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.

1  USC at Notre Dame            20-Oct       $409          1        $379
2  Ohio State at Michigan       17-Nov       $408          3        $876
3  Oklahoma vs. Texas            6-Oct       $400          2        $419
4  UCLA at USC                   1-Dec       $312          4        $172
5  Tennessee at Alabama         20-Oct       $238          5        $181
6  Georgia at Florida           27-Oct       $274          7        $284
7  Texas at Texas A&M           23-Nov       $268          6        $233
8  Alabama at Auburn            24-Nov       $373          8        $321
9  Tennessee at Florida         15-Sep       $248          9        $180
10 Michigan at Michigan State    3-Nov       $218         11        $193
11 Notre Dame at Purdue         29-Sep       $105         10        $281
12 Arkansas at LSU              23-Nov       $128         12        $226
13 California at Stanford        1-Dec       $118         13        $ 77
14 Miami at Florida State       20-Oct       $113         14        $137
15 Army/Navy Game                1-Dec       $285         16        $150
16 Florida State at Florida     24-Nov       $401         15        $195
17 Georgia at Georgia Tech      24-Nov       $156         17        $161
18 Oklahoma State at Oklahoma   24-Nov       $160         19        $228
19 Pittsburgh at West Virginia   1-Dec       $139         18        $ 87
20 Oregon State at Oregon        1-Dec       $170         20        $173
21 Clemson at South Carolina    24-Nov       $414         21        $282
22 Virginia Tech at Virginia    24-Nov       $191         23        $147
23 Iowa at Iowa State           15-Sep       $122         22        $218
24 Arizona at Arizona State      1-Dec       $ 80         24        $ 69
25 Purdue at Indiana            17-Nov       $ 77         25        $ 59

Granted, this is a fairly useless ranking, as it only uses gross dollar volume of tickets sold through StubHub. But it’s interesting nonetheless. Also, it looks like the Washington schools didn’t make the cut.

As SI considers the ‘Pac-10 vs. SEC’ question, Bill Trocchi seeks some outside help in constructing his latest conference power rankings:

For this particular exercise, I forwarded Ken White, the senior oddsmaker for Las Vegas Sports Consultants, 10 hypothetical matchups. Keep in mind that White’s company sets the odds for 90 percent of the casinos in Nevada. These matchups were created by the following: The teams in the SEC and Pac-10 were ranked 1-12 and 1-10 based on SI.com’s current 119. In an effort to be as balanced as possible, the SEC’s sixth and seventh teams (Arkansas, Kentucky) were thrown out. So the top five teams in the SEC were matched up against the top five teams in the Pac-10, and the bottom five teams in the SEC were matched up against the bottom five teams in the Pac-10. Seems fair, right?

The results

• USC over LSU by 3.
• Florida over Cal by 3½.
• Oregon over Alabama by 3.
• South Carolina over Washington by 8½.
• Arizona State over Georgia by 1.
• Tennessee over Washington State by 7.
• UCLA over Vanderbilt by 7.
• Oregon State over Mississippi State by 7.
• Auburn over Arizona by 4.
• Ole Miss, Stanford is a pick-’em.

show a slight edge for the Pac-10.

So there you have it. The Pac-10 squeaks out a 5-4-1 record in these 10 matchups. Armed with this new information, and given the Pac-10′s record vs. BCS foes this year is 6-2 while the SEC’s is 4-3, and considering the Pac-10 won the only real matchup between the two conferences, the Pac-10 grabs the top slot this week.

It’s a little bit early to get too excited about these results, but we’ll take ‘em all the same.

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 …

Two weeks into the season, the Pacific-10 Conference has earned plenty of woooooo-eeeeeee’s. The Left Coast League is the second-best only to the Southeastern Conference.

The conference went 7-0 Saturday. The only loss of Week 2 was Oregon State’s stumble at Cincinnati on Thursday.

Top-ranked USC was idle. The Trojans play at Nebraska on Saturday, but it’s becoming evident their road to a national championship will be long and bumpy because of the competition in the Pac-10.

Two of USC’s road games will be at Washington (Sept. 29) and at Oregon (Oct. 27). While Cal and UCLA have been considered as “circle the calendar” games, the Huskies and the Ducks proved Saturday they’re worth the worry.

Plus, we’ve got that October trip to South Bend … oh wait, never mind.

Actually, given the developments of the past two weeks, you can make a case that the Pac-10 does stack up to the vaunted SEC. Now that Auburn, Georgia and Tennessee have had their pants pulled down, we can see that there are only two really good teams in that conference and ten teams that are no different than any other conference.

When your big boys don’t step up, it’s a problem no matter who the opponent is. Until they are consistent, games like Oregon State and UCLA can jump up and kill the dream season.

This means the hype machine gets cranked up earlier and earlier, but in the case of USC, it’s been running on overdrive since their Rose Bowl win over Michigan. After a comparatively disastrous 11-2 campaign last year, USC is finding itself back in familiar territory: ranked number one in the nation and the odds-on favorite to win the national title.

Oh, and the object of nationwide scorn.

