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Monday, October 16
Plenty of good teams, but where are the great ones?

By Bob Harig
Special to ESPN.com

The only thing certain about college football at the moment is that nothing is certain. Just as soon as one team emerges as a national title contender, it gets slapped back to reality. Traditional bottom-feeders are on top. Powerhouses struggle. Nobody is invincible.

John Cooper was saying so just last week. The Ohio State coach's team had surprisingly risen to No. 5 in the country, the only unbeaten team in the Big Ten. And when Cooper looked at the competition, he wasn't impressed.

"There aren't any great teams out there," he said. "There's a lot of good teams. . . I've been telling you this over and over and over. There aren't any great teams out there. I mean, name me a great team now."

Well, apparently Ohio State isn't one of them.


	Tellis Redmon and Tellis Redmon handed Ohio State its first loss.

One of just seven unbeaten teams heading into the weekend, Ohio State was stunned at home by Minnesota 29-17 on Saturday, the Golden Gophers first victory in Columbus since 1949.

And the game illustrates Cooper's point brilliantly. Minnesota is an improving program under coach Glen Mason and last year derailed Penn State's national title hopes on the road. But this is the same team that lost earlier this season to Ohio University.

A great Ohio State team would not lose at home to Minnesota on homecoming weekend.

Perhaps the Buckeyes were an aberration, a team that had built its 5-0 record having defeated just one school (Arizona) with a winning record. The combined record of opponents entering the Minnesota game was just 15-15.

Nonetheless, when you climb so high in the polls, you're bound to daydream a bit.

And if the Buckeyes looked at the schedules, they could see a path to Miami. Unlike five of the other undefeated teams entering the weekend -- Nebraska, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech and Clemson -- the Buckeyes were not going to play a team ranked better than 18th in the country. They controlled their own destiny in both the Big Ten and national races.

Now, both are in shambles.

Good luck figuring out the Big Ten race. Five teams have a defeat in the conference, although it's pretty easy to figure out that none have a legitimate national championship claim.

That's about the only thing you can decipher in the national race. There are too many big games remaining, with too few teams showing they are dominant.

Nebraska finally looked good in defeating Texas Tech 56-3 on Saturday, but the Cornhuskers were shaky enough to fall out of the top spot in the Associated Press poll before Florida State lost to Miami.

The Hurricanes are back in the national picture, despite a disappointing loss at Washington, which has since been defeated by Oregon. As Cooper said, Miami's 34-29 loss to Washington wasn't pretty. "That was a pretty good butt-kicking," said Cooper, who acknowledged last week that he had the Buckeyes ranked ahead of the Hurricanes in his own coaches poll ballot.

Then there's Florida State. "Miami hangs 27 points on them and takes the ball -- boom -- right down the field to score the winning touchdown," Cooper said. "They're not a great team. They're a good team."

Oklahoma was certainly impressive, defeating Kansas State on the road Saturday. But the Sooners must still face Nebraska, and could get the Cornhuskers or Kansas State again in the Big 12 title game.

And Virginia Tech must still play at Miami, while Clemson plays at Florida State.

Cooper knows an opportunity may have been lost. Or maybe not. Perhaps his team just wasn't good enough.

Seems like old times
Nebraska-Oklahoma games used to be among the highlights of every college football season. The Oct. 28 game in Norman, Okla. now sets up as one of the best of the year.

No longer annual combatants since their conference split into divisions, Nebraska and Oklahoma had fallen off the charts anyway with the Sooners' slump into mediocrity.

But in just two short seasons, coach Bob Stoops has the Sooners 6-0 and atop at the Big 12 South after back-to-back victories over Texas and Kansas State, which suffered its first home loss in 26 games.

Stoops could not have done it without finding quarterback Josh Heupel, who arrived from Snow Junior College last season and immediately began knocking off school passing records.

Heupel led the Big 12 in total offense and passes for 30 touchdowns last season, nine more than OU scored as a team in 1998. And the production has not dropped off.

He completed 29 of 37 passes for 374 yards and two touchdowns in Oklahoma's 41-31 victory on Saturday. He has now thrown for 200 or more years in 16 of his 18 games at quarterback. He holds 21 school and Big 12 passing records and has now thrown 118 consecutive passes without an interception.

"He's a really calm quarterback," said Kansas State defensive end Monty Beisel. "We tried getting to him. But he never changed his facial expression the whole game. They're real proud and they should be proud."

Firing line
Paul Hackett is in trouble, just a few weeks after his USC team climbed to No. 8 in the Associated Press poll. That's what consecutive losses will do, especially a 31-15 defeat at home last week to Arizona followed by another home loss to Oregon.

All of a sudden, the Trojans are 0-3 in the Pac-10. And the victories over Penn State and Colorado don't look so impressive anymore. After the loss to Arizona, some finger-pointing occurred among the players, who indicated that the team does not seem well prepared or inspired.

"It's not all his fault," said USC linebacker Zeke Moreno of Hackett. "But he's the head honcho. It's his fall to take."

There's already a FirePaulHackett.com Web site and the Daily Trojan has brought back its "Paul Poll," where students can give a thumbs up or down on the fate of the head coach.

Home cooking
Kansas State followed the trend of teams having long winning streaks at home snapped. The Wildcats had won 25 in a row at home before their defeat to Oklahoma. Last week, both Texas A&M and Marshall lost home games.

Marshall had won 33 in a row at home before being stopped by Western Michigan. Texas A&M had won 22 straight before a loss to Colorado.

After a 63-14 victory over Duke, Florida State holds the longest home winning streak at 33, going back to a 31-31 tie against Florida in 1994. The Seminoles' last home defeat came in 1991 against Miami. With Kansas State's loss, Oregon now has the third-longest home winning streak at 18. Miami holds the all-time record with 59 straight home wins.

Bob Harig covers college football for the St. Petersburg Times.

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