Making Tuesday Fun Since 2006!
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A "weekly must-read"
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--- ESPN's Bruce Feldman asks is the Charlie Weis honeymoon over at Notre Dame?

Also: Story lines to watch, weekend picks (from last week), Notes from around the nation and Top 10 toughest places to coach.

--- ESPN's Pat Forde presents his weekly running of The Dash.

Also: Western Kentucky's "Birth of a Program".  Just what we needed - another D-IA team ...

For an instant, the mannerly 36-year-old who keeps a picture of a priest at his office desk has become Jack Nicholson in "The Shining." "Heeeere's Western!" Only he's swinging a sledgehammer, not an axe.

And he's swinging it at an orange Florida helmet on the floor. As Elson brings the hammer down like Thor, it smashes a clean round hole through the top. The headgear winds up skewered on the handle of the sledge. He raises it aloft like a head on a pike and screams, but he's drowned out by the feral roar of 73 Hilltoppers. Bloodlust permeates the room. And maybe even belief.

--- ESPN's Mark Schlabach asks 'what can't (Thomas) Brown do for the Georgia Bulldogs?'

More importantly, Brown wanted to graduate in 3½ years and spend the spring semester of his fourth year preparing for the NFL draft.

Brown is taking 21 semester hours of courses this fall -- three classes in speech communication, one in African literature and another in philosophy. He attends four classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and three more on Tuesday and Thursday.

"I've got a lot of goals," Brown said. "It would be sad to be here all this time and not walk away with a degree. I come from a very educated family. My mother and father are both very educated. My sister, as well. I thought it was very important for myself and my family to get my degree."

Throw in football practices four times a week and games on the weekends, and Brown faces an arduous 3½ months this fall. "He wants to graduate this semester, and he needs 21 hours to do it," Richt said. "A lot of people were telling him not to do it. But he thrives when people say he can't do it. Whether he makes it or not, I don't know. But his goal is to get ready for the NFL when the season's over, and to graduate in 3½ years. He's not going to prolong it."

Also: A regular feature - On and Off The Mark.

--- Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel returns with another Mailbag.  He'll be pleased to know that The Office's Jenna Fischer is now on the market ...

I am so tired of hearing SEC fans say that "the second-best Pac-10 team beat the fourth-best SEC team" when Cal beat Tennessee. Is that all they got?
--Joe, Sacramento

Joe, Joe, Joe. So blissfully naïve. If there's two things I've learned during my time on this beat, it's that the SEC is positively, indisputably the greatest conference in the history of mankind, and little things like logic, facts and common sense have no bearing whatsoever on this distinction.

Tennessee beats Cal last year? Yet another feather in the SEC's cap. Cal beats Tennessee this year? Completely irrelevant. USC beats Auburn 23-0 in 2003? That wasn't one of Auburn's better teams. Auburn goes 12-0 the next year and gets left out of the BCS title game? A crime against humanity, seeing as the Tigers obviously would have beaten the Trojans. Big East champion Louisville comes within an offsides call of edging SEC champ Florida out of last year's BCS title game? Exhibit A why the whole system needs to be blown up. The fact that Big East champion West Virginia beat SEC champion Georgia in the Sugar Bowl just a year earlier? Eh -- the Dawgs weren't up for that game.  Les Miles calls out USC's "soft" Pac-10 schedule? Well ... duh. But wouldn't that make SEC divisional champion Arkansas -- whom the Trojans beat 50-14 just a year earlier -- even softer? No, because Darren McFadden wasn't healthy, and he's obviously capable of producing 36 points on his own. Florida beating Ohio State like a rented mule in last year's title game? Indisputable confirmation that the Big Ten can't hold a candle to the SEC. The fact SEC teams lost their other two bowl games against Big Ten foes? Never happened.

So basically, Joe, I wouldn't waste your time with one of those futile debates. Just accept the SEC's eternal superiority for what it is and we can all go back to watching The Pick-Up Artist in peace.

Also: TCU looks to make statement against Texas (oops), LSU shows its more than a defensive juggernaut

--- Sports Illustrated's Arash Markazi finds UCLA's Ben Olson content with not having lived up to the hype (yet).

--- Sports Illustrated's Cory McCartney says Sam Keller is helping the West Coast Offense fly at Nebraska.

Hugging his left arm, the tight sleeve ran from the Nebraska quarterback's upper left arm and down to his wristband. It's an accessory with a purpose.

Make no mistake, Keller is proud of what lies underneath that sleeve: a mural of tattoos containing angels and crosses which he began as a tribute to a high school friend that died in a car crash. But upon his arrival in Lincoln he began wearing the arm cover, not to hide the tattoos, but as a show of humility.

"You don't want to be flashy, you don't want to draw attention to yourself," said Keller, a fifth-year senior who transferred from Arizona State. "I never want to do that, so I just wear the sleeve."

