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1. George DeLeone hired Paul Pasqualoni as an assistant coach at Southern Connecticut State in 1976, and the two have coached together for most of the seasons since, from Division III to FBS to the NFL. When UConn fired Pasqualoni on Monday after two-plus seasons as head coach, the school fired DeLeone, the associate head coach and offensive line coach, too. The Huskies are 0-4, scoring 18 points and gaining 272.5 yards of total offense per game. Pasqualoni has a solid record (151-94-1, .616) in 22 years as a head coach. Something tells me he and DeLeone aren’t done coaching -- together -- just yet.

2. Oregon has won its last 15 road conference games, the longest such FBS winning streak. The Ducks have won their last game at every Pac-12 opponent save Utah (in 2003, when Utes were in MWC. Does that count?) Alabama has won nine straight road SEC games. Stanford and Texas A&M each have won their last five road conference games. The Cardinal lost to Washington in 2012 at CenturyLink Field in Seattle. However, with the victory at that stadium Saturday over Washington State, Stanford has won its last game at every opposing venue in the Pac-12.


3. Texas athletic director DeLoss Dodds will announce today that he is retiring next August after 32 years. All Dodds, a former track coach, has done is transform Texas into the premier sports program in the nation. It took him three coaching hires to find Mack Brown, but 150 wins and one BCS championship in 16 seasons indicate Dodds got that one right. It’s a measure of the resources and the expectations that Dodds has raised that fans wonder why the Longhorns don’t dominate every sport in which they compete.

1. Remember when bowls used to pick teams in October? That’s how we got the BCS. Firing coaches is happening earlier and earlier. But history says that USC athletic director Pat Haden is smart. He gets the jump on other schools in the annual coaching employment fair. In 2004, Florida fired Ron Zook in late October and beat Notre Dame to Urban Meyer. In 2011, Arizona fired Mike Stoops in mid-October and got to Rich Rodriguez before anyone else. Haden didn’t even wait until Oct. 1.

2. Whatever mistakes Kiffin made on the field, he didn’t help himself off the field. Faced with crippling scholarship sanctions, Kiffin didn’t do a very good job of explaining and selling the effects of those losses on his program. He fanned the hype of being a preseason No. 1 last season when the Trojans didn’t have the depth to withstand injuries. Contrast Kiffin to Penn State’s Bill O’Brien, who has made it clear to his fans and to the public that Penn State will fight hard, but they will fight uphill. Gene Wojciechowski said it: the worst thing Kiffin did was go 10-2 two years ago.

3. If Kiffin does nothing else, he provides Skip Holtz with an example of how things could be worse. A year ago, Holtz’s South Florida team was a preseason favorite in the Big East. The Bulls went 3-9, and instead of finishing in a BCS bowl, Holtz had to look for a job. He took over at Louisiana Tech, which lost 17 starters from last season’s 9-3 team (a reminder of why Sonny Dykes left for Cal). The Bulldogs are 0-4 against FBS opponents, none of them worldbeaters, and Holtz has lost 13 of his last 14 FBS games.

1. At Utah State last season, with the running/passing threat of Chuckie Keeton at quarterback, Gary Andersen’s Aggies ran the ball on 53 percent of their plays. Now that Andersen is coaching Wisconsin, where he has three very good backs and a veteran line, the Badgers are running the ball on 63 percent of their plays. That nearly matches the 66 percent that Bret Bielema’s Badgers ran the ball last season. It’s official -- Andersen has gone native.

2. After weeks of practicing and playing, five Pac-12 schools on the quarter system are just now starting classes. It can be quite an adjustment, especially for freshmen, to become students and athletes. Oregon, which begins class on Monday, brought in a time management expert to talk to the Ducks. Added Stanford football ops director Matt Doyle, “When you constantly emphasize things like time management, responsibility and organization, the first week of school really isn’t that big of a deal.”

3. You don’t have to be Brian Kelly to figure out that Notre Dame is not playing as well as it did a year ago. During the 2012 regular season, the Irish allowed only eight touchdowns in their opponents’ 33 drives into the red zone. This season, in four games, Notre Dame has allowed nine touchdowns in 15 drives. That they are 3-1 as they welcome No. 14 Oklahoma shows the benefit of knowing how to win. But that only works in close games.

