-schedule advantage took a hit with the addition of some relatively dead weight (Indiana) and bad losses by previous victims Iowa State and Michigan, which is on the verge of becoming more of a liability on the Hawkeyes' resumé than an asset. Meanwhile, Florida's schedule improved with the addition of Georgia as a respectable win and the continued resurgence of Tennessee.

The Gators are still holding on to a top-10 win at otherwise undefeated LSU, as well, a problem at the moment for Alabama: No schedule has been hit harder the last few weeks than the Tide's, with the value of their opening win over Virginia Tech plummeting in the wake of two straight Hokie losses, leaving 'Bama with zero wins over a team that hasn't been beaten on at least two other occasions.

• Because quantity still matters. I'm not sure anyone is delivering better quality on the field or on paper right now than Texas, but with Oklahoma, Texas Tech and Missouri all sliding into mediocrity, the 'Horns still haven't done enough in-conference to completely overcome their shameful non-conference slate, highlighted by a win at Wyoming. Iowa may be squeaking out ugly wins by the hair of its chinstrap, but the Hawkeyes do have six wins over "Big Six" conference teams sitting at .500 or better, more than any other team in the country, and have three wins over ranked teams, best among teams with fewer than two losses. If Iowa gets by Ohio State in two weeks en route to 12-0, the sheer number of quality wins on its resumé is going to be hard to ignore, even if they're ugly ones.

• Because quality still matters, too. USC was humiliated on an unprecedented scale at Oregon, but the Trojans' three big road wins at Cal, Ohio State and Notre Dame are still as good a troika as any team has managed this year, and are still worth elevating to me above the very meh skins collected so far by Penn State and Pittsburgh, despite the extra tick in the loss column for SC. Ditto Miami, the only team to beat Georgia Tech and one of the teams (along with Texas) that could really benefit from an Oklahoma rally down the stretch, to boost the value of its win over the Sooners.

The full resumé chart is below the jump, and as always, everything will be completely different next week.

+/–: Average margin of victory; SoS: Strength of schedule (calculated by Jeff Sagarin); Oppt %: Combined winning percentage all opponents.

I'm sure that, somewhere in their hearts, Pennsylvanians love and respect Terrelle Pryor, a native son with the world at his feet who's set to rekindle the long lineage of great western Pennsylvania quarterbacks. But there's plenty of time for that down the line -- for now, as long as Pryor remains a turncoat in the Scarlet and Gray, Penn State students are content to mock his tears on commemorative t-shirts for Ohio State's visit to Happy Valley this Saturday:

The $10 shirt features the Nittany Lion handing a tissue to Ohio State player Terrelle Pryor. The tagline: "The Nutcracker: A Terrelle Cryer Story."

Penn State Marketing Association (PSMA) President Dan Sturman (senior-marketing) said his club is excited about the shirt, especially its focus on Pryor.

"After we beat Ohio State last year, you couldn't walk through a dorm without seeing the picture of Terrelle Pryor with his head in his hands," Sturman said. "That vivid image is still on everyone's mind."

It's probably on Pryor's mind, too: His fourth-quarter fumble in Columbus set up the only touchdown in a 13-6 Nittany Lion win that cost Ohio State the Big Ten championship and at least its first trip to the Rose Bowl since 1996, if not a shot at the national championship. PSU's cruel mockery of Pryor's despondent reaction on the bench has yet to stop, and won't until the would-be phenom does something to stop it, beginning with a winning effort to revive the Buckeyes' relatively sagging season Saturday.

On an aesthetic note, there don't seem to be any complaints of the variety that accompanied Penn State's last "white-out" t-shirt, featuring a design that may or may not have subliminally suggested a crucifix and set a (very small) handful of campus types to complaining. The lesson: Vague, unintentional and probably wholly imagined allusions to religion may divide, but unabashed hatred of the Buckeyes is a winner every time.

[UPDATE, 5:44 p.m. ET] "Outcry" has put the kibosh on sales of the shirts, including a recall of those that have already been distributed after Penn State marketers got cold feet: "The feedback we received thought it was too over-the-top. ... It was not meant to be an attack on Pryor. He's an amazing athlete. It's not an attack on him, and that's not what Penn State is about." Students who still wish to be about that this weekend will have to bootleg it.

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(Hat tip: CFT)

It appears that LSU students and fans are living up to their reputation and appear to be targeting Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy (and probably a few other Tide players) with cell phone calls and text messages on a big game week.

"I think Greg had some blocked calls today," Crimson Tide linebacker Cory Reamer said after practice today. "I don't know what that was about, but my phone has not rang, thank goodness. I won't be changing my number this year."

The effect may not be exactly the same for a Tiger road game, but tradition is tradition. We'll see how McElroy elects to acknowledge their efforts Saturday, assuming the Tide can actually find the end zone this time.

• Mike Williams: The Aftermath. A little digging in Syracuse has shed some light on the sudden, unexplained departure of star receiver Mike Williams from the Orange, and it seems his exit is directly tied to an early Sunday morning car accident that also resulted in the suspension of three teammates, Torrey Ball, Antwon Bailey and Andrew Tiller, who were all riding in the same car. Note, however, that the car was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer and none of the players was implicated by police in any way:

The crash was entirely the fault of the tractor-trailer driver, said state police Capt. James Land. Nathan Primrose, of Clyde, was driving a tractor trailer westbound on the Thruway when he came up behind the vehicle Tiller was driving.

The tractor trailer struck the Ford, forcing it off the road.

The others in the car were uninjured, according to the incident report.

No alcohol was involved, Land said. The accident was blamed on Primrose's inattention and following too closely.

Coach Doug Marrone hasn't commented, but the suspensions are likely the result of the players being out past some kind of curfew, or their coming from an off-limits nightspot -- the local Post-Dispatch notes the accident occurred just a few miles from a casino, which may be the paper's way of saying "hint hint" with no one actually saying as much on the record. As it stands, though, we have no official answers.

If Williams had stuck around for the suspension, it would have been his second in three games (he was held out of the Akron game for unexplained reasons), and on the heels of his academically-related absence for the entirety of 2008, his second departure in a little more than a year could cost him $2 million or so if he enters the draft next spring.

• Michael Floyd is a fast healer. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Notre Dame will be getting its star receiver back this weekend, when high-flying Michael Floyd -- thought to miss the rest of the regular season after breaking his collarbone against Michigan State in September -- will be back in the lineup Saturday against Navy. Floyd won't play every snap on offense, but with equally un-coverable Golden Tate on the other side, the Midshipmen's chances of another upset fall from "infinitesimal" to "wholly imaginary."

The new injury concern for the Irish: Backup quarterback. With top reserve and heir apparent Dayne Crist finished for the season with a torn ACL, the next man in line is an old face, Evan Sharpley, who alternated with then-freshman Jimmy Clausen in eight games in the 2007 catastrophe that set Irish football back almost a century. Sharpley is only a short-term solution -- he'll be playing baseball in the spring -- opening up a quandary behind Clausen if Crist isn't ready to go by spring practice, and a looming disaster if Clausen for some reason elects to enter the draft.

• When it comes crashing down and it hurts inside ... So you think you love your country? You think you respect the Stars 'n Bars? Gaze in shame at a real patriot reveling in the glory of the Land of the Rock before last Saturday's Utah-Wyoming tilt in Salt Lake City:

There, friends, shreds a real American. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! (Hat tip: The Wiz)

Quickly ... Vanderbilt quarterback Larry Smith is out for the season with a torn hamstring (yikes), opening the door for the triumphant return of former starter Mackenzi Adams, who still spells his name like a girl. ... Washington quarterback Jake Locker is a game-time decision to play against UCLA. ... Banged-up Northwestern quarterback Mike Kafka is confident he'll play Saturday at Iowa, though he recognizes the inherent absurdity of optimism. ... You wouldn't know it to look at him, but seriously, Matt Barkley hates losing. ... OMG Washaun Ealey is so dirty too. ... Ex-Michigan star Charles Woodson is getting flak from Cincinnati alums over the Wolverines' disastrous October. ... Except for the wife yelling at him, Nick Saban's free Saturday sounds a lot like mine. ... Just in case you were wondering if Kirk Ferentz would look ridiculous with a mustache, here's your answer. ... South Florida quarterback B.J. Daniels is getting some tips on sliding from USF's softball coach. ... And enjoy a grammar lesson with Jim Leavitt.

BOULDER — Sophomore running back Darrell Scott informed his coaches Tuesday afternoon of his intent to leave the University of Colorado football program.

Head coach Dan Hawkins said Scott, a 6-foot-1, 220-pound tailback from Ventura, Calif., is leaving for assorted personal reasons and assumed he would be transferring closer to his Southern California home.

Scott is expected to follow his uncle and fellow Colorado exile Josh Smith to UCLA, where the former phenom's demand for a fresh start will find a team in desperate need of a productive workhorse in the backfield. Physically, Scott obviously first that bill: He was the top-ranked running back and one of the highest-rated incoming players at any position in the class of 2008, coveted by USC and Texas and everyone else, and despite his burgeoning "bust" status represents almost as much of a coup for Rick Neuheisel (if Scott in fact lands at UCLA) as he did for Hawkins two years ago.

Scott is emblematic of Colorado under Hawkins: Lots of hype, but only the exceedingly rare flash of promise amid an expanding desert of disappointment. He was reportedly out of shape as a freshman and spent essentially all of his CU career battling injuries and a losing battle with the depth chart behind solid but unspectacular classmate Rodney Stewart. Scott leaves with 459 yards and one touchdown, scored in his first game as a Buff, and as a walking emblem for a program that hasn't been able to meet expectations in years.

Assumptions: The Bearcats have no chance at the title game -- absolutely none whatsoever -- unless they finish 12-0, and they still face the two toughest games of their season, at home against West Virginia on Nov. 13 and at Pittsburgh for a possible winner-take-all game on the first Saturday in December. Cincy also has to deal with UConn, which dealt the Bearcats their only conference loss en route to the Big East title last year, and Illinois, which set itself up as a pending turnaround story with its first decent effort of the season in last Saturday's win over Michigan.

Virtues: Cincy is as statistically dominant across the board as any team in the country: The offense is in the top 10 nationally and leads the Big East in passing yards, total yards and scoring, and leads the nation in pass efficiency; the defense leads the nation in tackles for loss and is second in sacks. The Bearcats have yet to finish with a negative turnover margin, have returned both a punt and a kickoff for touchdowns and haven't missed a beat with Zach Collaros in place of starting quarterback Tony Pike for the last two-and-a-half games. They're good at almost everything, and not bad at anything, as their margin of victory proves -- at 28.2 points per game, the Bearcats have wailed harder on their schedule to date than any other team except Texas (it's a tie).

Obviously, it's not the toughest road to nirvana. But if they run the table, the 'Cats will have about as good an overall set of road wins -- at Rutgers, at Oregon State and at South Florida already in the bag, none of them very close in the end, and at Pittsburgh still to come -- as any team this side of USC (at Ohio State, at Cal, at Notre Dame), and the Trojans are no longer in the discussion.

Disqualifier(s): Still, the lack of a really big fish above the mantel is a killer in the human polls, which are already inclined to turn up their noses at the Big East, and the overall schedule doesn't rank among the top 50 in any of the four computer polls that list strength of schedule numbers. It's not an awful schedule -- the only genuinely rotten games are against I-AA Southeast Missouri State and rebuilding MAC pushover Miami (Ohio), a traditional rival -- but of course there will be the requisite bloc of voters who scoff, "Cincinnati, humbug!" no matter what the numbers say on any stat sheet or computer printout, and it will be hard for Bearcat backers to persuade them by arguing, "But they beat Oregon State and Pittsburgh!"

