Oklahoma, Miami must not lose focus

With Northern Illinois's 34-18 loss to Bowling Green Saturday, Texas Christian is the only other unbeaten Division 1-A team. And the Horned Frogs are too far down in the BCS standings to be a contender.

But before Oklahoma and Miami can start preparing for a battle on Bourbon Street that should have occurred three years ago in the BCS title game at the Orange Bowl, they will have to overcome large obstacles this week. Oklahoma, which continued to roll along at No. 1 with a solid 34-20 win over Colorado Saturday, must deal with a surging Oklahoma State team that has beaten Oklahoma each of the last two seasons.

Miami must travel to Blacksburg, Va., for its Big East (lame-duck version) showdown with Virginia Tech Saturday. Don't make too much of Virginia Tech's 28-7 loss to West Virginia Wednesday. The Hokies are not that bad. Virginia Tech's Frank Beamer is too good a coach and has too good a team to come up with back-to-back stinkers, especially when the Hurricanes are coming to Blacksburg. And the Hurricanes are not as good as last season, which means they'll have to bring their "A" game or their three-year regular-season unbeaten streak will end.

With all that in place, the one-loss teams are jockeying for position if Oklahoma or Miami stumbles.

The hot team is probably Southern California. Since USC's three-overtime loss to Cal in September, coach Pete Carroll's Trojans are looking better each week. They battered Notre Dame Oct. 18 -- no great accomplishment considering the Irish's 2-5 start -- but Saturday they went up to Washington and walked away with a solid 43-23 win over the Huskies. It was the Trojans' first win at Washington since 1993.

Lions tamer

The misery continues to build at Penn State, which dropped to 2-6 after Saturday's 26-14 loss to Iowa. More important, Florida State coach Bobby Bowden passed Penn State's Joe Paterno as the all-time-winningest coach (in victories) in Division 1. Florida State rolled over Wake Forest, 48-24, which gave Bowden his 339th career win, breaking a tie with Joe Pa. With the Seminoles headed for another BCS bid and Penn State headed for another losing season, it seems unlikely Paterno will be able to catch Bowden . . . Pittsburgh wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is climbing in the Heisman Trophy race. All Fitzgerald did Saturday was catch eight passes for 149 yards and a pair of touchdowns in Pitt's 34-14 win over Syracuse. It was the 13th consecutive game in which Fitzgerald has caught a touchdown pass, putting him one game short of the national record by Michigan State's Charles Rogers. Fitzgerald and the Panthers will be at Boston College this Saturday, which is not good news for the Eagles, whose pass defense was chewed up by Notre Dame despite the Eagles' 27-25 last-minute victory . . . Washington State set up this Saturday's Pac-10 showdown with USC with a 36-30 win over Oregon State . . . Georgia has an SEC East showdown with Florida this Saturday, but it may have lost some style points after struggling to a 16-13 win over Alabama-Birmingham. Combined with a lackluster effort in a win over Vanderbilt Oct. 18, the Dawgs are either spending too much time looking ahead to Florida or are not as good as some people think . . . Purdue had visions of the Rose Bowl, but a 31-3 pounding by Michigan in the Big House dashed those dreams. The Boilermakers have lost 16 straight games in Ann Arbor dating back to 1966. Michigan coach Lloyd Carr is now 12-3 against Top 10 teams.

Wildcats striking

Northwestern's 16-7 win over Wisconsin on Homecoming Day in Evanston, Ill., evened the Wildcats' record at 4-4 and gives them an outside chance at getting a bowl bid since they still have Penn State and Illinois remaining . . . Watch out for Mississippi, which knocked off Arkansas, 19-7, and is 4-0 in the SEC for the first time since 1970. The Rebels are the only SEC West team never to have reached the conference title game. Their destiny is in their own hands since they must face SEC West challengers Auburn and LSU in the next three weeks . . . Kudos to UConn, which won a 38-37 encounter with Akron Saturday and now has six wins. But the Huskies need one more win to become bowl eligible, since one of their victories was over Division 1-AA Lehigh . . . Congratulations also go to Rutgers for its 30-14 win over Temple. It was the Scarlet Knights' first Big East win since Nov. 13, 1999, and first league win for coach Greg Schiano . . . Army is still on course for its first winless season after a 33-29 close encounter of the most frustrating kind against Cincinnati.

That's entertainment

Say what you want about the overtime system, but you won't find better entertainment and drama than Tennessee's wild 51-43 five-OT win over Alabama. Tennessee is used to such theatrics. The Vols won a six-OT game last year against Arkansas . . . Ohio State, which entered its game against Indiana ranked 114th in the country in offense, got healthy quickly in a 35-6 win over the Hoosiers, piling up more than 600 yards in total offense . . . When Auburn loses, it really loses. The Tigers were trounced by LSU, 31-7, Saturday night and they have scored 10 points in their three losses . . . TCU stayed unbeaten with a 62-55 win over Houston, which was the same number of points scored by the Horned Frogs and Cougars last season -- in a basketball game.

Material from wire services was used in this report.