1. The fact that the players at Northwestern, Georgia and Georgia Tech who participated in the silent protest called All Players United did so without any ramifications is a measure of the dissatisfaction with the status quo of the NCAA. In the era of social media, APU is likely to spread. The NCAA statement that supported open and civil debate all but gave the players a green light to continue to speak out. Some coaches won’t allow it -- coaches tend to be dictatorial -- but I don’t think the protest will peter out.

2. It’s been quite a week at Florida. Starting quarterback Jeff Driskel broke his leg in the victory Saturday over Tennessee. Preseason All-SEC defensive lineman Dominique Easley tore his ACL and meniscus at practice Tuesday. Three days apart, the Gators lose their offensive leader and their best pass rusher. Florida has games against four teams in the top 12, and only one of them is in Gainesville. And the Gators have lost their two best players. That’s a serious blow.

3. Paul Dietzel became the LSU head coach at age 30 in 1955 and led the Tigers to the 1958 national championship. Here’s what kind of iconoclastic thinker he was, and how different college football was a half-century ago, Dietzel left LSU after the 1961 season -- for Army. Dietzel wanted to restore the Cadets to their former greatness. He couldn’t. He left for South Carolina and led the Gamecocks to their only conference championship, the 1969 ACC title. Dietzel stopped coaching at age 50. For a guy who barely won more than he lost (109-95-5), he made a big imprint. Dietzel died Tuesday at age 89.

1. The death of former Northwestern head coach Francis Peay at age 69 is a reminder that wins and losses shouldn’t be the sole judge of a coach’s impact. Peay went 13-51-2 in six seasons (1986-91) in Evanston. In his book, High Hopes, Gary Barnett wrote this about succeeding Peay: “What I did not take into account was that most of the kids, especially our 35 black kids, had come because of Francis Peay. They came to Northwestern because he was such a tremendous role model, and because he was a strong black man. And then all of a sudden, he’s yanked away from them.”

2. Georgia coach Mark Richt has signed three of the current starting quarterbacks in the SEC: Aaron Murray; LSU’s Zach Mettenberger, who will return home to Athens to play the Dawgs on Saturday, and Auburn’s Nick Marshall. The latter two started out at Georgia but Richt dismissed them for disciplinary reasons. “When they have to leave,” Richt said, “I just hope they can move forward and have great success….(I)t makes you feel good.” Some coaches bend their rules to win a game. Richt doesn’t. I bet he sleeps well at night.


3. Clemson defensive end Vic Beasley -- the ACC Defensive Lineman of the Week after three sacks and a forced fumble against North Carolina State -- came out of August even with freshman Shaq Lawson for a starting spot. “If it is a tie, then tie goes to the veteran” Tigers coach Dabo Swinney said at his press conference this week. “…It was really a tie between him and Vic coming out of practice, to be honest. I told Vic that, too. You have to go and perform. This big boy is on your heels right here.” Looks like Beasley listened.

1. We get blinded by all the gaudy stats thrown onto the scoreboard by Oregon -- 61.3 points and 672 yards per game -- but here's one that's pretty remarkable. The Ducks, averaging 72 plays per game, have yet to turn the ball over in three games. Not only that, the turnover-free streak actually is five games long. Oregon last lost a turnover in the 17-14 loss to Stanford in Game 11 last season. The Ducks are plus-seven in turnover margin this season, and plus-52 in the Chip Kelly/Mark Helfrich Era.

2. At the other end of the spectrum is West Virginia, which turned the ball over as many times as it punted -- six! -- in the 37-0 loss at Maryland. How bad did West Virginia perform? Maryland scored seven times -- once on defense. Four of the offensive scoring drives began in Mountaineers' territory. Since starting last season 5-0 and rising to No. 5 in the rankings, West Virginia has gone 2-8 against FBS opponents, the victories coming at Iowa State last season and against Georgia State this month.

