I didn't get to do my week one picks because of Gustav issues, but I'll go ahead and get up the conference picks on week two. And though it's late and I didn't get them up before South Carolina v. Vandy, in the interests of full disclosure I would have picked South Carolina, so add that one accordingly.

Auburn over Southern Miss: I think it will be close, and I wouldn't be overly shocked to see USM pull it off, but it's hard to go against Auburn in this one.

Wake Forest over Ole Miss: The Rebels will put up a decent fight, but it won't be enough. The ACC will emerge with the slightest of all shreds of dignity.

Georgia over Central Michigan: The only real storyline is whether UGA stays healthy.

Kentucky over Norfolk State: Obviously.

Alabama over Tulane: Repeat after me: It. Won't. Happen. Again.

MSU over SELA: The last win for a while for the Bullies.

Arkansas over ULM: It will be another nailbiter, and I'm not going to be the least bit surprised if ULM pulls it off, and one might even go as far as expecting it given how terrible Arkansas was in the opener. Still, it's essentially impossible to rationally pick a Sun Belt team over an SEC team.

Florida over Miami: The 'Canes will be improved, but not by enough. Florida's offense rolls up a ton of points and wins big.

LSU over Troy: I know they aren't technically playing this weekend, but regardless of whether it's now or November, the result will be the same.

In all fairness, no one could have seen what was coming against Clemson. Oh sure, we all knew that Clemson probably was not that good, and were likely a team that benefited from a laughably weak ACC more than anything else. But total domination? Complete and utter control of the opposition? No one could have rationally seen that coming. Only the most maniacal of diehards could have ever envisioned such a scenario as being a legitimate possibility. But, nevertheless, that is just what happened.

Offensively, Clemson had no real response for anything we did. And we were conservative as hell to boot. The overwhelming majority of our plays resulted in a hand-off to either Coffee or Ingram who would immediately hit either the A or the B gap, or some type of short route to the tight end or one of the backs. We barely even threw the football to the receivers, and even when we did it was generally short and underneath routes. We had all of two "deep" throws all night, one of which was on a play that never actually happened due to an illegal formation penalty, and both of which Wilson misfired badly on. And remember the trick play discussion from RBR radio last week? Far from trick plays, the most imaginative play we had all night was a wide receiver screen to Julio after we sent him across the formation in motion on the first series of the game. So much for trick plays.

The truth of the matter was we had no need for any theatrics. The offensive gameplan effectively came straight out of the 1960's... just run the football down their throats and keep the chains moving with short throws that will most likely result in completions. Again, nothing else was needed. When you can move the football up and down the field with ease, even when using the most conservative of gameplans, why bother with anything else? That was essentially the philosophy of Jim McElwain on Saturday night in Atlanta. Don't think that we've seen all that his offense has to offer, mind you, we've just seen all that needed to pound Clemson, which wasn't much. You will most definitely see something different emerge over the course of the season.

Defensively, the Clemson offense could not garner any production. Terrance Cody plugged the middle effectively, and he has deservedly gotten much hype for it, but the rest of the defensive linemen were very stout against the run as well, and the linebackers effectively played their gaps with a high degree of consistency all night long. It was a great effort by the entire front seven, and we dramatically limited both Spiller and Davis early in the game. And after limiting them early, our offense was rolling up so many points that Clemson quickly found themselves in such a hole that running the football was simply a luxury they could not afford. Being down three touchdowns before halftime meant that the Tigers had to become pass happy and abandon the running game. For all intents and purposes, the early performance of the Alabama offense and defensive front seven essentially meant that Spiller and Davis might as well have stayed at home.

When Clemson did have to throw the football, Cullen Harper and Aaron Kelly were largely exposed for what they were all along... players who ranged from solid-to-good, but players not of the elite caliber needed to carry a team on their backs. Harper actually played relatively well -- and given his circumstances, many quarterbacks would have played much worse -- but Kelly was a non-factor, as was everyone else, even though one of Alabama's most important players (Rashad Johnson) had a bad night. Offensively, it was just a disaster for Clemson all night long. The three "big" plays for Clemson all night were actually the result of Alabama mistakes (two fifteen yard penalties and terrible coverage on the slant to Jacoby Ford). Aside from that, it was nothing short of a disaster. Zero touchdowns. Three total points. Fewer than 200 yards of total offense. Zero yards rushing. One of nine on third down. Three and out on five separate occasions. For Tommy Bowden, it was the nightmare that turned out to be all too real.

