Week 5 Story Lines From Around the Country

We're at the point in the season where it's a few weeks in but the top SEC teams haven't played each other yet. Because several other conferences look like warmed over dog puke (hey there, Big Ten!), it means that this league's teams have floated to the top. Five of the top ten teams (1 Alabama, 4 LSU, 5 Georgia, 6 South Carolina, 10 Florida) of the AP Poll are from the SEC, and Mississippi State clocks in at No. 20.

But enough about us. Let's talk about them.

The ACC had a rough time out of the league.

Miami played and won another shootout (over NC State this time), and Clemson held serve over BC. That's the good news. The bad news? Well, Florida State needed B.J. Daniels pulling a decent Reggie Ball impression (throw away on fourth down and all) to beat USF. And if that's not bad enough, Virginia Tech lost to Cincinnati on a last-second heave that connected for a touchdown. And if that's not bad enough, Virginia got outgunned 44-38 by Louisiana Tech. And if that's not bad enough, Georgia Tech got manhandled by Middle Tennessee (yes, that Middle Tennessee) 49-28. Oh, and Wake Forest lost to Duke, for whatever that's worth. This is a weekend that our little brother would probably love to forget.

The Big Ten kind of stabilized.

For the first time this year, I can't say that the Big Ten had an awful weekend. The two postseason ineligible teams did pick up wins, with Penn State hammering Illinois and Ohio State sneaking past Michigan State, so it wasn't all great. In fact, OSU looks well on its way to the Terry Bowden Special of finishing undefeated while under a bowl ban. But anyway, Iowa bounced back from its loss to CMU by beating Minnesota, Northwestern took care of business against Indiana, Purdue held off Marshall, and Nebraska came back to beat Wisconsin. It's not a stellar list of results, but it was not putrid for once.

The Big 12 was a tale of two halves.

There were only four games involving Big 12 teams this week. Two were wild shootouts, and two were low scoring defensive battles. As you've probably seen, West Virginia and Baylor left their defenses at home for a 70-63 Mountaineers win in regulation. Yeah, no overtimes there. Texas also was able to weather Oklahoma State's onslaught and win 41-36. On the other end of the spectrum, TCU struggled past SMU 24-16. That is the same SMU that Texas A&M beat 48-3. Also, Texas Tech is being remade in Tommy Tuberville's image finally as the Red Raiders beat Iowa State 24-13. It was a routine weekend there; not outstanding nor embarrassing.

The Pac-12 pecking order is taking shape.

It's not all entirely set out west, with Washington beating Stanford on Thursday night. However aside from that, the teams that were supposed to win did. Oregon blasted Washington State as expected. UCLA blew away Colorado as it should have. Ranked Oregon State edged unranked Arizona. Now 2-0 Arizona State beat now 0-2 Cal. It all went according to the script yesterday with only the upset a few days ago shaking things up.

The potential BCS busters are all out of order.

Boise State is back in the Coaches' Poll despite not having a single decent win to date. Ohio has the best win (Penn State) among the undefeated non-AQ teams, but it received the fewest number of votes of any of them. Louisiana Tech began to get some attention with its back-to-back wins over Illinois and Virginia, so it landed right in the middle of the other two. LA Tech will have its best chance of getting some national credibility by taking out Texas A&M in their hurricane-postponed game in a couple of weeks.