3. Anyone else noticed that the American is 4-6 against the other AQ conferences? That would be the same American that is being left behind by the College Football Playoff next season. The American can finish .500 against the AQs with a couple of longshots this week. No. 13 South Carolina plays at unbeaten UCF, which seems a more plausible upset than USF's chance at home against No. 14 Miami. The Bulls (0-3) already have used three quarterbacks this season. They have completed 37.1 percent of their passes.

1. I know that Michigan State is frustrated with the 17-13 loss at Notre Dame. The Spartans feel like the calls didn’t go their way, the bounces didn’t go their way, and that’s why the game didn’t go their way. But if I’m heading into Big Ten play in an era when defense is vanishing, and I held the Fighting Irish to 14 first downs, then I see a significant upside to the rest of my season, no matter how frustrated I am with the calls and the bounces.

2. Here’s why college athletics as we know it is going to change. Never mind that Arian Foster came out and said he got paid while he played at Tennessee. When a high-profile player such as Foster feels there’s not enough social stigma to prevent him from declaring that he got paid, then the public opinion has shifted enough to mean that a change is going to come. Some people in the NCAA understand that and are trying to manage the change. Others want the status to remain quo. But it never does, does it?

3. If you haven’t seen the onside kick executed by Rice senior Chris Boswell with 2:19 remaining in the Owls’ 31-26 loss to Houston, get thee to YouTube or click here. It defies belief. Boswell has established himself as one of the most talented placekickers in the FBS. He made six field goals of 50 yards or longer last season. He nailed a 56-yarder in Rice’s 23-14 victory over Kansas on Sept. 14, although he missed two 50-plus yarders Saturday. Maybe the onside kick will soothe his anguish.

1. Good teams are good in all three phases of the game. That’s not breaking news, but we saw what it means at North Carolina State on Thursday night. The Wolfpack got to Clemson quarterback Tajh Boyd early and the pressure disrupted his rhythm. He didn’t find it until late in the third quarter. But the Tigers’ defense and special teams kept the Wolfpack in check. Once Boyd found his game, Clemson easily pulled away to a 26-14 victory. The Tigers look like No. 3.

2. The Texas regent who called Jimmy Sexton about Alabama head coach Nick Saban reminds me of the Sports Illustrated expose on Oklahoma State. That’s probably not the only phone call that Sexton received that week about a client of his from another school. What has that got to do with Oklahoma State? Both cases are an inside look at how business gets done. Saban said on his radio show last night that he’s “too damn old to start over.” He and Terri are happy in Alabama, and they have learned the hard way how important that is.

3. Three weeks into the season, 22 FBS schools have scored on every trip into the red zone, but only four of them have scored touchdowns on every trip: Oklahoma State, Texas State, Georgia State and Hawaii. Oklahoma State has the most trips, with 15, and winless Hawaii the least -- just one. A special shout out to Dennis Franchione’s Bobcats, who also lead the FBS in red zone defense, allowing only one touchdown and one field goal in seven trips. Texas State plays at No. 25 Texas Tech on Saturday night.

1. My All-Wally-Pipped offense is shaping up: Braxton Miller of Ohio State and Tre Roberson of Indiana at quarterback, Venric Mark of Northwestern at tailback, Colt Lyerla of Oregon at tight end. ... Do I believe Miller won’t get his job back from Kenny Guiton? No. But once Ducks freshman Johnny Mundt caught two touchdowns against Tennessee, it made me think of Guiton and Hoosiers quarterback Nate Sudfeld and Wildcats tailback Treyvon Green. I just need a few linemen, a couple of receivers ...

2. Since the beginning of last season, the Pac-12 has three of the top four defenses in sacks when sending four or fewer rushers. Stanford has 45, South Carolina has 39, USC 36 and UCLA 35 (thanks, ESPN Stats & Info). Can anyone in the Pac-12 block? Maybe not. Stanford guard David Yankey made consensus All-American in 2012, and Oregon guard Kyle Long went in the first round of the NFL Draft. But he was the only Pac-12 offensive lineman taken in the first three rounds. Only one Pac-12 tackle was drafted, and only five O-linemen overall.