Best-case scenario: The remaining schedule is tough enough to prevent the Bearcats from dropping significantly in any of the polls, and neither TCU nor Boise State has the juice on their remaining slates to overtake the Bearcats if they keep winning at their current pace; Cincinnati is not likely to fall without a loss or miraculous escape, and even a miraculous escape might be acceptable if it comes against West Virginia or Pitt. That leaves only two obstacles to the top: A loss by Iowa (the Hawkeyes still have to play at Ohio State) and two losses among the Florida-Alabama-Texas troika, which would leave the Bearcats ranked No. 2 among undefeated teams.

The question is whether that would be good enough to rise to No. 2 overall above a one-loss Florida or Alabama, or, from the back of the pack, one-loss Oregon, the one team currently sitting behind the Bearcats with the profile and potential to make a serious run down the stretch if the Ducks keep up the scorched-earth act of the last month. The other possible interloper: LSU. If the Tigers upset Alabama Saturday and run the table through an SEC Championship upset over Florida, they'll almost certainly jump the Bearcats. Otherwise, though, if Texas and Iowa lose somewhere along the way, it's much harder to see the loser of the SEC title game remaining in one of the top two spots if Cincy dispatches a quality Pitt outfit on the same day.

Level of fantasy: Finalist on American Idol. No one thought they had a chance at the start of this thing, when the Bearcats were just one face among many, but now that they're here, there's a fighting chance: As the BCS lines up in the moment, Cincinnati is third in line for the No. 2 spot behind Texas and Iowa, and the only team with a realistic chance of skipping UC in the line is LSU. If they keep winning, not many dominoes have to fall to move the 'Cats into at least a 50/50 argument for the second championship slot.

This year, unquestionably the worst in Andrews' tenure, is a tough one to go out on. FSU's defense has been Andrews' baby since 1984, and for a while it was consistently the fastest, most feared, almost predatory D in the country. Andrews produced 26 full-fledged All-Americans (excluding honorable mentions, all-freshman teams, etc.) in 25 years, the vast majority in the nineties, when he specialized in converting linebacker recruits into a line of unstoppable edge rushers -- Derrick Alexander, Peter Boulware, Reinard Wilson, Andre Wadsworth and Jamal Reynolds -- who specialized in knocking quarterbacks out of the lineup.

The 'Noles have only produced six defensive All-Americans since 2000 (compared to 14 in the nineties), with only one terrifying pass rusher in the old mold (Everette Brown), and this year's slide is the sobering culmination of the long decline: Florida State ranks last in the ACC in rushing, passing, pass efficiency and total defense and next-to-last in scoring D, having given up at least 27 points in all five ACC games to date. The Seminoles have lost games while scoring 34 points against Miami and 44 against Georgia Tech, and had to score 30 at North Carolina and 45 against N.C. State to pull out narrow wins in the final minute the last two weeks. Duke has been significantly better in every respect, a terrible indictment for one of the best in the business for so long.

Andrews' departure also opens up plenty of intrigue on the coaching staff, where another longtime Bowden hand, assistant head coach (and former N.C. State head coach) Chuck Amato, could be Bowden's choice to fill the coordinator role. Some insider speculation regards Amato's potential promotion as one of the major sticking points of Bowden's return in 2010, which may only happen if he agrees to cede personnel decisions to Fisher, who's likely to seek out his own coordinator hire with an eye toward hitting the ground running when he officially assumes Bowden's chair in 2011. Even if Bowden is still nominally the boss in December, Andrews' eventual successor could be a clue to how much control already rests with the next generation.

But what really made Alabama frightening over the first month of the season was its penchant for the long ball: At the end of September, alleged "game manager" Greg McElroy ranked among the country's top per-capita gunslingers, averaging more than 14 yards per completion and leading the SEC in efficiency thanks to his willingness to get the ball to a variety of receivers downfield, including 35 and 48-yard bombs in the win over Virginia Tech and strikes covering 32, 50 and 80 yards at Arkansas, only one of which was brought in by feted receiver Julio Jones. There were no really close calls in those first four games, even against the Hokies (34-24) and Razorbacks (35-7), and the Tide looked like the most well-rounded outfit in the country.

But if it seems like they've been a little more one-dimensional over the last four, it's not an illusion:

The lack of a credible downfield passing game was palpable in the close call at Tennessee, where 'Bama failed to score a touchdown and only two completions out of 18 went for more than 10 yards, with a long of nineteen. When Julio Jones is averaging as many yards per reception (7.7 on seven receptions vs. the Vols) as Greg McElroy is averaging on scrambles (7.3), there's a problem, and Nick Saban wants it fixed this week against LSU:

Saban has made it clear he wants his quarterback to quit focusing so much on "taking what the defense gives" and be more willing to take some chances and throw the ball downfield, even if it results in an incomplete pass or, worse, a turn­over.

"It's a point of emphasis for us," Saban said last week. "We need to do it. Just because we don't have success doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect on the game. We used to play the Raiders when I was in pro ball. They'd have two fast guys. They were going to throw them the ball five or six times in a game and they were going to run deep down the field and you had to cover them.

But then that guy that's playing them, whether they catch it or not, it makes him play different all the other plays in the game. It's not just about the results sometimes. It's about how it affects everything else."

Oddly enough, the decline in the passing game hasn't affected Mark Ingram; quite the opposite, in fact, since Ingram has made his All-American bid by averaging 164 yards per game with virtually no air support over the last four, including the 246-yard show he put on against South Carolina, a game in which McElroy was intercepted twice and Jones didn't have a catch for the first time in his career. When the defense is in the midst of a three-game, eleven-quarter streak of holding opposing offenses out of the end zone, continuing to plug ahead with one of the best running backs in the country makes a lot of sense.

The fact remains, though, that Alabama has a total of two offensive touchdowns in its last three games, and Tennessee made it clear enough two weeks ago that a good defense willing to force McElroy to go underneath can limit Ingram (99 yards on 5.5 per carry vs. Tennessee) and generally grind the offense to a field goal-settling halt. LSU, despite its early defensive struggles, is a good defense: The Tigers' October included holding Georgia scoreless for the first three quarters of their win in Athens, holding Florida to a single touchdown, keeping Auburn out of the end zone until garbage time of a 31-10 rout and shutting out Tulane, 42-0. Like Tennessee, LSU's defensive front is too strong for 'Bama to expect to push them around consistently enough to put together long drives with Ingram and Trent Richardson between the tackles -- it will be on McElroy Saturday to loosen the Tigers up or risk extending the end zone drought, which could finally push the always-brittle undefeated season to its breaking point. When you're not scoring touchdowns, there's only so much the defense and field goal units can do.

To some extent, Rich Rodriguez has been on the spot ever since he took over from Lloyd Carr at Michigan, and even more so since Nov. 1, 2008, the day his first Michigan team lost at lowly Purdue, 48-42, clinching the program's first bowl-less season in 33 years and its first losing campaign in forty. A certain segment of the Wolverine fan base has never quite forgiven "RichRod" for that; though the prevailing wisdom from the very beginning has been that Rodriguez would need time to both re-invent a stodgy offense and make over a stodgy attitude that had pervaded the program, setting a new record for losses in a single season was never going to be anything other than an incredibly bitter pill to swallow for the nation's all-time winningest program.

So to say that Rodriguez is on the spot this weekend -- when the Wolverines will be hosting Purdue, incidentally -- is almost a given. But there was a time when it didn't have to be like this. A month ago, the Wolverines were 4-0, ranked in all the mainstream polls, and showing every indication of reversing the dramatic collapse of 2008; a small minority of pundits was starting to murmur about a potential sleeper run at a Big Ten title, and Ohio State fans, of all people, were casting jealous glances in the direction of the Wolverines and their true-freshman quarterback, Tate Forcier.

Since Michigan's 36-33 win over Indiana on the last Saturday in September, though -- a victory whose thin margin perhaps portended some of the team's ensuing struggles -- the Wolverines have fallen from 4-0 to 5-4, their one win coming against a horrifically overmatched I-AA squad that shouldn't have been on the schedule to begin with. The first couple losses were at least respectable -- an overtime road loss to hungry, desperate Michigan State, a two-point road loss to Iowa, which sits at No. 4 in the current BCS standings -- but there's no lipstick for the pig that is the Wolverines' most recent defeat, a 38-13 collapse against an Illinois team that had shown every indication of having packed it in for the season.

What changed from that 4-0 start to, well, everything that's happened since? It's possible that the dropoff has something to do with Forcier, more specifically a shoulder injury he sustained in the Indiana win. Before the injury, he was completing 62 percent of his passes with a 7:2 TD:INT ratio; in the four games since against opponents that aren't Delaware State, he's completing fewer than 50 percent of his passes, has thrown for only two touchdowns (against three picks) and his pass efficiency rating has dropped by more than 40 points.

But the bulk of the blame falls on the other side of the ball: The Wolverine defense has never quite untangled itself from the issues that come with a shift in scheme under first-year coordinator Greg Robinson (who you may remember from such collapses as "Syracuse, 2005-08") and an untenably young, thin secondary. Even in the early wins over Notre Dame and Indiana, the defense allowed 34 and 33 points, respectively, giving the impression that Michigan was just papering over a lousy D by managing to win some thrilling shootouts. Once the defenses got tougher and Forcier was no longer 100 percent, all of a sudden Big Blue wasn't so impressive anymore.

And even those statistics fail utterly to explain the loss to Illinois, who had yet to notch a win against a I-A team in 2009 before facing Michigan. The Illini were dead last in the Big Ten in passing offense, total defense, and nearly every other major statistical category -- yet they unloaded an even 500 total yards on the Wolverines (including 377 rushing) while holding the conference's top rushing attack to barely half its season average. Even Rodriguez's most impassioned supporters confessed that the loss was reminiscent of the 2008 catastrophe in many respects; if Michigan can't beat Illinois, it will have trouble beating anyone remaining on their schedule this season.

That includes Purdue, which, for the record, had little trouble dispatching Illinois by 10 points last month. The Boilermakers did have an ugly five-game losing streak early in the season (though four of those losses came by a total of 18 points, including a much better effort in Eugene than the one USC turned in Saturday night), and they did suffer a 37-0 demolition at Wisconsin just last week. But they also boast the Big Ten's second most productive player in terms of total offense in Joey Elliott, a veteran quarterback poised to pick apart Michigan's secondary every bit as easily as he did Ohio State's in Purdue's upset over the Buckeyes three weeks ago.

During the depths of Michigan's 3-9 misery last season, a common refrain from Rich Rodriguez's supporters was that "RichRod" did have a three-win season in his first year at West Virginia but went 9-4 the following year and never looked back. That's all well and good, but if Rodriguez is to affect a similar turnaround in Ann Arbor, he can't lose another game this season -- and at the rate the Wolverines appear to be regressing, they're not even a lock to make a bowl. If Michigan does beat Purdue and earn its way back into bowl eligibility, that'd certainly be a big step forward from last year, though still not as big a step as Michigan fans thought they were going to see a month ago; if the Wolverines lose to Purdue with 6-2 Wisconsin and 7-2 Ohio State on deck, the chance of a bowl bid all but disappears, and Rodriguez's reputation for rehabilitation has taken another major hit.

Rodriguez was never really on the "hot seat" last year because the pain of a major rebuilding season was generally considered a reasonable price to pay for the wholesale changes he promised. But if he becomes the man responsible for Big Blue's only two losing seasons since LBJ was president, fans and administrators alike may start wondering whether that deal was really worth it.

"I HATE COLLEGE I CANT SEE ME DOING THIS FOR LONG……..HINT HINT.-0 LMAO"

That message was eventually replaced with the athletic department line: "Everyone Im (sic) staying in school to get my degree sorry for the faulse (sic) information every one getting." But the initial message, in addition to being more grammatically convincing, was very accurate: For whatever reason -- if there is a reason beyond an aversion to exerting effort under someone else's direction -- Williams is gone from 'Cuse for the second time in two years and this time won't even be offered any hoops to jump through to return to the fold.

