From the Bird’s Nest: Five Intriguing Games This Weekend

Over the next few weeks, you’ll see the number of undefeated teams in college football decrease significantly as top teams play one another.  While there are no unbeaten vs. unbeaten matchups this week, there are some games that will certainly affect the top ten.  Here are the ones I’m keeping a keen eye on this week.

1. Wisconsin at Michigan State—The Badgers are getting lots of love from the polls, but not much from the computers,  judging by the first BCS standings released this week.  They can get a little bump here if they can take care of Sparty, who knocked off unbeaten Michigan this past week.  Although margin of victory is not a factor in the computer rankings, Wisconsin’s eye test will look better if they can get a convincing win.

2. Oklahoma State at Missouri—The Cowboys have shown they can be a

good road team.  But Mizzou was impressive in a loss to Oklahoma earlier this year.  Can the Tigers rise up at home and become the talk of college football this week?

3. Southern Cal at Notre Dame—Has anyone noticed that after losing their first two, the Irish have done nothing but win?  And, that includes the only loss Michigan State has this year.  A win against USC should get the Irish into the top 25, which will automatically get them involved in their worthiness to be in a BCS bowl.

4. Washington at Stanford—The Huskies are quietly becoming a pretty

good story in college football.  It was just a couple of years ago they were 0-12.  Now Washington is in the Top 25 and will try to stay there against a very good Stanford team that really hasn’t been tested yet.

5. Louisiana Tech at Utah State—If the Bulldogs want to go bowling they don’t have much margin for error.  They still have to play a couple of tough conference games in the WAC, plus a trip to Ole Miss is in their future as well.  They’ll be underdogs in Logan and could really, really use this win.  This doesn’t have ranking implications, but it’s a big game in North Louisiana.