A Look At The College Football Landscape:

What Was That About Oklahoma?

Posted Oct 13, 2008 by Scott Brown

Updated Oct 13, 2008 at 12:33 AM

The Sooners? Unstoppable? Well, they didn’t dispel that thought entirely, considering they put up 35 points against Texas. Problem was, the Longhorns managed 45 of their own, and that margin was enough to lift them - deservedly - to the top spot in this week’s AP poll.

An amazing weekend of upheaval (three Top 5 teams going down) made more plenty more of shuffling in the rankings, and raised unanticipated questions. For instance: what if Missouri beats Texas in Austin Saturday, and everyone in the Big 12 (apart from Oklahoma State) has at least one loss? Then again, considering how solid UT looked in the Cotton Bowl Saturday, does Missouri have much of a chance?

And don’t look now, but No. 2 Alabama isn’t the only SEC team getting national attention. Florida’s 51-21 throttling of former No. 4 LSU in the Swamp Saturday was convincing enough for the Gators to crawl back up to No. 5 themselves despite that embarrassing loss to Ole Miss two weeks ago. Bama and UF don’t play in the regular season (though it seems like virtually all the top SEC teams do), but they appear on a collision course for the conference title game in Atlanta.

And let’s be honest: that one’s just fun to think about, Alabama’s physical style contrasting with the Gators’ finesse approach. Georgia could keep it from happening by beating Florida for a second straight year, but does that likely at this point?

Hey, after last weekend, the lesson should be that looking ahead is pointless - and dangerous for some.