This is a great weekend of college football

Just look at the matchups. Iowa-Wisconsin, Texas-Oklahoma, Arkansas-Florida, Texas Tech-Nebraska, Missouri-Oklahoma St., South Carolina-Alabama. We could see some major shakeups in the top-25 depending on the outcome of these games.

And then there's the game that I care about, USC-Notre Dame. I've gone back and forth between thinking Notre Dame can win, and thinking they'll get blown out. This series has been ugly ever since 2002, with USC winning every matchup and usually in blowout fashion. But part of me thinks this year could be different. For instance, in past matchups USC had Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, John David Booty or Mark Sanchez at QB. Every single one of them was drafted into the NFL, four of them first rounders. This year they're starting freshman Matt Barkley, who will probably someday be a first rounder but right now he's, well, a freshman. This is really the first time since this series turned ugly in 2002 that Notre Dame has a decided advantage at QB.

But then you remember this is a team game, and not just simply Jimmy Clausen vs. Matt Barkley. Despite losing a bunch of players from their front seven, USC continues to have a very good defense. This is Carrol's specialty, and the one year they fell a little bit defensively was the one year Notre Dame had a chance to win (2005). They have numerous RBs, most notably Joe McKnight. They have an experienced offensive line, good TEs and an underrated FB in Stanley Havili who is a really good receiver out of the backfield. Their receivers aren't great, but Ronald Johnson is coming back to join the dynamic Damian Williams. Basically, this is still a pretty good USC team, and there's a good chance Matt Barkley won't have to do much of anything but hand the ball off.

I would feel about 1,000 times better about this game if Notre Dame was playing better defensively, but they've had four straight subpar outings on defense. The pass rush is inconsistent and at times non-existent (despite Jon Tenuta dialing up a bunch of blitzes), and the secondary has been a disappointment. The front seven is too soft against the run, and basically even if Notre Dame strings together a few good plays on defense, they can never do it consistently and eventually give up a bunch of yardage to let the other team back in the game. If this defense were even playing average football, Notre Dame would be 5-0 and this would be a top-10 matchup. I really question whether they can slow down Joe McKnight and Damian Williams. And that's the main reason I feel like a USC blowout is probably the most likely outcome.

HOWEVER, if this game does become a battle of QBs, where it's a close game in the 4th quarter and each QB needs to make a play for his team to win, Clausen should win that battle hands down. Notre Dame's defense just needs to keep this game close, and eventually hope that Barkley will make a freshman mistake that Clausen can capitalize on. If this is a 20 point game at halftime, there's not much Clausen can do except pad his own stats.

*ON A SIDE NOTE

I see a variation on this idea quite a bit, and I'd like to comment on it. The idea is "so-and-so team has played defenses that average 70th in the country. Therefore, they haven't played anybody with a good defense." Here's what I love about this idea; the person espousing it never seems to notice that those defenses (or offenses) are ranked on average 70th in country at least in part because the team in question put up a lot of yards and points against them. We are currently 6 weeks into the college football season, so a team's offensive and defensive ranking is going to be 1/6 of each particular game. If Notre Dame (for instance) has a big game against someone, that team's defensive ranking is of course going to drop as a result of that. 1/6 of their ranking in this case is a result of what happened against Notre Dame. Why should Notre Dame (as an example) be punished for this? Would it make you feel better if they hadn't put up a lot of yards and points?

Another variation of that is the old "their opponent's combined record is 10-15" or whatever. Again, the person making this claim doesn't seem to realize that some of those losses are against that particular team. And this is what's truly hilarious; if the team in question with a supposedly soft schedule had lost those games, their opponent's combined record would go up but they would get no credit for that because they, of course, lost. In other words, the team in question can't win, because if they beat everybody then their opponent's record goes down, but if they lose their opponent's record goes up, but nobody cares because their own won-loss record went down. Basically, this argument if a freaking joke unless you subtract the team in question's victories against their opponents, which I don't see anyone ever do.