Clash of the titans

Last weekend saw a meeting of college football's two lowest-ranked teams, with Buffalo prevailing 9-3 in overtime in a brutally ugly slugfest with Temple. This weekend promises a matchup between the two teams at the polls' other extreme: Ohio State and Texas. (I don't think they're necessarily the best squads in the country right now, but they don't give me a vote anyway.) There's also the overshadowed matter of Penn State coach Joe Paterno paying what looks to be his last visit to South Bend, which further adds to the intrigue often missing from early September weekends filled with cakewalks and guarantee games that, as Colorado painfully learned last week, occasionally go horribly wrong.

Back in the Deep South, the biggest unanswered question lingering about this afternoon's Alabama game has nothing to do with whether the Crimson Tide will beat Vanderbilt -- it will -- and everything to do with exactly how many UA students will be in the stadium to see kickoff. After the Hawaii game offered a textbook example of how not to handle stadium admissions, university officials vow that things will run more smoothly this week. We should hear by tonight how those plans worked out.

Treat this as your college football open thread for the day.