Highlights:

• Thursday night: South Florida at Rutgers (ESPN: Fowler/Flutie/James). South Florida’s last test on the road.
• Saturday (Noon Eastern): Nothing worth watching.
• Saturday (3:30pm Eastern): Florida at Kentucky (CBS: Lundquist/Danielson, Gameday in Lexington) and SC at ND—2 years ago a clash of Top 10 teams, this year NBC (Hammond/Haden) might get better ratings from the test pattern.
• Saturday Night: Auburn at LSU on ESPN (Patrick/Blackledge and please stop the bit where Todd eats) along with Michigan at Illinois on ABC with the Brent Musburger Drinking Game and the Kirk Herbstreit bus story from Lexington, KY to Champaign, IL.

It’s official: the “Dwarf from Shreveport” will not start.

SI.com’s Austin Murphy declares the Trojan Dynasty dead:

Yes, USC could scratch and claw its way back up the rankings and into the national title game. More likely, what we saw at the Coliseum last Saturday was the death knell of a dynasty. The program that came within 19 seconds of winning its third straight AP crown two years ago has now dropped three of its last eight games in the Pac-10. (The entropy will be accelerated, if news reports are true that Lloyd Lake is prepared to sing to the NCAA. Lake is the convicted felon and ex-gang member who is alleged to have fronted Reggie Bush‘s family cash and rent payments while Bush was a Trojan.)

Page 2′s Jemele Hill says we all must jump on the South Florida Bandwagon to blow up the BCS.

Saturday: ABC Regional Cal at Oregon—be prepared for Dan Fouts’ homerism to get out of control when the Ducks play well. However, I think that Oregon has proven that when they are just concentrating on football they are very good and as soon as those silly text books get in the way it goes down hill. Prediction: Forsett goes nuts and Cal wins by 3.

Honestly that is all I can recommend, beyond saying that if you are an SC fan and having nothing better to do, get your booze ready and play the Musburger drinking game and thank me for your hangover in advance.

Now, I know you will say, “Wait—Cal is at Oregon!” And yes, if you live in Californa, Oregon, Washington, Arizona, Nevada, or Idaho you will get to see that game. (If you have GamePlan, of course, then you are set.) Everywhere else, ABC is regionalizing it all to death. I wish they would flip the UW/SC game for Cal/Oregon, but then again SC is a national draw. Oh well.

Here’s to ND taking the days since last win to almost 330.

• The weekend opens with Texas A&M at Miami and Erin Andrews probably in a tank top—YEAH! (Erin will also be in Tampa for South Florida, so it might be a tank top twofer.)
• We’ll see if Coach Fran really has a team that can compete with Texas and Oklahoma.
• The GE/NBC train wreck returns with “Sparty” coming to South Bend. Right now, I think ND needs to worry about positive rushing yards before it worries about points.
• Ron Franklin and Ed Cunningham are following Ohio State around: they get the Buckeyes Big 11 opener at N’western after seeing them throttle the Huskies in Seattle. Michigan gets 4 home games in a row; nice job, Mr. Big 11 Schedule Maker. And we’ll see if Penn State is as good as Herbie says they are.
• CBS brings you to Baton Rouge for the Head Ball Coach and the Gamecocks’ visit. Gameday and the ESPN Primetime game (Mike Patrick shut up) are in Tuscaloosa as Georgia looks to get to 1-1 in conference.
• ABC will show part of the country Wazzu at USC while Brent and Kirk head to Madison for Iowa at Wisconsin.
• Finally, the night ends in Pasadena as UCLA tries to bounce back against Jake Locker and the Huskies.

Virginia Tech looked to be the 2nd most overrated team in the country; however, Pat Forde feels that LSU is #1.

The Ole Ball Coach pulled his magic against Georgia (this time in Athens) to upset the #11 Bulldogs.

Penn State made Casey Clausen wish for the Oaks Christian OL. Ohio State tried to lose its first game to another Ohio college since 1921 (looking ahead to the game in Seattle perhaps) and Wisconsin (25 pt favs) almost lost at UNLV.

The Student Body Right Top 5:

1. SC (homerism rocks)
2. LSU (VT is overrated)
3. Oklahoma (Miami ‘s offense is awful)
4. Florida (heads-up, Tennessee: Tebow looks scary)
5. Wisconsin

What to watch for in Week 3: Tennessee at Florida, Arkansas at Alabama, Ohio State at Washington, and USC at Nebraska.

1. Auburn hosting South Florida: Both of SI’s college football writers pick the upset.
2. Texas hosting TCU: TCU alum Dan Jenkins prays for the upset and Bob Davie picks the Horned Frogs.
3. UCLA hosting BYU: The battle for Ben Olsen’s soul…
4. Boise State at Washington: If not for the Fiesta Bowl, would anyone outside of Boise or Seattle care?
5. Oregon at Michigan: Can Lloyd Carr save his job for 7 more days?