Larry Burton (Syndicated Writer) Alabama may have taken the weekend off, but they continued their climb back up the polls none the less. With Missouri and Michigan State both losing, Alabama is sure to move up at least two notches to number five. As the upsets continued, only Auburn was able to beat the recent trend of the number one team falling. The Tigers dominated an undermanned Ole Miss squad and continued their juggernaut offensive style ...

Greg Robinson’s future as Michigan’s defensive coordinator is rather bleak. Many believe he won’t be back in 2011. The reason, of course, is that his defense is the team’s worst in more than 40 years. They’ve allowed 30 points per game, and looked horrible doing it.  Actually, the problems began last year when Robinson was brought in to shore up the group that Scott Shafer ran in 2007. It was determined that widespread communication problems ...

Iowa was up 23-0 with 2:41 remaining in the second quarter. They had just gotten the ball back at their own 30-yard line. This would be a typical ultra-conservative Kirk Ferentz end of the half, right? He would sit on the ball, and go into the half with an impressive and somewhat comfortable 23-0 lead. Maybe, if Iowa busted a big run that got them over the 50-yard line, they might try to get into field goal ...

Considering the current state of affairs in big time college football, it is apparent that some of the old team nicknames need to be replaced.  I’ve come up with a list of 25 teams.  Feel free to add to it:   1. The Texas Bovines = No self-respecting Longhorn would want to be associated with this Texas team but a bovine is just a cow.  Weasels was my second choice. 2. The Auburn Camels = After Cam Newton, they ...

Tyler Stimson votes in the ESPN-U NCAA College Football Top 25 poll. This is his individual ballot, not a prediction of what the top 25 will be in the AP or Coaches poll. 1. Boise State (7-0) Beat Louisiana Tech 49-20 at home on national TV Tuesday. It didn't seem like a dominant performance for the Broncos, but they still won by 29 points. Everything seems to be pointing towards another undefeated season for Boise, and right now, the ...

Ramblin' Roy got the ball. Then he was gone. What?  Where the heck did "Ramblin' Roy" come from?  I have no idea, I think I just made it up, but that's not the point. Senior Nebraska running back Roy Helu Jr. got a rare 28-carry game (he had 12 carries or less in each of the Huskers' previous six games), and turned it into a 307 yard, 3 touchdown performance, a breathtaking display of Helu's explosiveness when he is ...

The stage was set up for an ugly performance Saturday afternoon at Sun Devil Stadium. Arizona State University came off of a 50-17 loss seven days earlier in Berkeley. ASU’s opponent, the Washington State Cougars, circled this contest as their one shot at a Pac-10 conference victory.  The game was ugly if you are a Cougars fan, but from an ASU perspective, the performance on Homecoming was beautiful. A 42-0 rout was the response Dennis Erickson’s Sun Devils ...

This weekend, the college football world seemed to settle down a bit after three weeks of pure turbulence. The top three ranked teams in the nation (Auburn, Oregon and Boise State) rolled to statement victories, cementing their place at the top of the college football world. But even though each remains undefeated, are their resumes really all that impressive?Tonight, the BCS weekly rankings will be announced live and for the first time all season, we’ll ...

The BCS rankings for their third week may not come as tough as the last two weeks. There weren't the upsets we had gotten used to seeing over the last three weeks and, wouldn't you know it, the No. 1 overall team didn't fall.Actually, neither the computer's No. 1 team, nor the humans' No. 1 pick fell.But, there were a few teams that fell to teams that they normally wouldn't fall to in the past, ...

The Pac-10 boasts two of the most prominent talents in the nation with Andrew Luck of Stanford, and Jake Locker of Washington.  Both are fleet-footed, intelligent in scanning receivers and dynamic in crucial conversions. Throw out the fact that Andrew Luck just laid down the law on Washington earlier this evening.  In a comparison between quarterbacks, it's unfair to judge who played better simply because of how much more dominant Stanford's defense has been in relation ...