• Mickey Mickey, you're so retired. In more sentimental departure news, longtime Florida State defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews is expected to announce his future plans today, which almost certainly include retirement at the end of the season. Andrews has been the architect of consistently great FSU defenses over the last 25 years, but the writing has been on the wall for some time now as the Bobby Bowden era has begun its tumultuous descent, Andrews has consistently referred to spending more time with his family after the sudden death of his son two years ago and the 'Nole defense has deteriorated into the worst in the ACC this year. More to come later today based on Andrews' announcement.

• Trojans paralyzed by cognition. Pete Carroll is still very much in the midst of his own legendary run at USC, but he's never been beaten like he was Saturday night at Oregon, a loss he put squarely on the coaches overburdening the players mentally:

Carroll said the game plan he and the staff put together overburdened the defense, preventing the players from playing fast and free.

"We messed it up," Carroll said. "We probably tried too hard. Our guys, mentally, were bottled up with the stuff we were doing. We tried to scheme too much. We made mistakes that we normally wouldn't make, and we didn't play the way we normally play. It was just a disastrous outcome."

After Oregon scored 47 points and gained 613 yards, Carroll said the plan USC used is "going in the can."

"I like the stuff that we tried to do," Carroll said. "But I don't like the way it showed up on game day."

He may have drawn up a bad plan, but at least he's adapting. Watch the Trojans at Arizona State Saturday to see if they play any more "fast and free," although, opposite the Devils' moribund offense, it would be kind of hard not to.

• Can't choose your family. Speaking of moribund Pac-10 offenses, it's becoming increasingly difficult for Rick Neuheisel to shake off the mounting criticism accompanying UCLA's 0-5 start in conference games, with crotchety columnists and the student newspaper among those beginning to bear down. That's to be expected when things are going poorly, but when parents of current players start going off in public forums, the wheels are coming off:

Brian Theriot, the father of seldom-used reserve fullback Trevor Theriot, took it a bit further on Facebook over the weekend:

"The sad state of UCLA football," Theriot posted. "My gosh…..I have never seen more misuse of talent and a greater degree of offensive stagnancy on play calling and use of personnel….we have the players.

"UCLA under Coach Rick (Neuheisel)….is horrible. Wayne Moses the running back coach is horrible. The sets are Pop Warner in movement, motion, and slots. I mean a Pop Warner type offense that Tim Tebow would laugh at. UCLA is playing with great athletes but giving great athletes boys and girls club sets. Norm Chow and Wayne Moses are old school and gone. ..."

Theriot goes on to suggest he planned to show up at Monday's practice, "step out of the ‘parents’ section of the stands and coach the backfield" himself -- beginning with, shockingly, installing his seldom-used son as the starting fullback -- which would have been quite entertaining if UCLA held Monday practices, which it does not. Neuheisel was diplomatic in his response: "Everybody’s entitled to their opinion. That’s just a part of the deal." Everybody's entitled to their opinion, unless he happens to be a Bruin player criticizing his coaches online, in which case his Twitter feed will be discontinued immediately.

Quickly ... Embattled senior Joe Cox is still Georgia's starting quarterback after a "unanimous" vote of confidence from the Bulldog staff, but he won't have A.J. Green in the lineup Saturday against Tennessee Tech. ... Ohio State kicker Aaron Pettrey is out for the season with a torn MCL. ... Tennessee linebacker Savion Frazier, in the lineup after starter Nick Reveiz went down with a torn ACL, will also miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL, wreaking havoc on the Vols' linebacker depth. ... Washington quarterback Jake Locker says he will play with a deep thigh bruise Saturday at UCLA, but coach Steve Sarkisian isn't so sure. ... Florida linebacker Brandon Spikes issued an apology for the eye gouge that will cost him the first half against Vanderbilt. ... The Pac-10 is still waiting on a recommendation from Oregon before the conference approves the reinstatement of suspended running back LeGarrette Blount. ... Former Boston College quarterback Dominique Davis plans to transfer to East Carolina and compete for the Pirates' starting job next year. ... Minnesota freshman Michael Carter was arrested for underage drinking and resisting arrest after an altercation with another pair of students on campus. ... The black Halloween jerseys Tennessee wore in its win over South Carolina may be auctioned. ... Former Michigan State coach George Perles plans to run for governor. ... Bo Schembechler's son is suing his stepmother in a dispute over a trust set up by the legendary Michigan coach. ... Another old Big Ten coach, cigar-chomping Iowa legend Forest Evashevski, is dead at the age of 91. ... Comedian Richard Lewis, an Ohio State alum, is a Jim Tressel fan, to say the least. ... And Idahoans are already making a list of AP voters who ranked Oregon again of Boise State. Hope there's plenty of room on it to add names if the Ducks keep winning.

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 • The clock is ticking. Despite the pervasiveness of a handful of dumb, halfhearted columns after last year's debut flop and legions of "hur hur Rich Fraud" threads all over the Web, Rich Rodriguez has never been on the "hot seat" at Michigan. He hasn't been close to it -- he inherited a mess of youth, attrition and apparently some entrenched cultural resistance from the deep-rooted Lloyd Carr administration, always had a minimum of three years to install his program and came into this year with plenty of leeway to demonstrate "progress" from last year's 3-9 disaster. And of course there would be progress, and with it plenty of patience. The perceived, hypothetical "hot seat" chatter around Rodriguez didn't bear any resemblance to his actual standing among Michigan fans and insiders.

I say all that about the past year so I can say this about the next one: After dropping a 25-point decision to previously hopeless Illinois for the Wolverines' fourth straight Big Ten loss, Rich Rodriguez is kind of on the hot seat. I'm comfortable saying that now because M blogger extraordinaire Brian Cook, Rodriguez's most patient, cerebral and dogged supporter from the day Rod was hired, says he's on the hot seat:

I've been watching the same stuff everyone has for 1.5 years and here's where I am: it's blindingly obvious that some portion of the suck is Rodriguez's doing. After that huge reversal of fortune you have to back down from any previous stances you have about the program, its progress, and etc etc etc. That is a game-changing event. That game turned "Rich Rodriguez flames out in three years" at Michigan from a laughable notion to a possible one. Distantly possible, but possible.
[...]
Rodriguez will be back next year with a mandate to get to a mediocre bowl, and he'll be under pressure to produce a serious team in year four. My confidence that he'll do that is waning.

That's a long, long way from the Wolverines' 4-0 September, but it's hard to keep up the stiff upper lip when your team is dead last not only in the Big Ten standings, but also in both total offense and total defense in conference games, with an uncompetitive loss to the league's undisputed bottom dweller and no end in sight with Wisconsin, Ohio State and, with a loss to Purdue this Saturday, another losing season looming on the horizon.

Cook's not the only one losing patience after the Illinois loss, a terrible effort against a terrible team that marked the first time this year -- even during the losing streak to respectable opponents, against whom the Wolverines had been consistently competitive until the Penn State loss two weeks ago -- that 2009 felt like 2008. The team on display the last two weeks doesn't look like it's turned a corner at all. Whatever cushion he has, the one outcome Rodriguez absolutely cannot afford is regression.

• So you're telling Duke there's a chance ... There's nothing particularly impressive about beating N.C. State, Maryland or Virginia, or even beating all three of them in a row. But in Duke's case, consider the context of its fourth-quarter comeback Saturday at Virginia: The last three weeks not only represent the Devils' longest winning streak in 15 years, but with one more ACC win in their last four games, they can match their conference win total for the last nine years combined, six of which were winless in ACC games. With only one league loss, Duke also remains on pace with Georgia Tech atop the Coastal Division, with the Jackets coming to town in two weeks; if the Devils upset North Carolina this Saturday in Chapel Hill, the visit from Tech the following weekend will be the biggest game in Durham in decades.

Besides coach David Cutcliffe, the headliner of the turnaround is quarterback Thaddeus Lewis, the latest in an unbroken line of prolific Cutcliffe protegés who has more than 1,500 yards and 10 touchdowns to just two interceptions in the last four games alone, which would have counted as an entire season for more than a few of his predecessors in the job. But note also the across-the-board leap in the defense:

Despite Lewis' gaudy numbers, the defense has been more responsible for the wins the last two weeks, holding Maryland and Virginia to 13 and 17 points, respectively, and returning a fumble for a crucial touchdown in the fourth quarter Saturday to put away the Cavaliers. If the Devils have any hope whatsoever of actually making a darkhorse run at the Coastal crown down the stretch, the defense will have to lay the foundation.

 • There is life beyond Eric Decker for Minnesota's offense. With a foot injury permanently sidelining All-Big Ten receiver Eric Decker -- by far the Gophers' leading receiver each of the last two years and the only member of the offense that could be classified as any kind of "star" -- Minnesota might have opted to scrap its "pro-style" passing game altogether and begin retooling the offense for hyped freshman MarQuies Gray, who hasn't thrown much but did run for 81 yards out of the Wildcat against Ohio State while completing five of six passes with a touchdown. And Gray still ran against Michigan State, eight times for 100 yards. But minus Decker, the Gophers got more pass-happy in their 42-34 win over the Spartans, dropping back 33 times for 416 yards and five touchdowns and the most efficient performance of three-year starter Adam Weber's career.

On the other end, five different Gopher receivers had multiple receptions, led by tight end Nick Tow-Arnett, previously reception-less Da'John McKnight and a lucky bounce or two in the first 400-yard passing day in school history.

• It may not matter who plays quarterback for Cincinnati. Starter Tony Pike left the lineup with a broken arm and one of the best pass efficiency numbers in the country after six games. Backup Zach Collaros has just laughed at that number while racing by it in two of the most efficient starts by any quarterback this season. After completing 22 of 28 passes for 295 yards and four touchdowns Saturday at Syracuse, Collaros' pass efficiency is above 235, putting not only Pike but every other quarterback with enough attempts to qualify for the national rankings to shame -- if Collaros somehow managed to maintain that number over the rest of the season (which would be impossible, even if Pike didn't seem likely to return this weekend against UConn), he'd shatter the single-season record.

Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised: Keep in mind that he works in the same offense that pulled Pike from obscurity at the end of the depth chart and turned him into a darkhorse Heisman contender; that pulled Ben Mauk from an injury-shortened stint at a different school and turned him into a record-breaker at the center of the best offense in school history; and that, when head coach Brian Kelly was boss at Central Michigan in 2006, pulled obscure redshirt freshman Dan LeFevor from the bench and turned him into the MAC player of the year. At this point, every quarterback Kelly touches turns to gold, which makes Pike's return much less urgent to sustaining the Bearcats' undefeated season that it seemed two years ago.

I'm not sure that it's possible to "out-loose" Pete Carroll, the most aggressively fun-loving coach on earth, and I certainly don't know that it matters at all when the ball is snapped. But remember that Kelly is also the guy who personally reimbursed a fan for $439 in travel and ticket fees for the Ducks' season-opening flop at Boise State, and brace yourself for a fun ride with the latest addition to the Carroll/Leach school of coaching by your own rules.

There's a marked dearth of not-obvious storylines in mid-major action this week, so in descending order of importance, we present the collected wisdom of a weekend that largely served to solidify what we already knew:

Houston can't play defense.
To review: 93 points, 1,358 yards, 67 first downs and 12 touchdowns between Houston and Southern Miss, and while we like video game numbers as much as the next geek (559 of those yards belonged to the right arm of Case Keenum alone), it bodes further ill for the Cougars' bowl chances. A win is a win, but they avoided overtime only by the grace of a batted-down Hail Mary pass from Martevious Young as time expired. Allowing that kind of offensive production from a team led by a second-string C-USA quarterback does not a BCS buster make.

