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As promised earlier this week, a handful of very sad souls identifying themselves as members of the KKK showed up on Ole Miss' campus before the Rebels' game with LSU today to protest the school's official banishment of the traditional anthem, "From Dixie With Love," from the marching band's repertoire. School officials said this week there was nothing they could do to keep the Klan from showing up if the proceedings remained nonviolent, and that held up for about 10 minutes before university police went ahead and escorted the retro hate clowns from the premises -- possibly for their own protection, in the face of approximately 20 times as many counter-protestors rallied against them (emphasis added):

OXFORD — About a dozen hooded Ku Klux Klan members rallied briefly at Ole Miss before Saturday’s football game with No. 10 LSU.

The members of the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan spent about 10 minutes waving flags, displaying Nazi-style salutes and occasionally gesturing at a group of about 250 hecklers that included young children. They were protesting the school's decision to drop a pep song that included "Dixie."

They came, they saw, they slinked away with their poly satin sashes between their legs as a crowd in "Turn Your Back On Hate" t-shirts sauntered off to a "Dixie"-free game. The song, stunningly, will not be reinstated.

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Texas Tech 41, Oklahoma 13. You could see a rough season on the horizon for Oklahoma from the beginning, when All-America tight end Jermaine Gresham went down with a season-ending injury days before the opener with BYU, the rebuilt offensive line went starting a converted tight end at center and the franchise, Sam Bradford, didn't make it out of the first half before being stricken with the shoulder injury that effectively ended his college career. The seeds of the Sooners' demise were obvious enough, and the notion of matching the absurd heights of the record-breaking 2008 offense was probably folly to begin with, even if they were completely healthy.

But there was no way to predict just how low this season would sink -- with the lopsided loss in Lubbock, this is the reality for Oklahoma:

• The OU offense has been held below 2008's regular season low of 35 points on six different occasions, including all but one game outside of Norman (at Kansas, a 35-13 win). It's also been held below 400 total yards on six different occasions after hitting at least 436 yards in every regular season game in '08.

• Today was the third game in 11 in which the Sooners scored a single touchdown, not including the 10-3 loss at Nebraska two weeks ago, in which they scored none.

• Landry Jones' 13th interception on the season (most in the Big 12) gives him seven picks in the last three games, just one fewer than Bradford accumulated in either of the last two full seasons.

• The Sooners have one win over a team with a winning record, 42-30 over Kansas State, and are 1-5 on the road.

• The Red Raiders, 65-21 last year in Norman, are the second team in three weeks (along with Nebraska) to knock off OU after losing last year by more than 30 points.

That should be painful enough for Oklahoma partisans, so we'll skip for now one of the single worst afternoons ever turned in by a Bob Stoops defense -- Tech ran up 41 points and 548 yards against a Sooner D that ranked in the top 10 nationally in every major statistical category coming in -- for the real gut punch of the day: Oklahoma's fifth loss matches Stoops' first year in 1999 as the worst season in his tenure at OU, with Oklahoma State coming into Norman next week as a probable favorite to drop the Sooners to 6-6. The only silver lining at this point is that they can plausibly chalk this season's sobering slide up to a rebuilding year -- or at least they hope they can, because Stoops doesn't have another three seasons to wait on Landry Jones to finally lead a win over a decent team on the road.

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Ohio State 21, Michigan 10. So that's it then: Michigan went out with as much fight as it could have reasonably expected to muster as a last-place, double-digit underdog against the conference champion -- the game was in some doubt well into the third quarter -- and now it can resign itself to another offseason of licking its wounds off its worst Big Ten season in more than 45 years. Unlike last year's catastrophe, which was foreshadowed right away in the opening loss to Utah, the tantalizing promise of a 4-0 start and top 25 billing in September makes the Great Collapse of '09 that much crueler. Quarterback Tate Forcier's interception parade in the fourth quarter today -- three picks in a span of six attempts, capping a five-turnover day for the freshman -- was a grimly appropriate finale to two gut-wrenching months.

