It is rumored that Major came home for the opportunity to take over for Mack down the road (when he is done taking all of DeLoss Dodd’s money). Will Muschamp is here for a year, max, and merely opening up his reach outside of the SEC. Major has come home and will be the guy Mack picks to take over for him.

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.

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.

• #1 USC left all of their crisp play in LA and squeaked by U-Dub by 3. SC looked terrible and I would not be surprised if LSU is #1 in the AP Poll.
• #2 LSU drove 90 miles to N’awlins and struggled with Tulane, but they won by 25.
• #3 Oklahoma was up 24-7 and should have finished off Colorado—however, they stopped doing anything well and CU got them at the gun with a FG.
• #4 Florida falls to Auburn. Apparently Tommy Tuberville knows how to stop Urban Meyer’s offense. So now their championship hopes rest on the trip to LSU; if they play like this LSU drills them by 20.
• #5 West Virginia (I was wrong about them) looked terrible and lost to South Florida. USF took advantage of Mountaineer miscues and now control the Big East.
• #6 Cal went to #11 Oregon and (I got this one right) Cal got the offense going late. Looks like they will move up to #3, thanks to Cameron Colvin’s fumble.
• #7 Texas looked awful. Living here in Texas, I got to see this game, and KSU kicked the sh*t out of the Longhorns. With both OU and Texas losing, the game at the state fair is now for staying in the race and not going 0-2 in the Big 12 South.
• #8 Ohio State beats the crap out of an awful Minnesota team. Maybe they will get Purdue’s best since Purdue played well (for 30 minutes at least) against Notre Dame before letting ND back in the game. The losing streak stands at 7 for the Irish.
• #9 Wisconsin survives at home against Michigan State. This game was a shootout and Sparty had a shot; just couldn’t execute late.
• #10 Rutgers looked very ordinary against Maryland at home and the middle of the ACC pack took down the Scarlet Knights 34-24.
• #12 BC plays a very tough 1-AA team in UMass and the the Minutemen keep it close. The Eagles squeak by with a 10 point win.
• #13 Clemson falls to the Ramblin’ Wreck of Georgia Tech 13-3. Tommy Bowden can’t seem to enjoy winning games and being ranked.
• #14 Kentucky wins again, and this after Coach Brooks claimed on the Jim Rome Show that his team could be as good as USC.
• #15 Georgia wins again, dominating Ole Miss in the second half.

So now the Top 10 will probably look like this:

1. USC/LSU (take your pick)
2. Cal
3. Ohio St
4. Wisconsin
5. Oklahoma
6. Florida
7. BC
8. Kentucky
9. Georgia
10. Oregon

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.

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?

1) Florida getting shafted would be the best thing to happen to college football: Before you jump all over me Gators fans, I’m not saying it’s right, but a 12-1 Florida team that gets left out of the national championship game for USC or Michigan may be the BCS victim that finally causes change to the system. Why? Because SEC commissioner Mike Slive happens to be both the current BCS coordinator and the most outspoken proponent of a plus-one game. This would be twice in three years one of his teams gets left out. Secondly, Florida happens to be one of those glamour programs (no offense, Auburn) that people pay attention to, and they’ve got a high-profile coach and athletic director who will be screaming bloody murder. But most of all, the timing is right. At the time of the 2003/04 controversies, the BCS had more pressing issues on its plate, like a potential antitrust lawsuit and an expiring TV contract. With Fox in place and the championship game now a week later, the structure is in place to seamlessly add at least a plus-one.