TCU: Very good at beating bad teams.
Another Saturday, another TCU beatdown. The week's victim: UNLV, unhappy recipients of a 41-0 shutout in front of a shameful number of empty seats in Amon Carter Stadium. The Horned Frogs are sixth in the latest BCS standings and have one more tuneup date, a trip to San Diego State, before their last real test of the season, a home stand against forgotten but still formidable Utah. Taking into account the scores of TCU's last three games (41-0 over Vegas, 38-7 over BYU, 44-6 over Colorado State), the fact that one of those whippings was delivered to a then-top-20 team, and the fact that Utah needed all four quarters to surmount Wyoming, we're prepared for a November cruise and a high-profile postseason bid for the blood-spitting darlings of Fort Worth.

Cue the 'family affair' headlines.
All right, this is actually sort of adorable: Boise State quarterback Kellen Moore's little brother Kirby caught his first touchdown pass Saturday in the Broncos' otherwise unremarkable beatdown over San Jose State. Feel-good stories like this are important for the Broncos at this juncture as far as keeping them on the radars of various media voter types down the stretch, because beating teams like the Spartans -- or any of the upcoming lineup of Louisiana Tech, Idaho, Utah State, Nevada and New Mexico State -- isn't going to do it.

The angry ostrich and his stealthy stalk.
We had our suspicions last week, but after three winless weeks to open the season, preseason darkhorse Nevada is 5-3 and finally looking like the team we expected out of Reno in August. An early Hawaii lead was no match for the flailing limbs of Pack quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who put on a fairly balanced offensive performance all by his lonesome: 184 aerial yards, 114 rushing yards, and two scores in each medium in Nevada's 31-21 win.

You can't spell 'bowl' without 'owl' (sorry).
With Temple's improbable 27-24 win at Navy, the Owls are breaking all kinds of precedents: First bowl-eligible season since 1990, longest winning streak (six games) since 1974, sole possession of first place in the MAC East and, if all goes well and they secure a bid, the program's first bowl trip since the 1979 Garden State Bowl. They grow up so fast! Over 30 years!

Yarbnalls, a warning.
Idaho, we tell you this because we find you improbably lovable and want you to succeed: We're going to have to back off our bold and increasingly ridiculous prediction that you'll be the ones to knock Boise State out of the undefeated column if you don't start playing up to your WACmates. A last-minute drive for a one-point comeback win over 3-5 Louisiana Tech, on the heels of a gruesome loss at Nevada, isn't engendering much hope over here. Firm up for Fresno State this week or you'll be in real trouble on the blue turf of Nov. 14.

Malzahn is missed, part nine in a continuing series.
Bad: Tulsa lost. Worse: Tulsa lost to SMU. Worse than that: Tulsa lost to SMU at home. And worst of all: Tulsa allowed SMU's newly promoted freshman quarterback, Kyle Padron, to throw for 354 yards while suffering through its most dismal offensive effort in terms of yards and points against C-USA defense in more than three years, leaving the Mustangs one Houston stumble away from first place in C-USA West.

Sky blue; water wet; Memphis bad.
I sat through Memphis' entire Tuesday night horrorshow against East Carolina, and the Tigers could handily lose to Pearl Cohn High at the moment. They're playing kiddie ball. ECU didn't really do themselves any favors, but four Memphis turnovers spelled doom for embattled coach Tommy West and his ragged band.

Profiles in continuing ineptitude.
We have a winner! As in one winner with one singular win! Miami (Ohio) topped Toledo 31-24, despite being outgained slightly in total yards and time of possession, to exit the ranks of the winless and earn Mike Haywood his first victory as a head coach. Otherwise, New Mexico came closest to dragging itself out of the cellar, blowing a second-half lead in a 23-20 loss to San Diego State. Hopeless noob Western Kentucky actually led at halftime and ended up scoring 49 points, doubling its previous season high, but it didn't much matter since North Texas scored 68 in return, the last 19 as part of a fourth quarter rally to pull away. That, in turn, wasn't as bad as Eastern Michigan's patsy play date with Arkansas, ending in a 63-27 beating at the hands of the Razorbacks and an eighth consecutive loss for the Eagles. Rice had a bye, which by the Owls' standards through an 0-8 start ought to count as a resounding victory.

What should have been ...
... as in, "There is no way Louisville should have beaten Arkansas State thanks both to being down to their third-string quarterback and to being Louisville in 2009," but win the Cardinals did, 21-3, despite a mediocre performance by new 'Ville quarterback Will Stein.

... and what never had a prayer:
Thanks be to Tressel; the New Mexico State scourge is slain. Saddest possible postgame quote:

"Ohio State was my dream school coming out of high school," said linebacker Ross Conner, a native of NMSU’s hometown in Las Cruces. "I made it to the 'Shoe."

Saddest-er possible postgame quote:

"As the game went on, we were just trying to get out of here healthy," NMSU coach DeWayne Walker said.

In that case, count the 45-0 loss as a resounding success. 

Player of the Week: Joe Webb, QB, UAB.
Give a yell for the senior triple threat, whose passing, rushing, and receiving efforts accounted for 304 total yards and four touchdowns touchdowns to lead the Blazers to that rarest of all phenomena, a road win in El Paso.

Dan LeFevour Stat Watch.
Scoring records were indeed set in the Boston College-Central Michigan tilt, but not by our boy. In the Chippewas' first loss since dropping their season opener to Arizona, Rust Belt Tebow managed only 152 yards through the air, 26 on the ground, no touchdowns of his own and an interception while enduring a 31-10 beating to the Eagles.

(A Somewhat Arbitrary) Mid-Major Top 10
1. TCU (8-0) Frogs can afford to cruise for one more week, if you can call outscoring their last three opponents 123-13 'cruising.'
2. Boise State (8-0) Still undefeated, will not top TCU barring collapse on the part of the Frogs. Rinse, repeat.
3. Central Michigan (7-2) Can we value a loss to a Big Six school over the next two schools' near-misses against Southern Miss and Wyoming? That's why it says "arbitrary" up there at the top.
4. Houston (7-1) Look alive, Cougars. Smarting Tulsa doesn't offer much margin for error this week.
5. Utah (7-1) Utes needed overtime to win last week and this week trailed to Wyoming. Favorable schedule saves total collapse, again.
6. Temple (6-2) C'mon up, you sons-a-guns. A Navy win counts for a lot around here, especially when it's a comeback in the final frame.
7. Troy (6-2) Best of the Sun Belt is bumped up by attrition and an easy win over ULM.
8. BYU (6-2) Saved by the bye.
9. Idaho (7-2) Games like this are why we call Louisiana Tech "pesky."
10. Nevada (5-3) Welcome back, gentlemen.
Dropped out: Navy

Stay Tuned.
Piquing our interest for Week 10: Virginia Tech at East Carolina, Boise State at Louisiana Tech, BYU at Wyoming, Navy at Notre Dame, Army at Air Force, New Mexico at Utah, Memphis at Tennessee, Houston at Tulsa, Idaho at Fresno State.

• Most Realistic Upset: East Carolina over Virginia Tech? We know how that sounds, and ECU's win over Memphis Tuesday night wasn't the tidiest of affairs, but the way Virginia Tech played this week, they look like they could lose to just about anybody. The former top-five outfit is only a 12-point favorite in Greenville, where pirates will be about in force.

• Most Unrealistic Upset: Navy over Notre Dame. It's a great rivalry, but Navy's just not congealing as a team and after wiping the Alamo Dome with Washington State, the Irish are nothing this season if not thorough eliminators of inferior competition.

• Most Inevitably Gruesome Blowout: Memphis at Tennessee. It's homecoming in Knoxville, and while that didn't go so well for Tennessee last year (see: grim, plodding loss to Wyoming five days after Phil Fulmer was fired), the Tigers looked absolutely abominable in mid-week play, and the Vols proved in the opening blowout over Western Kentucky that they're far from averse to running up the score.

Scoreboard.
No wins over BCS schools this week for our plucky mids in four attempts. After nine weeks of competition, mid-major programs are 18-85 versus the Big Six.

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

Spikes wasn't flagged on the play, and if this was 1965, a good eye-gougin' might be par for the course in a pile-up. This being 2009, though, with high-powered cameras zooming in for tight slo-mo shots in a year in which "player safety" is the mantra and suspensions are unusually en vogue, coach Urban Meyer was left with no choice today but to send his star linebacker to the bench to think about what he's done -- for a whole two quarters:

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida coach Urban Meyer has suspended Brandon Spikes for the first half of Saturday's game against Vanderbilt after the star linebacker attempted to gouge the eyes of Georgia running back Washaun Ealey in a 41-17 victory.

Meyer says Spikes was retaliating after getting his eye poked earlier in the game.

Officials did throw a personal flag against a Georgia lineman who ripped Spikes' helmet off in the first half, and Florida fans are already posting clips of indicental contact they're referring to as "gouges" as apparent justification for intetionally pawing at a Bulldog in return, but if there was any act against Spikes of equivalent nature to his assault on Ealey, CBS' cameras didn't catch it. (Perhaps they were being distracted by the Bulldogs' comely manager?)

It would be easier to write this off as a light suspension to keep a good player in the lineup if there was any indication this year that Florida's top-ranked defense might need Spikes at any point Saturday to slow down the lowest-scoring offense in the SEC; there's a good chance he would have been out of a lopsided win over the Commodores not long after halftime, anyway, and won't necessarily get on the field as it stands, especially if the game is the expected blowout. Georgia fans will take it as an appropriate reparation for a relatively minor offense, I'm sure.

"The last series he was in there, (Reesing) short-armed two passes and had a fumble [returned for a touchdown]," Mangino said. "More than anything, I thought maybe Kale would give us a little bit of a jump or something. I just didn’t feel good about the offense as a whole."

He can't feel much better today, when the "spark" Pick brought off the bench amounted to six yards on one completion, 21 yards rushing nothing like a scoring threat as the clock ticked down on the Raider victory. Reesing (along with some teammates, including star receiver Dezmon Briscoe) admitted he was "surprised" by the move and indicated he'd been struggling with a groin injury throughout KU's three-game losing streak, but he also admitted he's not one to make excuses in the midst of one of the worst performances of his career -- especially when it came just one week after the worst performance of his career, a three-interception, zero-touchdown disaster in a 35-13 loss at Oklahoma, where he was also responsible for offering up a defensive touchdown, on a first-quarter interception return that put the Jayhawks in a 14-0 hole.

Some of the locals think Reesing is clearly hurt, though Mangino and Reesing himself both downplayed injuries, and after some initial wavering, Mangino -- who was pretty much just generally angry at everyone after the loss -- said this morning that Reesing will be the starter for Saturday's crucial rivalry date with much-improved Kansas State. More tellingly about the trajectory of the team, though, is the fans' reaction: Almost two-thirds of respondents in an online poll in the Lawrence Journal-World Saturday night agreed with benching the most prolific quarterback in school history, and there are open debates on message boards ($) beginning with lines like, "I'm not letting Todd off the hook just because he has broken all our records."

Harsh -- when can you let a guy off the hook, then? -- but the fact is Kansas hasn't played well in any Big 12 games (its one win was a late comeback over very game Iowa State) and its season hangs in the balance Saturday in Manhattan. There it can salvage its hopes of winning the tangled-up North Division against first-place KSU, or it can fall headlong into an official tailspin that could keep the Jayhawks from even reaching a bowl game with Nebraska, Texas and Missouri waiting to finish them off down the stretch. Reesing's career also comes to a head against the Wildcats: A fourth consecutive loss could put KU on track to "playing for next year" mode, in which getting Pick on the field would be a priority. That scenario probably remains a long shot, but so was the quick hook on the best quarterback Kansas has ever had with the game on the line, until it happened. If there's anything left in their tanks, Reesing and Co. need to push the pedal to the floor at K-State.

Following the weekend's conquered favorites and other notables through the stages of grief.