And don't let the scoreboard deceive you. If anything, the game probably should have been much worse. Though we moved the ball well all night long, we did have to settle for five field goal tries, and had we been able to convert a bit better in Clemson territory, those who bleed purple and orange would all be wishing the game were only a 24-point margin. As big as the blowout was, it could have been much bigger, and in all honesty the final tally on the scoreboard does not do justice to the actual domination that took place on the field.

For Clemson, though, it's not all bad. They do have a lot of talent, and a great amount of overall team speed to boot. In all fairness, they are likely still the favorite to win the ACC. Clemson obviously isn't very good, but it's not like they have to be either; the ACC is laughable at best. Virginia Tech was beaten by East Carolina. North Carolina squeaked by tiny Division 1-AA McNeese State. The same goes for Maryland with Division 1-AA Delaware. North Carolina State was annihilated by South Carolina. You get the idea. The harsh truth of the matter is that -- as long as programs like Miami and Florida State continue to struggle -- the ACC will be a bad conference simply because programs like Clemson, Virginia Tech, and others aren't the caliber of programs needed to carry the conference at the highest levels. They cannot carry the ACC any more than programs like Arkansas and South Carolina can carry the SEC, it's just the harsh reality of the matter. Being brutally honest, at this point, you have to assume that either Clemson or Wake Forest will end up winning the ACC and will get the BCS bid that comes with it. Again, as embarrassing of a performance as it was for the Tigers, things aren't all bad, they still have a great chance at a BCS game.

And for Alabama, it's not a utopia yet either. People feel good after the Clemson game, and rightly so, but we still have many obstacles before us. The truth of the matter is that you can guarantee us playing at least three teams better than Clemson, and probably several more. We shouldn't have any problems the next few weeks, but from there it will get very tough. Georgia will be tough, Ole Miss looks to be decent, Kentucky looks better than expected, and you know both LSU and Auburn will give us lots of trouble, which is to speak nothing of a Tennessee team whose head coach may very well find his head firmly within the reaches of the guillotine by the time we head to Knoxville. Even Arkansas State -- a game Todd openly worried about earlier in the year -- is going to be tough; they went into College Station in week one and beat Texas A&M. Bottom line, we still have a long ways to go, and to echo the sentiments from last week's radio show, I just hope we can handle the victory. As gratifying as the domination of Clemson was, it's not the end-all be-all of everything, and we still have many obstacles to overcome. Surely, we will need to improve further to overcome those obstacles. Hopefully the team understands that and works towards that end.

Moving immediately forward to Tulane, the Green Wave shouldn't present us any real problems. The entire offense from a year ago -- and it wasn't very good as it was -- rested solely upon the production of Matt Forte, but he's a Chicago Bear now. The new quarterback, Kevin Moore, is a big kid with a decent arm, but he's immobile and frankly there is a reason that he was a third-stringer at Tulane last year. The offensive line and wide receiver corps is relatively decent by Conference USA standards, but nothing special. The defensive front seven has to replace several key members from a year ago, and the secondary is one of the worst in the country. Making matters even worse is that the Tulane special teams units are laughably bad when it comes to kick and punt coverage. Bottom line, it's a team composed of players that no one else wanted, and it shows in the on-field product.

For Alabama, we should drill the Green Wave with ease. The key word, of course, is should. Alabama fans ought to be well familiar with that word by this point. Should have drilled Louisiana Tech. Should have drilled Northern Illinois. Should have drilled Louisiana-Monroe. Obviously, should isn't quite what you think of it at times. So, should drill Tulane, no two ways about it. We have much better overall talent, depth, experience, and coaching. At the end of the day, it all boils down to how well we play. As I mentioned last night on the radio show, we are our own worst enemy. We are not playing Tulane, per se, we are playing ourselves; just like when Tiger Woods takes the green he is not playing against other golfers, per se, he's playing against himself. If we even play remotely near the level we should, we will win this game in a route. If not, well then... maybe, just maybe...

