Who wants to be No. 1?

Make way for a new king of the hill.

But be forewarned. The crown rests uneasy upon the team on top, whether it's the Oregon Ducks, Auburn Tigers or Boise State Broncos.

Missouri bumped off Oklahoma a week after Wisconsin bumped off Ohio State a week after South Carolina bumped off Alabama, and now Oregon heads to Los Angeles this week to take on a resurgent USC team that has made its long-standing reputation by winning big games, and will make the Ducks prove themselves worthy of the crown. Or not.

ANOTHER 1 BITES THE DUST

For the third consecutive week, a No. 1 team gets knocked off. This time it was Oklahoma.

The last time the No. 1 team was thrown off the top of the college football hill three weeks in a row, Dwight D. Eisenhower was president and Pete Dawkins was winning the Heisman Trophy. It was 1958, when Ohio State, Oklahoma, Auburn and Army passed through the revolving door at the peak of the AP Top 20.

NCAA historical rankings are based on the AP poll, which nobody pays attention to these days once the BCS rankings start coming out in the middle of the season. So even though Oregon was No. 1 in the AP poll this past week, they were No. 2 behind Oklahoma in the BCS rankings.

At any rate, three different No. 1s in a row getting beat shows that nobody is safe. And teams taking the No. 1 ranking into the venerable L.A. Coliseum over the years have not fared well, posting just a 4-4 record against USC. It's a challenge that Oregon relishes and needs, considering the way the BCS computers degrade their accomplishments, proclaiming them to be the No. 8 team in the country in last week's rankings. Humans said they're No. 1; computers say No. 8. Ugh.

The Trojans (7-11 all-time against the top dog; one win shy of the national best of Oklahoma and Notre Dame) ripped Cal last week, 48-14, and the bye gives Monte Kiffin two weeks to figure out how to slow down Chip Kelly's Ducks. USC's probation and back-to-back last-second field goal defeats (to Washington and Stanford) prompted the college football world to turn its back on the program and leave the Troyboys unranked for the first time in eight years.

But the spate of No. 1 defeats turns this game into a gift-wrapped Halloween present for Lane Kiffin: With no national title, no Pac-10 title, and no bowl game to shoot for, getting a previously unexpected opportunity to face the No. 1 team in the country on primetime national TV at home and have College GameDay on hand is really their only chance to make a splash on the national scene. Or not.

Of course, there's one other issue: Nobody has served as even a speed bump yet for the high-flying, point-a-minute Ducks.

THEN THERE WERE SEVEN: Three more undefeated teams went down Saturday, making it six in the past two weeks, leaving seven remaining.

Of the seven, only two are in the same conference and guaranteed to play each other: TCU and Utah in the Mountain West. That means it's not impossible for six teams to finish with a zero in the loss column. In that eventuality, watch for Oregon and Auburn to be the teams most loved by the BCS humans and computers, respectively.

Six of the seven undefeateds are on the road this week (see matchups below), with five of the six – Oregon, Auburn, Michigan State, Utah and Missouri – facing teams thoroughly capable of beating them straight up.

FUZZY MATH, BCS COMPUTERS EDITION: One of the computers this past week had 6-0 Missouri at No. 28 – eight spots behind 4-3 Florida. Another of the computers had the same Tigers at No. 2. Also, one computer had 6-0 Oregon ranked behind 5-1 Stanford, which the Ducks beat three weeks ago.

SEC SHOWDOWN

FOXSports.com's Thayer Evans and FOX Sports South's Steve Eubanks report from the scene of Auburn's big win over LSU. Watch it.

More coverage:

• Eubanks: No one better than Newton
• Late TD gives Auburn the victory
• More video: Early Iron Bowl preview
• Game Trax: Newton's big numbers
• More college football coverage

FUZZY MATH, BCS HUMAN EDITION: Both the Harris and Coaches polls had 6-1 Ohio State ahead of 6-1 Wisconsin, even though the Badgers badgered the Buckeyes last week. Maybe the win over Iowa will boost UW over OSU.

