Weird, wild and prolific stats from Saturday's action.

• USC was held to one offensive touchdown and 258 total yards, the Trojans' worst offensive output since October 2004, in a 14-9 win at Arizona State. Freshman quarterback Matt Barkley had his worst game, completing 7-of-22 passes for 112 yards, 75 of them on one spectacular catch-and-run by Damien Williams, who took a pass behind the line of scrimmage for USC's only gain of the game longer than 13 yards.

• Nebraska quarterbacks Cody GreenZac Lee combined for 39 yards passing on 2.8 yards per attempt, but Oklahoma quarterback Landry Jones put up five interceptions -- including one that set the Cornhuskers up at the OU one-yard line for the game's only touchdown -- in the 'Huskers' 10-3 win. Nebraska was 1-of-14 on third-down conversions and earned seven first downs (to the Sooners' 23) in the win.

• UCLA quarterbacks Kevin Prince and Kevin Craft combined for 371 yards passing and two touchdowns in the Bruins' 24-23 win over Washington, the Bruins' third 300-yard passing effort in the last four games after putting up zero 300-yard passing games in 2007, 2008 or the first five games of 2009.

• Your weekly Houston video game update: The Cougars combined with Tulsa for 91 points, 1,229 yards, 61 first downs and 11 touchdowns in a wild, last-second, 46-45 Houston win. UH quarterback Case Keenum launched 60 passes for 522 yards with three scores, all to receiver James Cleveland, who combined with Patrick Edwards to haul in 23 catches for 343 yards.

• Cincinnati quarterback Zach Collaros hit 29 of 37 passes for 480 yards with seven completions of 20 yards or longer, adding 75 yards on the ground and scoring three total touchdowns in the Bearcats' 47-45 escape over UConn.

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Snap judgments on Saturday's best.

Teachers' Pet: Toby Gerhart. (It's always the quiet ones.) The unfolding parity of the Pac-10 has been great television this year, and with 223 yards and three touchdowns against Oregon, Stanford's thundering senior back put the Cardinal squarely in the conference championship discussion with a 51-42 dismantling of Oregon that at times looked even less competitive the final score might have you believe (thanks, again, largely to Gerhart). Quarterbacks Jeremiah Masoli and Andrew Luck put on an air duel that would have made for entertaining football on its own, with 585 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions between them.

Raise your hand if you thought the Pac-10 standings would look like this in November: 1. Oregon (5-1), 2. Arizona (4-1), 3. Stanford (5-2), 4. USC (4-2)

If you even started to put your arm up, take your things and go sit in the hall, because you're a lying liar.

Most Unlikely Couple: Ram Vela and Notre Dame quarterbacks. You remember Ram Vela, don't you? Evan Sharpley does. And Vela just can't stay away from the Irish offense, picking off Jimmy Clausen, recovering a fumble and helping seal up Navy's upset of Notre Dame in shipshape fashion.

Most School Spirit: C.J. Spiller, the triple rushing/receiving/return threat who hauled Clemson onto his back and carried the Tigers to the tune of 306 all-purpose yards and a 40-24 victory over Florida State. In a season that's included close losses to Georgia Tech, TCU, and Maryland (Maryland?), Clemson's now riding a four-game win streak and sits atop the Atlantic division. Viva ACC!

Most Creative: Les Miles, whose masterly postgame softshoe would make Mack Brown flush with envy. Faced with questions about a blown interception call late enough in the game to make a big difference, Miles calmly acknowledged, "Speculation is rampant." And well it ought to be. We're sick to death of discussing SEC officiating. Almost as sick as we are of the officiating itself.

Mister Personality: Texas, who's winning big but winning ugly. The 35-3 drubbing of Central Florida had its share of facepalms:

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Alabama has demonstrated some very fine fourth quarter chops on its way to 9-0, but as usual, some 'Bama partisans may be taking the trend a little too far:

A resourceful lot all the way around, those Tiders. But, you know, when it comes to school spirit in the clutch, gotta support the team ... (I assume a Simpsons cameo is in order? It can't be too hard to get on that show nowadays, and our four-fingered friend will fit right in.)

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Hat tip: Friends of the Program.

Clemson 40, Florida State 24. We've had a long time to watch C.J. Spiller now, and the book on his career to date is more or less identical to the book on his team: Enormously talented, hyped, capable of isolated dominance but also prone to inconsistency and disappearing over surprisingly long stretches of time. Spiller's rushing totals dropped with each successive season over his first three years, and fairly or not, he's been largely viewed as emblematic of a team known for blowing opportunity and potential.

