In case you hadn’t heard, Bobby Petrino bailed on the Atlanta Falcons after Monday night’s schlacking by the Bush-less, McAllister-less New Orleans Saints and took the head coaching job at Arkansas.

The Atlanta press have shown the veracity of their New York brethren in going after Petrino, calling him a quitter and saying that it wasn’t the downfall of Michael Vick or injuries that saddled the former Louisville head coach in the ATL.

In today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution, columnist Jeff Schultz writes, “Bobby Petrino. Not a man. He’s running like a coward.”

The AJC’s beat writer Tony Barnhart says Petrino has “absolutely no communication and people skills.”

Simply put, Petrino is a rat. He jumped ship in the Derby City (not before trying to take Tommy Tuberville’s job at Auburn, whom had hired Petrino to work on his staff) for the glitz (and the cash) of the NFL but wanted none of the responsibility of being an NFL head coach. But worse than Steve Spurrier and Slick Nick Saban, Petrino didn’t even make it through a single year at the helm of an NFL franchise.  And that’s the guy you want to lead 18-22 young men in Fayetteville? No, thanks.

If there was any doubt that Felix Jones was packing it up and heading for the The League a year early, this seals the deal. Darren McFadden was a done deal but with Jones, Arkansas still had a viable offensive weapon. What about now? Who’s going to lead that offense in the future?  Casey Dick? You can’t be serious.

And what does this hire say about Arkansas football? Is this how desperate they are to win? I know after Tommy Bowden, Jim Grobe and Tommy Tuberville all declined the job, there must have been some scrambling in the AD’s office for some viable candidates but there are a lot of good coaches out there (Ron English, comes to mind) and none with the character issues that Petrino has. But this is really a reflection of how out of whack the expectations are at Arkansas. After the team won the SEC West, that fan base legitimately lost their mind and thought they were Alabama or LSU. With this hire, Arkansas has cemented its position as a second or even third tier SEC program for the forseeable future.

For the record, I do not, in any way, feel bad for Arthur Blank. He hired Bobby Petrino and he entrusted the future of his franchise in the hands of a young man that never exhibited any indication that he was mature enough to handle it and now the franchise is in tatters. As the saying goes, you made your bed, now you’ve gotta sleep in it.

GAME OF THE WEEK: VIRGINIA TECH at LSU

I turned this game off with about 11 minutes left in the second quarter and watched the Heroes season finale and a couple episodes of The Office before catching the last bit of the Auburn/South Florida game. I think the first quarter and a half of the game can be summed up this way: total domination.

What surprises me about the game wasn’t the way Virginia tech played on offense. I knew they were horrible from the offense’s inability to score more than one touchdown against ECU at home. I think Frank Beamer may have a bigger problem on offense than one road loss in Baton Rouge. I don’t think anyone on this team, let alone on offense, has any faith in Sean Glennon’s ability to lead this team, least of all in a pressure-packed environment and I think Hokie Nation is tiring of Glennon’s floundering. The real question for the Hokies at this point is when will Beamer start true freshman Tyrod Raylor?

My hats off to Les Miles and the LSU staff. Bo Pelini called a fantastic defensive game and brought a variety of blitz packages that confused Virginia Tech’s protection schemes and gave Sean Glennon a very close and intimate relationship with the turf at Tiger Stadium. What surprised me most about the game was how porous the Hokie defense looked against the Gary Crowton offense that I criticized as being bland, unimaginative and vanilla last week against Mississippi State. Wasn’t it the VT defense that was touted as one of the nation’s best in the preseason? But it was that same defense that was giving up 7,8 and 9-yard gains up the gut to Jacob Hester. Instead of calling play around VT’s much-talked-about linebacking duo of Vince Hall and Xavier Adibi, Crowton ran right at them and the pair folded. If you’re an LSU fan, the good news is that Keiland Williams seems to have found his place in this offense and you got to see a little bit of what Matt Flynn can do that Jamarcus Russell couldn’t.

Saturday’s win in mind, I am not sure that I am ready to anoint the Bayou Bengals as the best team in college football. I still firmly believe that spot belongs to USC who will get their signature win next week when they travel to Lincoln and pound a Nebraska team that gave Wake Forest every opportunity to beat them (and had Wake had starter Riley Skinner under center, they probably would have) on the road Saturday. However, it appears that LSU and USC are on a collision course for the BCS National Championship but the season is far from over for both teams. LSU has to navigate a tricky SEC schedule and win the SEC Championship game in Atlanta and USC has to weather an underrated Pac-10 schedule that takes them to Oregon and Cal before finishing the year against rival UCLA at home. If both of those teams can run the table, we could be in for a classic match-up in New Orleans.