Denial. Have you considered how weird it is to be a Southern Cal fan right now? Inexplicable early-season losses to unranked, overmatched opponents have become so predictable that Trojans backers have learned to prime themselves for it. But big-game losses to other ranked, BCS-contending opponents have been so rare -- and in the case of Saturday night's tire-iron-to-the-cranium from Oregon, unprecedented under Pete Carroll -- nobody can quite believe it. L.A. Daily News blogger Scott Wolf reports that the players themselves were utterly mystified:

"I could never imagine this in my career at USC," safety Will Harris said.

"I can't remember a game where a team pushed us around the field like that." -- USC safety Josh Pinkard

"Before the season I never thought this would happen," USC quarterback Matt Barkley said.

Trojan fans are equally stunned, of course, though in the case of SC fan Brendan Loy from The Living Room Times, that has more to do with the margin of defeat (27 points, worse than the margins of all seven of USC's prior losses since 2004 combined) than the defeat itself. The unprecedented beatdown had the Orange County Register (echoing the Doc's sentiments) declaring the end of the Trojans' seven-year reign in the Pac-10, Wolf comparing Pete Carroll unfavorably to Paul Hackett and at least one Trojan blog wondering if Carroll was maybe too distracted by his charity work to work the team into its usual big-game froth.

Still, as both Loy and L.A. Times columnist Bill Plaschke already seem prepared to concede, the most unthinkable indignity may still be yet to come for the Trojans, in the form of a trip to the -- gasp! -- Holiday Bowl?

Acceptance. Michigan lost to Illinois on Saturday in big, hopeless fashion, joining mighty Illinois State as the only skins on the Illini's wall this year. The response from the UM fanbase -- a cynical, Eeyorish bunch even in the best of times -- ranged from the somewhat militant love-it-or-leave-it manifesto at Wolverine Liberation Army to the traditional post-defeat critters at MGoBlog to a more philosophical take over at The Hoover Street Rag, which took the well-worn path of zen losers everywhere, via Bill Watterson:

Perspective? Have you ever met a Michigan fan? We have, and in Ann Arbor, "pointless, temporary existence" practically qualifies as a pep talk, especially when their team has dropped four straight Big Ten games to fall into a three-way tie for last place as the cold months set in and the Rich Rodriguez "hot seat" chatter begins anew.

Depression. Black is the color of mourning, and so it was for Georgia, which marched into Jacksonville Municipal Stadium wearing previously unheard-of black helmets and pants and marched out grieving over its seventeenth loss to Florida in its last 20 tries and, for all practical purposes, the death of the Bulldogs' 2009 season. If the black uni accoutrements did little to inspire the players, they did even less to inspire the fans, who'd deemed the gimmick a failure before the game was even over -- in their post-mortems, Georgia bloggers generally despaired over the fact that such gimmickry was necessary to begin with, just two years after cooking up the more successful idea of a team-wide end zone invasion following the game's first touchdown. The message is clear: "We don't even think we can beat Florida without some extraordinary psyching-up."

As if that wasn't depressing enough, Dawgsports.com's T. Kyle King bemoaned the one thing the 41-17 loss wasn't bad enough to accomplish:

So, it was as bad as it possibly could have been. Georgia didn't win, didn't keep it close, and yet, despite losing a blowout, didn't lose the type of blowout that would have assured the end of [defensive coordinator] Willie Martinezís tenure with the Bulldogs. It was bad, but not bad enough, which, paradoxically, is worse.

Well, Saturday was the 15th time the Dawg defense has surrendered 30 or more points under Martinez, after only having done so once under his predecessor, Brian VanGorder. So ... take heart, I guess? Are those the appropriate words of encouragement here?

Anger. Currently enjoying -- no, that's not the right word; let's say enduring -- its first season as a full-fledged I-A member, Western Kentucky is 0-8, has played only one opponent within single digits, and even managed to get blown off its own field by I-AA Central Arkansas six weeks ago. So one could be forgiven for assuming that nobody, not even the good people of Bowling Green, Ky., is even paying attention to WKU football at this point. You may be surprised -- at the end of the Bowling Green Daily News' virtually comment-free live blog of the Hilltoppers' 68-49 loss to fellow Sun Belt bottom dweller North Texas, commenter "James" popped his head in to offer this rosy assessment:

I'm sick and tired of seeing this team / [head coach David] Elson and comments at the top of front page in sports section of Daily News Sports. There are more worthy sports in area & at WKU (other than football) to be on front page of sports. Someone needs to coach or lose their job. A number of high school teams could score on this defense. We have gotten worse every year with Elson, even before going 1A. I'm done with season tickets until changes are made.

WKU should take James' sentiments to heart, and see them for the positive they truly are: Lowly though the Hilltoppers may be, though, they have acquired at least one must-have item for any big-time college football program -- the Internet commenter who wants to see people fired yesterday. That alone proves you're on your way, 'Toppers, and don't let anyone tell you different.

Elsewhere in Disillusion: West Virginia takes solace in the numbers. ... Oklahoma State ponders what could have been. ... And South Carolina just hopes it can keep it all together.

"I know what everybody is going at, but you're not going to get anything," [Richt] said on a teleconference with reporters. "We're not going to talk about making any changes right now. If there are going to be changes anywhere, it'd be Tuesday before we'd have an idea where we would line them up."

Not everybody is foaming at the mouth to replace Cox -- according to an online Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll, it's only somewhere between 83 and 84 percent, the vast majority of whom favor taking the redshirt off hyped freshman Aaron Murray for the last month of the season. Among that chorus is AJC columnist Mark Bradley, who on Sunday called Cox "less than OK" and asked Richt to abandon the the rhetoric about giving the team "the best chance to win" the last four games and sacrifice the rest of the year in the name of the future. Which, just as it belonged to Matt Stafford when he assumed the reins of a struggling team in 2006, clearly belongs to Murray. It worked for Stafford then (UGA rebounded from a 1-4 stretch at midseason to win its last three) and we should find out this week whether Richt is willing to give in and start gearing up for 2010.

• Blount back in the saddle? Oregon's season has obviously taken a completely different complexion since the opening-night catastrophe in Boise, hitting another level with Saturday night's demolition of USC. It could take on another one today, when we should get word about the full reinstatement of suspended running back LeGarrette Blount, the living symbol of the Ducks' low point at the start of the season:

Pacific-10 Conference commissioner Larry Scott met Sunday with running back LeGarrette Blount, university president Richard Lariviere, university counsel, coach Chip Kelly and athletic director Mike Bellotti to discuss the possible return of Blount.
[...]
Bellotti said he expects an announcement Monday on Blount's status. Kelly, who reminded reporters Sunday of the chain of Blount command - Kelly to Bellotti to Lariviere to Scott - said he met with Scott on Sunday but that he doesn't have a timetable on the reinstatement.

Kelly emphasized that Blount's return is "not a football decision," which, like, duh. The Ducks have ripped off seven wins in a row and re-established themselves as one of the most lethally versatile rushing attacks in the country by springing Jeremiah Masoli and LaMichael James for more than 300 yards against the Trojans, and have risen to the top of the Pac-10 with Blount toiling on the scout team. If anything, Blount threatens to become a distraction, or extraneous part shoved into a machine already running at full speed.

But Kelly has also said Blount has met all of the conditions laid out for his reinstatement last month and is on track to return; if an announcement does come down, there's no indication whatsoever that it won't be to officially welcome Blount back into the fold for the last four games. Stay tuned.

• Coming after the Leader. Armed with a little help from friendly columnists, the new political action committee devoted to lobbying Congress for a playoff is off to an energetic start, at least, including a formal letter of complaint to ESPN objecting to its "one-sided" coverage, handily compiled here and prominently featuring Rece Davis, Lou Holtz and Mark May insulting the intelligence of politicians. Not surprisingly, the group has taken to playing the self-interest card, with ESPN set to take over the BCS next year and four years of steady press-release battering still to come.

• Geniuses among us. My favorite costume of the weekend? Easily, it belonged to the Iowa fan who decided to take his seat among a crowd of stoic, freezing and -- with an early deficit at the hands of lowly Indiana -- very unhappy Midwesterners dressed as a neon green gorilla:

That is all.

Quickly ... Auburn safety Zac Etheridge, who left the field on a backboard with a scary-looking injury in the Tigers' win over Ole Miss, has regained movements in all his limbs but will miss the rest of the season. ... Promising UConn quarterback Cody Endres is out for the season with a shoulder injury. ... Clemson defensive end Da'Quan Bowers could miss at least two weeks with a knee innjury. ... Tennessee's Eric Berry is not a candidate to fill a void at linebacker, despite a rash of injuries. ... As for the alleged "skirmish" between Spikes and Tim Tebow after the lackluster win at Mississippi State, Urban Meyer said there was no such thing. ... And not surprisingly, Mike Leach gets lawyerly in defense of last week's "fat little girlfriends" remark.

But one thing Adams and Ortmann did share was their ability to express those divergent vibes in the most uncomfortable possible way for those around them:

The way the Big Ten has been handling similar outbursts this year, Ortmann might expect a one-game suspension coming his way, oh, any day now for his subtle groin shot at Illinois' Corey Liuget. Adams' accidental assault on teammate Grant Cook's prized possession probably won't bring any retribution (not publicly, anyway), but elsewhere in the SEC, Florida's eye-gouging linebacker, Brandon Spikes, may not be so lucky -- keep an eye on the suddenly ornery SEC office.

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Hat tip: The Wiz and AnnArbor.com

Seven teams go into the weekend undefeated, and seven teams come out unscathed for the second week in a row. And although there is some movement in this week's lineup -- Texas hops Alabama into the No. 2 spot across the board, Cincinnati leapfrogs TCU and Boise State to assume USC's vacant position at No. 5 -- the status quo remains numbingly consistent: If the "Big Three" at the top continue to win out, the BCS title game will inevitably feature Big 12 champ Texas vs. the winner of the SEC showdown between Florida and Alabama, or possibly LSU if the Tigers make their move by upsetting 'Bama this weekend and go on to take the SEC championship. The only drama as far as the top two positions are concerned is what happens if/when one of the "Big Three" goes down, opening up room for some chaos from the not-so-big contingent of upstarts lurking immediately behind them (see below).

But there's plenty of drama throughout the poll:

• First principles. Although it's still a long way from affecting anything at the top of the standings, one of the great poll debates down the stretch (assuming both keep winning) is destined to be Oregon vs. Boise State, and the test it puts to voters re: Boise's convincing win over the Ducks to open the season: As the Ducks surge toward the Pac-10 title and the Broncos' schedule is increasingly bogged down by the likes of San Jose State, Louisiana Tech, Utah State and New Mexico State, will Oregon's vast improvement and vastly more difficult schedule since the opening night debacle be enough to lift it past Boise, a la Oklahoma's offensive dominance down the stretch and tougher non-conference schedule overcoming its head-to-head loss to Texas last year? Or will the scoreboard on Sept. 3 remain sacrosanct for the rest of the year?

The human polls don't seem to be asking themselves this question yet -- Boise remains three spots ahead of Oregon in the Coaches' poll and four spots ahead in the Harris, probably too wide a gap for the Ducks to make up if both keep winning. But the computers had no such qualms: As a group, they ranked Oregon ahead of Boise State, and five of the six computer polls this week (all except Richard Billingsley's) break for the Ducks, who should only pull further ahead as they get further into the Pac-10 slate.

• As their affair progressed, the computers demanded Iowa bring them more than roses. The other interesting gap this week, like last week, is the divergent opinion between the humans and the computers about what to with Iowa. The Harris and Coaches' polls continue to turn up their noses at the Hawkeyes "ugly" wins, ranking them as the worst of the remaining unbeatens for the second week in a row; the computers continue to love the strength of schedule and couldn't care less about how the Ws keep coming. (Literally, they couldn't; it's against the rules.)

