It's been another crazy weekend. More 'Survival Saturday' than anything else, it's seen the demise and downfall of some national heavies, ahead of tomorrow's initial BCS rankings. Some thoughts and observations after a good Saturday of football.
1. Notre Dame aren't quite there yet, in terms of competing with the national heavyweight teams, such as USC. As I - and a lot of other pundits predicted - their defense let them down. No such letdown problems on offense. If there's a hotter QB in the nation than Jimmy Clausen right now, I want him front and centre. He's doing it without his #1 receiver, and he's constantly having to dig his team out of holes dug by a poor offense. I believe that Clausen is still in the hunt for a Heisman. He has a chance to post some more impressive numbers against Boston College when the Holy War for 2009 goes down on Saturday in South Bend.
2. Speaking of hot QBs, Matt Barkley made a HUGE statement in his win vs. the Irish. It was a game that provided a lot of answers to a lot of questions. People had been asking, can Barkley throw the football? That's an affirmative, my friends. 380 yards, 2 TDs and one late INT made for a career day for the superstar freshman, and there are few better times to have a career day as a USC Trojan than against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. It settled the nerves of a lot of Trojan fans who feared that it was Barkley, not offensive coordinator/play caller Jeremy Bates, who was nervous early in the season.
3. This could be the start of something big and impressive for the Trojans in the back half of the season. In a wild Pac-10, they face Oregon State (a bogey team last year) at the Coliseum in LA next Saturday followed by an away blockbuster against resurgent Oregon at Autzen Stadium. If USC play like they did today for the rest of the year, they'll figure in the National Championship race yet again after their early season loss to Washington. A loss that will be far out of the minds of pollsters after today's effort.
4. Iowa are now, by far and away, the class of the Big Ten. Ohio State had a bad clunker against Purdue on Saturday, just as Penn State had their clunker against Iowa a few weeks back. The Hawkeyes are playing simple, mistake-free football and they look good. A handful of season-defining games are approaching, including against Michigan State and Ohio State. Win both of those, and you'd have to have Iowa as a lock for the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on New Year's Day. The Big Ten has been roundly awful this year.
5. Virginia Tech lost their shot at a National Championship Game berth and threw the ACC into chaos by letting Josh Nesbitt and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets run them ragged in Atlanta on Saturday night. It was Georgia Tech's first home field victory against a ranked team in some 47 years. Though Nesbitt completed only one pass, he ran for 151 yards and had two more rushers behind him who went over 50. Suddenly the ACC looks a whole lot more interesting. You figure Miami is back in the mix now that Tech has lost.
6. The Red River Rivalry, which they used to call the Red River Shootout, was more of a defensive battle than most people expected. Very sad to see Sam Bradford go down again with another shoulder injury. Sadder still to consider that he may not ever play in the colours of the University of Oklahoma again. Regardless of the game, there are few better college football atmospheres than the one we saw at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas, with the Dallas State Fair as a backdrop. You can probably call Texas the favourite now for the Big 12 title, which would likely slide them into a BCS National Title game spot against the SEC champion. That said, anything can - and will - happen between here and now!
7. Alabama looked good vs. South Carolina. Florida didn't look so good against Arkansas. Four turnovers by the Gators is a very strange thing to see. Yet it happened on Saturday afternoon and they needed a field-goal on a final drive to win a lacklustre game. Right now, Alabama are the very best football team in the country, bar none. They should be rewarded for being just that. It'll be interesting to see if there'll be a flip-flop in positions when the first BCS rankings are released tomorrow.
8. Speaking of the BCS rankings, on the back of the results this weekend, I expect to see USC jump over a losing Virginia Tech and a Boise State Broncos team who beat Tulsa but didn't look particularly brilliant in doing so. The race is far from over! As I stated previously, Alabama are the best team in the nation and deserve to be rewarded as such.
Kitch's Player of the Week:
Honours are shared here by USC QB Matt Barkley, whose breakout game came at just the right time to stonewall Notre Dame and put the Trojans right in contention for a BCS National Championship berth, and Georgia Tech QB Josh Nesbitt who also had a career night while ending the National Championship hopes of ACC rival Virginia Tech.
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