TEC's College Football Top 10, Week 4

With one-third of the regular season already complete, the crème de la crème are wasting no time in staking their claim as the ones to beat. While top-ranked Oklahoma labored more than anticipated to get past a burgeoning Missouri squad, both Alabama and Louisiana State demonstrated once again (and with relative ease) why five consecutive BCS national champions have represented the same conference.

LSU is the new #1 in the Associated Press poll. Undoubtedly a legitimate argument on their behalf could be made. Yet jumping both the Sooners and the Crimson Tide seems marginally premature for now. Nevertheless a better appraisal of the Tigers' depth will be established by the time they face #2 Alabama on November 5 – at which point the #1 ranking could very well belong to the Bayou Bengals.

In lieu of their one-point loss to fellow contenders Oklahoma State, formerly sixth-ranked Texas A&M drops to #10, while Florida State falls out the rankings altogether thanks to a five-point defeat at nationally ranked Clemson. Resulting from Saturday's games, Oklahoma State jumps Wisconsin and Louisiana State jumps Boise State.

Virginia Tech received top 10 consideration, but playing arguably the least challenging schedule among the upper tier FBS schools makes it difficult to overlook undefeated South Carolina – not to mention resurgent Oregon. Next Saturday, expect the Gamecocks to be tested against Auburn and Alabama to be pushed by perennial contender, Florida. Outside of the nation's top conference, expect a cage match to develop at Camp Randall between #7 Wisconsin and #8 Nebraska. The coming weeks are what college football is all about.

1. Oklahoma (def. Missouri, 38-28), 3-0, 640 pts.
2. Alabama (def. Arkansas, 38-14), 4-0, 635 pts.
3. Louisiana State (def. West Virginia, 47-21), 4-0, 630 pts.
4. Boise State (def. Tulsa, 41-21), 3-0, 560 pts.
5. Stanford (Bye), 3-0, 510 pts.
6. Oklahoma State (def. Texas A&M, 30-29), 4-0, 480 pts.
7. Wisconsin (def. South Dakota, 59-10), 4-0, 445 pts.
8. Nebraska (def. Wyoming, 38-14), 4-0, 420 pts.
9. South Carolina (def. Vanderbilt, 21-3), 4-0, 365 pts.
10. Texas A&M (lost to Oklahoma State, 30-29), 2-1, 315 pts.

c/o SixPackSpeak

Ole Miss Rebels, as an identity, is gone. They're the Mississippi Bears now. Not the Black Bears – as officially recognized by the university – or the Brown Bears, the Sun Bears, the Panda Bears, the Polar Bears, the Bear Bryants, the Teddy Bears or the Theodore Roosevelts. And no, the new mascot was not chosen in lieu of William Faulkner's "short novel," The Bear.

Colonel Rebel is gone (but not forgotten) because of oversensitive garbage commingled with an apparent refusal to understand a remote campus which, for decades, featured substandard facilities by the lofty standards of the Southeastern Conference will always trump the depiction of any mascot.