Week Three Poll: Why Buffalo Matters

The new poll has been released for Collegefootballtopten.com. With the loss of Louisville, which I suspected might happened (see my last post and look under "trap games"), I had to include a new team in the top ten. The two finalists were Penn State and Rutgers, neither of which were on my radar in the beginning. However, those two teams have a common opponent. Both played the University of Buffalo. Penn State played them this week and won fairly handily, but Buffalo's offense clicked in the second half making it a little closer than they would've liked (45-24). In Buffalo's first game they played at Rutgers. Rutgers beat them by 35 points (38-3). I know it's the first game of the season and teams improve by their third game and Buffalo was better by the time they played Penn State, but wouldn't the same be true about Rutgers? Rutgers seems to have a solid and improving defense, and the offense seems to be getting more explosive with each game. Therefore, by virtue of Buffalo, Rutgers gets the 10th spot.

Texas drops in the poll after they struggled with UCF. Ohio State looked impressive at Washington and is showing why Jim Tressel is the best coach in the Big Ten. The Buckeyes are now ahead of Wisconsin after their lousy showing against the Citadel. Cal faired better against LA Tech than Hawaii did earlier this year. The top five is basically everybody's top five. I am waiting to see Oklahoma play against a team with substance to see how good they are. This week they are at Tulsa where the defense should get it's best challenge to date. Tulsa runs a wide open spread attack directed by former Razorback Offensive Coordinator Gus Malzahn. I am extremely interested in how Spurrier's South Carolina team lines up against LSU. LSU set several starters and still thumped Middle Tennessee Saturday. Do you remember them? The almost beat Louisville. West Virginia keeps winning, but is their defense BCS worthy? Finally, USC looked December good against Nebraska. They seem to have an improved running game, and that will only help QB John David Booty's success. Their defense was "lights out" against the run forcing Nebraska to pass on almost every play. Nebraska QB Sam Keller played well, but didn't have enough weapons to play from behind. The Cornhuskers were still playing to win when they couldn't showing an incredible amount of resilience and refusing to quit. That may be the kind of character that gives Nebraska the Big Twelve North Title and challenge for the conference championship in December.