Associated Press

The college football notebook ...

Early sideline observations while trying to make a headset connection with Norm Chow ...

Florida State is playing at Miami on Saturday and about 15 people care, but where Duke is playing next matters.

And Northwestern hasn't gone south yet, either.

Washington's quarterback has offered to play defensive back, USC could be tripping toward a second consecutive loss, and Vanderbilt, not Georgia or Florida, is leading the Southeastern Conference's East Division.

And Greg Robinson is still coaching at Syracuse.

The quarterback who led Ohio State to the national title game last year has been benched and replaced by a freshman.

And Brigham Young has positioned itself nicely for a national title run.

Maryland couldn't beat Middle Tennessee but handled Middle Clemson, which opened the season at No. 9 in the Associated Press media poll but has now been asked, kindly, to take a number.

And watch out for Ball State.

Also, a school that began the year unranked in the USA Today coaches' poll is now No. 4 after beating preseason No. 1 Georgia in Athens, handing Uga VII its first defeat as a mascot.

And the season's just getting started.

Shocks, spills, ups and downs were the order of most days in September, so before we look forward, let's look back.

The Smart Guys are winning!

Vanderbilt, Duke, Northwestern and Stanford are a combined 15-3 after finishing a combined 16 games below .500 last year.

Duke is 3-1, with its only loss to ... Northwestern.

First-year coach Duke Coach David Cutcliffe is upstaging some of the biggest names in football show business. His Blue Devils are 1-0 in the Atlantic Coast Conference Coastal Division, ahead of .... Florida State.

Duke at Georgia Tech in the ACC this week almost incredibly trumps Florida State at Miami, one of the most storied rivalries in college football.

Most years, you never want Duke as the miss on your schedule, but that might be good news this year for Florida State.

"I pull for teams like Duke," Seminoles Coach Bobby Bowden said Wednesday. "The reason is because of their academic standards. It's just good for our people, all over the country, to see a team, a school, that has the academic reputation that Duke has, also be able to do it athletically."

That's high praise coming from a coach whose program is facing possible NCAA sanctions in the aftermath of an academic cheating scandal.

Cutcliffe is no dummy, having coached both Peyton and Eli Manning while he was an assistant coach at Tennessee and head coach at Mississippi. He may just be the man to pull Duke from the doldrums. Last week's win against Virginia snapped a 25-game losing streak in ACC play.

Cutcliffe admitted it's a different brand of football. He recently interjected physics into a team meeting and asked how many of his players had studied the subject.

"I think everybody on the team raised their hand," Cutcliffe said. "I don't think that would happen many places."

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