Also: McCartney's regular feature, The All-Out Blitz

--- CBS SportsLine's Dennis Dodd returns with a Notebook.

Also: Talkin' TCU and BCS (oops), Weekend watch list, Les (Miles) is more at LSU than Michigan, USF's upset signals new era of Big East viability and Sunday 7.

A moment passed almost imperceptibly Saturday. It is becoming increasingly likely that no mid-major will qualify for a BCS bowl. Boise, TCU and Southern Miss all lost big.

Hawaii is undefeated but looked shaky in an overtime victory at Louisiana Tech.

--- The Sporting News' Matt Hayes delivers his weekly round of Inside Dish.

Louisville defensive coordinator Mike Cassity might have gotten a little greedy with his unit, which has more speed in the front seven than it ever has. He added some complex schemes to confuse offenses and take advantage of the speed. Problem is, the changes only confused his own defense. So Louisville will simplify things this week against Kentucky, a week after Middle Tennessee looked like the Indianapolis Colts going up and down the field on the Cardinals. Changing the scheme in one week, though -- against a diverse and talented Kentucky offense -- may be too much for the unit to handle.

Also: Ten things to watch for in week two, Virginia Tech-LSU is the place to be, No team in the land looks as good as LSU, the heartbeat of the Hokies, LSU AD: We'll fight to keep Les Miles, Winners and losers.

--- The Sporting News' Tom Dienhart says Nick Saban's legend continues to grow at Alabama.

Also: Conference call, Ten on the spot in week two, 25 questions that cloud my mind, Ten things you should know about TCU, Week two awards, Video didn't kill these radio stars.

--- Yahoo! Sports' Terry Bowden analyzes the effect of college football's new kickoff rule.

Also: LSU on the rise and other notes.

As I left Tiger Stadium on Saturday night after broadcasting No. 2 LSU's 48-7 rout of No. 9 Virginia Tech for Westwood One Radio, I couldn't help but think back to my first two years as the head coach at Auburn. During the 1993-94 seasons, we won our first 20 games, and as people have reminded me ever since, there was only one way to go from there.

Well, it's only the second week of September, but LSU just played the game of a lifetime, beating the Hokies every way you can possibly beat a football team.

All I can think now is, "Where do they go from here?"

With the brunt of the season left to play, I just don't know if they can play any better than they did Saturday night. Then again, if they just keep playing like they did, they might not need to change a thing.

Not only did the Tigers hold Virginia Tech to 149 yards of total offense but they also racked up 598 yards themselves against the No.1 defense in college football over the past two years. The loss was Frank Beamer's worst in 21 years as the head man in Blacksburg.

--- CSTV's Brian Curtis takes a look at the week that was in college football and calls for Lloyd Carr's resignation.

--- CSTV's Trev Alberts answers his weekly Mailbag.  Inside: Tim Tebow's a quarterback, Virginia/Wyoming postmortem and Notre Dame's popularity.

--- CSTV's Adam Caparell says it's "show" time for Virginia Tech.

--- Find the latest from Rivals.com's Olin Buchanan, David Fox and Steve Megargee.

--- Sun Sports TV's Whit Watson welcomes USF into Florida's Big Four (formerly Big Three).  He called it.

Not only did USF beat Auburn, the Bulls did it on the road, at night, on national freaking television, in overtime. They preceded this win with a victory over West Virginia last year, and with a win over Louisville the year before. You're in. The Committee is mildly concerned about the fact that USF has never won its own conference title, but then The Committee realized that Miami has never won the ACC, either.

Also: A theory behind Florida State's woes.  Great stuff, as always.

--- USA Today's Kelly Whiteside finds LSU still sweating out the details from top-notch play.

--- The New York Times' Pete Thamel finds expectations changing overnight for LSU and South Florida.

Perhaps the most telling comment to come out of the game came from the Auburn junior wide receiver Robert Dunn.

“They are a great team,” Dunn said. “They grinded out the whole game and came at us with everything they had. They were a really fast team.”

--- The Dallas/Ft. Worth Star-Telegram's Wendell Barnhouse says there are new road hazards on USC's title path.

Also: College Football Insider, Changes take Associated Press poll from dumb to dumber, Sooner or later it could be Oklahoma's year and another College Football Insider

--- The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Tony Barnhart blogs away.

--- The Orlando Sentinel's Mike Bianchi finds Florida State fans lowering expectations and claiming moral victories among other news and notes. 

--- MSNBC.com's Michael Ventre says it's USC's turn to respond in rivalry with LSU. 

--- The Mobile Press-Register's Neal McCready says Georgia's Mark Richt lives up to his coaching ideals. 

--- The Mobile Press-Register's Paul Finebaum says Alabama and Auburn appear ripe for the picking.

Also: Nick Saban faces real test in SEC play.

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