A lot of people talk about emotion, saying it is a huge part of the game and that teams can win based on that alone. That is a bunch of crap. Good things have to happen for teams to take advantage of emotion. You don't carry emotion through four quarters. It lasts about one series. But if you get something good to happen early and gain some confidence, that is when emotion starts to carry over.

It happened to me at Nebraska when Iowa State beat us in 1992. They were a bad team that year, but the Cyclones came in emotionally ready, got some breaks and all of a sudden their confidence level was rising. The same thing happened to teams last weekend. Ole Miss was fired up to play Florida, some good things happened for the Rebels and the next thing we knew Mississippi won the game.

That is why I will argue until the day I die that the NFL cannot come close to what college football offers. I could have told you for sure that the Buccaneers were going to beat the Falcons last week, but who could have foreseen six overtimes between Arkansas and Tennessee, Colorado pounding the Kansas State defense or California winning at Washington?

And we are going to sit back at the end of the year and let a bunch of computers tell us who the best teams are?

Eli gets some help
It is understood that any college quarterback under pressure will be forced into bad decisions, and the Florida offensive line could not handle what Ole Miss gave it in a 17-14 loss in Oxford. Mississippi defensive coordinator Chuck Dreisbach just had a great plan.

	Eli Manning finally got some help from the Ole Miss defense against Florida.

The Rebels did not simply come all day with pressure and blitzes because sooner or later Rex Grossman would have been able to find the open guy. They were playing some zone and some man coverage. They mixed it up bringing different pressures and the front four got pressure all by themselves at times which is unusual. Florida never allows teams to get to the passer like that.

Vanderbilt made this Ole Miss defense look bad by gaining 464 yards the week before, and how many times have people said "Poor Eli Manning, he has no defense to go with that offense?" Well, today I want to say congratulations to Matt Greer, who returned a Grossman interception for the winning touchdown in the third quarter, and the rest of that unit. Everyone will want to focus on Grossman having a bad day, but it was really about Mississippi instituting a game plan that worked.

The Rebels had no business being in the game from a talent standpoint, but they were fired up to play Florida and had a lot of emotion at the outset. They had some success early, bothering Grossman and forcing some interceptions, and all of a sudden the confidence started growing and the Gators were letting them them hang around. Next thing you know, Florida got beat.

Not that Ole Miss is a bad team, but you could see the Rebels playing with more confidence as the game went on and they deserve the credit. That was an unbelievable performance, especially when you take into account the fact that they had less than 200 yards of total offense. And people who say the talent level is getting closer don't understand what happened. Florida had a very good defensive effort, but when a team is forced into turnovers like that it is going to lose no matter what.

Two teams looking ahead?
Oklahoma's 31-24 victory against Missouri could be a confidence-booster offensively. Nate Hybl played well, throwing for over 300 yards, and Quentin Griffin rushed for over 100 yards, but remember that the strength of Missouri's team is certainly not the defense.

The Sooners can build on that, but the most interesting thing to me was the OU defense. I was all set to rip them on our college scoreboard show because they did not look like they were into the game. Then I got to thinking maybe Mizzou quarterback Brad Smith is just that unbelievable. I would rather say that after he rushed for 213 yards and passed for another 178.

The thing I did notice, though, something that will drive defensive coordinator Mike Stoops crazy, is that the effort wasn't exactly Oklahoma-esque. Guys were running to the ball, but not with the same vigor as in the past. When a guy can move like Smith, defenders have a tendency to not go all out because they are worried about him cutting and making them look dumb, so they are breaking down too soon. I remember the same things happening at Nebraska when we were playing guys like Charlie Ward of Florida State, but the defense just has to play its game and not worry about things like that.

Chris Simms does not have that kind of athletic ability, so OU is not that alarmed going into the Red River Shootout because the Texas offense is completely different than Missouri's. You know where Simms will be and that is not a worry for the Sooners.

As for Texas, the Longhorns had not really played anybody tough (North Texas, North Carolina, Houston, Tulane) and they finally ran into a team with some offensive firepower in their 17-15 win over Oklahoma State. It's just too bad that there is a guy like Cowboys wide receiver Rashaun Woods out there who we don't get to see all the time. Everyone jump up and down saying that Charles Rogers of Michigan State is the best player in college football, but we haven't heard a lot about him in the weeks since his big game against Notre Dame because MSU has not been on national television since. And while we have not talked a lot about Woods because OSU isn't on TV every week, he is as good as any wide receiver in college football.

Texas' offense is just not where they want it to be. The 'Horns don't run the ball as well as they want (170.6 ypg, 42nd nationally), and they had 145 yards against an opponent that was a step up in talent. If they think this was a step up, wait till they see Oklahoma.