There will be plenty of time for comparisons over the next nine months -- certainly the '09 Wolverines were better statistically than the '08 version, if only because they looked more like a typical Michigan outfit against the MAC fodder, and actually had a semblance of offense for most of the year -- but Michigan ends the season in the same place it ended last season, staring at a losing record and a new low in conference play, and this year is going to be much tougher than the last one for Rich Rodriguez: When the ABC broadcast team (ostensibly in Rod's corner) is openly discussing your possible termination as time ticks down, there's no question about the reality of the hot seat. Even with a true freshman quarterback, the minimum expectation was a return to .500 and a bowl game, rock-bottom in Ann Arbor in the 40 years preceding Rodriguez's arrival. He didn't get there -- he spectacularly didn't get there, with seven straight conference losses -- and the disapproving murmur of the last offseason is certain to become a deafening roar in 2010.

Maybe worst of all from a Michigan perspective: Ohio State's first-half malaise, burgeoning on calamity following an ugly midseason loss at Purdue, yielded to a five-game winning streak over the last month, back-to-back top-15 wins over Penn State and Iowa, an outright Big Ten championship and a reconfirmation of OSU as the league's premiere program. After six straight OSU wins, the contrast between the rivals has never been greater, and there's no end in sight.

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Florida State's black-helmet motif against Maryland will be the talk of Tallahassee fashionistas, but the scene of the day in Doak Campbell was surely longtime defensive coordinator Mickey Andrews taking over the traditional spear-planting duties at midfield from Chief Osceola:

He could have really made the scene by riding in on Renegade, but after 25 years, Andrews has earned the right of refusal on the horse.

Considering the fate that likely awaits his defense in his final regular season game next week at Florida, I hope Andrews gets his kicks in today against the hapless Terps, or there won't even be bowl game to help absolve the worst statistical D of his entire tenure.

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I don't have much of an opinion on the Buckeyes' much-anticipated "throwback" duds, but I know the ugliest vision for Michigan fans as they struggle to hang tight in the first half: A Big House allegedly swathed in almost as much scarlet and gray as maize and blue.

That, and starting running back Michael Shaw getting a little pushy with an out-of-uniform Buckeye before the game. At least someone in Ann Arbor still cares enough about the rivalry to disregard basic civility.

What's this about Wolverines-Buckeyes losing its luster? Gaze, philistines, into the cold, red eyes of pure hatred:

I dunno, sounds pretty lustrous to me, for another generation, at least.

What: Game day live blog. All games in play, all comments welcome and all colors accepted. Try to keep it civil, please.
When: First kick at noon Eastern; chat kicks roughly simultaneously. The blog will run throughout the day, through the primetime tilts -- although, as intriguing as midnight in Las Cruces may be, don't hold your breath for the midnight-oil tilt in the WAC.
Who: You and all your rowdy friends. Come loud, proud and keeping your head on a swivel. We're not responsible for what may happen if you don't.
How: Hit "Watch Now," enter comments into the available box and do your part to accelerate the slow, agonizing death of conventional journalism.
Why: Because lobbing snarky barbs at earnest adolescents never gets old, especially when your most terrible revenge fantasies are wholeheartedly approved by the vast majority of the populations of entire states. Football!

Inside the day's key match-ups.

There's always the risk of getting too carried away by the last scene without taking the entire picture into account, but it's hard to classify Stanford's running game at this point as anything but "awesome," despite it being little more than "Toby Gerhart right, Toby Gerhart left, Toby Gerhart in their grill." Even before their breakout efforts against Oregon and USC the last two weeks, the Cardinal were averaging 205 yards on the ground over their 5-3 start; add to that the dominant efforts in 50-plus-point bludgeons of the Ducks (254 yards on 4.9 per carry) and Trojans (325 stunning yards on 6.5 a pop), and Stanford stands alone as the most physically intimidating attack in the country over the stretch run.

