In the Trenches: Shock? Anger? Range of emotions after one month
CBSSports.com's Dennis Dodd and J. Darin Darst provide analysis on weekly college football topics.
| Dennis Dodd | J. Darin Darst |
| Who are the biggest surprises? | |
 Revenge of the nerds: It's amazing that Vanderbilt, Duke and Northwestern have combined for one loss while Florida, Georgia and USC have combined for three. Before this year, the most famous Commodores were playing Brick House. Now Vanderbilt's Commodores are leading the SEC East. Bobby Johnson's offense is ranked 112th, and his defense is 73rd. The difference is turnover margin, where the Commodores are a brick house (first nationally), having grabbed 10 interceptions. Wonder if Tennessee is wishing David Cutcliffe hadn't left for Duke? Cut inherited a starting quarterback, Thaddeus Lewis, and an administration that is finally realizing that football doesn't have to be an embarrassment. Northwestern is the least surprising of the three. The Wildcats have been here before under Gary Barnett, although the 5-0 start is Northwestern's first in 46 years. In a depressed Big Ten, why can't coach Pat Fitzgerald lead the Wildcats to a Jan. 1 bowl? ... Alabama might be the ultimate surprise. Judging from Saturday, the Tide have -- at the least -- arrived a year early under Nick Saban. At best, they can legitimately win the SEC. College football is better when teams like 'Bama are humming along. The same rules still apply as they did in Bear's day: Run the football and be strong in both lines. That Saban has been able to do it in his second season in T-Town is amazing. |  My No. 1 surprise is Alabama. We all knew Nick Saban was going to transform this team into a powerhouse sooner or later -- we just didn't know it would be this year. Here is a team I slated for the Chick-fil-A Bowl and slotted as fifth-best finish in the SEC behind Florida, Georgia, LSU and Auburn. Boy was I wrong. John Parker Wilson had been nothing more than an average quarterback until now. The two previous seasons he had 35 touchdowns with 22 interceptions, but this year has just one INT in six games. A lot of that success has to do with Wilson's maturity, but Saban has also found himself a fantastic receiver in Julio Jones, a solid running game and offensive and defensive lines that are among the best in the nation. ... Boise State has surprised me once again. My e-mail box was flooded after I picked Fresno State to win the WAC, with the Broncos falling behind Nevada in the conference, but Chris Petersen has done it again. QB Kellen Moore is one of the best freshmen in the nation and Boise has a strong secondary, led by Jeron Johnson and Ellis Powers. The schedule once again sets itself up for an undefeated season. ... Other teams worth mentioning are Northwestern and Minnesota. I expected both to be near the bottom of the Big Ten at this point, but here they are fighting for the conference title. |
| Who are the biggest disappointments? | |
 Clemson. Forget about winning the ACC, is it too much to ask to beat Maryland at home? There is too much talent on this team for it to be 3-2. Tommy Bowden has a $4 million buyout, so don't expect change anytime soon. ... The ACC as a whole has been a disappointment. One of only two major conferences without an undefeated team, the league continues to underachieve. Early losses have downgraded the relevance of the Oct. 9 Clemson-Wake Forest game. ... One ACC coach on the hot seat who is sure to go: Al Groh of Virginia. The Cavs are butt ugly. ... Rutgers was as solid a program as there was in the country. Or so we thought. The Scarlet Knights spent millions on facilities upgrades, then lost by a combined 49 points at home to Fresno State and North Carolina. Quarterback Mike Teel smacked a teammate on the sideline. You wonder which way Rutgers is headed the rest of the season. ... South Carolina will always be South Carolina, chasing mid-level bowl games. Steve Spurrier no doubt has realized that. Now it's a question if his struggles in Columbia will tarnish his sterling legacy. ... Houston scored 41 points at East Carolina. West Virginia scored three. That's all you need to know about the regime of Bill Stewart. A heck of a nice guy, Stewart has taken a national championship contender and turned it into a fine Sun Bowl participant. |  West Virginia. Now I know why Steve Slaton bolted to the NFL: He knew the Mountaineers would be in for a rough season. This team was not supposed to miss a beat with new head coach Bill Stewart. Pat White was coming back, Noel Devine was going to be every bit as good as Slaton, and a strong offensive line and easy schedule were in place. We all bought into it. The Mountaineers were preseason top 10s and I assumed they would coast to another Big East title. Well, their offense ranks 67th in the nation in yards and 83rd in points. With their talent, they should be scoring 40 points a game, not putting up 14 against Colorado and 27 on Marshall. ... Arizona State is also high on my list. Here is a squad I expected to compete for the Pac-10 title and a possible BCS bowl bid. It got manhandled against Georgia and lost to UNLV and now, at 2-2, finds itself fighting to get back in line for a Holiday Bowl bid. This team could be 2-6 after the next four games -- at California, at USC, Oregon and at Oregon State. Not the season that was expected in Tempe. ... Clemson has, of course, been a disappointment again. All kinds of talent, preseason top 10 and again it finds itself heading for an 8-4 season. But is it really a disappointment if it happens every year? |