This game is exciting for me because Simms has had so many people say so many things about him, and it is only natural for a kid his age to be looking forward to proving himself in that game. I would certainly expect Texas to have a better effort overall against Oklahoma, but the same questions exist: can Simms respond when he is forced to go through progressions and not lock onto one receiver, and can the line handle the Sooners' pass rush?

Barnett and the Buffs coming around
Colorado's 35-31 win over Kansas State was fun to watch and I was surprised Colorado was able to move the ball on K-State's defense, piling up 483 yards of total offense. I thought the Wildcats would shut down the run, get some pressure on quarterback Robert Hodge and make him look bad, and it was amazing to me to see Colorado line up and take it to the K-State defense.

I've talked about the leadership of coaches like Notre Dame's Tyrone Willingham and Iowa State's Dan McCarney, but Gary Barnett of Colorado deserves some credit, too. Starting QB and captain Craig Ochs suffered another concussion, Hodge completed just three passes against USC and the Buffaloes got obliterated, then Ochs quit on the team in the middle of the season. Most teams would have started folding right there. Barnett got them into the BCS after two losses last year and even with all the bad stuff happening this year CU came back and beat a good Kansas State team.

Not only has Barnett rallied his troops, he has instilled some confidence in Hodge. The Buffs were backed up on their own five-yard line and called for a bomb to Jeremy Bloom, and while Hodge made a nice throw and Bloom a nice catch and run, it is really all about having the confidence in the players to call that pass, and that feeling rubs off on the entire team.

K-State is caught in-between a little. One game the 'Cats can run the ball but not throw it, and the next game they can throw but not run as well. But again, the most shocking thing was the Colorado offensive effort. If you get tailback Chris Brown rolling and he goes for 167 yards like he did, forget about it. It will be interesting now to see how the Big 12 North race shapes up with Colorado, Kansas State and Iowa State ready to knock each other off.

Trojans tumble, Huskies exposed
I would have said going into the weekend that USC was the best team in the Pac-10, but after the Trojans' 30-27 overtime loss to Washington State it looks like the Cougars are going to control their own destiny. They got Jermaine Green going a little bit -- he only had nine carries but got 92 yards -- and Jason Gesser is not 100 percent healthy but continues to show with his courageous performances why he is a Heisman Trophy candidate.

	Jason Gesser is showing some guts while leading the WSU offense.

The 516 yards the Cougars gained was another shocking performance against a defense like USC's, which led the nation in total defense coming in. But when a team has a QB who hangs in the pocket and can move around, three WRs who can play and the ability to pop the ball up the middle with Green it is just hard to cover that many weapons. Transfer Devard Darling was the missing piece there with his presence now giving the offense the ability to spread things out.

Washington was another team beating nobodies early in the year, and while people were saying the running game was not quite right and the defense was not that physical we always heard "Hey, it's not about that. We are winning and getting 500 yards of total offense every week."

Those problems finally caught up with the Huskies in their 34-27 home loss to California. Cody Pickett had another huge game (399 yards passing but no TDs), but Kyle Boller had five scoring passes and UW rushed for just 42 yards.

Washington has some good skill players and is a great finesse team, but the running game and defense need to be addressed of they are going to get back into conference the race.

Georgia shows some manhood
I said last week that Georgia might have been the most overrated No. 6 team in college football history. Well, after the 27-25 win against Alabama in Tuscaloosa it is not.

I was impressed with the Bulldogs' defensive effort. Going into that game Alabama was in my mind the best team in the SEC with physical lines on both sides of the ball, a good change of pace with Santonio Beard and Shaud Williams in the running game and Brodie Croyle passing the ball.

The game plan defensive coordinator Rodney Garner brought into the game was impressive. He didn't stop the Tide altogether (306 total yards allowed), but that varied attack was at least contained. Everyone focused on UGA quarterback David Greene and the great catches his receivers made, but that was a great effort by the D.

And Georgia having a tough game and Tennessee playing those overtimes does not matter a bit when you look at the UT-UGA game this week. Georgia is the better team and Tennessee is not very good.

Not to take anything away from Arkansas and its effort against the Volunteers, I just don't think UT is all that good. The Vols don't understand what they want to do offensively. They ran the ball more against Arkansas, but they ran out of the shotgun set with inside handoffs. I want to see them line up in the I-formation, run some isolation plays and knock people off the line of scrimmage.

Tennessee is just not as good as everyone thought and I think Georgia wins that game handily, by about 14 points.

Trev Alberts is a college football analyst for ESPN. He contributes a weekly column to ESPN.com.