Adjusting to the weekend's new realities.

 • The clock is ticking. Despite the pervasiveness of a handful of dumb, halfhearted columns after last year's debut flop and legions of "hur hur Rich Fraud" threads all over the Web, Rich Rodriguez has never been on the "hot seat" at Michigan. He hasn't been close to it -- he inherited a mess of youth, attrition and apparently some entrenched cultural resistance from the deep-rooted Lloyd Carr administration, always had a minimum of three years to install his program and came into this year with plenty of leeway to demonstrate "progress" from last year's 3-9 disaster. And of course there would be progress, and with it plenty of patience. The perceived, hypothetical "hot seat" chatter around Rodriguez didn't bear any resemblance to his actual standing among Michigan fans and insiders.

I say all that about the past year so I can say this about the next one: After dropping a 25-point decision to previously hopeless Illinois for the Wolverines' fourth straight Big Ten loss, Rich Rodriguez is kind of on the hot seat. I'm comfortable saying that now because M blogger extraordinaire Brian Cook, Rodriguez's most patient, cerebral and dogged supporter from the day Rod was hired, says he's on the hot seat:

I've been watching the same stuff everyone has for 1.5 years and here's where I am: it's blindingly obvious that some portion of the suck is Rodriguez's doing. After that huge reversal of fortune you have to back down from any previous stances you have about the program, its progress, and etc etc etc. That is a game-changing event. That game turned "Rich Rodriguez flames out in three years" at Michigan from a laughable notion to a possible one. Distantly possible, but possible.
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Rodriguez will be back next year with a mandate to get to a mediocre bowl, and he'll be under pressure to produce a serious team in year four. My confidence that he'll do that is waning.

That's a long, long way from the Wolverines' 4-0 September, but it's hard to keep up the stiff upper lip when your team is dead last not only in the Big Ten standings, but also in both total offense and total defense in conference games, with an uncompetitive loss to the league's undisputed bottom dweller and no end in sight with Wisconsin, Ohio State and, with a loss to Purdue this Saturday, another losing season looming on the horizon.

Cook's not the only one losing patience after the Illinois loss, a terrible effort against a terrible team that marked the first time this year -- even during the losing streak to respectable opponents, against whom the Wolverines had been consistently competitive until the Penn State loss two weeks ago -- that 2009 felt like 2008. The team on display the last two weeks doesn't look like it's turned a corner at all. Whatever cushion he has, the one outcome Rodriguez absolutely cannot afford is regression.

• So you're telling Duke there's a chance ... There's nothing particularly impressive about beating N.C. State, Maryland or Virginia, or even beating all three of them in a row. But in Duke's case, consider the context of its fourth-quarter comeback Saturday at Virginia: The last three weeks not only represent the Devils' longest winning streak in 15 years, but with one more ACC win in their last four games, they can match their conference win total for the last nine years combined, six of which were winless in ACC games. With only one league loss, Duke also remains on pace with Georgia Tech atop the Coastal Division, with the Jackets coming to town in two weeks; if the Devils upset North Carolina this Saturday in Chapel Hill, the visit from Tech the following weekend will be the biggest game in Durham in decades.

Besides coach David Cutcliffe, the headliner of the turnaround is quarterback Thaddeus Lewis, the latest in an unbroken line of prolific Cutcliffe protegés who has more than 1,500 yards and 10 touchdowns to just two interceptions in the last four games alone, which would have counted as an entire season for more than a few of his predecessors in the job. But note also the across-the-board leap in the defense:

Despite Lewis' gaudy numbers, the defense has been more responsible for the wins the last two weeks, holding Maryland and Virginia to 13 and 17 points, respectively, and returning a fumble for a crucial touchdown in the fourth quarter Saturday to put away the Cavaliers. If the Devils have any hope whatsoever of actually making a darkhorse run at the Coastal crown down the stretch, the defense will have to lay the foundation.

 • There is life beyond Eric Decker for Minnesota's offense. With a foot injury permanently sidelining All-Big Ten receiver Eric Decker -- by far the Gophers' leading receiver each of the last two years and the only member of the offense that could be classified as any kind of "star" -- Minnesota might have opted to scrap its "pro-style" passing game altogether and begin retooling the offense for hyped freshman MarQuies Gray, who hasn't thrown much but did run for 81 yards out of the Wildcat against Ohio State while completing five of six passes with a touchdown. And Gray still ran against Michigan State, eight times for 100 yards. But minus Decker, the Gophers got more pass-happy in their 42-34 win over the Spartans, dropping back 33 times for 416 yards and five touchdowns and the most efficient performance of three-year starter Adam Weber's career.

On the other end, five different Gopher receivers had multiple receptions, led by tight end Nick Tow-Arnett, previously reception-less Da'John McKnight and a lucky bounce or two in the first 400-yard passing day in school history.

• It may not matter who plays quarterback for Cincinnati. Starter Tony Pike left the lineup with a broken arm and one of the best pass efficiency numbers in the country after six games. Backup Zach Collaros has just laughed at that number while racing by it in two of the most efficient starts by any quarterback this season. After completing 22 of 28 passes for 295 yards and four touchdowns Saturday at Syracuse, Collaros' pass efficiency is above 235, putting not only Pike but every other quarterback with enough attempts to qualify for the national rankings to shame -- if Collaros somehow managed to maintain that number over the rest of the season (which would be impossible, even if Pike didn't seem likely to return this weekend against UConn), he'd shatter the single-season record.

Maybe we shouldn't be so surprised: Keep in mind that he works in the same offense that pulled Pike from obscurity at the end of the depth chart and turned him into a darkhorse Heisman contender; that pulled Ben Mauk from an injury-shortened stint at a different school and turned him into a record-breaker at the center of the best offense in school history; and that, when head coach Brian Kelly was boss at Central Michigan in 2006, pulled obscure redshirt freshman Dan LeFevor from the bench and turned him into the MAC player of the year. At this point, every quarterback Kelly touches turns to gold, which makes Pike's return much less urgent to sustaining the Bearcats' undefeated season that it seemed two years ago.