So BYU was a paper Cougar and Utah got punched out by Oregon. That leaves Boise State, TCU and the Houston Cougars as the B(C)S "busters" left standing.
Week 3 also tore a big hole in the reputation of the Mountain West Conference, considered by many (including me) to be the 3rd or 4th best conference in the land prior to this weekend.
The WAC? Boise State and everyone else. C-USA? Well...there's Houston. Tulsa got rolled as did ECU, both losing big in games they needed to win in order to bolster their National reputation.
What this leaves us with is a TCU team that appears to have issues on defense, and a Houston team that's facing a stiff test next week against a Texas Tech team coming off a dishearening loss to Texas. (Disheartening that is, for Tech, Longhorn partisans are ecstatic today.)
The ideal situation for the Coogs is a resounding win over Tech, followed with a dominating run through a weakened C-USA. The reality is: Tech's offense, while struggling, is still stiff, and their defense is going to be stronger than anything they have faced so far.
This week will be filled with a lot of fluff and run up to the Tech/Houston game this weekend, The Chron's sportswriters will be falling all over themselves trying to convince reader's they've been fans all along, especially Richard Justice, who might take a break from servicing Mack Brown to cover the local angle for a while. Then he'll go back to servicing Mack Brown.
Regardless of what happens next week, those of us hoping the B(C)S system will crash and burn lost a big battle in the war yesterday. Until the "Non-automatic qualifier" conferences step up in big games, the system will stay exactly as it is.
I will say this, it's still better than the travesty that is the NFL, where I'm stuck with one option: The Texans playing sub-par football against the Titans. At least yesterday I could take my pick of the best games of the day.
Off for a long bike ride. It's too pretty outside today to watch the Texans fall apart again.