LEAP FROGS? Whether or not Boise State moves into No. 1 or No. 2 quite yet, the three No. 1 losses are feeding the Broncos' needs nicely. Oregon seems to be the favorites of the humans, and Auburn the favorites of the computers, while Boise State sets up shop and waits for one more of them to lose. As good as Michigan State has been, Sparty does not look like a 12-0 team, and 13-0 isn't something Missouri fans can count on, either.

The Broncos' problem could become, in fact, TCU and the way the Horned Frogs are laying waste to the tough Mountain West Conference. TCU's 38-7 gutting of Air Force was even easier than imagined, and in two weeks they get a chance at really impressing folks when they visit equally undefeated and top 10-ranked Utah. This TCU team, incidentally, has won its past four games by an average of 35-2 ... well, two-and-a-half.

Which means, Gary Patterson's teams still might morph into the Horned Leap Frogs and vault past Boise State. What would be especially interesting, though, would be if they were the only two undefeated teams at the end of the season, and then see how the voters would treat them.

HEISMAN UPDATE: If you can remember the 2005 season title game in the Rose Bowl between Texas with Vince Young and USC with Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush, you remember the very best that a quarterback can play when Young carried the Longhorns to the national championship. That's pretty much what it's like watching Cam Newton all the time.

Yes, after the victory over LSU, I'll agree that there is something special about this Auburn team, and it's more than just Newton. The Tigers, like Missouri and Michigan State, seem to be able to call upon anybody at any time to come through with a key play in any phase of the game ... and so they always win.

But in Auburn's case, Newton plays like the guy everybody wants to build an offense around: Big, strong, fast, accurate passer, smart enough to avoid bad plays, all while making lots of big plays. He's what Terrelle Pryor is striving to become, and what Vince Young was at times.

It sure seems as though having Newton is making all the difference for Auburn ... and NOT having Newton is making all the difference at Florida. The former Tim Tebow backup left UF two seasons ago, and it's not hard to picture him running Urban Meyer's offense. The Gators would probably be the undefeated team, rather than Auburn.

Michigan's Denard Robinson wowed us at the season's outset, but Newton has the strength and size to keep it up all season. Leading the undefeated Tigers, Newton is suddenly who Oregon RB LaMichael James, Boise State QB Kellen Moore and Stanford LB-FB Owen Maricic are chasing. Problem is, he's hard to catch, and once you catch him, you probably aren't going to haul him down on your own.

NO SOONER MAGIC: Oklahoma committed a lot of errors in the 36-27 loss to Missouri, but coach Bob Stoops suffered through his own brain fart that put his team in an untenable bind with six minutes remaining: When the Sooners scored to pull to within nine points, he went for a two-point conversion, which ruined their comeback opportunity. Make the two-point conversion, and it's a 7-point (one possession game).

But it was going to be a one-possession, 8-point game even if Stoops had decided to kick the PAT. Rather than maintain that hope of getting the ball back and scoring and adding the two-point conversion to send the game into overtime, the Sooners were reduced to desperately trying to find a way to score twice – affecting how they could play offense and defense in the final minutes of the game.

GAME TIME

Check out reports for every team.

• Auburn smashes South Carolina
• SEC commish: Newton ruling fair
• CFN: Oregon D deserves credit
• Brawl before USC-UCLA
• Conference standings
• 2010-11 bowl schedule
• Video: Watch highlights
• Week 14 photos

THINK PINKEL: Gary Pinkel might seem about as boring as, well, the state of Missouri, but if we were to pause and think about it, we might come to the conclusion that he's the best coach in college football. His Tigers have 30 wins in the past three seasons – and are on the way to at least another 10. At the moment they're 37-11 (.771) in the current four-year stretch ... at Missouri, for crying out loud.

Adjusting for the longer seasons of today, the last time Mizzou has had four such impressive years in succession was when Dan Devine led them to 32-7-3 (.798) in 1960-63. His next task will be to match Devine's 12 consecutive winning seasons from '58 to '69 – he's only halfway to that one.

