College Football Rankings 2011 Week 2: 3 Bandwagons That Just Got Lighter

Just two weeks into the 2011 college football season, the contenders for BCS bowl berths have begun to separate themselves from the pretenders who would sneak their way into the mix. Granted, the most important games of the young season have yet to be played, with the vast majority of big-time programs having yet to so much as set foot within their own conferences.

However, that hasn't stopped these three teams from showing serious cracks in their armor by mid-September.

Mississippi State

For a while, the Bulldogs were the trendy pick to upset the order of things. What's not to like about a team with a powerful running game behind feature 'back Vick Ballard, a dynamic quarterback in Chris Relf and a head coach, Dan Mullen, who turned an SEC doormat into a nine-win team in just two years?

I'll tell you what: their inability to win road games against divisional opponents. No. 16 Mississippi State was everyone's favorite to take out a vulnerable Auburn team at Jordan-Hare Stadium, but despite putting up 34 points and 531 yards of offense, the Bulldogs came up short.

About one yard short, to be exact, on an option run by Relf that would've easily resulted in a touchdown had he pitched the ball on the play.

Instead, Relf was stopped short as the clock wound down to all zeroes, leaving MSU at 0-1 in conference play with games against No. 2 LSU, No. 3 Alabama, No. 12 South Carolina and No. 14 Arkansas left to play.

Ohio State

No. 15 Ohio State hasn't dropped a game yet, but Saturday's 27-22 victory over in-state "powerhouse" Toledo put a stirring jolt into anyone and everyone who thought the Buckeyes would have no trouble sustaining their winning ways even without head coach Jim Tressel and star quarterback Terrelle Pryor.

The Buckeyes needed a two-yard touchdown run by Carlos Hyde to regain the lead with 3:17 left in the game and a stop in their own red zone on fourth down with less than a minute to play to hold on to a tenuous five-point advantage.

Now, what should've been a relatively easy road game against Miami next week has become a clash between two NCAA-sanctioned programs, with Ohio State no longer the clear-cut favorite to run away with a win. 

And let's not even talk about its Big Ten schedule, which features home games against No. 17 Michigan State and No. 8 Wisconsin as well as an early-October venture to Lincoln to take on No. 10 Nebraska. 

Texas

Gotta love those gutty little Longhorns, right? Apparently, a full season of Garrett Gilbert under center, and the 5-7 record it yielded, wasn't evidence enough for Mack Brown to make a change at the quarterback position.

No, he had to wait until No. 24 Texas was down 10-0 to BYU in the second quarter to realize that the duo of Case McCoy and David Ash might just put up better results than Gilbert's one errant arm.

Maybe Brown is losing it, after all. Or maybe he's just into poetic justice, preferring to have McCoy replace Gilbert mid-game just as Gilbert did McCoy's older brother, Colt.

Albeit under different circumstances—Colt left with an injury while Gilbert struggled with something notably less than a BCS National Championship on the line.

With the quarterback controversy now wide open at UT, the Longhorns will take their show on the road to face lowly UCLA, a team that throttled them in Austin last year, 34-12.

Looks like Brown really is a master of timing then.

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