TUCFC: 2012 Week 3

West Virginia easily defended the Unofficial College Football Championship title by beating James Madison 42-12.  They should have no problem defending next week against Maryland.

I know we are only three weeks into the season, but to me this week was all about the coaches.

Kentucky's loss to Western Kentucky is a great example. I can't imagine Joker Phillips will still have his job at the end of the year. A win like that also puts the Western Coach, Willie Taggart, on the market to a bigger program. He won at Western last year. Came back this year and after being ranked preseason as one of the worst teams in the country is already outperforming.

And what about Bobby Petrino? With the complete collapse at Arkansas, Petrino's stock has to be through the roof. The good thing too about Petrino is that he did something stupid, but not something so horrible it makes him a hard hire. I know some people in Kentucky dream of getting Petrino, but he's too big for the likes of UK. I'm sure Tennessee will be going after him along with every team in the Big 10, except for Ohio State. The Big 10 is now looking to be even worse than the ACC in football and if you're any school besides Ohio State you have to be very concerned moving forward about being completely left behind.

Another coach who will now get some serious scrutiny is Lane Kiffin at USC. There have always been question marks around his ability to coach as well as his ability to not break rules. He came in this season with the top ranked team and now the season is blown apart just a few weeks in. I don't think Kiffin will lose his job at the end of the year, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are some rumblings over hiring him in the first place. When you look around the PAC 12 right the teams are stacked with big time coaches. In this offseason Washington State hired Mike Leach, Arizona hired Rich Rodriguez, UCLA hired Jim Mora Jr., and Arizona State hired Todd Graham. So far all these hires look good as these teams are all sitting with winning records.

If we look outside of coaching I think the biggest story of the week, outside of Alabama, Arkansas, was Florida State. For the past few seasons they have been ranked but struggled on a weekly basis to show themselves as being an elite team. Wake Forest isn't that good, but they have given teams in the ACC headaches the last few sasons, but this time no problem Florida State delivered the same 52-0 beat down that Alabama gave Arkansas. This impressed me and for the first time in years I think Florida State may actually be as good as they are ranked.

The second biggest story was Notre Dame embarrassing Michigan State. The Big 10 is on path to become a conference completely dominated by Ohio State, once Urban Meyer gets rolling, and otherwise completely irrelevant.

Besides West Virginia defending against Maryland next week, here are the games I'll be interested in following.

Arizona at Oregon
     It will be interesting to see how far Rodriguez has managed to bring Arizona.

Clemson at Florida State
     Now we get the real test of Florida State.  If they can shut down Clemson, then they can shut down any offense in the country.  That will be their big test in this game.  I secretly root for Clemson so I'll be looking for the upset.

Kansas State at Oklahoma
    This is KSU's chance to become the top dog of the Big 12.  All they have to do is beat Oklahoma.  If Oklahoma can throttle KSU and FSU struggles against Clemson look for Oklahoma to move up in the polls. 

Colorado at Washington State
     Each week WSU's offense has been getting better and better.  This week they are at home against a horrible Colorado team.  I'm expecting a huge blowout this week and all the Leach love to start pouring out of Pullman.