WATCH OUT FOR: SOUTH FLORIDA

I was so tempted to pick the Bulls going to Auburn and up-ending Tommy Tuberville and the 17-ranked Tigers at home. Alas, I didn’t and the Bulls pulled off the “upset” anyway. I knew exactly how good USF was going into this game and you better believe the coaches of the Big East’s elite programs know how good Jim Leavitt, Matt Grothe and the rest of this USF team is as well. In fact, the Bulls were the most impressive team in the laughably weak Big East this week. Louisville let Middle Tennessee, picked to finish a whopping 5th in the Sun Belt Conference, hang 42 points on the Cards at home. West Virginia let Marshall hang around for way too long in Huntington and Rutgers soundly beat a Navy team that they had no business scheduling. I am not sure that USF has the talent to win the Big East but they will end up getting a victory over one or more of the Big East’s big three by season’s end.

MOST DISAPPOINTING: MICHIGAN

Gutless. That is the way I would describe the Wolverines’ fold job at home against Oregon this weekend. Did the Ducks look overwhelmingly fast on offense? Absolutely. But where’s the heart? After seceding the greatest upset in the history of college football last week and scores of alumni, fans and writers calling for the head of your coach on a platter, I would have thought that this team, laden with seniors on the offensive side of the ball, would have banded together, taken on an “us against the world” mentality and made Oregon pay for what happened last week. None of that happened. There is a lot of negativity up in Ann Arbor right now and I would have to think that one more bad loss, particularly at home, and Lloyd Carr gets shown the door earlier than he expects.

Now that the team, picked in the top 5 at the beginning of the year, has the potential to go 7-5 or worse, does Chad Henne ride the pine for the rest of the year? He is already expected not to play Saturday against Notre Dame because of a leg injury that took him out of Saturday’s massacre. But when does the Wolverine staff admit that this season is probably a wash and start looking toward next year? Would it be a dis-service to the seniors on this football team to start rebuilding during their senior season? Absolutely but this is also a group of guys who haven’t set forth a real good example about playing with heart the past two weeks so you do what you have to do. When does true freshman Ryan Mallett become the full-time starting quarterback at Michigan? If he slices and dices the Notre Dame secondary this Saturday, don’t be surprised if Chad Henne is wearing a headset instead of a helmet for the rest of the year.

COACH OF THE WEEK: TYRONE WILLINGHAM, WASHINGTON 

Turns out, this guy can still coach. After being disgracefully fired after two pretty good years and 1 pretty bad one (kind of sounds like the resumé of another Notre Dame coach), Willingham has the Huskies moving in the right direction. Will this team compete with the Pac-10’s elite this season? No way but it says something about the status of this program when they knock off grossly over-hyped Boise State, snapping the Broncos 14-game winning streak. Willingham may have found a future star in sophomore quarterback Jake Locker, who had 193 yards passing, a touchdown and an interception to compliment his 84 rushing yards and 1 rushing score Saturday in Seattle. Kudos to Willingham for getting his team prepared for a winnable game that everyone on the outside was convinced he would lose.

If the Husky defense can pitch a couple more second half shutouts like they did Saturday against grossly over-hyped running back Ian Johnson (effectively ended his preposterous Heisman candidacy), the Huskies could find themselves in a bowl game come December. Next week will be a test for this team when they play #12 Ohio State at home and an upset of the Buckeyes, which I don’t anticipate, could put Willingham and the Huskies back on the college football, and Pac-10 radar. Unfortunately, the Huskies don’t have an awful lot of time to revel in this victory, the program’s biggest in recent memory.

Let me just go on record as saying that Rutgers and Louisville have officially gotten on my nerves. I get it, guys. You schedule your games for Thursday and Friday night to get some national airtime but I am not at all interested in seeing Louisville beat up on the mighty Blue Raiders of Middle Tennessee State University. Ditto for Rutgers thumping Navy on Friday night. It’s not good football or good television, it’s just annoying. Given how weak the Big East is, you would think one of these schools (lump in West Virginia for kicks) would schedule someone of some import to gain some credibility for those teams, the conference and the Heisman candidacies of the league’s top players. But who wants to play USC, Texas, Oklahoma or LSU when you can line up against Middle Tennessee State, Marshall and Navy? They can play those games but I’m not watching them.

GAME OF THE WEEK: Virginia Tech at LSU - 9:15 ET - ESPN

What was billed at the beginning of the year as the best non-conference matchup of the season, which it still very well may be, has turned into a game of reluctant excitement for most college football fans after less than spectacular week one performances by both teams.