There's still plenty of time for that narrative to reemerge over the next month, but tonight any hint of disappointment or untapped potential is a whisper beneath the blaring siren of one of the great efforts of the season -- emphasis on effort: Still clearly ailing from the assortment of nicks that essentially sidelined him last week against Charleston Southern, Spiller gashed Florida State for 312 total yards (165 rushing, 67 receiving, 80 in the return game), just abovdthe school record he set two weeks ago in the Tigers' overtime win at Miami. That included runs of 45, 36 and 21 yards and a touchdown reception from 58 yards out, a couple of which he couldn't quite finish because his legs visibly stopped working at the end; on the sideline, Spiller appeared to be on the verge of hocking an organ onto the field.

He still commanded the ball, 29 times altogether, and Florida State was helpless to stop him in the second half. When his injuries and exhaustion did what FSU could not, he was the first player off the bench to celebrate when his teammates punched in a late touchdown, and his first move after the game was to seek out Bobby Bowden among the throng on the field for a handshake.

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By any measure, California had a dreadful night against Oregon State -- the Beavers quickly led 14-0 and ultimately outgained Cal by 200 yards for the game to stick the Bears with their third lopsided conference loss in six games. But none of the losses were worse than the spectacular and spectacularly painful exit of star running back Jahvid Best, who momentarily defied the laws of gravity and paid a very hard price on the Bears' only relevant score of the game:

Best remained on the ground for an uncomfortably long time, ultimately being carted away on a stretcher with an oxygen mask over his face; the early verdict indicates he does have feeling in all his extremities and is apparently suffering from a concussion.

Best is often compared to another all-purpose Pac-10 speedster, notorious end zone leaper Reggie Bush, and has gone airborne before. It makes for a nice picture, and if he'd somehow picked himself off the turf after this one, the shot would make Sports Illustrated and live on in infamy. It might, anyway, but hopefully as more of a cautionary tale than an enviable feat. Full-contact games are not made to be played eight feet off the ground.

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Alabama 24, LSU 15. When Tennessee held Alabama without a touchdown two weeks ago, coach Nick Saban acknowledged after the game that his team may have been "tired" after eight straight games without a bye week; after this game, he said the Tide "played well" in the first half, but was still frustrated that it could only come away with three points in six straight trips inside Tiger territory. 'Bama rolled up 223 yards today before halftime -- almost as many as it gained in the entire game against Tennessee -- but at the same time, after one half, the Tide had still scored a grand total of two offensive touchdowns in its last 14 quarters, with a single TD in 10 trips inside the opponents' red zone. "Tired" or not, Alabama was plagued by the same issues with finishing drives, and this time was staring at a rare halftime deficit at 7-3.

Against that frustrating backdrop, the second half counts as a kind of rejuvenation for the struggling Tide offense. 'Bama took the opening kickoff of the third quarter 81 yards for a touchdown, its first in almost three weeks; after being hit for a safety on a drive that started at their own one-yard line, the Tide ate up 66 yards in a little over five-and-a-half minutes for a field goal, two-thirds of it on seven carries by Mark Ingram; and still trailing 15-13 and needing a big play in the fourth quarter, they got their biggest play of the year, a 73-yard catch-and-run by the eerily quiet Julio Jones, the sudden, game-turning highlight will join Terrence Cody's blocked field goal as the defining moments of the season if the Tide run the table. (Or, in Alabama terms, the Daniel Moore Moments.)

Alabama still doesn't win, of course, without the defense; LSU had seven three-and-outs, including two with the game on the line in the fourth quarter, preceding a quick turnover on downs after just one first down to ice the game.

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Even the Charlie Weis haters among Notre Dame fans haven't had much reason for complaint through the first two months as far as the Weis "hot seat" watch goes: The Irish were on track for 10 wins, showed a penchant for winning close, exciting games with one of the nation's most prolific offenses, were 11 combined points from beating Michigan and USC in their only two losses and ended their losing streak against winning teams by beating Boston College. All in all, a perfectly respectable year.

But still ...

Now that the Irish have lost to Navy for the second time in two years -- both in South Bend after beating the Midshipmen 43 years in a row in any location -- and forfeited any realistic opportunity at slipping into a BCS bowl, the next three games against Pittsburgh, UConn and Stanford (combined record: 18-8) may be a referendum for Weis' job. If ND drops any of them, this kid's going to have some company (again).