But even the machines, which almost unanimously voted Iowa No. 1 last week, have to back off this week as the strength of schedule was dilluted by Indiana and bad road losses by Michigan and Michigan State took some of the shine off the Hawkeyes' wins over the Wolverines and Spartans. The machines fall in line with feeble hu-mahn brains this week with a near-sweep for Florida; only Peter Wolfe's poll still submits Iowa as No. 1, and it's summarily tossed from the average as the Hawkeyes' high score.

Still, the computers are bullish enough to keep Iowa in place as the first contingency plan if any two of the 'Big Three' can't fulfill their duties up there. As long as it's still winning, you haven't heard the last from Iowa, even if you wish you had.

• The Brat Pack. I'm in search of a catchall term for the persistent cluster of unbeaten teams ranked 4-8 -- Iowa, Cincinnati, TCU and Boise State -- that, whatever their specific order from week to week, no one seems to really consider worthy of national championship consideration, yet which all sit very poised to slide into one of those top two spots if the dominoes in front of them start falling. I've referred to Iowa before as coming along in the "Commissioner Valchek" role, as an unappealing team that's very well adapted to its surroundings and manages to survive long enough to rise to the top, even when no one thinks they belong there, but that reference may be a little too obscure to stick. More readily accessible suggestions along those lines are welcome.

Barring a procession of events too improbable to contemplate, Saturday night's humiliating collapse at Oregon was the end of that run, at least for a year. For the first time since '02, the Trojans will not be Pac-10 champs: At 5-0 in conference play, the Ducks are two games in front of both USC and Cal, and hold tiebreaker advantages after blowing out both. With a crowded field at the top of the BCS pool, the odds are now against SC sneaking into a BCS bowl even if it runs the table over the next month, and it may be lucky to crack the top 10 again, much less the top five.

The judgment of standings and polls is sobering enough. But the really damning reality of waking up on the wrong end of a 47-20 rout isn't in the external judgments or postseason projections; it's in the fact that Trojans were whipped -- not just defeated on the scoreboard, but truly dominated and beaten in every aspect of the game. The consequences of falling behind in the standings barely compute compared to all the ways USC came up woefully short of any of its Carroll-era predecessors on the field:

• Points allowed. Forty-seven points is the most SC has given up under Carroll, and only the third time it had allowed 40-plus in one game (Fresno State scored 42 and Texas put up 41 in a three-game span in 2005). Before last week's collapse against Oregon State, the Trojans were still on a 30-game streak without allowing 30 points; they'd only allowed 43 points in their first five games this year -- including wins over Ohio State and Cal -- combined.

• Margin of victory. The 27-point beating was by far the worst the Trojans have endured under Carroll, more than twice as bad as the previous worst, an 11-point loss to Notre Dame in 2001, the last loss in a 2-5 start in Carroll's first season. But that doesn't quite cover the magnitude of a four-touchdown pounding: That loss in South Bend is the only defeat in the Carroll era by more than a touchdown, and none of the Trojans' 11 losses between that game and Saturday night were decided before the final two minutes.

So this is the real "king is dead" statistic of the night: The Ducks' 27-point margin was one more than the margins of all seven of USC's losses since 2004 combined.

• Rushing yards. The Ducks' 391 rushing yards was more than 100 yards better than the previous high against a Carroll D, making the 289-yard rushing bomb Vince Young and Co. dropped on the Trojans in the '06 Rose Bowl look like a mere mortar to Oregon's tactical nuke. Jeremiah Masoli's 48-yard gallop in the second quarter is the longest run the Trojans have allowed in two years, and the Ducks broke more runs of 20 yards or longer (7) than SC had allowed in its first six games combined (4). No Carroll defense since at least 2005 had allowed more than eight 20-yard runs in an entire season.

• Total yards. The Ducks' 613 total yards was the first 600-yard effort against the Trojans under Carroll, and only the second 500-yard effort, again putting Texas' 556-yard explosion in the '06 Rose Bowl to shame. Excluding the Longhorns, it was the first time USC had given up more than 400 yards in a loss since falling in overtime at Cal in 2003.

• Turnover margin. It was the first game the Trojans have lost without finishing in the red in turnover margin since 2006, when they were even with one turnover apiece in a 13-9 loss to UCLA. In its other five losses over the last five years, USC has always aided the cause by shooting itself in the foot, finishing –4 against Oregon State (2006); –4 against Stanford (2007); –1 against Oregon (2007); –2 against Oregon State (2008); and –3 against Washington earlier this year. As a general rule, USC doesn't lose when it doesn't turn the ball over, but the Trojans didn't give the ball away once in Eugene until a meaningless interception on the final snap of the game.

The fact is that Oregon made USC look like Washington State, which did about as good a job of corralling the Duck offense last month. This was the Duck team we saw at the end of last year, when they scored at least 35 points, went over 450 total yards and averaged more than seven yards per play in every game of a four-game winning streak to close the season, and that we roughly expected at the start of this year, instead of the inept nightmare we got in Boise on opening night. These are the Ducks that were steaming toward the Pac-10 championship and a likely national title shot after beating the Trojans in 2007 before an ACL injury to prolific quarterback Dennis Dixon submarined the season and left the crown for USC to assume again. Three years in a row now, we've seen Chip Kelly's spread option offense at its nightmarish pinnacle for short stretches, and it firmly established itself as the dominant entity the conference Saturday night.

But clearly these are not the same Trojans, and it seems impossible to imagine going on pretending that they are. USC has enough talent to rebound and finish this season in dominating reminiscent of its recent, dominating past, and to come back strong enough to reassume its West Coast crown again next year. But the assumption is gone, the aura totally obliterated by a stumpy JUCO transfer with a somewhat suspect arm. If USC is going to be considered the unquestioned Pac-10 overlord again, its going to have to earn it back by consistently performing like the old USC again, and that standard is no longer within reach in 2009.

• Playing without All-American receiver Eric Decker and with local fans calling for athletic freshman MarQuies Gray to take over the offense, Minnesota quarterback Adam Weber passed for 416 yards and five touchdowns in the Gophers' 42-34 win over Michigan State. Five different Gophers had multiple catches in Decker's stead, and three, Duane Bennett, Da'Jon McKnight and Nick Tow-Arnett, went over 80 yards receiving for the game.

• Missouri sacked Colorado quarterback Tyler Hansen eight times and held the Buffs to –14 yards rushing in a 36-17 win. The Tigers scored the first 33 points of the game before allowing a CU field goal late in the second quarter, breaking Mizzou's streak of 136 unanswered points against Colorado since the first quarter of the Tigers' 55-10 win in 2007.

• Houston and Southern Miss combined for 93 points, 1,358 yards, 67 first downs and 12 touchdowns, all 11 of them coming on drives that covered at least 70 yards, in the Cougars' 50-43 win. There were also four 60-plus-yard drives in the game that didn't result in a touchdown. Houston quarterback Case Keenum completed 44 of 54 passes for 559 yards and five touchdowns.

• Texas A&M scored touchdowns on five of its first six possessions and fumbled the ball away at the Iowa State goal line after a 97-yard march on the sixth en route to a 35-10 win over the Cyclones. A&M quarterback Jerrod Johnson completed 23 of 28 passes for 234 yards and three touchdowns and added another score on the ground, leading the Aggie offense to its second straight week over 500 total yards against a Big 12 opponent.

• Illinois broke free for two touchdown runs of 70-plus yards in the second half of its 38-13 win over Michigan, the Illini's two longest plays of the season. Illinois scored more points in the third quarter against the Wolverines (21) than it had scored in any of its previous six games against I-A competition.

• Nebraska scored only one offensive touchdown in a 20-10 win over Baylor switching to true freshman quarterback Cody Green, bringing their total to 16 quarters without an offensive touchdown in 20 quarters against non-Sun Belt Conference competition.

• Wisconsin held Purdue to 141 yards total offense in the Badgers' 37-0 win, the Boilermakers' worst output of the decade.

• Cincinnati quarterback Zach Collaros threw four touchdown passes with no interceptions in the Bearcats' 28-7 win over Syracuse, giving him seven touchdowns with no interceptions and a pass efficiency rating of 235.9 in two starts in place of injured starter Tony Pike.

• Down 31-28 early in the third quarter, Georgia Tech scored 28 unanswered points to beat Vanderbilt, 56-31, in Nashville. The Yellow Jackets piled up 404 yards rushing, 186 by Jonathan Dwyer, who averaged nearly nine yards per carry and had three of Tech's six rushing touchdowns.

• Mississippi State running back Anthony Dixon ran 33 times for 248 yards and two touchdowns in the Bulldogs' 31-24 win over Kentucky.

• SMU held Tulsa to 13 points on 322 yards total offense in a 27-13 upset for the Mustangs, the Golden Hurricanes' worst output in a Conference USA game in both categories since a 27-10 loss to Houston in 2006.

• Florida State and N.C. State combined for 87 points, 1,053 yards, 51 first downs and 12 touchdowns, 10 of them on drives covering at least 60 yards, in the Seminoles' 45-42 win.

• Ohio State outgained New Mexico State by 497 yards, 559 to 62, and held the Aggies to two first downs in a 45-0 shellacking in Columbus. The Buckeyes racked up 310 yards rushing without producing a 100-yard rusher.

• Rutgers' Devin McCourty returned the opening kickoff 98 yards for a touchdown in the Scarlet Knights' dramatic 28-24 win over UConn, the second straight week the Huskies have allowed a touchdown on the opening kickoff.

• Ole Miss' Dexter McCluster went over 200 all-purpose yards for the second week in a row in the Rebels' 33-20 loss at Auburn.

• After being held without a touchdown for the first three quarters, Northern Illinois scored three touchdowns in the fourth quarter to beat Akron 27-10.

• Oklahoma quarterback Landry Jones threw three touchdown passes before Kansas State earned a single first down in the Sooners' 42-30 win over the Wildcats.

• Trailing 35-28 at the half, North Texas scored 40 points in the second half of a 68-49 win over Western Kentucky, the second straight week the winless Hilltoppers have allowed 60-plus points to a Sun Belt opponent.

Teachers' Pet: TCU. Outscoring their last three opponents by a combined score of 123-13, including a 41-0 shutout against UNLV, the Horned Frogs are the latest in BCS-bustin' technology and making a loud case for their inclusion at the cool kids' table come January.

Most School Spirit: Jeremiah Masoli. Nursing a bum knee that even he admitted wasn't at full strength earlier in the week, and facing down his team's most ostensibly fearsome rivals, Oregon's quarterback led the Ducks to a 47-20 rout of USC. Masoli's stats: 222 passing yards, one score. 164 running yards, one more score. Us: Pointing west and nodding approvingly.

Honorable mention: Duke quarterback Thaddeus Lewis, who came within two yards of his fourth straight 350-yard passing game and captained an eerily competent Duke team to  fourth-quarter comeback at Virginia for its third straight ACC win. Da-vid! Cut-cliffe! [clap clap clapclapclap]

Most Unlikely Couple: Miami and rain. It's an Ike-and-Tina relationship, make no mistake. Remember that nasty slog with Virginia Tech? This time, the team named for a great abundance of angry weather came through by the skin of their grills, surviving Wake Forest and much water falling from the sky, 28-27, after fallin in an early 17-0 hole in Winston-Salem.

Most Creative: The jack-o-lanterns carved in the likenesses of Erin Andrews, Todd Blackledge, and Brad Nessler for the Tennessee-South Carolina Halloween night tilt. Did anybody else think Blackledge's bore a weird resemblance to Barack Obama?

Mister Personality: Brandon Spikes, for this charming display on Georgia running back Washaun Ealy's face at the Cocktail Party:

It's not like Florida needed an extra edge a blinded running back would provide. We're all for the relaxing of the unsportsmanlike celebration penalties, but that's just uncouth, Mr. Spikes.