3. Then there's Duke offensive tackle Perry Simmons, a fifth-year senior, who will make his 40th consecutive start Saturday when the Blue Devils play Pittsburgh. Last week against Georgia Tech, Simmons played his 3,000th collegiate snap. "Think about that for a second," Duke head coach David Cutcliffe said this week. "That is an amazing stat." Not only has Simmons played well -- last season the Blue Devils allowed only one sack for every 29 pass attempts -- but he has a 3.8 GPA in civil engineering, with an emphasis in architecture. At Duke.

1. Bo Pelini got a raw deal. Yes, he shouldn't have said what he said. Yes, he was naïve not to understand what every on-air performer knows -- any microphone within the sound of your voice should be considered live. But he's not the first coach to vent such comments about his fans and the local media. He probably wasn't the first to do so last week. Someone sat on the recording for two years before releasing it when Pelini's support is ebbing. That feels underhanded.

2. Rogers Redding, the national supervisor of officiating, isn't about to say that Alabama defensive back Ha Ha Clinton-Dix shouldn't have been flagged for targeting Saturday, as replays showed. But Redding said the use of replays on targeting calls is worth the risk of embarrassing the officiating crew if it will keep a player from being unjustly ejected. Redding said in 212 games this season, there have been only 19 targeting fouls, or one every 11 games. That's down from one every eight games in 2012. The threat of ejection is having the desired effect.

3. Stanford senior safety John Flacco -- yes, he's Joe's brother -- got in for one play at Army. But he might have been the star of the game. When the Corps of Cadets recognized his name and began yelling at him, Flacco waved his arms to pump up the volume. Soon, all 4,000 cadets chanted his name. When Flacco came off the field after his play, the corps gave him a standing ovation. He has more than 1,000 new friends on Facebook, and Flacco memes are all the rage at West Point. The goodwill generated by one reserve with a famous last name is college athletics at its best.

1. It would be fair to say I butchered my initial assessment of the end of the Wisconsin-Arizona State game. I watched the replay at least five times, but I never heard the whistle blow. I maintain that Wisconsin held some culpability -- quarterback Joel Stave opened the door to the problems by placing the ball on the ground. But once Pac-12 commissioner Larry Scott disciplined the officiating crew for abdicating its roles at game’s end, it became plain that I hadn’t grasped what happened. That one’s on me.

2. We all become numb to the amount of money devoted to the top football programs. But once in a while something stops me. Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema said Monday that a donor offered his plane this summer so that Bielema and his operations people could fly to Florida and check out the team hotel for the Razorbacks’ Oct. 5 game. They left Gainesville and flew to New Jersey to check out the hotel and stadium for Saturday’s game at Rutgers. You say, “Detail-oriented.” I say, “Seriously?”

3. Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill had another epileptic seizure Saturday during the Gophers’ victory over Western Illinois. That’s the fourth time it has happened during a game in his three seasons at Minnesota. But athletic director Norwood Teague has no issues with Kill coaching. Kill’s doctors have no issue with him coaching. And Kill has decided that being public about his condition may help others who suffer from epilepsy. He has no issue with coaching, either. In other words, there’s nothing to see here.

1. Boulder might be ravaged by flood waters, but as of Thursday night, Colorado’s game against Fresno State on Saturday will be played as scheduled. Folsom Field drains well, and no access roads to the stadium are among those washed out by the rains, which forced hundreds to leave their homes and closed campus Thursday. The Buffs' practice fields, which are well below the stadium, were so drenched by an overflowing Boulder Creek that the football team practiced on the new lacrosse field on Thursday.

2. Time for a perception and reality test. Who has done the best coaching job since the start of 2009? Mack Brown of Texas or Bill Snyder of Kansas State? Lane Kiffin of USC and Tennessee or Al Golden of Miami and Temple? The answer, according to Ws and Ls, is pretty much a dead heat. Brown is 36-18, Snyder is 35-18. Kiffin is 33-20, Golden is 32-19. However, if memory serves me, the starting lines in these races were staggered.

3. Wisconsin and Utah State led the FBS in rushing touchdowns of 50 or more yards last season, according to our friends, the ESPN Stats & Info geeks. Oddly enough, neither had one in the Badgers' 16-14 defeat of the Aggies. This season, Wisconsin already has three to Utah State's none. Wisconsin leads, 13-10. And if you’re keeping score among the head coaches, Arkansas has one this season. Gary Andersen leads Bret Bielema, 13-11.