| Which games in October are you looking forward to the most? | |
 Oklahoma-Texas on Oct. 11 in Dallas looks like Armageddon Again. Oklahoma is No. 1 and No. 5 Texas is underrated, if that's possible. The winner probably wins the Big 12 South and will stay/might move up to No. 1. This might be Bob Stoops' best team since 2004. Mack Brown has turned Colt McCoy into the new Tim Tebow. ... BYU at TCU, Oct. 16: The first of three tough Mountain West road games for the Cougars, who are chasing a BCS bowl. TCU already has a blemish (at Oklahoma) but is more than capable of making a run at 11-1. ... Missouri at Texas, Oct. 18: Texas is 100th in pass defense. Missouri is second in passing. Not a good combination for the 'Horns. But when you throw in the intimidation of Texas Memorial Stadium and the 'Horns (probably) stinging from an Oklahoma loss, this is the Tigers' biggest challenge in their quest for a Big 12 title and national championship. ... Penn State at Ohio State, Oct. 25: Joe Paterno began the season mad. Now he's a mad genius directing the Spread HD. With Terrelle Pryor now leading the Buckeyes, this could be a matchup of the Big Ten's best two QBs. A Rose Bowl berth, at least, could be at stake. |  Definitely Oklahoma vs. Texas on Oct. 11. As long as neither team loses before then, this could end up being one of the biggest games of the season. Oklahoma can get one step closer to the BCS title game with another victory over the Longhorns. ... Penn State at Ohio State on Oct. 25 looks like the Big Ten title game to me. (Sorry, Wisconsin, it's not going to happen this year). The winner goes to the Rose Bowl, the loser can still sneak into the Fiesta or Orange. Terrelle Pryor might steal the headlines, but Daryll Clark is very good. ... LSU at Florida (Oct. 11) has lost its luster a little bit now that the Gators lost, but I love watching those SEC night games. And this is a game that can either boost LSU into the title race or make the SEC that much tighter. Same goes for Georgia at LSU on Oct. 25. .... One game that might turn out to be huge is South Florida at Cincinnati on Oct. 30. This just might be for the Big East title depending on how the next four weeks shape up, and who doesn't love a little Thursday night action before Halloween? |
| What has angered you the most about college football this season? | |
 Night games. This is a bit selfish since the majority of games are played in the day, but it seems that every single big game is played in prime time. Great for TV ratings, bad for the rest of us. I'm going to a game this week (Missouri-Nebraska) that will start at 9 p.m. ET. That gives fans an all-day opportunity to get fueled up. I was stuck in traffic Saturday night because Georgia state troopers had set up a sobriety check point. (I was clean, believe me). Teams are getting back from road games at 4 and 5 a.m. And don't forget: Baseball lost its magic, and fans, in the early '70s when it went to night World Series games. ... Clock rules: I was somewhat supportive when the new timing rules debuted. Not anymore. Games are only slightly shorter, and they're also worse. Ask Urban Meyer. Watching the clock continue to run shortly after out-of-bounds plays is un-American. The game is virtually over for any team on defense trailing with less than three minutes left and out of timeouts. At least the NFL has a two-minute warning. ... Harris poll: I never want to hear anyone complain about the rigidity of the polls. The Harris voters had a chance to start over Sunday. After a rash upsets, they selected not only the same No. 1 as the Associated Press and coaches, but the same top six teams. |  It's the same problem every year -- preseason polls. I don't see how this sport can take itself seriously when we allow sportswriters and coaches to predict which teams they think will be good for the upcoming season. Every year a handful of teams that everybody thinks will be good flames out. And that's fine because bad teams fall out of the Top 25 and nobody cares, but what about all the good teams we missed at the start of the season? Boise State was nowhere near the preseason Top 25 and now they're 3-0, including a nice victory over Oregon. Maybe if all the sportswriters and coaches thought Boise State would be good in August, it could have been preseason No. 15 and would be sitting around No. 7 or 8 right now. But because we use opinions to decide which teams play for the national title, we are stuck with a mythical champion every year. Meanwhile, Ohio State is ranked ahead of Boise State in every poll, only because writers and coaches determined they would be better at the start of the season. What if Ohio State was preseason No. 20 and lost 35-3 to USC? They wouldn't even be in the Top 25 right now. And the worst thing for Boise State: It could end up undefeated and not make a BCS bowl because it wasn't ranked high enough in the preseason. What a joke. |
