A few quick thoughts before jumping on the plane from Austin.
The fun begins... I've heretofore resisted the temptation to weigh in heavily on the national scene, telling Orson over and over, "Let's wait until Week 3 at least before uncorking that particular bottle of champagne."
Well... Week 3 has come and gone and... yeah... we should still try to be appropriately restrained but...
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What the hell, Pac 10? While we salute USC for reasserting themselves as the Team To Beat and wish Shelley Smith good luck heading forward (knee pads this time?), the rest of the conference was atrocious on Saturday. I honstly can't decide whose mess smells worst: ASU's laydown to UNLV, Arizona's loss to New Mexico (losers to A&M, mind you), Washington's no-show against Oklahoma, Washington State's beatdown in Waco, UCLA's 59-point loss to BYU, or California's inexplicable loss to Maryland. There's no wrong answer here, but I vote UCLA, which... Yeah. Watching Bruins fans pump relentless optimism is like watching one of those painful press conferences in which Microsoft unveils its newest scheme to cut into Google's online market share... This has 'Dewey beats Truman' potential.
- I cannot fathom what it's like to be an Ohio State fan right now. I would feel badly for them if... Okay, no. I also can't fathom a universe in which I forget how awful a huge swath of the Ohio State fanbase has presented itself to me over the years.
- Setting aside the unlikable Ohio State fanbase, what about the rest of the Big 10? How must a Penn State or Wisconsin fan feel? (Bitter, I assume.) And what's the road forward for the conference? With Ohio State's reputation in the toilet, it almost seems imperative that some other team in the conference assert itself quickly as Buckeye-superior. Whether or not it's fair, the Big 10 needs another story to define the conference the rest of this year.
- The Kansas-South Florida game was the highest quality game of the weekend by a wide margin. More on this one in Tuesday night's Big 12 report. Both teams impressed.
Arkansas game time forthcoming. The Statesman reports that UT officials expect to announce on Monday a game time for Texas' re-scheduled September 27 contest with Arkansas. This Saturday's 2:30 p.m. kickoff was entirely decided upon based on TV; expect the same for the postponed game. In the meantime, Texas turns its attention to Rice--38-21 losers to Vanderbilt in a game closer than Saturday's final score indicated.
Texas to #7 in rankings. Texas now finds itself ranked #7 in both polls heading into the week. Hold the parade. After watching what Oklahoma and Missouri did this weekend, we won't really know about this team's 2008 potential until October 11th and 18th. Win one or both of those two and the rankings talk becomes relevant.