For LSU, they managed to turn on the afterburners and leave Mississippi State in the dust after an average-to-poor performance in the first half in Starkville. For Virginia Tech, they couldn’t seem to close the door in Blacksburg on Saturday against ECU, beating the Pirates by just 10 points, seven of which came on an interception return for a touchdown toward the end of the first half.

The matchup is intriguing but if you’re LSU, you have to feel better about this game than the Hokies do. Given the monsters that the Tigers have up front, you have to figure Bo Pelini is going to throw a number of blitz packages at Sean Glennon, who looked like a deer in headlights at certain moments against ECU, and force him to make bad decisions, leaving Jonathan Zenon, Chevis Jackson and Craig Steltz to do what they do best: intercept the football.

On offense, new offensive coordinator Gary Crowton will have to prove that this offense has some depth, dimension and creativity after a stagnant performance against Mississippi State Thursday night. Running the ball could be difficult given who the Hokies have playing linebacker and the cornerback/receiver matchups in this one are intriguing.

O.G.I. - OTHER GAMES OF INTEREST

Oregon State at Cincinnati - Thursday - 7:30 ET - ESPN

Oregon State running back Yvenson Bernard may be the nation’s best kept secret at tailback and he will get a chance to show out Thursday night when the Beavers take on the Bearcats in Cincy. Last week, Bernard hung 165 yards and 2 TDs on a pretty good Utah team and will look to do the same on national TV Thursday night. Meanwhile, the Bearcats come into the game from a week where they scored 59 against Southeast Missouri State, including more than 300 yards on the ground. On the other side of the ball, Oregon State held the Utes to 20 yards rushing. I’d expect the Beavers to roll big in those and for Bernard to have a huge game.

Miami at#8 Oklahoma - 12:00 ET - ABC

Two or three years ago, this would have been the game of the week, nay of the season, but with Randy Shannon rebuilding Miami football, the game manages a small blip on the radar on this week. I’m expecting Oklahoma to hang a big number on The U but the game could be worth a watch if you didn’t buy third season of The Office, which came out this week.

#20 Nebraska at Wake Forest - 12:00 ET - ESPN

Hats off to teams like Oklahoma and Miami, Wake and Nebraska for scheduling early season games that are worth checking out. Wake quarterback Riley Skinner is not likely to play in this game after separating his shoulder against BC last week and that could make a difference. If you haven’t gotten a chance to see Sam Keller and Nebraska, this game presents a good opportunity to do so and it’s certainly a better game than Oklahoma/Miami.

Oregon at Michigan - 3:30 PM - ABC

This game is interesting for a couple different reasons. The most obvious being that many people, myself included, want to see how Michigan will respond after suffering the greatest upset in the history of the sport last week at home. My guess is that the Michigan faithful will yell and cheer and get rowdy and show that they are still behind their team, that is unless they lose again at home to a team they should be. It will also give people a chance to see Oregon, a team not many people are familiar with. The Oregon offense against the Michigan defense is a matchup worth watching regardless of the game’s backdrop

South Carolina at #13 Georgia - 5:45 ET - ESPN2

Certainly the most intriguing SEC matchup of the week (sorry Vandy/Alabama). The game will serve as a test to see just how much the new and interception-free Matthew Stafford has matured. I expect Georgia, based on how they played last week against Oklahoma State, to win big but it’s a regional and SEC rivalry and anything could happen. One thing that will happen in this content, win or lose, we will find out just how far Matthew Stafford has come.

#22 TCU at #4 Texas - 7:00 PM ET - Fox Sports Net

Only the second game this week between ranked teams, TCU and Texas’ matchup will be watchable… at least until LSU/VT comes on. I’m not really sure what to make of TCU but Texas is ranked that high for a reason and they’re awfully good. TCU defensive end Tommy Blake will need to get in Colt McCoy’s face early and often if the Horned Frogs are to have a chance in Austin.

UNDER THE RADAR GAME OF THE WEEK

South Florida at #18 Auburn - 8:00 ET - ESPN2

The Tigers, fresh off a solid if unconvincing win, over Kansas State play host to South Florida and the Bulls are certainly upset-minded. For most of America, it will be one of their first exposure to USF quarterback Matt Grothe, who has Big East coaches singing his praises. The multi-talented Grothe is as dangerous with his legs as he is with his arm. I’m not sure we’ll see an upset in this one but USF could give Auburn a game that is worth checking out while the VT/LSU game is at commercial.