College Football Corner: BCS Ball

This is the first week that the Bowl Championship Series rankings will be on everyone's radar, and the timing was just right for No. 1 Florida. The Gators avoided an upset by Arkansas last week with a fourth-quarter rally, but voters in The Associated Press poll weren't impressed, and pushed the Alabama Crimson Tide to the top of the heap as No. 1.

But as we know, it's the BCS rankings that determine who plays in the national championship, so Florida is still in good stead. Both teams need to be wary this week, however, as 'Bama gets a feisty Tennessee Vol squad and Florida visits Mississippi State, a 3-4 team that put up a fierce fight in losses to LSU, Georgia Tech and Houston.

So without future ado, here are the Corner's featured games this week.

Tennessee (3-3) at No. 1 Alabama (7-0), 3:30 p.m. EDT, CBS: Suddenly competitive Tennessee has become one of the more entertaining stories of the 2009 college football campaign. After deposing its longtime, title-winning Head Ccoach Phil Fulmer, the university replaced him with the youthful pedigreed firebrand Lane Kiffin, protege of Southern Cal's Pete Carroll and son of that NFL defensive ancient, Monte Kiffin, who now stalks the Volunteer sidelines calling in the coverages as defensive coordinator.

All in all, Kiffin the Younger looks to have rejuvenated (maybe; we still need further evidence) a program that had fallen far from its one-time status as a perennial SEC contender.

So far this year, Tennessee has sort of hung in there with No. 1 Florida, has lost to a close one to a UCLA squad on its own resurrection mission under Rick Neuheisel, and has blown out what was once believed to be a formidable Georgia team. Add in a strangely close affair with the Bobcats of Ohio University and a loss at home to Auburn, and you have a either a dangerous underdog or another no-problem Alabama victim.