First…

This season has wackiness written all over it, or so I thought. By my count we have 28 undefeated teams after three weeks. I looked back to last year and after week three there were 31. I thought maybe there were just a lot fewer top tier teams, but in both cases about 50% of those teams entered week three in the Top 25. I guess it’s just that teams people talked about being MNC contenders (USC, VaTech, OU, Ohio St., OK St.) have losses, and teams like Miami, Cal, Cincinnati and Houston are in the top 20. There are four undefeated vs. undefeated matchups this week so we go into week 5 with at most 24 undefeated teams. Don’t get too excited though, all four of these games’ favorites should be big ones. But get excited for week 6. If the teams make it that far, you could see Florida vs. LSU and Alabama vs. Ole Miss in what should at a minimum go a big way towards weeding out the SEC.

And 10…

  1. Miami sure looks for real so far. Two big wins to start the season, they get a big challenge this week against Virginia Tech. If they can pull out the win they are going to have a commanding lead in the Coastal Conference. If they can somehow follow that up with a win against Oklahoma, we could be talking about them as a MNC contender.
  2. BYU laid an egg this week at home against FSU. They are done. More importantly my dark horse Heisman guy Max Hall is done too. His three picks give him 6 on the year already. With the craptacular opponents he has left, he has no shot to get back in the race.
  3. Speaking of Heisman, as good as Tebow was, Jahvid Best was better rushing for 5 TDs against Minnesota. Best is a borderline top 10 pick right now, but if Cal is for real he is going to have a shot at the Heisman and being the first back taken next April.
  4. It’s been said a million times but Lane Kiffin really did everything he could not to get blown out in Gainesville. I watched that entire game and he was regularly running on third and long just so that Crompton didn’t throw picks. I thought it was lame, but I guess he can play the moral victory card now.
  5. Is it just me or is LSU flying under the radar right now? That win at Washington looks a lot better now. They also have IMO the best top to bottom group of WRs and RBs in the country (if you combined them into one). They have to play Georgia on the road this week then home against Florida with games at Bama and Ole Miss down the road. They have an amazingly tough schedule but because of that 2 losses and an SEC championship probably gets them back to the big game.
  6. Boise St. has only lost 17 games this decade. Even with 3 more this year that would still only average two per year. I don’t have the numbers in front of me but I would be shocked if anyone else is close (Ohio St. is at 20 already, USC 23, I couldn’t think of who else would be there). At some point do they change conferences? I suspect the Pac 10 wouldn’t do it, because they are only a football school. But what about the Mountain West? They want to prove they are legit. It would give them 10 teams (conference championship anyone?) plus a stranglehold on potential BCS “busters” (Utah, BYU, TCU, Boise St.)
  7. Safeties Taylor Mays (USC) and Eric Berry (Tennessee) sure look like perennial pro bowlers in the NFL. Per DraftHistory.com, the last time two safeties went in the Top 10 was the 2006 draft (Michael Huff and Donte Whitner) and that didn’t really pan out. I think someone in the 10-15 range is going to steal one of those guys. (Side note: Check out the 2006 draft. This could be one of the worst first rounds ever. It’s still early but there a massive number of busts. I think most teams would prefer the last 10 guys rather than the first 10).
  8. As much as it pains me to say it, Ryan Mallet is looking like he may live up to the hype after all. The Michigan transfer had a 5 TD game against Georgia. He and Jimmy Clausen were supposed to go toe to toe for at least 3 years. Clausen is going to bolt for NFL bustdom after this year so it’s unlikely they will ever meet again. I bet Mallet goes on to have a better college career than Clausen.
  9. My friends said there is no dominate conference right now, but I disagree. I will take it as far as saying there is a dominant division WITHIN a conference and that would be the SEC West. Alabama, Ole Miss, LSU and and Auburn make up 4 of the 28 undefeated teams and three of those four are in the top 7.
  10. Looking ahead to week 4, Ole Miss gets their first real challenge on the road, Thursday night, ESPN, at South Carolina. This has all the makings of a “trap” game. Cal has to go to Oregon which can be tricky. Miami gets another road challenge against conference rival Virginia Tech. And Houston (vs. Texas Tech) and Washington (at Stanford) both have the makings of “letdown” games after big wins.