He's got QB Blaine Gabbert playing like a bigger, stronger-armed Chase Daniel, brainwashing the junior sufficiently that Gabbert was quick to point out in postgame interviews that the Tigers have won 29 games in a row in which they have won the turnover battle. What coach wouldn't want that statistic? More important, what coach wouldn't want to have his quarterback living by such a realization? Gabbert has only three interceptions this season, and none in the three Big 12 games.

So, Saturday at Nebraska, suffice to say that the Tigers will be striving mightily to win the turnover battle.

BOWL-BOUND BAYLOR: How about those Baylor Bears, already bowl-eligible for the first time since the 1994 Alamo Bowl.

Consider, too, that Syracuse has moved to 5-2 and appears destined for a bowl, and Louisville's 26-0 rout of Connecticut on Saturday moved the Cardinals to 4-2 and within striking distance, as is Kansas State (Baylor's Saturday victim, but in need of just one more win). If those three teams make it that would leave only three major-conference programs (automatic BCS qualifiers) not to play in a bowl game since 2007.

Think about that for a second: If those three teams become bowl eligible, and it looks like they will, the current seniors on 63 of the 66 major-conference teams in the country will have participated in at least one bowl game in their careers. The only exceptions would be Duke (which hasn't been since 1995), Washington (2002), and Washington State (2003). Washington still has a long shot for this season, but it would require winning three of its last five, and the Huskies were drubbed Saturday by Arizona, 44-14.

QUICK SNAPS

• Don't blink: Robert Woods is the guy to watch at the beginning of the Oregon-USC game. He's already returned a kickoff for a touchdown this season, and let it be noted that Wisconsin and Missouri started off against the No. 1 team with a game-opening kickoff return for a touchdown.

• I'm not sure records are kept for such things, but how often has a team won two games in a season by blocking an extra point? Wisconsin's J.J. Watt helped the Badgers edge Iowa 31-30, by getting a hand on an extra point, just as Jay Valai did to Arizona State in a 20-19 victory on Sept. 18.

• Iowa's offense and defense played well enough to beat Wisconsin. Not so the special teams: The Hawkeyes had an all-important PAT blocked, botched a field goal with a poor snap, and allowed Wisconsin to convert the game's key play – a fake punt in the fourth quarter, in which Iowa linemen ran back downfield without ever realizing that UW's Brad Nortman was sprinting 14 yards for a first down.

• Remember when Notre Dame used to beat Navy all the time? The current crop of Irish players don't.

• Not to be flippant about such things, but the intestinal fortitude that Michigan State coach Mark Dantonio showed in calling for a fake punt that helped turned the tide against Northwestern, indicated quite clearly that the man's heart is stronger than most coaches. That means they've won dramatic games, aided by a fake field goal (vs. Notre Dame) and a fake punt in each of the past two games that Dantonio has coached from the sideline.

• In the wild SEC West, only two teams control their destiny: Yup, Auburn and Alabama. Let the ticket scalping begin for the Friday, Nov. 26 Iron Bowl at Alabama.

THIS WEEK'S BIGGEST GAMES

Tuesday night, Oct. 26
Boise State at Louisiana Tech – Another opportunity for national TV exposure; back to the blue turf for four of BSU's last six games.

Thursday, Oct. 28
Florida State at N.C. State – Suddenly, Seminoles are 6-1 and can put a stranglehold on ACC Atlantic.

Saturday, Oct. 30
Oregon at USC – Ducks won last year, 47-20, but this is the Trojans' one and only chance for big splash.
Auburn at Ole Miss – Tigers have won five games by one possession; they don't want this to be that close.
TCU at UNLV – Week after week, Frogs' style points are the most impressive of all.
Michigan State at Iowa – Can Sparty keep it going? Well, sure, he can, but ...
Utah at Air Force – Flyboys get second another chance at an undefeated team; Utes can't look ahead to TCU.
Missouri at Nebraska – Can Mizzou put together yet another sensational game?
Baylor at Texas – One of these teams is bowl eligible. Guess which one, and your first guess doesn't count.
Michigan at Penn State – Not a monster game, but Denard Robinson is always worthy of our attention.