As always, there are all sorts of great storylines in today’s college football action. Here are my favorites:

Oklahoma (-3) vs. Texas – Both teams desperately need this win, but for very different reasons. Texas dropped out of the second spot in the polls last week, and their play hasn’t been particularly impressive. They need an impressive win over a good team in order to prove that they are a good team and that they belong in the BCS Championship game. Oklahoma has had a very rough year – two losses, the injury to Sam Bradford, and so on. This team is better than a 3-3 team, or at least they should be. They won’t be if they don’t win here, though. There is real desperation on both sides, and that leads to good drama. It also doesn’t hurt that these teams don’t exactly like each other.

Iowa (+2.5) at Wisconsin – Iowa is still undefeated and poised to keep climbing up the charts. They face a tough rival here, though, and they aren’t exactly coming off a tour de force performance in their narrow win over Michigan last week. They need to win, and win big, here to continue to gain respect and climb the polls since they are burdened by playing in a pretty underwhelming conference this year.

USC (-10) at Notre Dame – This is being painted as the game of the week. Like so many games of the week featuring USC, I expect this one to be a bust. Notre Dame has a largely one-dimensional offense, and they haven’t run up against a defense as good as USC has. Notre Dame has played very close games against teams that it should be totally outclassing. For all their faults this year, the Trojans are significantly better than any team they have faced. I don’t see how the Irish can measure up. This could be the end of yet another Heisman campaign – Jimmy Clausen’s.

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Here are the storylines that stand out for me this week in college football action:

Michigan (+2) at Michigan State – The Spartans have been terrible so far this year. The Wolverines have yet to play on the road, and have gotten worse defensively as the season has progressed. This is a big rivalry game, and one team is going to wind up very disappointed.

South Florida (-6.5) at Syracuse – Was last week’s stunning upset a fluke, or is B.J. Daniels ready to do big things at South Florida. And will GregPaulus continue to take strides forward?

Alabama (-16.5) at Kentucky – We saw what the Gators did against Kentucky last week, so this is a way to get a very rough estimate of how the top two teams in the SEC measure up.

Penn State (-7) at Illinois – Both teams need to bounce back from embarrassing performances last week. Illinois really needs to find a way to pull off a win this week in an attempt to get a once promising season back on track.

UCLA(+6) at Stanford – One of these teams has a good chance of being a factor in the Pac-10 race. This game will give us a good sense of which one.

LSU (+3) at Georgia – I really don’t believe in either of these teams. A decisive win by one of them would be a sign that they achieve their rankings. For now, I think both are badly overrated.

Washington (+13.5) at Notre Dame – The Irish need a convincing win over someone to prove themselves. Washington needs to bounce back from last week and prove that their USC performance was no fluke.

Oklahoma (-7.5) at Miami – Will Sam Bradford play? How well? Can Miami bounce back from last week’s humiliation, or are they exhausted from their ridiculously tough opening string of games?

USC (-5) at Cal – Two weeks ago you could have argued convincingly that this game was for a spot in the BCS championship. Now it’s next to impossible to know what we have from either team. This could be a great game, or it could be a train wreck, but it will be interesting either way.

Houston (-16) at UTEP – I will be watching Houston closely all the way through this season. They have a couple of impressive wins already, so if they could remain undefeated they could create a real headache for the BCS. Besides that, they are just so much fun to watch.