It's been a great week, no two ways about it. We are all very pleased, and rightly so. However, last year showed us very well that you can go from the proverbial penthouse to the outhouse in the blink of an eye, but thankfully it seems the team is well aware of that now. Going into this game, we have two major goals: win, and stay healthy. There is a connection between the two. If we go out and rack up a big lead early on like we should, we can get the starters out of the game and get the back-ups plenty of playing time.

In other words, it's been a great week, let's just all hope we can cap it off with a boring and uneventful night in Bryant-Denny Stadium.

Here goes:

1. Southern Cal: There is really no doubt, this is the best team in the country. When they really show up to play, it's just a matter of how touchdowns they win by. Unfortunately for Virginia, the Trojans decided to strut their stuff this past Saturday, and did so in absurdly dominating fashion, winning by almost seven touchdowns.

2. Florida: Blew out Hawai'i while allowing Tebow to take it easy. Further entrenched as the likely SEC champs with UGA's continued injury woes.

3. Oklahoma: About what was expected in week one.

4. Georgia: I'm not worried about how they looked against Georgia Southern, but the injuries are a major concern. With each passing injury, the less likely I see them holding the crystal ball.

5. Ohio State: Not moving anywhere for now, but with a week off and Beanie Wells hurt, something tells me that the Trojans are preparing themselves like sharks with blood in the water.

6. Missouri: Nice win over a pretty good Illinois squad, but you do have to worry about the defense. The offense will generally do extremely well, but once it runs into the better teams -- see Oklahoma -- it's likely that those defenses will limit the offense and still be able to rack up points on the porous Missouri defense. Still, nice win for them to start the year, so they stay.

7. Auburn: Moves up slightly after Clemson embarrassed themselves yet again lost to Alabama. We'll find out more come week four.

8. LSU: See above for commentary.

9. Texas: Yep.

10. West Virginia: Yep.

11. Texas Tech: Yep.

12. Wisconsin: Mm-hmm.

13. Alabama: No one should be putting the cart before the horse, but it's hard not to feel extremely good after that pounding. Being entirely objective and rational about the situation, the season opening performance against Clemson was undoubtedly one of the most impressive showings of the post-Stallings era. And yes I know that's sad, but the point remains. The sheer and utter physical domination was perhaps unlike anything I've seen out of Alabama since we left Baton Rouge in 2002.

14. Oregon: Perhaps the Ducks should invest some of that Nike money in finding out how to prevent quarterbacks from tearing ACLs. Nevertheless, they still rolled with relative ease to open the season against a conference opponent; nothing shabby about that.

15. Brigham Young: Lighting up the scoreboards, as usual.

16. Penn State: With the poor showings by both Michigan and Illinois, it's hard not to feel bullish about this squad.

17. Wake Forest: Baylor isn't that good, but it was still a blowout victory against a BCS conference opponent. Given how laughably pathetic the ACC looked in the opening weekend, this team has a great chance of getting back to a BCS game.

18. Arizona State: Middling performance against East Popcorn State, but whatever.

19. South Florida: It's either them or West Virginia, what more can I say?

20. Utah: These guys may very well be my second favorite team at the moment. Hopefully Brian Cook cried.

21. Clemson: They probably don't even deserve to be this high, but as pathetic as the ACC is, they still have a great chance at making a BCS game. Personally, I say we should revamp the BCS to where the ACC champion goes to Shreveport to play the ninth overall SEC team. We might get a close game out of it.

22. Kansas: They move up slightly because a few others fell, and for no other reason.

23. Illinois: At the very least, these guys can score a lot of points, and with the three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust style of the Big Ten, that will probably still lead them to a solid season. If this bunch could have just stopped the Missouri return game, it may have been a whole different story.

24. South Carolina: Now that Chris Smelley has been named the starting quarterback, perhaps things will turn around. As was the case with us in 2005, the defense here is strong enough to where even a semi-competent showing by the offense will usually result in a victory. Unfortunately for SOS, semi-competent may be harder to get than it sounds.

