Now the third shoe has dropped. And the fourth. And the fifth and the sixth. Which only begs the question – how many feet does this centipede have?

The big news of the weekend was of course that Louisville lost, opening the door for others (Florida, USC, Rutgers) to enter or re-enter the discussion for the national championship. But with so many other upsets over the weekend, the championship picture is more convoluted than it has been at any other point in the season. The only sure thing is: this weekend’s game between undefeated Big-10 powerhouses Michigan and Ohio St is essentially a national semi-final game, although there remains the possibility that this game could be rematched for the national championship as well. Now the weekend recap:

Upset of the Week: This list is replete with honorable mentions. A lot of pundits are touting the Rutgers win over Louisville as one such upset, but I did not think that Louisville was significantly better than Rutgers to begin with, and the Scarlett Knights had that game at home. I must at least make passing mention of Stanford’s first win of the year, a 20-3 victory over the injury-riddled Washington Huskies (the Huskies peaked a few week’s ago at #24, but now have fallen all the way back to #73). Arizona’s 24-20 win over Cal was certainly an upset, but if you will recall I did mention this as a potential trap game for Cal in last week’s update, and the Bears’ loss did not derail their hopes for a Pac-10 title. Georgia had underachieved for most of the year but scored 23 points in the second quarter in a 37-15 win at Auburn, dealing the Tigers their second big home loss of the season. But the biggest upset of the week was in Manhattan, Kansas, where Kansas St held on to beat Texas 45-42, ending the Longhorns’ hopes of defending their national title of a year ago.

Comeback of the Week: In a week replete with upsets, it was the team that managed to avoid upset that garners this award. Florida had to battle tooth-and-nail against South Carolina, overcoming a 16-10 4^th-quarter deficit and blocking 2 field goals and an extra point to prevail 17-16. A lot of pollsters are bemoaning Florida’s close games this year and have punished them in the rankings as a result, allowing USC to pass the Gators in the BCS standing this week. I disagree with that reasoning – good teams know how to win close games as well as blowouts, so the fact that many of Florida’s wins this year haven’t been pretty doesn’t hurt them in my eyes. Remember that that same argument was made against USC early this year, but that indictment was seemingly forgotten in the wake of the Trojans’ 35-10 victory over Oregon. Human voters have short memories; often too short.

Yawner of the Week: Penn St over Temple, 47-0. Ouch. And the strength of schedule hit that the Nittany Lions took by playing this game allowed them only to move up two spots (#32 to #30) with this win.

Game of the Week: The game that starts all the controversy, and will keep it going unless West Virgina beats Rutgers in a couple of weeks: Rutgers’ 28-25 win over Louisville. The Scarlett Knights made brilliant second-half adjustments and their defense shut down the Cardinals en route to taking sole possession of first place in the Big East for the time being. The little oddity about this game was that, with the score tied at 25 in the final minutes, Rutgers’ usually reliable place kicker (Ito) missed a 31-yard field goal that would have put the Knights in the lead. But a Louisville defensive end was offside on the play, and so Ito got a mulligan. Ito nailed his re-try, dashing the Cardinals’ run for a national title and putting the Scarlett Knights into the discussion – do they deserve to challenge the Ohio St – Michigan winner for the national title if they win out? The computers (including mine) say they do…

Other interesting tidbits: Last Saturday’s USC-Oregon game featured the first replay review of a replay review. Down 28-3 at the time, Oregon appeared to score a touchdown on a pass play. During a lengthy review initiated by the press box official, it was determined that the receiver had stepped out of bounds prior to catching the pass and was therefore and ineligible receiver. Mike Bellotti, the Oregon head coach, used his coach’s challenge to challenge the overturned ruling, and in the re-review, it was determined that the ball was tipped on its way to the end zone, and as such the receiver was eligible after all. The entire review took 17 minutes and did not really affect the outcome of the game (USC won, 35-10), but it was one of those little fascinating oddities from the world of sports officiating.

Conference championship updates:

One of the good things about the BCS is that, since only a few teams each year are in the running for a national title, the emphasis for most teams across the country is on conference titles instead, a condition that preserves a lot of the tradition of college football. In deference to that, here is a brief rundown on the races for conference titles going on around the country.

