Speaking of nonconference games … the winner of USC-Ohio State on Sept. 13 will play for the BCS title. It’ll be a Trojan conquest. That difference-in-speed thing again.

Haven’t we dealt with the speed myth before? Anyway, despite their team speed, Bradley thinks the Trojans will fall to the Dawgs in said title game.

Have I forgotten anybody? Oh, yeah — that team from Athens. The Bulldogs will go 11-1 — the loss will be at Auburn, not at Arizona State or at LSU — and will win the SEC East. Then they’ll beat the Tigers in the Dome for the conference title. Then they’ll beat USC in Miami for the national championship. Then Michael Adams will say, “You know what? This BCS deal really isn’t so bad.”

In years past, I would obviously have quibbled with Bradley’s prediction of the winner of the title game. But given the apparent lack of killer instinct lately, and the general pall that hangs over the program nowadays, I’m not so sure.

1. Florida
2. USC
3. Georgia
4. Ohio State
5. Oklahoma

Herbstreit:

1. USC
2. Georgia
3. Florida
4. Missouri
5. Oklahoma

CommishRob’s first simulation? SC wins it all.

CommishPhil’s didn’t go so well, as Hawaii thrashed USC in the first round (using the BCS seeding).

Mine (using the ESPN Power 16 seeding) had some interesting matchups, as USC beat Illinois in the first round and lost to Georgia in the second. Tennessee beat both LSU and Florida, but Oklahoma ended up taking out Kansas (wha?) in the title game.

All of which proves that computers are fully worthy of deciding the national champion.

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).

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.

• Dan Shanoff, formerly of ESPN.com’s Page 2 and now a weekly College Football contributor at Deadspin likes Ohio State over Penn State, Oregon over USC, Cal over ASU, Florida over Georgia at the Cocktail Party, WVU over Rutgers, and Virginia Tech to continue the curse of being #2 by beating BC on Thursday (Something bad needs to happen to Boston sports soon).
• SI.com’s Cory McCartney throws out his take with BC surviving its trip to Blacksburg, Ohio State staying undefeated, Florida continuing to own Georgia, and—in the Pac-10′s big games—SC to upset Oregon and Cal to upset ASU.

Since the multi-color (credited to Jim Rome) keeps paying this guy to make lines (which he steals from LVSC) I will let people see what he has on the big games of the weekend.

• VT -3.5
• Oregon -2.5
• ASU -3.5
• Florida -9.5
• Ohio St -3.5

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.

• 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.