25. UCLA: The Mr. Irrelevant choice of the week goes to the UCLA Bruins, for obvious reasons.

Dropped Out

#14 Virginia Tech: Lost to East Carolina, 27-22.

After months and months of waiting, the season is finally underway. The following are some thoughts from week one of the season:

Arkansas: We all knew that it was going to be a tough year for the Hogs, but unless things improve from week one, it may be a much tougher year than we expected. Western Illinois is a mediocre Division 1-AA team -- they lost last year to North Dakota State, Southern Illinois, Youngstown State, and were absolutely annihilated by Northern Iowa -- yet Arkansas needed to rally from 10 points down in the final stanza to just edge by the Leathernecks in the closing seconds. Again, if things continue, it could be a long year for the Hogs. Unless things drastically improve, they are looking to be on the wrong end of several blowouts, and if they play again this week like they did in the opener, Louisiana-Monroe may very well get its second SEC upset in the past nine months. Either way, one thing is clear for Petrino: He has much work to do.

Auburn: The predicted SEC West Champions didn't exactly set the world on fire against the aforementioned Louisiana-Monroe, but nevertheless they pulled off a 34-0 victory in a game in which they were never seriously challenged. Considering what the Warhawks did to us a year ago, no one should be looking down on that. With Auburn, though, the big thing is that the way the schedule works out easy enough on the front end that they should go into the LSU game 3-0 either way, and we'll all find out what they are made of then.

Florida: Hawai'i put up a nice fight early on, but the Gators were just too much, and rolled to an easy victory. Miami looms next with a tougher test, but frankly the Gators should win that one with relative ease as well. Say what you will about Florida, but the truth is that they are just so loaded with that talent that there is no reason why they shouldn't reel off a ton of wins. The thought coming into week one was that anything worse than an undefeated record going into the World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party would be a disappointment, and nothing we saw in week one changed that consensus.

Georgia: It was a bit of a middling performance by the Dawgs against Georgia Southern, but I wouldn't read anything into it. They were never seriously challenged, and frankly we all knew that the first two games for them would be mere warm-ups for the brutal schedule that is to follow. However, Jeff Owens did go down with a torn ACL, and as a result injuries concerns continue to mount. As tough of a slate as this squad faces, they simply cannot afford some bad injury luck and still expect to legitimately contend for a national championship, but I'm afraid the football gods are not cooperating.

Kentucky: One of the surprises of week one was the Kentucky Wildcats' dominating performance against in-state rival Louisville. Now granted I feel that a lot of that had to do with a Louisville program that is seemingly getting worse by the day with head coach Steve Kragthorpe, nevertheless it was a dominating victory, on the road, in a game that I fully expected them to lose. The Wildcats still have plenty of problems, but you have to think that they have a great chance at a bowl game. They've got one win in the bag already, and three more victories should follow with the cupcake OOC schedule they have. And then they also get both Mississippi State and Vandy. If they can just win those games, they are at least 6-6 and bowl eligible. One way or the other, though the bowl talk may be a bit premature, at least one thing is certain: I obviously didn't know what in the hell I was talking about when I predicted them to go 4-8.

LSU: As wrong as I was about Kentucky, I was just as right about the LSU v. Appalachian State game. I said it time-after-time for months on end... the Michigan game a year ago was a complete fluke against a mediocre-at-best team in a bad conference that was wholly unprepared, and that we would see nothing near a repeat against a squad like LSU. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I nailed that one. LSU won with ease, and just to be quite frank, they could have named the score. But what does all of that mean for LSU? Not much, frankly. As I said back in March, regardless of how good or how bad this team really is, they'll go into the Auburn game at 3-0 and we'll all have to wait until then to find out more.