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Hat tip: Deadspin.

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Ohio State 24, Penn State 7. We don't know exactly how the season is going to play out -- it could very well be, for example, that Penn State just isn't very good. We didn't know much about the Lions coming in, but their offensive malaise and the quiet, steady effectiveness of the Buckeye running game followed exactly the script of Penn State's only other loss this season, in its only other game against another team at the top of the conference. With their lame nonconference schedule and losses to the only teams on the Big Ten slate that might currently fit anyone's definition of "good," there's no evidence at all that the Lions stack up to the top-15 ranking they've carried all season.

But there's not much question on my end that this is Ohio State's best win since the 2006 team finished its perfect regular season against No.2 Michigan, just before launching the "big game" curse against Florida in the subsequent BCS title game that's followed the Buckeyes ever since. OSU finally played exactly the way it wanted to play against one of the best teams on the schedule -- running for 200-plus yards, getting two touchdown passes with no turnovers from Terrelle Pryor, taking advantage of good field position and forcing seven three-and-outs from the Nittany Lion offense -- and did it on the road. It's not the national championship, but it is the first time Pryor or the vast majority of teammates can come out of a verifiably big game with their heads held high.

With Iowa's loss to Northwestern, it also sets up the Buckeyes on the track to their first Rose Bowl appearance in more than a decade: They'll be favored to beat the Hawkeyes next week in Columbus, which will put OSU in sole possession of first place in the conference with only badly reeling Michigan standing between it and Pasadena. If they manage to take two must-win conference games in a row and dispatch their hated rival for the sixth consecutive year after nearly losing control of the season in an ugly loss at Purdue, of all places, the Bucks will deserve the trip, and deserve to enjoy it no matter what other big-game demons are sure to await them when they get there.

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Navy 23, Notre Dame 21. Watching a game like this unfold is almost a surreal experience when you stop to size up the absurd physical differences between these two teams, especially between Notre Dame's offense and Navy's defense. It's one thing to think about how difficult it must be for the Midshipmen's secondary to match up with Notre Dame's 6-foot-6 god of a receiver, Michael Floyd, and another altogether to actually observe the physical impossibility of it with your own eyes, even on television.

And it's not like Navy really stopped Notre Dame's high-flying offense, either, despite the final score: Floyd and receiving mate Golden Tate hauled in 19 passes between them for 275 yards, more than half of the Irish's 513-yard total, and ND didn't punt once.

But Navy was able to mitigate the damage by limiting big plays -- before Tate's 31-yard catch-and-run for Notre Dame's last (and ultimately meaningless) touchdown in the final minute, the Midshipmen hadn't allowed a play longer than 30 yards, forcing the Irish to string together long drives that more often than not ended in the Middies' favor; five ND drives of seven plays or longer ended deep in Navy territory with the Irish failing to put points on the board. More importantly, the Midshipmen forced turnovers, three of them, including a Jimmy Clausen fumble at the Navy goal line and then a pick off Clausen inside the Navy five in the fourth quarter. Most of the Irish's obscene output was sound and fury in the service, ultimately, of nothing.

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Purdue 38, Michigan 36. Mathematically, Michigan is still alive for a bowl game, but at this point, that's like saying "Chrysler is still solvent" or "People are still watching the new Jay Leno show." Technically, yes: At 5-5, if the Wolverines upset Wisconsin on the road or end their five-year losing streak against Ohio State, a bid to the Little Caesar's Bowl may be waiting for them.

Let's rephrase that with a few more pieces of key information: If the Wolverines snap out of a five-game conference losing streak in which they've now allowed 500 yards and 38 points apiece to Illinois and Purdue in back-to-back weeks to knock off one of the top teams in the conference, they can eke out a bid to the least prestigious postseason date in school history. That's the best-case scenario.

Today, at home against another struggling outfit struggling just to stay out of the conference cellar (Purdue was routed last week 37-0 by Wisconsin), was the chance for Michigan to end that malaise and salvage whatever goodwill remained from the 4-0 start in September. Instead, the beleaguered secondary gave up four completions of at least 30 yards in the worst aerial assault against Wolverine D (367 yards) since USC in the 2006/07 Rose Bowl. Aside from defensive end Brandon Graham, this rock-bottom defense is like last year's rock-bottom offense: Outmanned, condemned from the outset by a shockingly bare cupboard at key positions and careening quickly toward historic depths every time the ball goes in the air.

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