Linking Up: September 21

*Today's big news in Sooner land: Sam Bradford did some throwing in practice. Whether or not Bradford will play against Miami in two weeks remains to be seen. If the coaches, training staff and Bradford think he can go, another important issue to consider is how much full-speed practice time the Heisman winner would need to play against The U. Obviously the Stoops would prefer to have Bradford under center on October 3, but it seems like Landry Jones has pulled enough of a Matt Saracen during the past couple weeks to give the coaching staff confidence that the redshirt freshman can get it done if Bradford isn't adquately prepared.

*Bradford stole the anti-thunder of Mike Balogun, whose attorney says it's curtains for his client's bid to play this season at OU.

*Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com, who just this summer named USC the top program of the decade, wonders if the Trojan dynasty is kaput. It's quite a statement about the national expectations placed upon Pete Carroll's program that one early-season loss is being hailed in some circles as its death knell. I mean, every team drops a game inexplicably once in a while. Still, USC's propensity to throw up stinkers against vastly inferior competition is unmatched among college football's top programs. (Dr. Saturday's diagnosis: too many turnovers.)

Carroll's teams always play like they fear no one. My read is that after all this time, they still don't respect anyone,

either.

*The oddsmakers could care less about USC's loss, ranking the Trojans third in Las Vegas Sports Consultants' weekly power poll. Interestingly, the bookies are putting no stock in Miami, ranked 20th, or the rest of the ACC. In fact, Clemson is actually the conference's highest-rated team at 19. OU is tied with Penn State for seventh, although it's unclear how the books are accounting for Bradford's status.

*AccuScore analyst and Oklahoma homer Zach Rosenfield lays out the national championship landscape for the Sooners, concluding that nothing much has changed in that respect for OU since the beginning of the season. According to Rosenfield, if the Sooners win out, the biggest threats to their chances of a title shot would be an undefeated California or Penn State.

And what about an undefeated Cincinnati? I posed this same question to Rosenfield yesterday. Not happening, he said: "Chances of that are less than 1 percent."

*ESPN.com's Mark Schlabach tackles the supposed truths of this college football season that have been turned on their heads through the first three weeks. In my book, he's wrong about Notre Dame, because the Fightin' Irish are about as good as I figured they would be. Also, he may be overstating the vulnerability of Florida after the Gators' closer-than-expected win over Tennessee this weekend. Otherwise, I'd say he's "on the mark." (Couldn't resist.)