Sun Belt Conference: Rarely do you see a team from this conference win a non-conference game, but within their own little circle there is a lot of local pride. That pride this year is localized between Middle Tennessee St (6-0 SBC, 7-3 overall, #38) and Troy (4-0 SBC, 5-4 overall, #67). These two teams will meet in what will likely be in effect a conference title game on November 25.

Conference USA: Tulsa was looking strong for a while, but two straight losses have allowed Houston to come in and claim the West division title. East Carolina is in the driver’s seat in the East division, needing only a victory over Rice this weekend to earn a trip to play Houston in the conference title game.

Mid American Conference: The Central Michigan Chippewas clinched a trip to the MAC championship game with their 31-7 victory over Western Michigan last week. Their likely opponent will be Ohio, which needs to win only one of its two remaining games against Akron and Kent St to win their division.

Mountain West Conference: BYU is back as a team on the national radar – undefeated in conference and ranked in the top-25. They only need beat one of their two remaining opponents (New Mexico or Utah) to win the conference title outright, but obviously their goal is a conference sweep.

Atlantic Coast Conference: The ugliest word in the NFL is also an ugly word in college football: Parity. The traditional powerhouses of the conference (Miami, Florida St, Virginia Tech) are mediocre this year, and the most talented teams in the conference (Clemson, Boston College, Maryland) have been unable to take care of business week-in and week-out. Add to that two dismal teams that are only in the conference for basketball revenue (Duke, North Carolina) and you have a conference that has passed the Big East for the dubious title of worst BCS conference. Georgia Tech will represent one division in the conference championship in Tallahassee. Boston College needs to beat Maryland and have Maryland beat Wake Forest in order to have a shot at the title game – if Maryland beats Boston College then the winner of the Maryland – Wake Forest game will travel to Tallahassee to take on the Yellow Jackets.

Big-12 conference: With its mild upset of Texas A&M last week, Nebraska clinched a trip to the Big-12 championship game. A Texas win over Texas A&M or a loss by Oklahoma in one of their final two games (against Baylor and Oklahoma St) will put the Longhorns in the conference championship as well, otherwise that bid will go to the Sooners.

Western Athletic Conference: Boise St has not missed a beat since the departure of Dan Hawkins as head coach (Hawkins, if you recall, is now at the helm of the 2-9 Colorado Buffaloes). The Broncos are 10-0, a record that includes wins over the same Oregon St team that beat USC and resurgent conference foes Hawaii and San Jose St. Boise needs to win one of its two remaining games against Utah St and Nevada to clinch another conference title.

Pacific-10 conference: I’ve often thought how fun it would be to have a Big Game between Cal and Stanford be a winner-take-all game for the Pac-10 title and a trip to the Rose Bowl. This year comes close, as that situation will exist this weekend between Cal and USC. Go Bears!

Southeastern Conference: SEC fans always bemoan the fact that their conference is so good from top to bottom that it is impossible for any team to finish undefeated, and therefore top teams from the SEC get passed over in the national championship discussion in favor of undefeated teams in weaker conferences. Generally I disagree with that kind of belly-aching, but this year it may truer than most years. Florida will play (likely) Arkansas in the conference championship game, but it is not clear that either team is the “best” team in the conference. The computers like Florida because they have the best record against the toughest schedule in the conference (only North Carolina has played a tougher schedule to date), but the humans don’t favor Arkansas because most of the Gators’ wins have been nailbiters. Nevertheless, a conference championship game will favor the eventual SEC champ far more than it will the Big-12 or ACC champ.

Big East Conference: Rutgers controls its own destiny – if it can win out it will be the undisputed champion of the Big East. If they lose (and in particular if they lose at West Virginia), all bets are off as the Big East’s convoluted tiebreaker system may end up awarding the automatic BCS bid to the team highest in the BCS rankings. If this issue comes up, West Virginia would be the likely conference champion.

