The Thanksgiving weekend of 1971 is considered the gold standard of epic rivalry games: No. 1 Nebraska defeated No. 2 Oklahoma 35-31 in one of the earliest showdowns tagged as the Game of the Century, and No. 3 Alabama defeated No. 5 Auburn 31-7. Two weekends remain before we get to Thanksgiving, but already it appears as if the Ohio State-Michigan and Alabama-Auburn rivalry games this season will be important beyond their large and passionate fan bases. All four teams are in the top 10, and these two upcoming contests look like the only top-10 matchups remaining before Championship Saturday. Those of us who remember Thanksgiving 1971 are very excited.
1. To recap just how well the Ohio State offense played on Saturday night in the Buckeyes' 62-3 rout of Nebraska, consider: Eight touchdowns, two field goals and the final possession running the clock out. No punts (but one fumble on special teams). The Buckeyes gained 590 yards of total offense. Converted 11 of 15 third downs. No sacks. Head coach Urban Meyer, as amazed Sunday as he was immediately after the game, said J.T. Barrett threw to his third receiver 12 times. The Buckeyes held the ball for nearly 23 minutes in the second half. All this against a Cornhuskers defense that ranked 15th in scoring defense (18.4) and 20th in total defense (342.1).
2. Ohio State bounced back after three lackluster weeks. USC takes a five-game winning streak to Washington on Saturday. And here's another team showing life after a stumble: Texas (5-4) has won three of four games. The standards for a good defense are low in the Big 12. But in those four games, the Longhorns have gotten a little better. They limited Kansas State to one second-half touchdown in a 24-21 loss, beat Iowa State 27-6 and then held Baylor to 34 points and the Texas Tech offense to 30. To put it another way, the Longhorns are 4-1 when they hold their opponents to fewer than 45 points. The Charlie Strong soap opera might finish with a happy ending yet.
3. The inability of LSU to open holes for Leonard Fournette against Alabama is reminiscent of Peyton Manning going 0-for-4 against Florida in the mid-1990s. It reflects more on the superstar than on his teammates, and yet Fournette couldn't run because the offensive line couldn't create room for him. In three games against the Crimson Tide, Fournette gained 145 yards on 57 carries, with one touchdown. Fournette's long gain: 18 yards, on the 22-yard drive that led to the above score -- a one-yard plunge last season in the fourth quarter, when the game was out of reach. Manning had a career that will put him in the College Football Hall of Fame. So has Fournette. But each of their careers has an asterisk.
4. Cecil Hurt of the Tuscaloosa News, spot on per usual, wrote Saturday night that LSU has "to solve the thorny problem of what you do when you make a game mean everything -- and then lose it." That seems to be an occupational hazard among Alabama's SEC opponents. Tennessee fell apart after losing to Alabama for the 10th consecutive year. Texas A&M lost at Mississippi State. Ole Miss is 1-3 in the league since blowing a 21-point lead against the Crimson Tide. I don't know whether it's the physical toll of playing Alabama or the mental one. But the Crimson Tide are casting a large shadow.
5. The Stanford offense continues to operate without an effective passing game -- the restraint in keeping the redshirt on freshman quarterback K.J. Costello is admirable -- and without an offensive line that pushes tacklers around the way it had in winning three of the past four Pac-12 titles. But just when Stanford looked its worst, the schedule provided help. After wins over Arizona and Oregon State, the league's two last-place teams, Stanford now faces three of the four worst defensive teams in the FBS: at Oregon (127th), at Cal (125th) and, on Thanksgiving Saturday, a nonconference home game against Rice (128th and last).
6. The Ducks (3-6) must win out to automatically qualify for their 12th consecutive bowl; although with a 967 APR, the Ducks might have a chance at a bowl bid, should they finish 5-7. There are 11 teams with bowl streaks of at least 11 seasons, and the only other one in danger of not getting to 12 is Georgia (5-4); the Dawgs have a game with Louisiana-Lafayette (3-6) between their rivalry games against Auburn and Georgia Tech. The team with the longest bowl streak? Florida State, which has extended it to 35 games. To explain how good that is, Virginia Tech, which has the second longest such streak, will be going to "only" its 24th straight bowl.
7. I don't know if San Diego State set a record for earliest clinching of a division championship, but the Aztecs nailed down the Mountain West Squared with three Saturdays to spare. They are 8-1 and 5-0 in conference play, they have a 16-game winning streak in the MWC, and they have the FBS's leading rusher in Donnel Pumphrey. So why does it feel as if coach Rocky Long has outfitted his entire team in invisibility cloaks from Hogwarts? Part of it is the one loss, at South Alabama (which also beat Mississippi State but is 1-4 in the Sun Belt). And San Diego State is the ultimate example of a college program in an NFL market that doesn't pay much attention to it.