I am a pro-playoff guy and have been since I became aware that this is a sport and not a beauty contest. For 10 seasons, we have seen the BcS change its stripes more times than I care to count and each time against the wishes of most college football fans. I have finally had it. I don’t want a Plus-One; that just means that this year Virginia Tech gets in for beating no one except for a BC team they already lost to, and OU (my #2 team) would be in semi-finals against the alleged #1 and #2 teams. What a crock.

I want an 8-team playoff. I know 16 will never happen and I think that given a season like this, where 8 teams can say they should have a shot at showing they are the best, we should give them the opportunity. If not, then go back to the old beauty contest way with traditional bowl match-ups; Ohio State vs. USC in the Rose, LSU vs. Georgia in the Sugar (since they didn’t play during the regular season), Oklahoma vs. Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl (why did the Big 12 get hosed out of Miami for New Year’s for Phoenix?) and West Virginia vs. Missouri in the Fiesta Bowl. The season was amazing from day 1 with Appalachian State beating Michigan in Ann Arbor and it has propelled them on to the semi-finals of the Division 1-AA playoffs. See, all of the other kids are supposed to be the same but big time football is the sacred cow and apparently no would be excited about Ohio State hosting Kansas, LSU hosting USC, Virginia Tech vs. Missouri and Georgia at Oklahoma. Very sad that a sport that is just the best for 3 full months becomes irrelevant in 24 hours.

Now on to the Trojans: I was not a believer as many of you know. I felt that the “Dwarf from Shreveport” would never take this team anywhere and that we were destined for 9-3 and a trip to San Diego. Well the injury bug struck every Pac-10 contender and so we got another BcS trip and a 4th Rose Bowl in 6 years along with a 6th consecutive conference title. This team came on late and really looked good on for a half against ASU and 3 quarters against Nebraska. That was really it—the rest of the season the offensive play calling was inconsistent and the defense had to make just enough plays so the team got wins. I am not sure if the offense was so underwhelming because of the Dwarf’s inability to execute the plays, or Sarkisian feeling that he was the smartest guy there and thinking that no matter what we should throw all the time. The other thing I never got is why Stafon Johnson didn’t get more carries—either he was really injured or again Pete gave his seniors the benefit of the doubt sticking with Chauncey all season and Booty against Stanford.

The whole season for USC really boils down to the last 4 minutes of the Stanford game. They had a great game plan for SC and we played right into by being to confident in our offense. Three runs and a punt and we sneak out with a win because they were not going 80 yards against our defense with no time outs. Meanwhile, we would be 11-1 and playing Ohio State. But we were not smart enough to figure out that stats aren’t important wins are. Oh well, now we can find out if it was really the “Dwarf” that held this team back as in ’08 they will start the season in the Top 5 and we will see if Sanchez or Mustain are ready to fill the shoes of Matt Leinart who is the gold standard for SC QB play. Until we do the fans will not be satisfied and we will keep playing against crappy Big-10 teams in the Rose Bowl as the reward for the season instead of for National Championships in the craptacular system that we have to deal with in my opinion for another 7 years minimum. (Thanks Tournament of Roses Committee for a deal with ABC through 2014).

Tonight: The Battle of the Techs, with the lovely Erin Andrews on the sidelines. I might watch, since there’s nothing else sports-related on television, but these two teams are seriously dull.

Saturday:

• Early Games: Wisconsin at Ohio State on the Big Ten Network (noon Eastern). For those of you without DirecTV enjoy not seeing this game—meanwhile, I will try and watch on mute as Thom Brennaman and Charles Davis suck. FOX and the BTN should fire them now.
• A little Nebraska at Kansas (12:30 Eastern, FSN) should be interesting, if only to see how Mangino looks in his TENT sweatshirt and how Nebraska responds to playing without Sam Keller.
• Navy at ND (2:30 Eastern, NBC). Will the streak end, or can Charlie the Weis make it 44 in a row against the Middies? If I wasn’t going to be in LA for SC’s homecoming, I would probably see how this one goes.
• Late afternoon: none of the 3:30 Eastern kicks are exciting, so you’ll just have to wait until 5:00pm for the Saban Bowl. LSU will be fired up, but since Les Miles is still on their sideline, I like Alabama’s chances if they can keep it close into the 4th quarter.
• Story of the week: ESPN worked it out with the Pac-10 and FSN to broadcast the ASU/Oregon game to the rest of the country (6:45pm Eastern). Bonus points because Gameday will be there, even if they are making Herbstreit fly to Boston after the show instead of trading him for Blackledge. Maybe Herbie hates Mike Patrick as much as the rest of us do? Dennis Dixon for Heisman can take another huge step forward here.
• Finally, the ABC regional games at 8pm are not great, but most of America will get to see if BC can beat FSU at home.

Remember that September 24 issue of Sports Illustrated, the one with the USC-Nebraska cover that says “USC on Fire”? I happened to glance at it today (before tossing it), and I realized something. There are four USC players on the cover: John David Booty, Stafon Johnson, Drew Radovich and Chilo Rachal.

What do they have in common? They’ve all missed significant time this season due to injury. Think about that: four players who were key enough to make SI’s cover going down with injury. For all the subpar coaching, it’s kind of impressive that SC isn’t 4-3 right now. Just saying.

