Ron Zook, the sometimes cartoonish coach of the University of Illinois Fighting Illiini has heard it all.  After a couple of below expectation years at Florida, Zook was banished to Champaign, where expectations usually revolve around a rounder type ball.  Most fans will admit that Zook is a master recruiter and less than a solid tactician.  Until maybe yesterday, when his Fighting Illini did something they haven't done since 1957: Beat the top ranked team in the country.

Coming into the Big Horseshoe and taking down Ohio State isn't easy and it's even harder when OSU is the unanimous number one team in the country.  But if we've learned one thing this college football season is that if you don't like number one, it's okay, there will be a new one soon.  So, based on the goings on yesterday, here's how everything shakes out and here's how things should align once the polls and the BCS standings get announced for the teams that still have a chance to play in the championship game:

• #1 Ohio State should fall to maybe five or six. 
  
• #2 LSU started out sluggish, but came on like gangbusters in their money game against La. Tech.  I listened to part of the first half on the radio and the LSU announcers were crying when the game was at 13-7 and Matt Flynn missed connecting on two passes in a row.  However, in the end, the Tigers left no doubt who the top team in the country is.  If they can keep focus against Ole Miss and Arkansas, they'll have a date with either Tennessee or Georgia at the SEC championship game.  It's pretty conceivable that they will run the table and be in New Orleans.
• #3 Oregon also has a pretty greased skid to New Orleans, although if UCLA shows up on November 24th, that might present a problem.  But two of their three remaining games are pretty simple against Arizona and OSU and without a league championship game, they most likely will be heading to the big one.  In fact I'm willing to say that of all the teams that still have a chance to play in the BCS Championship game, Oregon has the easiest road.
  
• #4 Oklahoma beat Baylor yesterday (like everyone else) and has Texas Tech, Oklahoma State and the Big Twelve Championship game left.  Both Texas Tech and Oklahoma State are capable of pulling an upset, so of the big three, OU probably has the toughest road. It will become a moot point if Oregon and LSU run their tables.
• #5 I don't give a rat's backside that Kansas is undefeated.  Sometime between now and the BCS championship, someone is going to knock these guys off.  I say that someone will be Missouri on November 24th.  Even if they beat Mizzou, they still will have to play OU in the Big Twelve Championship game and I can't see Kansas knocking them off.  The only way the Jayhawks get to New Orleans is to buy a ticket.
• #6 West Virginia is waiting in the wings for someone, maybe two someones to fail, but the only way the Mountaineers get in is if LSU, Oregon and Oklahoma get knocked off.  Possible. Yes.  Likely? No.  Besides the luck they will need, they still have bracket busters Cincinnati and UConn to play plus ah a certain ah coach who ah wants to ah save his ah butt at the ah end of the ah season. 
  
• #7 Here's how Missouri could play for all of the BCS marbles: Beat Kansas State and Kansas and win the rematch with OSU at the Big Twelve Championship game.  If they do that and LSU, and West Virginia get upset somewhere along the line, the Tigers could make it to New Orleans.
• I've told you all season long that the key in college football is not if you lose but when you lose. If you lose, you need to lose early in the year and work your way back up.  Ohio State won't be able to do that even if they do beat Michigan next week, so the best they can hope for is a trip to Pasadena to face (most likely) USC, who shut down Cal yesterday.  All USC needs to do is beat Arizona State on November 22 and that is very doable.  This of course will predicate that Oregon runs the table and goes to New Orleans, otherwise possession of the Rose Bowl reverts to the Ducks.
• Boston College has, as I told you last week, turned into USF.  They'll play on New Year's day, but not in the big one.
• Here's something else you should pay attention to: IF Kentucky can catch Tennessee on a bad day, they are capable of beating them.  If that happens and Georgia represents the East in the SEC Championship game, it is entirely possible that they could beat LSU the way that the Dawgs are playing right now.  I think Georgia poses a bigger threat to LSU than Tennessee does, especially since Georgia and LSU haven't seen each other this year.
• Are there really upsets in the Big East or just a lot of parity?
• Coach Satan, come on down.  YOU'VE BEEN CROOMED!  That stench you might have smelled in Starkville wasn't coming from the Ag barn. It was Alabama's offense.  Boy, were they pathetic yesterday.  I will say though that there were two words that described MSU's defense yesterday: Titus Brown, who should be a pretty high NFL pick based on his speed and agility.
• Coach Fulmer administers a goodbye whipping to Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt.  In fact, I would venture to say that Nutt is the only SEC Football coach who is a lock to lose his job this year, even though there could be potential openings at LSU and Auburn.
  
• Kentucky still has a shot at New Year's bowl game while South Carolina slowly fades into Weed Whacker Bowl Country.
• Yeah, I know Hawaii is undefeated.  Maybe they should play Kansas.  I'd kill to see Mark Mangino in a Hawaiian shirt.
  
• The only thing Notre Dame won this week was an 87 year-old paternity suit.

Lightning Round

• Bears vs. Raiders today in Oakland.  They can't lose all of them, can they?
• The Minnesota Vikings re-examine their byzantine HR polices and do the right thing, most likely because someone in the league office wanted this black eye to go away.
  
• Soldier Field was voted 20th among the best stadiums in the NFL.  That's only because they allow people from other planets to vote and they thought the mother ship was parked on top.
• Hey, look!  The city of Nashville got up off it's dead ass to try and keep the Predators.  Where the hell have you guys been?
• Famed Canadian hockey commentator Don Cherry thinks Eric Lindros is a shoe in for the hockey hall of fame.  I wonder though.
• Do you know who the biggest benefactor to the Western Kentucky Women's basketball program is?  I kid you not: Mike Hunt.
• Yesterday was the 32nd anniversary of the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.