College Football Week 3 in Review

In any normal football season, upsets are usually matched by games where one team is overmatched and overwhelmed by the other. Just three weeks into the 2007 college football season, that line has held true. What has not held to form is how it the games are shaking out. With Notre Dame still undefeated and Florida overwhelming an overmatched Tennessee Volunteer team, the days of BCS teams running up and down the field on lower rung opponents has given way to parody and downright mediocrity within the premiere sports conferences in college football.

The folks may be lining up in the Fire Phil line in Knoxville after the Tennessee Volunteers, a preseason Top 15 pick had their tails handed to them by Tim Tebow and the Florida Gators. By the end of the game, Tim Tebow was being called Timbow and the Tennessee team was called overrated, underperforming, and outclassed by people in the sports media and the fans in the stands of sports bars in SEC country. With Phil Fulmer making his standard line of excuses the Tennessee faithful have no desire to hear the regular rants of playing better and getting after it. They want to see a flip in the score of the game or begin the search for a coach who can get it done. With Fulmer facing losing streaks against Georgia, Florida, LSU, and Alabama, Fulmer's tenure at UT may have finally come to an end. And for the Vols faithful, the move may be two years late.

The game of the day had to be in Lexington, Kentucky as the proud Wildcats from the University of Kentucky battled Louisville, whose campus is less than a two hour drive from the campus that Rupp built. In Louisville, college football has a perennial power and air attack. In addition it has college football's top quarterback in Brian Brohm. On the other hand, Kentucky is a basketball rich school, who has seen its football program rise in prominence since the arrival of Coach Rich Brooks and quarterback Andre Woodson. When the game was over, Louisville's hopes of a national championship were laid to rest as Andre Woodson and the Wildcat faithful celebrated one of the greatest victories in the history of the program.

ABC's late game from Lincoln was supposed to be a solid game and stern test for the USC Trojans and coach, Pete Carroll. For the first quarter and a half it was just that. However, the game is played over four quarters and the Nebraska Cornhuskers came up on the short end of a very long stick as John David Booty and Stefan Thomas served notice on the rest of college football that it was ready to destroy any team that stood in its way of winning another national championship.

As much as I tried, it is difficult to review the week in college football and not mention the Michigan-Notre Dame clash of the wannabe titans. It is difficult because ugly is a nice way of describing the game. With Notre Dame unable to run the ball freshman quarterback Jimmy Clausen was left to run for his life. The Fighting Irish's running woes were so bad that after three games they are averaging negative yards a game. On the other hand, Michael Hard backed up his guarantee by rushing over thirty times for almost two hundred yards.

With teams like West Virginia and Ohio State still undefeated and conference play ready to get into full swing this week look for more surprises across college football. Right now, USC, Florida, Texas, Ohio State, West Virginia, Rutgers, and Oklahoma are all begging for respect and attention. Who will make their way to the BCS Championship Game is anyone's guess.

It will certainly be an interesting ride.