This Week in Review

The USC - Notre Dame game lived up to the hype, as the Trojans escaped 34-31. However, after two weeks of calm in the top-10, two top-10 teams lost to unranked opponents, No. 5 Florida State at Virginia (26-21) and No. 8 Penn State at Michigan (27-25). No.6 Alabama barely escaped joining FSU and PSU, winning on the game's final play, 13-10 at Ole Miss. All-in-all, NINE top-25 teams fell this past weekend, the most for any weekend in 2005. The season's first BCS standings will be released later today and there is talk that while USC will be No. 1, Va Tech may be No. 2 over Texas, which has been No. 2 all year in the AP, Coaches' and Harris polls. Something to keep in mind though. The two teams ranked first and second in the initial BCS standings of the season have NEVER gone on to meet in that year's BCS title game.The White Sox eliminated the Angels by winning that series' final four games, all on complete-game efforts. That hasn't been done in the postseason since 1956.

Chicago heads to its first World Series since 1959 (46-year span between appearances is a record) and will attempt to win for the first time since 1917. The Astros will try to join them tonight, as they lead the Cardinals in the NLCS, three games-to-one. Of course the Astros have NEVER been to a World Series (first season was 1962) and with chances to advance to the Series in 1980 and 2004, went 0-4 in series-clinching games. Can they really lose three straight games this year with Pettitte, Oswalt and Clemens on the mound?

Tonight's Game 5 (Carpenter vs Pettitte) sees St. Louis as a $1.30-favorite with a total of 7 or 7 1/2.The NFL's lone unbeaten team, the Indianapolis Colts (5-0), hosts the St. Louis Rams tonight. The Colts are a 13 1/2-point favorite and the total is 51 1/2. Denver, which was embarrassed in Week 1 at Miami (lost 34-10), made it FIVE straight wins with a 28-20 win over the Patriots, who stand at just 3-3 heading into their bye week. Joining the Broncos at 5-1 are the Bengals (31-23 winners over the Titans) and the Bucs (27-13 winners over the Dolphins). Five teams have just one win (Arizona, Green Bay, Minnesota, Oakland and San Francisco), while the Texans (42-10 losers to the Seahawks last night) remain the NFL's only winless team at 0-5. All four teams in the NFC East have winning records while all four in the NFC North have losing records.