Most Popular: Bernard Pierce, freshman running back from Temple, whose 267 yards were largely responsible for the Owls' 27-24 Navy shocker win. Temple is bowl-eligible for the first time since 1990, and will probably be heading to a bowl for the first time since 1979. That's not a typo.

Grape Job! Iowa quarterback Ricky Stanzi, whose five-interception performance in an eventual 17-point win over Indiana has us wondering what on earth it's going to take for the Hawkeyes to lose a game.

Drama Queen: UTEP, with hot and cold running wins and losses. Follow the Miners' trajectory over the past five weeks and see if you can make any sense out of this at all: Loss at Texas, win over Houston, loss at Memphis, win over Tulsa and now a home loss to UAB.

Class Clown: Very funny, Jim Tressel. Faced with a 44-point spread and a host of internet wiseacres insisting this game would be a three-touchdown snoozer, what do the Buckeyes do? Win by 45, of course. Smartasses.

Honorable mention: Lane Kiffin, who is currently undefeated against Steve Spurrier, a factoid we will repeat until someone clubs us to death to stop us because it makes us giggle.

Most Likely To Succeed: The big three unbeatens, we're guessing. Florida and Texas both won big yesterday, while Alabama had a bye, and the toughest opponent remaining on any of their schedules is the Tide's date with LSU next week. After all the October horrorshows, will the June predictions bear out and the title come down at last to Texas and the SEC champ in Pasadena? Nothing's inevitable, but for now it's as close as it can be with a month to go in the regular season.

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

It also did wonders for team chemistry, if you believe All-American linebacker Brandon Spikes, who admitted the locker room had begun to fray a bit after last week's tougher-than-expected win over Mississippi State -- including a "skirmish" between Spikes and Tim Tebow after the anointed quarterback served up two interceptions returned for touchdowns in the worst game of his career:

Here is the transcript of the question asked by Florida Times-Union columnist Gene Frenette:

"Let me ask you this specifically: You and Tim had a little skirmish after the Mississippi State game. You guys got it resolved ..."

Spikes replied: "Me and T's friends, brothers. It wasn't nothing. It was all positive. We came together me and him, got the team together and we kind of got things right."

"There was," Tebow admitted during his news conference, "a lot of turmoil this past week."
[...]
"We kind of know what it takes, me and Tebow," Spikes said after returning for the first time in two weeks because of an injury. "We get on guys and hold them accountable, let them know, 'What's your value to the team?' Things weren't getting done the way we expected. We had a team meeting, we may have stepped on a few toes. ..."

That may help explain why Tebow shunned the media in Starkville for the first time in his career, and why the word around the Gators all week was "frustrated." That certainly wasn't the case Saturday, during or after the game -- after getting in each others' faces, airing their dirty laundry, doing primal scream, or whatever "turmoil" in this case entails, everything was copacetic in Jacksonville.

And if the Gators run the table to Pasadena for the BCS title game in January, fully expect to hear about the "team meeting" following the low point against Mississippi State as a rougher-edged analogue to last year's overhyped, immortalized "Promise" speech following the Gators' early loss to Ole Miss. Think of "The Skirmish" as a grungier, defensively-led team's anti-Kodak moment.

Oregon 47, USC 20. There will be plenty of time later to put the Ducks' unprecedented offensive explosion into its proper historical context (check back in the a.m., because the numbers compared to any existing precedent against a Pete Carroll defense will be stunning). For now, though, just appreciate how far Oregon has come in two months.

I didn't want to put it so bluntly at the time, but after Oregon's opening-night flop at Boise State the early verdict seemed to be that Chip Kelly was in over his head. It wasn't just the LeGarrette Blount punch in the post-game -- the Ducks were a muddled disaster from the opening gun, totally impotent on offense, while Kelly was allegedly disrespected by his players and undermined by his boss, former coach Mike Bellotti, who was spotted giving Kelly advice on the sideline long before Blount's outburst etched the night in infamy. The unveiling of the Kelly era could not have gone more poorly, and cast immediate doubt on the experiment.

Fifty-eight days and seven straight wins later, it couldn't be more triumphant, or look like more of a nightmare for any poor defense that happens to cross its path. USC has lost Pac-10 games before -- seven now in four years -- but none have been so clearly demystifying as this one; a 27-point pantsing to fall two games behind the new, undisputed conference frontrunner (not including the tiebreaker, which the Ducks now own) is a "king has no clothes" kind of victory.

We wondered before the season if the Trojans were vulnerable, if the freshman quarterback and wholesale departures from last year's dominant defense and new coordinators on both sides of the ball harkened the end of SC's seven-year run at the top of the conference. Still, it was too unthinkable to predict in August, and even after the shocking September loss at Washington, the Trojans' subsequent blowout win over Cal, high-scoring escapes against Notre Dame and Oregon State and long history of dominating big games made them the safer bet tonight in Eugene.

So much for the benefit of the doubt: Barring an unbelievable turn of events -- i.e. Oregon losing twice down the stretch and a convoluted tiebreaker scenario breaking in the Trojans' favor -- USC's run as Pac-10 king is absolutely finished, and it's not a dignified death. No, the Trojan dynasty croaked loudly, messily and publicly, in a grisly fashion that might elicit as much stunned pity from the long-suffering commoners around the conference as glee. They have to deal with a new tyrant now, anyway, an upstart that dresses garishly, has plenty of money behind it and doesn't look any more forgiving than the old one.

Texas 41, Oklahoma State 14. Coming into the year, the Longhorns faced three overriding questions about their national championship credentials: a) Could they find a steady back to take the pressure off quarterback Colt McCoy in the running game? b) Could they improve against the pass after giving up 30-plus points three times and finishing 51st nationally in total defense? And c) Could they demonstrate the intangible combination of "killer instinct" and consistency to run the table after enduring costly November upsets three years in a row? Two-thirds of the way through the campaign, they've emphatically answered two of those questions in the affirmative, and any concerns about the McCoy-centric running game remain, for all intents and purposes, apparently irrelevant.

Texas is outstanding on defense in all the conventional ways -- it will continue to rank in the top 10 nationally in total, scoring, pass efficiency and rushing defense after throwing the vaunted Cowboy offense into a sack tonight and tossing it over a bridge just outside of town -- but it also reminds me of last year's dominant, underrated Florida defense in two aspects that strikes me as the sign of a truly elite defense: Like the Gators during last year's championship run, this UT defense forces turnovers at a furious pace, and (along with the special teams) it converts those takeaways into scores of its own.

The 'Horns added two defensive touchdowns tonight on interception returns to bring their total of non-offensive touchdowns on the season to nine, best in the nation and better than Florida's national-best seven non-offensive TDs last year in just eight games. Safety Earl Thomas alone has now taken two of his six interceptions to the house, including the pick-six that slammed the door on OSU in the third quarter.

That was one of five turnovers the Longhorns forced against a fairly prolific offense, their fifth game this year with at least three takeaways. Four of the last seven national champions (Florida last year, LSU in 2007 and USC in 2003 and 2004) have finished in the top five nationally in total takeaways, and the biggest difference between this edition of the 'Horns and last year's oh-so-close edition is that this team resides in that territory, and last year's team wasn't even close.

As a result, Texas isn't just surviving: Its only close outcome of the season was the 16-13 escape over Oklahoma in the Cotton Bowl, and both of its wins since have been brutal massacres of respectable outfits from Missouri and Oklahoma State, both on the road. The 'Horns hopped on Mizzou last week 35-7 in the first half, and had OSU packing it in tonight after Thomas' interception made it 34-7 barely five minutes into the third quarter. This is the same spot where last year's undefeated 'Horns, off a narrow win over Oklahoma State in Austin, fell apart defensively and let all of its goals slip away at Texas Tech. This team seems determined to close the door before there's even a hint of letting it slip away again.

Obviously, the dark holiday brings out the black heats in the SEC East:

After Georgia rolled out the black helmets and britches for its loss at Florida today, Tennessee thought it would be a nice idea to throw in a little Halloween motif with the black jerseys at home against South Carolina -- despite the overwhelming disapproval of Vol fans on the issue this summer. It doesn't seem to be hurting in the first half: UT leads the Gamecocks 21-3 going into the break, which should be enough to convert a few of the purists. (But a few.)

Which is all well and good, but misses the essential question: What does Lil Wayne think?

Duke 28, Virginia 17. The Blue Devils outgained Virginia by more than 250 yards. Quarterback Thaddeus Lewis finished two yards shy of his fourth consecutive 350-yard passing game. And with 16 unanswered points in the final six minutes, Duke -- Duke which is Duke -- extended its ACC winning streak to three games, its longest since 1994, and enters November on track to take on Georgia Tech for the Coastal Division lead in two weeks. Do not panic; do not adjust your sets. Take deep breaths.

At 9-11 in 20 games as Duke coach, David Cutcliffe is one win short of equalling the program's total wins (10) in 92 games over the first eight years of this decade. Five years ago, Ole Miss fired Cutcliffe after his first losing season in seven years there and hired Ed Orgeron. That is all.

Florida 41, Georgia 17. The Gators' final numbers -- 208 yards rushing, 163 passing, both well below their season averages -- aren't going to come flying off the stat sheet, but the difference in Florida's much-dissected, much-criticized offense was obvious on the first possession of the game: UF's opening drive covered 80 yards, matching its longest march in well over a month in just six plays. Its second drive covered 92 yards on 11 plays, matching its longest of the entire season. In the second quarter, with Georgia beginning to mount a rally with 10 unanswered points, the Gators went 65 yards in just four plays, aided by a personal foul penalty against UGA.

And most importantly for an offense that's been depressingly bad at finishing drives lately, all three possessions ended in the end zone courtesy of Tim Tebow's arm (with a spectacular assist from Riley Cooper on his second TD grab) and record-breaking legs. With touchdowns where the Gators had been settling for field goals in the largely disappointing efforts of the last three weeks, the game was effectively over at the half, at which point the top-ranked UF defense was set free to pick off Joe Cox and backup Logan Gray four times in five possessions and take in a touchdown of its own. The typically merciless Urban Meyer was even happy enough to call off the dogs (no pun intended) this time around by taking a knee at the 20 on the last possession of the game.

At 4-4 with the worst scoring defense (and nearly the worst total defense in yards allowed) in the SEC, Georgia is not the greatest measuring stick for whether or not the kinks have been completely worked out. But this is, finally, the kind of win completely befitting of an alleged No. 1 team, in all phases -- if the Bulldogs were ever in this game, they were effectively knocked out of this game when Florida finished off those first-quarter drives with touchdowns, black-out uniforms be damned.

To put it more pointedly: After the unsatisfying defensive slogs against Tennessee, LSU, Arkansas and Mississippi State, it was the Gators' first effort against another SEC heavy that seemed convincing enough to hypothetically beat Alabama. And with the East Division title effectively secured (a win over Vandy next week or a South Carolina loss at Tennessee tonight makes it official) and South Carolina and Florida State looming as the tallest remaining hurdles to the expected 12-0 regular season, the next month is officially a warm-up for the winner-take-all showdown with the Tide on Dec. 5.

Illinois 38, Michigan 13. All the hype surrounding Illinois as a potential darkhorse coming into the season -- emanating from this blog as much as anywhere -- pinned the Illini's potential success on the veteran stars, Juice Williams and Arrelious Benn, but if their depressing catastrophe of a season has even the tiniest spark left after five straight Big Ten losses, it only exists because of an "effort play" by an obscure true freshman.

With Illinois down 13-7 on the first possession of the third quarter, Michigan's Roy Roundtree took in a short pass from Tate Forcier, broke a tackle and was off to the races to put the Wolverines up by two touchdowns. Roundtree was so obviously gone, in fact, that it hardly seemed worth it for Illinois' Terry Hawthorne to keep chasing him, until Hawthorne miraculously caught up just inside the five and dragged Roundtree down just short of the goal line. Four failed Michigan runs later, Illinois took over at its own one still trailing by only six; six plays after that, Illini running back Michael LeShoure was gone for a 70-yard touchdown that put Illinois up 14-13, the first of three straight touchdown drives by a supposedly lame-duck offense that looked like it had been hit with an adrenaline shot. The second half was the first remotely positive moment of Illinois' season, and it doesn't happen if Hawthorne concedes the touchdown along with everyone else.