Big-10 Conference: No college football regular season game has ever been bigger than the one that will decide the Big-10 conference champion. Two storied rivals, both 11-0, occupying the top two spots in all relevant polls (note that I don’t include my ratings as relevant!), and the winner gets a bid to the national championship game. Sadly, I will be on a plane on Saturday and will miss both this game and the Cal-USC game. Lucy, can I prevail on your TiVo? J

As I present the ratings, the obvious question being asked is why is Ohio St continuing to drop? The answer simply is that they did not play Wisconsin this year. The Badgers are 10-1, their only loss coming at the hands of Michigan. Had the Buckeyes also had the chance to beat that quality team, they would very likely be ahead of Rutgers and Florida right now. And now, the ratings:

Rank	Team		Wins	Losses	Value	STR	Last Week	AP
1	Michigan		11	0	7.194	19	1	2
2	Rutgers		9	0	6.516	48	6	7
3	Florida		9	1	6.437	2	4	3
4	Ohio St		11	0	6.313	55	3	1
5	Louisville		8	1	6.118	7	2	10
6	USC		8	1	6.045	5	9	4
7	Notre Dame		9	1	5.915	16	8	6
8	Boise St		10	0	5.578	93	11	13
9	West Virginia		8	1	5.011	52	13	8
10	Arkansas		9	1	4.898	64	14	5
11	Wisconsin		10	1	4.869	71	15	12
12	Auburn		9	2	4.632	24	5	15
13	LSU		8	2	4.570	14	16	9
14	Texas		9	2	4.539	26	10	11
15	Georgia Tech		8	2	4.239	36	17	18
16	Oklahoma		8	2	4.229	34	18	16
17	California		8	2	4.131	35	7	17
18	Maryland		8	2	3.894	53	20	21
19	Boston Coll		8	2	3.855	49	19	20
20	Wake Forest		9	1	3.839	108	22	14
21	Tennessee		7	3	3.815	4	12	22
22	Virginia Tech		8	2	3.575	68	23	19
23	Nebraska		8	3	3.526	21	28	24
24	Clemson		8	3	3.282	40	26	25
25	BYU		8	2	3.224	83	29	23
26	Missouri		7	3	2.805	41
27	Texas A&M		8	3	2.801	57	21	30
28	Oregon		7	3	2.739	45	24	27
29	TCU		7	2	2.467	103		29
30	Penn St		7	4	2.379	23
31	Cent Michigan		7	3	2.320	69
32	Tulsa		7	3	2.311	65
33	Hawaii		8	2	2.302	116		26
34	Houston		8	3	2.264	81
35	Oregon St		6	4	2.155	13	25
36	Navy		7	3	2.062	87
37	Kentucky		6	4	1.939	22
38	Middle Tenn St		7	3	1.860	95
39	Oklahoma St		6	4	1.677	33
40	Kansas St		7	4	1.639	62		28
41	Ohio		7	3	1.632	101
42	Georgia		7	4	1.498	72		31
43	Washington St		6	5	1.488	12
44	South Florida		7	3	1.444	110
45	Arizona St		6	4	1.381	56
46	Southern Miss		6	4	1.176	63
47	Purdue		7	4	1.140	91
48	W Michigan		7	3	1.014	119
49	Nevada		7	3	0.982	118
50	East Carolina		6	4	0.940	78
51	Arizona		5	5	0.786	20
52	UCLA		5	5	0.785	15
53	Cincinnati		5	5	0.769	18
54	South Carolina		5	5	0.752	17
55	Pittsburgh		6	4	0.720	90
56	Texas Tech		6	5	0.683	51
57	Iowa		6	5	0.670	47
58	San Jose St		6	3	0.527	120
59	Alabama		6	5	0.518	61
60	Florida St		5	5	0.465	30
61	Connecticut		4	5	0.316	8
62	Utah		6	4	0.310	109
63	Minnesota		5	6	0.279	9
64	Rice		5	5	-0.006	59
65	Miami FL		5	5	-0.077	70
66	Indiana		5	6	-0.155	25
67	Troy		5	4	-0.166	104
68	Air Force		4	5	-0.321	37
69	UTEP		5	5	-0.536	94
70	Wyoming		5	6	-0.664	67
71	Kansas		5	5	-0.683	100
72	SMU		5	5	-0.782	105
73	Washington		4	7	-0.861	11
74	New Mexico		5	5	-0.863	106
75	LA Lafayette		4	5	-0.907	80
76	Akron		5	5	-0.920	111
77	Northern Illinois		5	5	-0.962	113
78	Arkansas St		5	5	-1.109	115
79	Kent St		5	5	-1.151	117
80	Virginia		4	6	-1.285	66
81	Michigan St		4	7	-1.297	27
82	Baylor		4	7	-1.481	54
83	NC St		3	7	-1.493	6
84	Idaho		4	6	-1.531	82
85	Vanderbilt		4	7	-1.545	50
86	Bowling Green		4	6	-1.639	88
87	Marshall		4	6	-1.766	97
88	Toledo		4	6	-1.930	107
89	Syracuse		3	7	-1.978	28
90	Mississippi St		3	7	-2.031	31
91	Mississippi		3	7	-2.037	29
92	Colorado St		4	6	-2.090	114
93	Tulane		3	7	-2.149	43
94	Louisiana Tech		3	7	-2.181	39
95	UCF		3	7	-2.412	60
96	Florida Atlantic		3	7	-2.518	73
97	Northwestern		3	8	-2.536	32
98	North Texas		3	7	-2.540	74
99	UAB		3	7	-2.572	84
100	Army		3	7	-2.741	92
101	Iowa St		3	8	-2.947	76
102	Ball St		3	7	-3.036	98
103	Fresno St		2	7	-3.094	42
104	Illinois		2	9	-3.336	10
105	San Diego St		2	7	-3.533	77
106	LA Monroe		2	7	-3.903	102
107	Colorado		2	9	-3.904	75
108	New Mexico St		2	8	-3.974	89
109	Buffalo		2	8	-4.065	96
110	North Carolina		1	9	-4.100	1
111	Stanford		1	9	-4.132	3
112	Utah St		1	9	-4.682	38
113	Temple		1	10	-4.869	44
114	Others-Normal		0.92055	9.2055	-5.013	58
115	East Michigan		1	9	-5.056	86
116	UNLV		1	9	-5.127	85
117	Memphis		1	9	-5.293	99
118	Miami OH		1	9	-5.378	112
119	Duke		0	10	-6.140	46
120	Florida Intl		0	9	-6.333	79

