That's one "t" in Britney

I just love making those search engines freak out. :) We are now a third of the way through the 2007 college football season and a few things are starting to stand out as definite trends. First, Notre Dame is just flat out awful. You realize that they are 0-3 against Big 10 teams and can drop to 0-4 with a loss to Purdue? The only bowl they are heading for is a fun filled evening at South Bend Lanes on dollar game night. I'm not sure what the big problem here is, but someone will pay. Second, you have to give some serious thought to an Oklahoma-West Virginia championship game. By the time next Saturday night rolls around, it may be inevitable. West Virginia gets South Florida on Friday night and Oklahoma plays Texas next week. If they both win AND run the table, you will be very hard pressed not to have them in New Orleans. The pollsters just eat up big wins and beating the Bulls and Longhorns gives both schools a lot more ink. Lets rank the BCS Conferences: 1. SEC- (was 2) From top to bottom, is there a stronger conference out there? They boast six ranked teams this week, none of them named Auburn. Georgia's OT win at Alabama gives yet another team for the East division to worry about and LSU keeps rolling along. Don't think because South Carolina lost that they still don't have a good shot at reaching Atlanta, you aren't beating LSU this year in Baton Rouge. The tough part for LSU is going to be keeping their wins on the minds of the voters. While most years, you could make a solid case for a one-loss SEC team to reach the championship, it won't be this year. Win big and win everything. Georgia's performance was enough for me to put the SEC on top. 2. Pac-10- (was 1) There are three games on the Pac-10 schedule that will determine the conference championship. One of those games is Saturday in Duckland. Cal-Oregon will be a thriller, that won't be seen anywhere outside the Pacific time zone thanks to ABC. It's a 3:30 regional game, because watching USC throttle Washington is much more important, of course. At any rate, the winner of Cal-Oregon survives another day to play the Trojans. UCLA still is in the mix as well, but if any Pac-10 team can sweep the LA teams, then Pasadena is the reward. For the record, the other two games to determine the Pac-ten winner are Saturday's winner versus Southern Cal and USC-UCLA. No two conference loss team will win the BCS bid here. 3. Big 10- While there is nothing titanic about the week ahead, Penn State's rather troubling performance in the big house against Michigan might ask more questions then it can answer. Case in point, that game plan was just dreadful, and Joepa needs a headset. Leaving play calling unchecked is just silly. It may be foolish to think that Michigan has cured what ailed them, but they were the better team last week. Then again, if Ohio State plays as well as they did last week, then the conference title will be in Columbus as the Buckeyes have arisen. We'll see what comes out of the Michigan State/Wisconsin game, a Sparty win puts them a strong third in the conference. 4. 5. 6- Too close to call. One has to give the ACC some credit. After Miami's upset of Texas A&M last week, the maligned conference has gained a bit of strength. Also, the pollsters seem to love BC and Clemson. We know Virginia Tech is good, and Georgia Tech slides down to underrated. Clemson-Tech in Atlanta is the highlight game, and if Clemson wins big, then the ACC may have pulled themselves out of the cellar. Yes, BC's Matt Ryan is getting some Heisman love and BC is a legit team, but you would have to think hat it wasn't the Chestnut Hill boys the conference had in mind when they pulled off The Great Poach. I'm not bitter or anything about the best hoops conference in the country getting destroyed, not at all. Maybe bring back the 16 foot 3-pt shot we had in 1982? Louisville's rather stunning loss to Syracuse really makes you wonder just how strong the conference really is, because the Orange aren't good. While we think we know that West Virginia is a top 2 team, they can actually test that Friday. While the Mountaineers would rather take care of business early against South Florida, a close and well played game will make the doubters sop, and if South Florida can pull the upset, they will have arived on the football mountain. Rutgers needs to take care of Maryland too. That leaves us with the Big 12. With Ball State a wide left from upsetting Nebraska at Lincoln, the strength lies between Texas and Oklahoma. The good news for Texas is they easily disposed of Rice, the bad news is that Oklahoma easily disposed of Tulsa. Whomever survives the tilt in Dallas ill need to back it up with big wins the rest of the way, especially Texas because outside of Rice, their games have been much too close for a team that has championship aspirations. We suggest that Mike Patrick stick to thinking about football and suggest that you listen to the podcast when it gets posted as our pundits dissect the week ahead and we suggest that Britney Spears stay out of the news, or Todd Blackledge will have to cry.