Welcome to my Sunday Blog. During the offseason I had just one weekend blog but each week during the season I will take a look at the Top 25 performances from the just completed week with a little analysis as well as a quick review of the past weekend. On Monday I will give you my News & Notes where I delve deeper into every game that was played this past weekend, breaking down individual drives and giving you misleading finals and other interesting tidbits.

As far as my game grades go after the 2008 season was completed I devised a power ratings system, which lets me analyze at what level each team played during an individual game. This “game grade” takes into account the yards rushing, yards passing, points scored, rushing yards allowed, passing yards allowed and points allowed and factors them in against the opponent played and even factors in the site the game was played at.

With all these factors taken into consideration you will see teams that lost the game having a better individual game grade than teams that beat them simply because the team they played was superior and much less was expected of them.

Top 25 Performances of the Week

1. Oklahoma was clearly looking ahead to FSU last week as they barely beat Utah St. Landry Jones who completed less than 50% of his passes in the opener hit 30-40 for 380 yds vs FSU while Heisman candidate Christian Ponder hit 11-28-113. The game was even more lopsided than the 47-17 final. FSU got 4 FD’s on their first series but then just 5 over the next 2.5Q’s. In fact OU led 47-10 when Florida St went 71/7pl and on 3&10 on the last play of the game got a 47 yd garbage TD pass.

2. Oregon clearly benefitted from the 1 hour long lighting delay in the 2Q with the Ducks down 13-3, they went on to score the next 45 points and outgained Tennessee 447-332.

3. Stanford rolled UCLA 35-0 as they won in the Rose Bowl for the first time since 1996. The Cardinal outgained the Bruins 364-233 and were +4 in TO's.

4. While Cal did indeed dominate Colorado with their 52-7 win they did just have 18-17 FD and 356-239 yd edges but benefitted from several Buffalo TO's.

5. While Bama only had a 19-17 FD edge (409-279 yd), a 4-1 TO edge was the key in the game as Penn St had three drives deep inside Alabama territory all end in TO's. RB Richardson had a good game with 144 (6.5) and 1 TD and Alabama has now won 26 straight regular season games. (excludes SEC Champ and Bowls).

6. South Carolina had a 23-11 FD edge on Georgia and probably the key component of the game was SC true frosh Marcus Lattimore (PS#1) who was dominant from start to finish and finished with 182 yds rushing with his 3rd and 4th TD’s of the season.

7. Nevada was dominant in their 51-6 win over Colorado St with a 631-272 yd edge. The Wolfpack offense as usual starts with QB Colin Kaepernick who completed 21 of 29 passes (72.4%) for 241 yds and 2 TD’s in the 51-6 win over Colorado St. He also added 161 yds rushing (14.6) and 2 more TD’s. Last year against the Rams, Kaepernick rushed for just 24 yds and accounted for 5 TO’s in the loss but clearly rebounded this year.

8. Ohio St was impressive both offensively and defensively against Miami with a 414-353 yd edge. They would have been even higher on the list if not for their poor return coverage that marked the first time since OSU began keeping records in 1936 that the Bucks allowed a KR and PR TD in the same game. While Pryor completed just 42.9% of his passes, his 12 completions went for 233 yds (19.4) and he also added 112 yds rushing (5.6).