College football never runs out of surprises. You have to love that. This weekend features some things we haven't witnessed in at least a decade.

Tennessee now has a clear mental and physical edge on Florida. It's UF with something to prove.

Kansas State is playing a serious non-conference opponent in USC. That's a first in the Bill Snyder era. Bravo.

Penn State is playing wildly entertaining offense, throwing on all downs and using a backup quarterback in all sorts of playmaking roles. For now, anyway. Still gotta see it in a conference game or a road game, though.

Cal has been transformed from a careless, inept offense into a frighteningly efficient, confident bunch in one offseason.

The two most impressive quarterbacks so far this young season play for Marshall and Iowa State.

A team that shared the Big Ten title a scant two years ago (Northwestern) is an underdog to Navy.

A Big 12 team (Kansas) is almost a two touchdown underdog to a MAC team (Bowling Green). At home. This is because the Falcons just hung 51 points on another Big 12 team (Missouri).

One item from the experts in the desert that does not surprise me: Michigan State comes off an embarrassing performance against Cal and is favored over an undefeated and ranked Notre Dame team. To know the history of this series (five straight Spartan wins, four of them upsets) is to understand that no matter how much MSU deserved the hearty boos of the home folks (and rarely is booing from a home college crowd justified in my book), they will still be ready to play the Irish.

No team has ever beaten Notre Dame in six consecutive seasons. That's an additional rallying cry for both sides, in the event they need one. Bobby Williams asked the MSU folks to put all the blame for the loss on him. That's noble of him. But it's unwise to take too much of the heat too often. Even though the Cal game was Williams' first loss in 11 career non-conference games, his Spartans are just 5-11 in conference games.

The Spartans are overdue for a big effort. The team that had four punts blocked in one game last year may have even surpassed that special teams disaster last week with two fumbled kickoffs, a 90-yard punt return for a touchdown and a 56-yard kickoff return allowed.

While Notre Dame's turnaround has been really impressive, winning in East Lansing will truly signal a big year. Ex-Spartan Ty Willingham has been around long enough not to expect many bad calls to go his way in East Lansing. Just ask Michigan. If ND goes to 4-0, setting up an off week before coach Ty's old Stanford team comes calling, they will have earned it.

	No one has been able to stop Charles Rogers this season.

I want to see if talented Irish corner Shane Walton can help shut down Spartan wide receiver Charles Rogers. To me, he is the single most difficult guy in college football to contain. Most defenses can neutralize a great running back if they want to commit enough guys to the box, but stopping Rogers from catching the ball has proven almost impossible.

MSU's freaky future top five pick already has an amazing 22 catches for 459 yards! The rest of the receiving corps has a total of 13 catches for 150. "Chuck," as teammates call him, accounts for more than half of the Spartans' offensive yards. He has a touchdown reception in 12 straight games.

Everybody in the stadium knows he's the guy to stop, and yet they can't do it. Walton is good and he and Vontez Duff have the bravado excellent corners need. Bravo for their bravado. But we'll see if they're the ones to snap Chuck's streak and help end the more important streak of losses to MSU.

No weaklings
The Pac-10 is the only BCS conference without a Baylor, Rutgers, Vanderbilt, or Duke or a Wake Forest, Indiana or Northwestern. There is no embarrassing basement dweller that conference brethren would like to keep locked away from public view, lest they soil reputations with ugly losses to Division I-AA outfits.

Cal used to be that team. No more. The Bears were minus-11 in turnovers at this point last year. They are plus-10 this year. With Bears coach Jeff Tedford coordinating Oregon's offense last season, the Ducks committed just 11 turnovers all year. Clearly, the guy can teach ball security and sound decision-making. This is despite Tedford's affection for trick plays, or as he calls them, special plays. Wide receivers throwing back to quarterback Kyle Boller, double passes, there's been one each week. Air Force is having to practice against them this week.

It's good to see Boller finally enjoy some success. He's showing why he was one of Cal's highest profile recruits ever. Kyle has a stronger arm than former Oregon QB Joey Harrington and has added about 20 pounds of muscle since last year. Saturday will be his 31st career start.

For Cal, the real fun (or the reality check) starts next week. Check out this gauntlet: home against Washington State, at Washington, at USC, home against UCLA, at Oregon State. That's five straight against teams likely to be in bowls, three of them on the road. That underscores the depth of this league and is why the Pac-10 has gone 19-4 versus Division I-A competition.

Arizona is likely in the bottom third of the league, and yet could defeat 4-0, ranked Wisconsin on the road Saturday. Wouldn't surprise me. Quarterback Jason Johnson and running back Clarence Farmer are a nice 1-2 punch.

USC at Kansas State is the huge chance for the Pac-10 to snag a prestige win. It's the first test for the 'Cats, who now look like Big 12 North division frontrunners because they host Iowa State. My guy Herbie and research guru Chris Fallica have been hyping K-State for months and I'm anxious to see them in action. Should be a nice defensive tussle. It's worth noting that USC is exactly the caliber team that Snyder has dominated. KSU is 11-1-1 vs. teams ranked 11th-25th since 1993 but just 2-15 vs. top 10 teams in that span.

Hard corps
Virginia Tech and Texas A&M both feature student corps of cadets, the only two civilian colleges to do so. They also share traditions of rigid defense against the run. This is a game that looks anything but pretty, but I can't wait to see the Hokies' "Untouchable" running back combo of Lee Suggs and Kevin Jones against the A&M Wrecking Crew defense. Suggs and Jones each expect 100-plus yards every game, but no back has hit the century mark against the Aggies in more than two years.

If you love defense, if you play on a defense at any level, if you used to play defense, you gotta check out this collision Saturday at Kyle Field. A&M will create a traffic jam near the line of scrimmage, trying to clog the running lanes and make young Bryan Randall execute passes in just his second career start and first on the road. Kyle Field is as tough a spot for opposing offenses as any in the world. Randall faces the biggest challenge of his young career. Grant Noel may be able to relieve him on a partially-mended knee if Tech has to throw, but he'd be a fairly stationary target for the Aggie blitzers.

Meanwhile, R.C. Slocum may have a few ideas with his own QBs. We might even see mega-talented true freshman Reggie McNeal or sophomore Dustin Long replace Mark Farris. When Slocum speaks of using the guy that gives A&M "the best chance against (Tech's) pressure," he's not talking about the brittle Farris. The quarterbacks on both sides face big challenges.

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