As it turned out, the Boston College Eagles wouldn't have to wait long to take over the No. 2 spot in the AP national poll.
With a 30-27 loss to the Rutgers Scarlet Knights, the No. 2 South Florida Bulls became the 11th top-10 team to fall to an unranked opponent this season and the third No. 2 team to be upset in as many weeks. A week ago it was the California Golden Bears losing to the unranked Oregon State Beavers, and two weeks ago the USC Trojans were upset by the unranked Stanford Cardinal.
Whether it's the pressure of being such a highly-ranked team, or even the simple fact that there isn't much of a difference between the nation's top-ranked teams and certain mediocre ones, this season's Top 10 teams have repeatedly been overthrown.
Unfortunately for South Florida, the Scarlet Knights were far from mediocre. They started the season ranked No. 16 and reached as high as No. 10 in Week 5. Consecutive losses to the unranked Maryland Terrapins and then-No. 20 Cincinnati Bearcats dropped them out of the rankings, but the two losses may have led to an extremely talented team becoming underrated.
The Scarlet Knights returned the junior tandem of running back Ray Rice and quarterback Mike Teel - the same pair that led the team on an improbable journey from oblivion to the first bowl win in program history.
With the fourth-highest passer rating in the nation among starting quarterbacks, Teel has amassed 1,996 passing yards in seven games, throwing for an average of 285.1 yards and two touchdowns per game, including 179 yards and two TDs against the Bulls Thursday.
Rice, a Heisman Trophy candidate and potential first-round pick in the NFL Draft, took advantage of a porous South Florida defensive line and rushed for 181 yards. In his second season as the team's feature back, Rice has rushed for 999 yards, good for sixth in the nation.
Statistics aside, the Rutgers duo has proven to be clutch in the big games, a quality that can play a huge role on draft day. Take, for example, former LSU Tiger JaMarcus Russell, who passed for over 350 yards and three touchdowns in last year's Sugar Bowl against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, leading his Tigers to a 41-14 victory. Russell's big-game performance propelled him into the first pick of the 2007 NFL Draft.
Teel and Rice have now become accustomed to such big-game showings, but they have yet to have such a standout performance on the stage of a BCS bowl game. Last year, the two sophomores led Rutgers to a monumental 28-25 upset over the Louisville Cardinals. Despite a loss to the Bearcats the following week, the team still had a chance to go to the Orange Bowl. But a crushing triple-overtime loss to the West Virginia Mountaineers relegated the Scarlet Knights to the Texas Bowl, where they easily handled the Kansas State Wildcats by a score of 37-10.
Though a bowl game is not yet out of the question, the Scarlet Knights' two early losses will certainly hurt. In order to have any hopes of playing in the postseason, the team will have to follow up with another upset against the No. 9 Mountaineers, who are desperately hanging on to a chance at the BCS Championship after their loss to South Florida three weekends ago. West Virginia is coming off a 38-13 win over the Mississippi State Bulldogs.
Elsewhere in the Top 10, coach Steve Spurrier's No. 6 South Carolina Gamecocks were bested by the Vanderbilt Commodores by a score of 17-6, becoming the 12th top-10 team to lose to an unranked challenger this season. The Gamecocks' lethargic offense put up a mere six points, all of which came in the second quarter. In fact, all of the game's points were scored in the first half, with the Commodores scoring all of their 17 in the first quarter. The Gamecocks, who hadn't lost to Vanderbilt since 1999, dropped to 6-2 on the season, while the Commodores improved to 4-3.
If this upset trend continues, teams like BC, LSU and the Oklahoma Sooners may be in for a rude awakening.
