In college football, a lot of the rivalry games are played early in the season. This was displayed this past weekend when the Kentucky Wildcats took on the Indiana Hoosiers and Notre Dame took on their bitter rivals the Spartans of Michigan State.

This game showed that even though the Fighting Irish started their season 2-0 with wins over Pittsburgh and Michigan, this team still has a lot of work to do if they want to compete for in the Rose Bowl for the national title in January.

The win against Pittsburgh was big for the Notre Dame program because it was a road win but Dave Wannstedt and the Pittsburgh Panthers don’t look like a team that started out the season ranked in the top 25 poll.

After losing to Notre Dame, they have since lost to Ohio University and Nebraska to start this season 0-3. These days, bad luck seems to follow Wannstedt around no matter where he coaches. Although he experienced success early in his career with coaching, the past couple of years have been unkind to Wannstedt. He ran into the buzz saw in Miami last year when Ricky Williams quit the team for the year and the Dolphins went on to finish the season with a 4-12 record.

Notre Dame has a tough schedule this year, possibly the toughest schedule in the nation. After traveling this upcoming weekend to Seattle to pay a visit to old coach Tyrone Willingham and the Washington Huskies, they face the Purdue Boilermakers and the number one team in the nation, the Trojans of Southern Califonia.

This game against USC will greatly measure where the Fighting Irish stand in Charlie Weis’ first year as head coach of Notre Dame. One about Notre Dame is for certain.

Michigan State has the Fighting Irish’s number when they play them in South Bend. The Spartans win on Saturday was their fifth straight at Notre Dame Stadium. It will be interesting to see how this rivalry continues in the future.

The Kentucky and Indiana football game might have been a game does in Rich Brooks as head coach of UK football. Even though the team is still experiencing the effects of the NCAA sanctions that were placed on them, they still have yet to show a little bit of life and effort to try and overcome this. I don’t know how the Wildcats can only manage nine first downs in a game and expect to win it.

The Wildcats better be prepared for the big game coming up on Saturday against the fifth ranked team in the country, the Florida Gators. The Gators looked impressive this past week when they defeated Tennessee 16-7 in the Swamp.

College football fans will have to see what the rest of this season has in store and see what the rest of this season has in store. The way it is looking in the beginning part of the season, it should provide these fans with a lot of great games.