Week 3 Lessons Learned

Alright so we are, more or less, 25% of the way through the season with most teams having 3 games under their belts. So what have we learned thus far about this year's teams...

• First and foremost, in an ideal world, we would still be 2-3 weeks out from having any official polls as well as any discussion around heisman candidates (although if you put a gun to my head, Chase Daniel would probably be my pick).
  
• As of today, and based on what I've seen thus far, there are really only 2 (maybe 3) teams that stand out from the pack in such a dominating way - Oklahoma and USC (Missouri being that other "maybe 3" team). After that, it's quite vague. Not saying it will stay like this throughout the year, just as of today, these guys seem head and shoulders above the competition.
  
• Can you imagine that "perfect storm" scenario where the pollsters/system are forced to put Ohio State in the national title game? Barring that catastrophe I think there's a better than good chance that Ohio State will not be participating in this year's title game. But, if they run the table from here on out (with games against at least 2 ranked teams) anything could happen...one-loss Sooner and/or Trojan team would most certainly get the edge.
  
• I don't care how good Beanie Wells is, that was *not* the difference. Buckeyes still have games against Penn State and Wisconsin and those will not be easy.
• One more thing about Ohio State - you can't rotate quarterbacks like that and expect to be able to pick up and maintain and real momentum. Here's what I know, the only glimpses of energy and movement I saw by the Buckeye offense was when Pryor was in the game. He had 2 consecutive 11-yard runs and then came off the field. Hey, Tressell, you need to score points! Reminded me A LOT of Mack Brown.
  
• 2. That's the over/under on number of more games Greg Robinson coaches for Syracuse. I'm taking the under.
  
• It's going to be a long, LONG year for Michigan, Washington and UCLA
• The Big 12 is an offensive powerhouse - a lot of teams are throwing up a lot of offensive numbers: Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas Tech, Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma State. I can't see anyone coming out of this conference unscathed this year.
  
• Right now, there are 2 really solid conferences: Big 12 and SEC. ACC and Big East are horrible. Even with Oregon the Pac 10 is pretty darn weak. The wild card is the Big 10 - I know their cream of the crop just got smacked by the Pac 10 kings, but they're a bit deeper than the Pac 10. Wisconsin and Penn State are legitimately good with Illinois, Michigan State and Purdue being potential upsetters on any given Saturday against any given opponent. Big 12 and SEC are very, very deep this year...at least so far.
  
• And how about those South Florida Bulls? Did you watch? Didn't I tell you to watch? Even if you only caught the second half you caught the best part. Great, great game by both teams. Reesing looked very sharp and had only one real mishap all game...of course it happened to be the game-changing play, but nonetheless he was very good. Tough loss for Kansas, but I don't think it's earth shattering for them by any means. They were driving and had they not thrown that INT I believe strongly that they would have won that game. But, they didn't. Big win for South Florida who is now firmly implanted in that "favorite" position in the Big East. Good luck with all of that.
  
• Probably one of the worst weeks for the Pac 10 in...well, forever. Let's see, Wazzu got smacked by Baylor, UCLA gets utterly humiliated by BYU, ASU loses to UNLV, Washington gets blown out to Oklahoma, Stanford loses to TCU, Arizona loses to New Mexico, and Oregon barely squeaks by Purdue. Sheesh, even with USC's dominance over OSU, still a terrible week for the Pacific teams. 
• One more thing about the S. Florida/Kansas game - it was amazing how many big 3rd downs both teams were converting. At one point in the second half Kansas had 3rd and 21 and picked up 23 yards.
• I really don't think Auburn is a top ten team.
  

Highlights from the National Football League:

• Kerry Collins looked pretty good for the Titans...I'm just saying.
• Looks like Chargers at Broncos was one hell of a game, but there's no chance that Cutler play was an incomplete pass. I was definitely routing for Denver in that one, but that was a terrible call. 
  
• Great comeback by Peyton and company, but that team just doesn't look like the same team from the past few years. They're certainly looking older.
  
• Man, what a sucker punch New England gave to the Jets - you could just feel how close that the Jets truly believed this was their chance to take the division. Of course they still can, but that hurts.
  
• Word is Lane Kiffin may be fired on Monday. I don't doubt that Lane Kiffin is NOT the man to lead the renaissance of the Raiders, but Davis hired him. Davis has hired all of the crappy coaches over the past several years. Let's look at the draft picks of late: Robert Gallery, Jamarcus Russell, Michael Huff, Phillip Buchanan, Sebastian Janikowski, and now Darren McFadden. That's quite bit a of talent. Very poorly run organization.
  
• I'm already getting killed in my NFL pick 'em game. Damn. 
• Very much looking forward to getting to watch the *entire* game tonight - kickoff is right around bedtime. Hopefully this one will be better than last night's game. Man, those were some ugly conditions. 

Have a great week - I'll be back on Friday with a preview of the big Rice game.