After another weekend full of upsets near the top of the rankings, the college football polls look like they were cut and pasted from a copy of a sports page from the 1970s. The Texas Longhorns, with a win over Oklahoma in the Red River Shootout last week, became the third different No. 1 team of this season, with Alabama and Penn State nipping at their heels.
Here's a quick look at a couple of the more interesting and important games coming up this weekend.
Texas gets its first shot at defending its perch atop the polls when it hosts one of the national championship contenders that got beat last week, the Missouri Tigers. While the Longhorns beat the Sooners last Saturday 45-35, and jumped four spots in the polls, Mizzou got upset at home by Oklahoma State (who's now 6-0) 28-23, and dropped 10 spots in the rankings.
OddsMaker had Texas listed as seven-point home chalk for Saturday's game (8:00PM ET, ABC) on Monday night, but that number dropped to 6.5 by Tuesday morning.
Ohio State looked like they were out of the national championship picture after that dismal loss at USC a month ago.
But with four wins since then – including a come-from-behind victory led by highly regarded freshman QB Terrelle Pryor at Wisconsin two weeks ago – the Buckeyes can't be considered dead yet. OSU sits at No. 11 and No. 12 in the two major polls, and gets a shot at the No. 3 Nittany Lions next week in Columbus. But first, coach Tressel's troops will have to get by a resurgent Michigan State in East Lansing this Saturday (3:30 pm Eastern, ABC).
The Spartans, in their second season under coach Mark Dantonio, are off to a 6-1 start this season and 3-0 in the Big 10 after winning at Northwestern last week 37-20. Dantonio did it old-school at Cincinnati, running the ball and playing tough defense, and that's what he's trying to do at MSU. And so far, with some success. Dantonio was the defensive coordinator at Ohio State for three years earlier this decade, so he might know a thing or two about what Tressel and the Buckeyes like to do.
OddsMaker has Ohio State listed as 3.5-point favorites for Saturday's game at Spartan Stadium.
Other games involving some of the national title contenders this weekend, and the corresponding OddsMaker odds, include: Alabama -13.5 over Ol' Miss; Penn State -23.5 over Michigan; Oklahoma -19.5 at Kansas; USC -42.5 at Washington State; Texas Tech -21 at Texas A&M; BYU -1 at TCU (Thursday night); Oklahoma State -17 over Baylor; and Georgia -14 over Vanderbilt.
On the updated OddsMaker BCS national title betting board, Southern Cal's Trojans are now solid +200 favorites. They are followed by Penn State at +400, Alabama and Texas at +500, Florida +700, Oklahoma +1000, Texas Tech +1500, Georgia and Ohio State +1800, and Missouri at +2000.
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