On the other side, though, probably no defense in the Pac-10 has been better against the run over the same stretch than Cal: Since being gashed by Oregon and USC in back-to-back losses in their first two league games, the Bears haven't allowed 100 yards on the ground in more than a month -- to a team or individual -- including holding Oregon State and Arizona well below their respective season averages the last two weeks. The best individual back Cal has seen, Jacquizz Rogers, was bottled up for 67 yards on less than three per carry in Berkeley; with a veteran front focusing on Gerhart, the Bears have a decent shot at holding the league's leading rusher around the century mark, if not beneath it for only the third time this year.

The problem with focusing on Gerhart over the second half of the year is the developing of redshirt freshman quarterback Andrew Luck and the emergence of the Cardinal offense as the most balanced attack in the country: For the season, Stanford averages 222 yards per game rushing and 223 passing, with Luck dropping 11 touchdowns to one interception over the last five games en route to establishing himself as the highest-rated passer in the conference. That's a crippling prospect for one of the worst pass defenses in the country: In the process of stuffing the run, Cal allowed at least 280 yards through the air in five of their last eight games, including all three of its losses. The Bears can pick their poison, but they'll have to swallow it either way.

Inside the day's key match-ups.

As a 6-5 team with two wins over I-AA outfits and only one victory over a team with a winning record -- a one-point escape from fellow 6-5 mediocrity Iowa State in the Big 12 opener -- Kansas State probably has no claim to "disrespect" today at Nebraska. Still: You don't see too many 16.5-point spreads in games with the division championship up for grabs. The winner today in Lincoln is heading to Dallas as the North Division's sacrificial lamb at the altar of Texas' coronation in the Big 12 Championship game in two weeks, and the oddsmakers apparently think there's no chance the Wildcats will be that lamb.

If there's any hope for KSU at all, it's obviously in the ability of the Wildcats' straight-ahead running game to pound out a living on one of the country's best run defenses. The only player who remotely qualifies as a "star" for this team on either side of the ball is 6-foot-2, 227-pound JUCO transfer Daniel Thomas, the Big 12's leading rusher, who personally has churned out five 100-yards games and been held below 75 yards only twice for an offense that's made a pretty good living on the ground -- KSU has averaged 214 yards rushing in its four conference wins, including 266 yards in a 17-10 win over Kansas two weeks ago, and had the best day on the ground of any team this season against Oklahoma with 149 yards and three touchdowns on 5.1 per carry in a 42-30 loss in Norman.

If nothing else, the Wildcats don't want to have to resort to putting the ball in the air: Even with the emergence of Grant Gregory as the clear starting quarterback, they rank dead last in the conference in passing yards and are also near the bottom in terms of efficiency. This is an old-school, work-the-body type of offense that isn't going to come roaring back from a big deficit, especially on the road against the nation's No. 1 pass efficiency defense.

The hitch: Nebraska is also one of the strongest run defenses in the country, anchored by certain All-American defensive tackle Ndamukong Suh and less heralded linemates Jared Crick (12 tackles for loss) and Barry Turner (8 TFL), who haven't allowed a single offense yet to hit 150 yards or four yards per carry on the ground. That includes completely dismantling outstanding running games from Virginia Tech (86 yards on 2.3 per carry), Missouri (91 yards on 2.6) and Oklahoma (80 on 2.8). The Huskers' issue all season has been scoring enough points, and K-State's offense to date couldn't play more directly into their low-scoring hands.

Inside the day's key match-ups.