That's the rah-rah, feel-good story of the day. On the other side, the verdict is most definitely in on a Michigan outfit that was brimming with so much optimism after a 4-0 September, and that verdict is: Michigan is terrible. Whatever the Wolverines were earlier in the year, now they are terrible, with four straight Big Ten losses and a blowout at the hands of the undisputed whipping boy of the conference to prove it.

Double that sentiment for the defense, which essentially has one nightmare player (dominating senior end Brandon Graham), a decent cornerback (Donovan Warren) and nine stooges -- harsh, yes, but apt for a unit giving up over 30 points and 400 yards per game against Big Ten offenses, even against this Big Ten offense, the lowest-scoring attack in the conference, which put up two touchdowns more on the Wolverines today than it had in any of its previous six games against defenses that aren't Illinois State.

With the loss, the Wolverines drop to 1-4 in Big Ten play, entering a three-way tie for dead last in the conference with Illinois and Indiana. Even after last season's historic collapse, the prospect of last place entering November would have been a colossal disappointment for Michigan partisans at the start of the year, and nearly inconceivable a month ago. But here they are.

Georgia came out for its Cocktail Party warm-ups in the classic Bulldog duds: Red helmets, famed silver britches, white facemasks -- what else would they be wearing?

CBS analyst Verne Lundquist wasn't sure what to make of the switch; from the game, our resident Georgia fan reports that he's "gobsmacked." Twitter wonders "Why is Florida playing Grambling?" I'm curiuos about the history: The last time the Red and Black actually wore black hats was ... well, I don't have that kind of color-specific research at my disposal, but I'm confident that it hasn't happened in my lifetime (i.e. roughly post-Herschel, in Dawg years). The great Frank Sinkwich, who was no stranger to bizarre headgear, never wore one, so today's get-up is potentially without precedent.

But as my fraying jeans can attest, I'm no expert; all I know is that "modern" doesn't mean what television fashionistas think it means, and that even the TV poseurs would never describe red facemasks on black helmets as "modern." What say you, reader?

Iowa 42, Indiana 24. Hey, the Hawkeyes covered the 17-point spread with almost 500 yards total offense to move to 9-0! That was easy, huh? This 'undefeated' thing is no sweat.

But in the fourth quarter, for Iowa, it's always easy:

• Trailing 13-10 against Northern Iowa, the Hawkeyes finished a long scoring drive early in the fourth quarter to go ahead, then blocked consecutive winning field goal attempts on the last plays of the game to win, 17-16.
  • Down 10-5 and going nowhere on offense at Penn State, the Hawkeyes blocked a Nittany Lion punt and took it for a touchdown to take the lead, then forced turnovers on three straight PSU possessions to kill the clock on a 21-10 win.
  • Down 10-3 at the half and tied at 10 entering the fourth quarter at Wisconsin, the Hawkeyes scored twice in the fourth quarter and held the Badgers to 58 total yards in the second half on the way to a 20-10 win.
  • Down 13-9 after 58 minutes without a touchdown, the Hawkeyes drove 70 yards in the final 1:32, had a game-ending interception wiped out on a holding call and hit the winning touchdown pass with two seconds on the clock to escape, 15-13.

At this point, rising from the death bed in the fourth quarter to pull victory from defeat is the Hawkeyes' specialty; it's what they do, and that doesn't include the non-comeback nailbiters over Arkansas State (24-21) and Michigan (30-28). This is an icy, cold-blooded team. But never at any point in any of those harrowing, often improbable victories, was Iowa quite as dead as it was at the start of the fourth quarter today, sitting at its own eight-yard line with a basketcase quarterback and lucky to only be trailing by 10 points against one of the conference's true bottom dwellers. If not for an impossible, fluke-y, four-carom interception and subsequent runback by Tyler Sash that turned pending Hoosier points into an Iowa touchdown that cut IU's lead to 21-14 in the third quarter, the score wouldn't have been that close.

And that figured, really: What karma gives against the best teams on the schedule, it takes away against one of the worst, and the Hawkeyes officially revery to the realm of overachieving but not-quite-talented-enough mediocrities.

To put into context how stunning the subsequent four-touchdown rally was at the start of the fourth, consider that Ricky Stanzi's third quarter was the stuff of cautionary legend. Years from now, little school children across the state would gather round every Halloween and listen to the horrifying tale of how the haphazardly shaven junior who tried with all his might to give away the Hawkeyes' undefeated season with ugly interceptions on four straight possessions in one quarter. "Remember, children," the adult would say as they stared vacantly into the distance, nearly frozen by the traumatic memory, "never throw deep into the wind."

Flip the field and turn the quarter to '4,' though, and Stanzi instantly cemented his status as scruffy, clutch folk hero with a 92-yard catch-and-run to Marvin McNutt and a 66-yard, go-ahead strike to Derrell Johnson-Koulianos that visibly broke Indiana's will. It was deja vu for the Hoosiers, too, after blowing a 28-3 lead last week against Northwestern. Both teams ultimately were today what they are, generally: For Indiana, a scrappy but overmatched outfit that doesn't respond well to adversity; for Iowa, a scrappy and endlessly resourceful outfit that seems to respond only to adversity. The difference is surprisingly close, especially when you consider that the latter set of virtues still includes "national championship contender."

Texas, Florida and USC all meet their "toughest remaining tests" en route to division and conference championships, respectively, in Oklahoma State, Georgia and Oregon, all away from home. If the 'Horns, Gators and Trojans get out of those harrowing meetings today, the sailing is relatively smooth through November. But assuming all three will make it out of the dark and back home in one piece is only setting yourself up for a trick.

What: Game day live blog. All games in play, all comments welcome and all colors accepted.
When: First kick at noon Eastern; chat kicks roughly simultaneously. The blog will run throughout the day, through the primetime tilts -- and no midnight-oil offerings from the West Coast this week, so you can guard the porch from the Halloween hordes.
Who: You and all your rowdy friends. Come loud, proud and creatively dressed. (If you're not the costume type, there better be candy.)
How: Hit "Watch Now," enter comments into the available box and do your part to accelerate the slow, agonizing death of conventional journalism.
Why: Because lobbing snarky barbs at earnest adolescents never gets old, especially when it's the only way to get through a dog of a noon slate. Football!

• Florida scores a non-offensive touchdown. There are enough reasons Georgia has no chance to upset the Gators already: UGA can't run, can't defend the pass and consistently shoots itself in the foot with turnovers and penalties. The margin of error against the Gators' top-ranked defense is already hovering around zero. The one chance the Bulldogs have is to continue the trend of SEC defenses pressuring Tim Tebow and forcing the Florida offense to settle for field goals, but if the Gators' penchant for finding alternate routes to the end zone -- they have three non-offensive touchdowns this year after scoring six last year -- makes an appearance,

• Jeremiah Masoli forces USC to respect his arm. The Trojans are just "scary" as a corollary to their existence at this point, but the one way Oregon can match the increasingly explosive SC offense is to get Masoli and emerging running back LaMichael James rolling in the read option game, and that can't happen unless Masoli finds a way to keep Taylor Mays away from the line of scrimmage by threatening the Trojans downfield with tight end Ed Dickson or -- in a truly horrifying turn -- USC transfer Jamere Holland, the only true field-stretcher in the Duck receiving corps.

• Seth Doege is "generic Texas Tech quarterback." The last Raider quarterback who made his first career start against a visiting team from the Sunflower State, Steven Sheffield, lit up the Lubbock skies for 490 yards and seven touchdowns in a 66-14 rout over Kansas State on Oct. 10. Doege didn't throw a touchdown off the bench in place of starter Taylor Potts in last week's shocking collapse against Texas A&M, but he's the first QB Mike Leach has ever voluntarily installed in search of a better performance from the position and gets one of the most forgiving defenses in the Big 12 in Kansas, which has allowed at least 34 points in each of their first three Big 12 games -- against Iowa State, Colorado and Sam Bradford-less Oklahoma. If Doege is even in the vicinity of his Air Raid predecessors, the shadow of the Jayhawks secondary will be the latest to be burned into Sam Jones Stadium's FieldTurf.

• Russell Okung keeps Sergio Kindle off Zac Robinson. Texas has been impenetrable against the run and continued to earn its bread defensively by pressuring the quarterback: The Longhorns have multiple sacks in six straight games, including game-changing hits on Taylor Potts and Sam Bradford in their wins over Texas Tech and Oklahoma. But Oklahoma State's pass protection has been exceptional, anchored by Okung, and if the Cowboys keep their quarterback clean against Kindle and Sam Acho, Robinson is good enough to keep them on pace with Colt McCoy.

In two weeks, the script USC seemed to writing through the first six weeks of the season has flipped completely: The typically impenetrable defense, which back in September kept the middling offense alive at Ohio State and bottled up Cal for just three points in Berkeley, has been gashed in back-to-back weeks, first for 367 yards and 27 points at Notre Dame, then again last week for 482 yards and 36 points in a home win over Oregon State. Statistically speaking, it was SC's worst defensive game since yielding to Vince Young in the '06 Rose Bowl, and Beaver quarterback Sean Canfied is no Hesiman contender.

But then there's the offense particularly freshman quarterback Matt Barkley, who's quickly progressed from being bailed out by the defense to wielding the bucket himself as the point totals mount. Barkley ripped the Irish for 380 yards and three touchdowns, and currently tops the Pac-10 charts in both passing yards per game and pass efficiency for the season; his 9.6 yards per attempt puts him among the national leaders and establishes him as one of the most dangerous downfield slingers anywhere, if not the most consistent -- an attribute that was clearly missing when Barkley sat out the only loss, at Washington.

In other words, there is no set formula for USC to win. In the Trojans' big games this season, they've already won with the defense looking very much like last year's star-studded pack of killers at Ohio State and Cal; with Barkley's arm carrying the day in a shootout in South Bend; and with the running game taking its turn with 227 yards and three touchdowns (and zero lost fumbles, crucially) in last week's up-and-down affair against Oregon State. There's a hint of inconsistency there -- the win over Cal is probably the only "complete" game the Trojans have played in all phases -- but there's also a hint of the versatility and balance that comes with such overwhelming talent at every position.

Oregon has been about as consistent since the start of conference play, including a huge passing day by Jeremiah Masoli in the blowout win over Cal. But his big day in Berkeley notwithstanding, the Ducks are far more limited Saturday in that it's very hard to see them putting game on Masoli -- a thoroughly middle-of-the-pack passer by every measure, and probably a little below average in his ability to challenge USC deep -- unless things have already gone terribly wrong in the vaunted read option game that's clearly Oregon's bread and butter. Last year in the L.A. Coliseum, the Ducks were down 34-10 a few minutes into the third quarter, and Masoli was a sitting duck (no pun intended) for SC pass rushers, who finished with five sacks, a forced fumble and an interception in an eventual 44-10 rout -- Oregon's worst game of the season in terms of scoring, rushing yards, total yards and yards per play.

That was the worst-case scenario for the Ducks in pretty much every way, and a good example of why, even with lingering questions about a freshman quarterback and brand new questions about the revamped defense, it's still a better bet to stick with the Trojans: When it all comes together for USC, the game's not going to be close (just as it wasn't last year), but SC doesn't have to play perfectly across the board to win, as long as it's not turning the ball over; Oregon, on the other hand, must hew much more closely to a specific script that gives it a chance to keep running on offense, and execute that plan almost perfectly. I'll always prefer to err on the side of margin of error.