Monday, September 15, 2008

College football: Bulls, Pirates survive; Trojans romp, not much else of note happens.

Contrary to my earlier trepidations (see "Update"), my South Florida Bulls were able to knock off the Kansas Jayhawks (since USF beat the Tennessee-Martin Skyhawks in their opener, the season record is now ungulates-2, raptors-0), as a result of which the Bulls rose to twelfth in the AP poll (one better than the rank previously held by Kansas), while the Jayhawks fell to nineteenth, the former position of USF. The Bulls are now cruisin' for a bruisin', but I'll be bold and say it probably won't come next week at the hands of Florida International, even though the game's in Miami. It'll be closer than expected, though.

This year's big surprise team, the East Carolina Pirates, despite having major upsets over Virginia Tech and West Virginia, was nearly capsized by Tulane's Green Wave, but managed to right itself. The Georgia Bulldogs, ranked second going into the game, survived a tough challenge from Steve Spurrier's unranked South Carolina Gamecocks. The Bulldogs were thereby demoted to third, behind USC and Oklahoma. The Florida Gators, idle this week, held at number four.

Southern Cal obliterated Ohio State, leading the New York Times' Pete Thamel to declare them this season's presumptive champion. However, NBC pundit Joey Johnston thinks an SEC team could unhorse the Trojans. Not so fast, says Johnston's NBC colleague John Walters, the Big 12 is really tops this year.

So, there's reason to keep watching.

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