No offensive player in America -- not C.J. Spiller, not Toby Gerhart, not even Mark Ingram -- is quite as searing hot over the last month as Ole Miss tailback, Wildcat back, receiver, occasional return man, chef, art critic, stunt pilot and all-purpose bon vivant Dexter McCluster, who Rebel coaches finally set free to explode for 260 total yards against Arkansas, 203 against Auburn and record-breaking, 324-yard, four-touchdown display last week against Tennessee. Now a permanent fixture in the backfield for the first time as his inconsistent stay in Oxford winds down, it's hard not to imagine what might have been if McCluster had averaged 28 touches per game over his entire career, as he has in his last three outings -- tripling his average opportunities with the ball over the previous 27 games since 2007, with obvious results.

No defense yet has stopped McCluster as the Rebels' primary ballcarrier and chief offensive weapon, but note also that LSU's rebuilt defense hasn't been prone to being gashed under new coordinator John Chavis -- since October, the Tigers have held Florida to its lowest point total (13) of the four-year Tebow era; held Georgia to just 13 points; held Auburn's vastly improved attack to just 10 points on 193 total yards, most of it in garbage time; shut out Tulane; and held Alabama in check until well into the fourth quarter, leading 15-13 with 11 minutes to play, despite ultimately allowing more than 400 total yards for only the second time this year.

And though Auburn and Tennessee aren't exactly chopped liver on defense, the only other D Ole Miss has faced that rivals LSU's athletically, man for man, is the dominant outfit from Alabama, which quickly put the home crowd on ice in Oxford by holding the Rebels to a lonely field goal with a total contribution of 37 yards from McCluster. As generous as Ole Miss quarterback Jevan Snead has been with the ball -- 12 interceptions in his last five games against SEC defenses, to six touchdowns -- the Tigers can probably allow McCluster two or even three times that number today and be fine; Auburn, after all, came out fine even when allowing D-Mac slightly over 200 yards, holding the rest of the Rebel offense in check and picking Snead twice, once for a touchdown, in a 33-20 win on the Plains.

That may be the only uneasy aspect of McCluster's emergence: Ole Miss has really needed him to get a disappointing attack untracked, and had accomplished next to nothing against respectable defenses before McCluster essentially became the offense. LSU may give up a big play or two, but if No. 22 has to individually account for 250 yards again to get the Rebels over the top, it's going to be a long afternoon against one of the more aggressive, turnover-hungry defenses they've had to face.

Saturday's Pac-10 showdown in Tucson is ostensibly about Oregon finishing off its conference title run in the same place where a near-identical steamroller of an offense was abruptly stopped in its tracks two years ago. The parallels between these Ducks and the edition that came up short in 2007 are obvious and a little eerie: Like the '07 team, Oregon goes into Arizona as a solid favorite with one conference loss, a home win over USC that announced the Ducks' arrival as the new league heavyweight, a versatile quarterback at the helm of the league's highest-scoring offense and a clear shot to the Rose Bowl.

Last time, the Ducks fell apart in this spot when Heisman frontrunner Dennis Dixon suddenly went down with a torn ACL, sending the team into a funk that cost it that game against Arizona and its last two in the regular season, a whimper of an ending for an outfit that seemed to be roaring toward a national title shot. Those heights are out of reach for this team, but another sudden collapse -- for whatever reason -- would feel just as deflating with the Pac-10's first non-Trojan championship in eight years so clearly in reach.

Just as interesting, though, is Arizona's trajectory to this point, not in its path from preseason also-ran to legitimate conference contender -- the Wildcats will win the Pac-10 and go to the Rose Bowl for the first time in school history if they win their last three, beginning with Oregon -- but also in the long run of Mike Stoops' six-year tenure. 'Zona progressively improved from one season to the next in each of Stoops' first five seasons, a logical climb as the defense gradually improved and quarterback Willie Tuitama progressed along with a surrounding cast that grew up together as multiyear starters. This year, minus Tuitama as well as record-breaking receiver Mike Thomas, All-American left tackle/second-round pick Eben Britton and injured tight end Rob Gronkowski, who hasn't played a down of his junior season, this year should have been the first great regression under Stoops' watch.

Instead, so far, the upward track has kept right on rolling with a largely new cast:

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