Turning Back the Clocks
Posted November 2, 2008, 8:23 PM ET

Don't look now, but Alabama is the number one ranked team in college football....and Joe Pa's boys from Penn State are #2. Ol' Bear Bryant is looking down on us with a great big grin.

What's going on here? I know we turned the clocks back this weekend, but did we turn them back to the 70's or 80's, when both programs were consistently ranked near the top?

Thanks to a remarkable finish to the Texas - Texas Tech game, there is a new #1 in college football. Bama becomes the fifth team to try its hand on being the best in the land. How long will it last? We'll find out this weekend, when they travel down to Tiger Stadium and play LSU. To say that the Cajuns are excited about Nick Saban's return would be an understatement. The last time Bama played a game as the #1 ranked team was October of 1980.

The first day of November saw Mack Brown's guys get knocked from the #1 slot, and I have a funny feeling that it is the start of what should be a wild month of football. Does anybody think Texas Tech is going to remain unbeaten with games against decent OK State and a trip to Norman to play the Sooners? You can see everybody jockey for position as we come down the stretch. The BCS rankings are going to be insane.

Penn State and Southern Cal should actually have the easiest paths to stay in the win column for the remainder of the college football regular season. The Big Ten is so weak, that PSU should coast and USC is the dominant team out West. Plus, both conferences take off when it comes to a conference championship game. That's a huge advantage for both teams...but the object is to get into position of being either #1 or #2 in the BCS.

The team that is playing better than anybody else in the land are the Gators from Florida. They absolutely destroyed their rivals from Athens. After all the talk of Mark Richt's decision to have his Dawgs dance in the end zone last year, it was Urban Meyer's boys that were walking the dog in Jacksonville. The 49-10 blowout win catapulted the Gators right back into the national title discussion. If Florida wins out (including a win over Bama in ATL), I'd be hard-pressed to believe they aren't one of the top two teams in the country.

All this talk and there's no playoff in sight. Between the SEC and Big XII powers, Southern Cal and Penn State...can you imagine how much fun an 8 or 16-team playoff would be this year?

Away from the title hunt, there are other interesting stories floating around after this past weekend's games:

Did you see Appalachian State's performance on Halloween night? The Mountaineers were impressive, lighting up the Kidd Brewer scoreboard for 70 points against a really good Wofford team. Even though I wasn't thrilled that the game was played on a Friday night, ASU was awesome in their destruction of their SoCon rival.

Notre Dame lost to Pitt. I didn't realize this until I read on ESPN.com that ND is 0-9 vs. quality teams since their 2006 win over Penn State. Man, that Charlie Weis has the Irish rolling....up next is a trip to play Boston College. BC is fresh off a home loss to Clemson, enabling Dabo Swinney to enjoy his first win as the Tigers' interim head coach. Good luck, Crewcut...you're already 0-1 vs. the ACC this season.

How bad is Auburn?

How bad is Tennessee?

I expected Auburn to win the SEC West...right now, they will be hard-pressed to qualify for a bowl game. It is going to be fascinating, to see what happens to Tommy Tuberville. His buyout is in the 6-million dollar range, and I think he's a terrific coach who is having one of those years you'd simply like to forget.

Tennessee is just flat-out bad. South Carolina absolutely played with the Big Orange like a cat messing with a ball of yawn. Eventually the Cocks put Fulmer's boys out of their misery. The methodical 27-6 drubbing was not lost on Spurrier and the fired up Gamecock crowd. It was funny listening to the USC broadcast on our return from Charleston on the Southern Fried Football™ Tour; Todd Ellis mentioned the turning point of both programs, which is indeed true. The problem is that beating Tennessee used to mean something...now it's just beating up on the worst team in the SEC East. Unfortunately for USC, beating the Vols isn't tough...beating Vandy has been a problem.

Can anybody figure out the ACC? There are no elite teams, and the league is loaded with at least a half dozen programs that would rank anywhere from #20 - #40 in the country. If you look at the polls, the Tar Heels are the highest ranked team from the ACC. They have a big one this weekend when Georgia Tech comes to town.

The game is scheduled for a noon kick-off. The last time UNC played it was a noon kick-off against BC. The weather was misty and Kenan was empty. That better not be the case this weekend. It was inexcusable for the Tar Heel students to disappear...the Heels have a legitimate shot at the ACC's Coastal Division.

I can't wait to see what the college football world delivers to us this week.

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While the Panthers enjoyed the open date as the leader of the NFC South, it was fun to watch some other games in the NFL.

This week, the Panthers will prepare to travel out West and play the Oakland Raiders. The Raiders have always been my NFL team, and right now they are the biggest joke in the league. The Atlanta Falcons just defeated the Silver and Black by shutting them out, 24-0. The last time Atlanta shut out anybody was the Panthers (twice) in 2002. In the process, the Raiders generated a grand total of 77 yards against the Falcons. It's hard to believe that is possible in the NFL.

The Panthers should be licking their chops, knowing that the Raiders are up next...followed by a visit from the NFL's only winless team, the Detroit Lions. Who is in charge of the scheduling for Carolina....Charlie Weis?

How 'Bout Dem Cowboys? They suck.

The team that starred in "Hard Knocks" is getting it handed to them right now. Maybe Tony Romo will be ready in a few weeks when the Cowboys return to action to play the Washington Redskins.

Maybe not.

Right now, the Cowboys are in deep, deep trouble....and they know it. With road trips looming to Washington, Philly and Pittsburgh, there is a definite chance that the team picked to be the class of the NFC might not even make it to the playoffs. The 5-4 Cowboys are DFL in the NFC East....you gotta love it.

Tennessee is still unbeaten, at 8-0. They are a good football team, but I don't get the sense that anybody is too concerned about them. They play under the radar, and I think they love it that way. Jeff Fisher's guys will punch you in the mouth on both sides of the line of scrimmage. There is absolutely zero talk about them running the table like there was last year when New England was blowing everyone out. I know this much: they look like they will be clinching their division by this time next month, and they are legit.

I know it's early, but could you imagine Kerry Collins and his Tennessee Titans playing the Panthers in the Super Bowl? What a story line that would be....but we've got a ton of time to see how everything plays out.

Finally, there is one thing I can do without....another political ad. Thanks to ESPN, they want to hype Chris Berman's interviews with Barack Obama and Jon McCain. Who really gives a damn? If you haven't figured out who you are voting for at this point in time, then you shouldn't be voting because you're a moron.

I'm tired of all the political ads and claims, you would think that ESPN would be smart enough to think that the sports fan is watching Monday Night Football so they don't have to watch more political garbage.....thanks for nothing, ESPN.