Mississippi State: I think we can safely say that the Pythagorean projections nailed another one with MSU. They weren't anywhere near an 8-5 team last year, they were looking at regression, and that is what we saw in Ruston. They couldn't protect the football, the offense was still middling-at-best, special teams was terrible, and the defense wasn't as good as a year ago. And making matters even worse, starting senior middle linebacker Jamar Cheney will now miss the season with a broken leg. All I can say is that the Bullies better enjoy this week against Southeastern Louisiana, because it's going to get ugly from there. I do think that Croom has them heading in the right direction, but MSU fans who were expecting the results of 2007 to be the norm were simply putting the cart before the horse. I know patience is the last thing a fan base wants to hear when they have struggled for so many years like MSU has, but the harsh truth of the matter is that this program still has a long way to go. And for now, they are just going to fight it out with Arkansas for dead last in the West while they endure yet another losing season.

Ole Miss: In one of their better performances in the post-Eli Manning era -- which isn't really saying that much -- the Rebels won easily over Memphis, 41-24. Jevon Snead didn't exactly look all of that great, but the "Wild Rebel" formation yielded plenty of points. Defensively, though, the concerns proved to be well-founded, as Memphis did rack up 24 points and over 450 yards of offense, almost 200 of which came on the ground. I think coming into the season we all expected Ole Miss to be a relatively decent squad that would use a pretty good offense to compensate for a pretty bad defense, and at the end of the day they could put it all together and contend for a bowl game. Their performance against Memphis, I believe, essentially confirmed the preseason consensus. Stay tuned on Johnny Reb, though, because the match-up this week against Wake Forest is probably the biggest game they've played since the 2004 Cotton Bowl. A win here and you can almost bank on them to make a return to the bowl scene.

South Carolina: I think you all know how I've found humor in the notion that Steve Spurrier is still regarded as an offensive genius despite all of the indications to the contrary, but this past week proved that even more. He was clearly behind Tommy Beecher, but of course Beecher went out and averaged barely five yards per attempt, was picked off four times, and was sacked five times before getting benched. Chris Smelley can in later and looked decent, and at this point it's hard to say that the decision by Spurrier to start Beecher wasn't a pretty dumb one. The thing of it is, though, that the Gamecocks defense is very stout, and with good quarterback play they could be looking at a New Year's Day game, but without that it will all go for not. We'll see how things develop in the next few weeks. Don't sleep on Vanderbilt this week, though. They spanked South Carolina a year ago, and they looked impressive in their debut against Miami (Ohio). 

Tennessee: I don't mean to begin another "I told you so," but I'm going to. The Vols were nowhere near that good last year -- in reality, they were along the lines of a 7-5 team that somehow fluked into a 10-2 season -- and it was obvious that a regression was coming. So what do they do? Go to LA and get beat by a mediocre Pac-10 team with a first-year head coach, a third-string quarterback, and a back-up tailback. And now they sit at 0-1 with Florida, Auburn, Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina looming. Mark it down... that's probably going to be 7-5 at best by the time we get to December. Either way, though it might not come this year, the end is near for that fat bastard.

Vanderbilt: The 'Dores were a bit of a mild surprise in the opening weekend, as they beat a Miami (Ohio) team with no problems, and actually beat them worse than they did the year before in Nashville. Vandy fans shouldn't be getting any bowl plans lined up, but they could very well be decent and be in bowl contention yet again if Chris Nickson can continue to play like he did on Saturday. And to be sure, there are plenty of very winnable games still left on the schedule, like Rice, Mississippi State, Duke, and Kentucky. I have a feeling that the 'Dores will again come this close to being bowl eligible yet again, but I could see them making a run at a bowl berth.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

It is here.

The time has come.

I don't know how often you guys happen to check out the sitemeter link at the bottom of the page, but if you don't, it should be noted that today RBR officially went over 100,000 visitors for the month of August. This is the first time in the history of RBR that we have surpassed that mark.

And things will only get better from here. With a few days still left in the month, we'll probably end up with over 120,000 visitors on the month, which is approximately double of what we had this time a year ago. Bottom line, things here at RBR just keep getting bigger and bigger. If this pace continues, we will really post some very big numbers throughout the season, and hopefully the gameday threads will only further increase participation arond here.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you guys know that RBR had passed a bit of a mini-milestone around here, and wanted to thank everyone for reading. We all hope you guys keep coming back for me.