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.

Highlights (i.e., how to schedule your TV time):

• I honestly cannot recommend anything because Fox Sports does such an awful job with college football. I would watch Missouri at OU if it was being called by Ron Franklin on ESPN, but it’s not. So, I will be getting beat over the head by Joe Buck and Tim McCarver while watching Red Sox/Indians game 2.
• ABC is back to regionalizing us to death at 3:30EDT/12:30PDT and CBS has LSU at Kentucky, as the Fighting Rich Brookses try to come back from the ass-whooping they got from the Ole Ball Coach.
• Oh yeah—USC might start Mark Sanchez over the Dwarf from Shreveport, but that probably won’t last. The Dwarf will start crying to Sark as soon as Sanchez makes a mistake, and The Moron (Sarkisian) will put him in.*

* As you can tell, I am not over last week’s game.

Highlights:

• College football on ESPN or ESPN2 every night this week as they try and counter-program the MLB playoffs that they no longer carry. The best game of the weeknight slate is Thursday’s #8 Kentucky at #11 South Carolina. While Rich Brooks is convinced that his team is Top 5 material, I would like to see them beat someone away from home. (I will be flipping between this and my beloved Indians)
• Saturday early: I can’t recommend anything other than Erin Andrews in HD as she reports on Wisconsin at Illinois; my plan is to get the wife chores out of the way before 2:30 Central.
• Saturday midday: Oklahoma and Texas at the State Fair of Texas (ABC, Nessler/Griese/Maguire) or UGA at Tennessee (Bolerjack/Beurelein on CBS).
• SC on Versus. I know that DirecTV just got VersusHD but I am not sure what to expect with this.
• Saturday night: Start with Florida at LSU (CBS primetime with Lundquist/Danielson) then check out some of Ohio State at Purdue (Musburger/Herbstreit) and finish up with Nebraska at Missouri (The Greatness of Ron Franklin and the ass-whip of Ed Cunningham. They should really let Franklin role solo.)

• #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

• First, Parrish Alford, of the NE Mississippi Daily Journal, still thinks Louisville is #13 while Kentucky is #24. (And here I could’ve sworn that I saw Kentucky score at will against the Cards D on Saturday night and beat them 40-34.)
• Second, there is Aditi Kinkhabwala, of the Bergen (NJ) Record, who has 5 Big East teams in the Top 25—including Rutgers, who hasn’t played anyone, at #9.
• Third, Wayne Phillips, of The Greeneville (TN) Sun, has Louisville #16 and Kentucky unranked; he also has UCLA and Georgia Tech still ranked after their craptacular performances on Saturday.
• Fourth and finally we give you Jon Wilner, of the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, who ranks South Carolina #4 (WTF), Alabama at #6 (again, WTF), and has Georgia Tech at #25 and Kentucky unranked.

In other news, apparently the Associated Press doesn’t really care that USC SID Tim Tessalone has asked that we not be referred to as “Southern Cal.” [page 2, bottom right]

• 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.

The LA Times recaps a contentious practice yesterday in Troy, as Stafon Johnson raised Pete Carroll’s hackles following an impressive run. After Johnson and safety Will Harris got into it, Johnson threw the ball at Harris. Then this happened:

Coach Pete Carroll immediately got into the running back’s face, then halted practice for an expletive-laced speech to the team about avoiding unsportsmanlike-conduct penalties. “It’s so important and such a great issue for the young guys, I had to stop it right there,” Carroll said. “It’s just one of those times you’ve just got to make a statement. I wanted to put my arm around [Johnson], like ‘thanks for the opportunity.’”

Leave it to Carroll to make an expletive-laden rant sound like building sandcastles on the beach.

Looking for an omen when the Trojans head to Tempe to take on Arizona State? How about this one, courtesy of SI on Campus: at halftime of that game, the legendary Chuck Berry will perform with the band… the ASU band. We’d like to suggest a few lyrical modifications the Sun Devils may want to consider: “Roll Over (Hey) Trojans,” “Run Run Rudy (Carpenter)” and “Johnny (David Booty) Be Bad.” (Who did you think was running this blog, Bob Dylan?)

ESPN’s Pat Forde takes a closer look at the Harbaugh v. Michigan academics feud. Reviewing the numbers, Forde finds some evidence that Harbaugh’s verbal jab may not be off-base.