1. In four-plus seasons at Iowa State, Paul Rhoads may be 4-15 against ranked teams. He is 9-15 against the other nine teams in the Big 12. The Cyclones may have opened the season by losing to FCS cross-state opponent Northern Iowa, 28-20. But Iowa State has defeated Iowa the last two seasons, by a field goal each time. That’s called job security. The Hawkeyes come to Ames Saturday having won only five of their last 16 games. It may be mid-September, but there’s a lot at stake.

2. Despite the hysteria generated by Texas’s defensive meltdown and the subsequent firing of defensive coordinator Manny Diaz, athletic director DeLoss Dodds’ pulse remains slow and steady. Dodds said again this week to the Austin American-Statesman that head coach Mack Brown has his full support. He has said it for the last three frustrating seasons. That hasn’t stopped the job speculation. That never stops the speculation. One day, of course, Brown won’t be the head coach at Texas. You should live so long.


3. There’s plenty of feel-good stories at Colorado, which is 2-0 after going 1-11 last season. My favorite among the Buffs is junior wide receiver Paul Richardson, who has traveled a long road to lead the FBS with 208.5 receiving yards per game (21 catches, 4 scores). Richardson missed a good chunk of 2011 with one knee injury, and all of 2012 with another. He’s back, he’s healthy and the Buffs, under first-year coach Mike MacIntyre, have a pulse.

Three turnarounds in progress:

1. The third coordinator in three seasons has been the charm for Illinois senior quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase. Illini head coach Tim Beckman snapped up Bill Cubit, fired after eight seasons (51-47) by Western Michigan, and the difference in Scheelhaase has been huge. He is completing 74 percent of his passes this season as opposed to 60 percent last year, and 10.6 yards per attempt, nearly double last year’s 5.6 yards per attempt. Illinois is 2-0 and making the Big Ten Leaders look a lot tougher.

2. Boston College head coach Steve Addazio, who always acts as if he takes his Red Bull intravenously, has injected life into the Eagles, who seemed like a team more talented than the 2-10 record that got Frank Spaziani fired a year ago. BC has matched its win total of last season thanks to a newly aggressive defense under coordinator Don Brown. The Eagles have eight sacks in two games. Last season, they had eight sacks.

3. Utah is 2-0 for the first time in three seasons thanks to an offensive explosion (100 points in two games) that reflects the touch of new co-offensive coordinator Dennis Erickson, the longtime passing guru who won two national championships at Miami. Sophomore quarterback Travis Wilson has more than doubled his 2012 QBR (92.0/41/7) with five touchdowns and no picks this season, as opposed to seven and six, respectively, a year ago.

1. The way that Oklahoma State has reacted to the coming investigative piece by Sports Illustrated is a textbook example of how to handle a P.R. firestorm. Athletic director Mike Holder made respectful comments about the Sports Illustrated journalists working on the piece. He promised the university would be thorough in its own investigation. He apologized to the Cowpoke alums and to the rest of the Big 12. Either Holder knows how to play the game or he knows that SI has his school dead to rights. Or both.

2. The firing of Texas defensive coordinator Manny Diaz on Sunday, coupled with the feeble USC offense Saturday night, sucked a lot of oxygen out of the weekend postmortems. Toss in the wild marquee games (Florida-Miami, South Carolina-Georgia, Notre Dame-Michigan) and it was real easy to overlook the fact that most of the top 10 did what top-10 teams should do -- beat lesser teams by greater margins. It wasn’t as crazy a weekend as it appeared.

3. It’s Time-Zone Gamesmanship Week, as in, UCLA (at Nebraska) and Stanford (at Army) both play at 9 a.m., Pacific time. Wisconsin plays at Arizona State at 9:30 p.m., Central time. Yeah, I know -- TV networks have something to do with this. I asked Stanford head coach David Shaw earlier this year if he planned to do any extra prep for Breakfast at West Point. He said that in 2011, when the Cardinal played at Duke, the coaches got them up early all week. When the game started, Stanford played great in the first half. In the second half, they had nothing left. This year, Shaw said, no early practices.