Most overrated team: Wake Forest (9-1, AP#14, Hack#20). Much as I like to root for underdogs, the fact remains that the Demon Deacons have played the 13^th easiest schedule in the nation thus far. With games remaining against two ranked teams (Virginia Tech and Maryland) plus a possible ACC championship game they have plenty of opportunity to improve their standing. But so far they have only beaten one ranked team this year: Boston College.

Most underrated team: Rutgers (9-0, AP#6, Hack#2). West Virginia was #3 in the BCS before it lost. Louisville was #3 in the BCS be it lost. The only reason that Rutgers isn’t #3 in the BCS is that none of the human pollsters believed that they could get there. I still pick the Scarlett Knights to lose to West Virginia, but if they run the table it would be a shame for them to be left out of the national championship picture.

Interesting games next week:

(50) East Carolina vs. (64) Rice [ECU can clinch division title]

(76) Akron vs. (41) Ohio [Ohio can clinch division title]

(74) New Mexico vs. (25) BYU [BYU can clinch conference title]

(18) Maryland vs. (19) Boston College [must-win game for BC to stay in title hunt]

(22) Virginia Tech vs. (20) Wake Forest [Wake tries to continue its improbable run]

(27) Texas A&M vs. (14) Texas [Texas can clinch division title]

(112) Utah St vs. (8) Boise St [Boise can clinch conference title]

(17) Cal vs. (6) USC [de facto Pac-10 championship game]

(10) Arkansas vs. (90) Mississippi St [Arkansas can clinch division title]

(1) Michigan vs. (4) Ohio St [de facto Big-10 championship game and BCS semifinal game]