18. 2005 Orange Bowl: USC wins second straight national title with 55-19 win over No. 2 Oklahoma as Matt Leinart tosses five touchdowns.

35. Pac-10 versus Big Ten: From 1970 through 1992, the Pac-10 went 19-4 in the Rose Bowl.

87. 2001 Fiesta Bowl: The once-pathetic Oregon State Beavers, full of pregame boasts, humiliated Notre Dame 41-9 — and it could have been worse, as the Beavers were flagged for 18 penalties, many for illegal roughness and cheap shots.

To #35 we could add some recent history as well …

First, maybe I was wrong about SC. For the first time in two years, we just lined up and kicked the sh*t out of someone with our OL and running game. So that was nice and made the game very boring very quickly—after 5 minutes were gone in the 3rd, in fact. The great JD Booty is still not wowing me with his throws, but he handed off very well. The secondary remains a question mark, but when you have to face 50+ throws you tend to tire out. So: it’s Oregon, Cal, and ASU, all on the road, that make me nervous.

Notre Dame has now gone 304 days without a win (page 11) and man does beating Army rock.

Lloyd Carr just needed a game against a team with less speed than his.

Tennessee looks slower than a pig in slop.

Alabama had no business beating Arkansas after blowing the 21-0 lead, but without McFadden the Razorbacks couldn’t run out the clock.

UCLA might reconsider a home and home contract with teams from Utah.

Thanks for playing this year Louisville, now take care of West Virginia so that we don’t have to hear about an undefeated Big East team getting left out of the title game.

And finally: October 6th can’t get here fast enough.

SC is focused on Nebraska and doesn’t care if they are #1 or not:

Terrell Thomas said, “You can’t control the rankings, and it doesn’t matter who’s ranked No. 1 or No. 2 right now. The season’s just started. We don’t worry about rankings.”

Nebraska is paying all the proper respect to SC, knowing that a win would cement the Return of Big Red.

Sam Keller on USC’s defense: “You just have to be mistake-free. You have to take what they give you. You have to be very smart. But you also have to be very aggressive. You have to take shots at them because they are very good.”

Only 29 hours to kick off; get your cocktails ready for The Musburger Drinking Game.

Even though it’s been a decade since Nebraska was a National Champion, going for the goalposts at a program with that much tradition seems pretty idiotic no matter who the opponent is.

“That was kind of an intimidation factor there … Initially we came out scared. Now we know ‘em. We know what they’re like. We know their speed. Now we can just focus on the things we have to do to prepare for them.”

Hey, it’s good that a team playing in front of the 3rd largest city in Nebraska is not going to be scared of an opponent. I mean, why would you be scared when your coach has been outcoached by such geniuses as Norv Turner, Marty Schottenheimer, Gunther Cunningham, and Mack Brown?

Secondly: apparently Notre Dame Fans are not happy with Charlie Weis and his summer of litigation:

A follow up to some of the Notre Dame talk this week: I get e-mails from a few buddies who are ND fans. One of them always loved to say how Ty Willingham spent more time golfing than recruiting, and that’s why he isn’t in South Bend any more. Two days ago I got an e-mail from him saying maybe Charlie Weis should’ve spent more time in the film room than worrying about his stomach stapling lawsuit. It is surprising to see how much things can change after a couple of blowout losses.

Wow, guy almost dies and ND fans want film study instead of legal stories. Let’s hope they go 0-8 so we can see if ND fan’s head explodes …

• College Gameday: live from Lincoln, Nebraska, 10:00 AM EDT (Fowler/Herbstreit and the other two)
• No. 5 Florida (2-0) vs. No. 22 Tennessee (1-1), 3:30 PM EDT, CBS (Lundquist/Danielson); Florida -8
• No. 10 Ohio State (2-0) at Washington (2-0), 3:30 PM EDT, ESPN (Franklin/Cunningham); Ohio State -4
• No. 16 Arkansas (1-0) at Alabama (2-0), 6:45 PM EDT, ESPN (Patrick/Blackledge); Alabama -3
• No. 9 Louisville (2-0) at Kentucky (2-0) 7:30 PM EDT, ESPN Classic (Collins/Curry); Louisville -6.5
• No. 21 Boston College (2-0) at No. 15 Georgia Tech (2-0), 8:00 PM EDT, ESPN2 (Jones/Davie); Georgia Tech -6.5
• No. 1 USC (1-0) at No. 14 Nebraska (2-0), 8:00 PM EDT, ABC (Musburger/Herbstreit); USC -10

Please plan your Saturday accordingly.

Well, CollegeFootballNews has thought about it some more, and now they are predicting a 27-23 win for the Cornhuskers.

What Will Happen: This is where all the bumps and bruises will come back to haunt USC. Safety Josh Pinkard is out for the year with a torn ACL, WR Patrick Turner is still getting over a shoulder injury, star OT Sam Baker has a rub problem, top RB Chauncey Washington has a sprained shoulder, and the list goes on. Of course USC has depth to spare, but it needs all its starters healthy and jelled to handle the jacked up Huskers. Nebraska isn’t faster than USC, but it’ll play with a bit more bounce in its step on the way to a decent early lead, and will then hang on late as Booty’s final drive to win the game comes up just short.

As for us, we’re going to stand by our expert.