All it takes to see that is a scan of the 2007 Michigan media guide. Only 30 players have listed majors, and 19 of them are pursuing degrees in something called “general studies.” That’s 20 percent of the team, and 63 percent of the players who have declared a major.

Yet a university spokesman said this week that less than 1 percent of the undergraduate student body is in the general studies degree program. The spokesman said there are fewer than 200 general studies students out of an undergrad population of nearly 25,000.

And that’s not all. The other declared degree programs on the football team are: movement science (three players); sports management and communications (two); economics (two); P.E. (one); psychology (one); English (one); and American culture (one). There appears to be one undeclared player enrolled in the business school and another in the college of engineering.

Only one junior has declared a major, according to the guide (in movement science). In 18 years of covering college athletics, I’ve never seen virtually an entire junior class without a major.

For what it’s worth, Pat, there is at least one job that all of the above majors — including general studies and movement science — would qualify these players for: blogger.

Another ESPN college football specialist, Bruce Feldman, unveils his list of the top ten toughest jobs in college football. Here’s one of them:

6. Football Academic Advisor, Akron: Players are creatures of habit with so much of their lives in season being scripted for them. However since the Zips have four games at odd times (two games on Wednesdays and two more on Fridays), this will be a challenge to not miss classes and exams. The routine for most Wednesday night road games for example means the team might have to depart Tuesday afternoon and return home early Thursday morning. Says one coach: “The players would not technically be excused from classes on Thursday, but good luck getting them out of bed.”

Yeah, and good luck dealing with the NCAA when they hear you strayed from the “student-athletes are students first” message.

Speaking of that money-grubbing occasionally fascist organization, an NCAA committee will listen to an appeal of the text messaging ban in recruiting.

“My hope is they will kick it back to the NCAA and form a task force that can come up with a good, solid rule about text messaging,” said Grant Teaff, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association. “I don’t think anyone wants totally open, unabated text messaging. I don’t know a soul who wants that.”

A good solid rule from the NCAA? ROTFLMAO.

One more observation about Stewart Mandel’s “college football royalty” list: much has been made of Les Miles knocking the “real juggernauts” of the Pac-10, but according to Mandel, there is only one Pac-10 school in the “peasant” category: Arizona. The SEC, on the other hand, has three so-called peasants – Vanderbilt, Kentucky, and Mississippi State. We’re not sure what this means, other than the mention of peasantry reminds us of one of the greatest moments in cinematic history.

And speaking of one of those peasants, this may not be the season things turn around at Mississippi State. As Every Day Should Be Saturday reports, MSU coach Sylvester Croom is already frustrated with his team’s performance, and they haven’t even run into the vaunted likes of Maine yet.

“Short conversation, gentlemen. There was nothing good at practice today. Any questions?”

If this keeps up, Croom may have to unleash the bull castration shears.

There’s no easy way to transition from bull castration to Hollywood, because one of those things is vile, disgusting and perverse on every level (and the other is bull castration — hey-o!), but here we go: the poster for the upcoming Will Ferrell comedy “Semi Pro” has been unveiled.

We love Ferrell — after all, who better to play the role of Self-Appointed Ambassador of the University of Southern California — but we think his resume is missing something. He’s done NASCAR, soccer, ice skating and now basketball, but he needs to carve out some time in the prime of his comedic life to pursue his true life calling: starring in a funny college football movie.

In the meantime, we’ll have to fill that empty hole in our own lives with this fact:

Twenty one days and counting.

LSU Coach Les Miles isn’t the only member of the SEC coaching fraternity who believes the conference is better than the Pac-10 in football.

Kentucky Coach Rich Brooks said the same thing Wednesday. And he’s a Pac-10 alumnus.

Brooks became the first coach to lead the Oregon Ducks to four bowl games, including the 1995 Rose Bowl. At the SEC media days, after proclaiming that this year’s Wildcats are the most talented bunch he’s had in Lexington, Brooks was asked how they compare to the 1994 Pac-10 champions.

“It wasn’t as tough a conference as we play here,” he said.

The remark passed quickly, and Brooks went on to say last year’s Kentucky team, with all its underclassmen, was probably more like the 1994 Ducks.

Well, Rich, you’ve got us there: today’s SEC is tougher than 1994′s Pac-10.