It’s not much of a stretch to say that most of the nation is utterly sick of USC by this point. Want proof that Troy is getting under the collective skin of college football? Why else would Les Miles (whose own LSU team looks, on paper at least, every bit as title-worthy as the Trojans) take some unprovoked shots at USC’s conference schedule? Why else would Jim Harbaugh appoint himself the Official Press Secretary of Trojan Football with his own equally outlandish comments? Why else would the star playmaker of another ranked power, DeSean Jackson of Cal, take his own cracks at the Trojans months before the two teams lock horns in Berkeley? (Actually, we know the answer to that one: Jackson’s mouth doesn’t have an “off” switch, even when he’s completely disappearing against the team the SoCal native claimed he was ready to show up.)

Obviously anointing any team the greatest in the history of the sport is a foolish exercise; the last team to get that hype, the 2005 Trojans, were such a powerhouse on offense that most of its drooling admirers overlooked a tremendously spotty defense, one that became increasingly depleted as the season went on and seemed destined for the knockout blow that Vince Young finally delivered. Greatest offense ever? You can make a great argument. Greatest team ever? Not even the best team of the Pete Carroll era.

So that brings us to this year’s team. Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times speculated back in May that this could be Carroll’s best team. And it seems reasonable that, considering what his program has accomplished over the past five years, the best Carroll team could be in the “best team ever” conversation.

So how good will they be?

The realist says that, Les Miles be damned, the road schedule is downright brutal: every trip away from the Coliseum is a potential land mine. Nebraska. Washington (don’t snicker, Ty Willingham’ Huskies were a play away from dumping Troy at Troy last season). Notre Dame. Oregon. Cal. Arizona State. The guess here is that five of those six road opponents will be ranked at some point in this season. And that’s not even mentioning the two teams that beat SC last year, Oregon State and UCLA. Both come to the Coliseum, but both should also be better than the Trojan-killers of 2006.

And common sense also says that a team with John David Booty and a crowded, unproven backfield can’t possibly be as good as one with Matt Leinart, Reggie Bush and LenDale White. That there’s very little experience at wide receiver. That the play calling since the departure of Norm Chow has been very suspect. That the tragic loss of Mario Danelo means they’ll be relying on a kicker who hasn’t been battle-tested. That special teams has always been a thorn in the Trojan side, so much so that they resorted to squib kicking each kickoff in the 2005 season. That the specter of an NCAA investigation into the Reggie Bush allegations (one breathlessly chronicled by every nonbiased justice-seeking fan all over the country) could become a major distraction. That, as Harbaugh claimed several months ago, Carroll is already looking to jump ship to the NFL. And that these are too many obstacles for even a loaded team like SC to overcome.

But that defense…

Anyone who’s followed this program knows that the key to its resurgence has been the defense. Even that stunning Orange Bowl rout of Oklahoma was keyed by a D that forced turnovers and constantly put pressure on the Sooner line. With the most returning starters on that side of the ball that Carroll has ever had, it’s not a stretch to believe that this will be Carroll’s best defensive unit. If the defense plays up to its NFL-caliber potential, you won’t see many opponents break 20 on them. So what you’re looking at, potentially, is a Pac-10 offense with an SEC defense.

So they’ve got that going for them, which is nice.

One thing this team doesn’t have is offseason buzz, the type of tabloid white noise that fuels nonsense like ESPN’s “Who’s Now.” Booty isn’t cavorting with Hollywood “actresses.” Those 57 prep All Americans fighting for the tailback spot aren’t ready for their endorsement money close ups (and not allegedly taking money from would-be sports agents, we hope). The likes of Will Ferrell and Snoop Dogg are still around, but even the celebrity sideline stalking feels like it’s scaled down from seasons past. And while many around the nation feel like taking potshots at USC, the coaches and players, so far at least, aren’t saying much at all.

The question remains: how good will they be? The smart money says: very. Will they win the national championship? Anybody who says they know is reaching, because college football is too lovably unpredictable for any team to be called the “greatest ever” a month before any games have been played. The roster is as stacked as it’s ever been, maybe even more so, but until they face adversity and get it done in a hostile road environment, they could very well be a paper, uh, Trojan.

Just as in 2005, a 12-win season would be viewed as a disappointment. How’s that for expectations? And make no mistake, this USC team is definitely beatable. But it will probably take another off-the-charts, Vince Young-esque performance to score enough on that D to get it done. Will they get hit by a once-in-a-lifetime performance for the second time in three seasons? It’s certainly possible. The feeling around the program is that last year was the chance for everyone to get their licks in.

There are two things of which you can be certain: one, that Carroll’s team fully expects to be back in the national title game. And two, that those who have made hating USC their life’s passion should be getting much more fuel for their inner fire.

Sounds like business as usual.

It’s hard to say if Reggie Bush’s 65-yard punt return for a touchdown in the fourth-quarter fog at Oregon State defied physics. It surely defied the Beavers’ upset plans. Bush, with tacklers so close he could smell what they ate at pregame, made a couple of jukes and took off. As Oregon State coach Mike Riley described: “All of a sudden, we got Reggie Bushed.” USC came back to win 28-20.

Now on the 2-point conversion why did we call the same play that we just scored on, but for Jarrett?  Why not just run Washington again or throw to Smith who scored the TD?  I am still baffled by the play calling.