Week 5’s college football schedule is much better than Week 4’s (we promise)

Week 4 included several cases of teams scoring 70 points against hopelessly overmatched opponents. A running clock was instituted in the second half of the Louisville-FIU tilt, so thoroughly were the Cardinals crushing the Golden Panthers. Miami and Savannah State agreed to play a 12-minute fourth quarter. And we had Ohio State, already up 20 points on Florida A&M in the first quarter, going for it on fourth-and-8 in the red zone.

Those things sum up the weekend that was, but despite all of this adversity, we survived. The schedule gets much better this week, highlighted by several matchups between Top 25 teams.

Here are Week 5’s best offerings:

USC at Arizona State (Sept. 28, 10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2) -- This game will be close. Might be for some strange reasons, but it will be close.

South Carolina at UCF (Sept. 28, 12 p.m. ET, ABC) -- Central Florida already has one win over a power-conference school this season (34-31 at Penn State), and another here would thrust the Knights into the BCS buster discussion along with Fresno State.

Stanford at Washington State (Seattle) (Sept. 28, 10 p.m. ET, ESPN) -- It’s difficult to figure how much credit is due to Washington State for its win at Southern Cal, but it did raise an eyebrow. Stanford has more to worry about in Seattle than I’d have guessed before the season.

Arizona at Washington (Sept. 28, 7 p.m. ET, Fox) -- How good is Arizona, anyway? Can Washington finally escape its seemingly endless loop of 7-6 seasons? There are so many questions to be partially answered on Saturday.

Virginia Tech at Georgia Tech (Sept. 26, 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) -- Let’s pretend that the Virginia Tech game against Marshall didn’t happen. And while we’re at it, that Virginia Tech game against East Carolina. This has been a good series of late, with four of the last five games decided by one score.

Oklahoma at Notre Dame (Sept. 28, 3:30 p.m. ET, NBC) -- Notre Dame is not on the most impressive run right now -- following a loss to Michigan, the Irish managed just a seven-point win over Purdue, then snuck by Michigan State in a victory that was maybe a little ref-aided. The Sooners have taken care of business to this point, but a loss here wouldn’t be much of a surprise. Maybe these two can at least pretty things up a bit, regardless of outcome.

Ole Miss at Alabama (Sept. 28, 6:30 p.m. ET, ESPN) --The Rebels have been entertaining so far, scoring no fewer than 31 points in a game, and giving us that crazy win at Vanderbilt, which resulted in this:

(Via @bubbaprog)

Wisconsin at Ohio State (Sept. 28, 8 p.m. ET, ABC) -- Wisconsin probably should be undefeated, lending this game a little more hype, but there was that thing that happened in Tempe. This contest will have a huge bearing on the Leaders Division since, not surprisingly, it doesn’t look like anybody else is up for the challenge. A win by the Badgers would give them a 2.5-game lead on the Buckeyes.

LSU at Georgia (Sept. 28, 3:30 p.m. ET, CBS) -- We’ve already gotten several good conference matchups out of the SEC ... now if everybody else would just make an effort to catch up. This is the latest, and it’s fair to say LSU has more to lose, given that division foe Alabama has already passed one of the biggest tests it’ll have all season.

• New Top 25 rankings good for LSU, Oregon

• New bowl projections: Baylor to BCS, Bama-Oregon still on

• Longform: Bill Connelly’s Big Ten road trip

• Spencer Hall reviews the Top 25

• Stanford pounds Arizona State, 42-28

• Players apparently participate in NCAA protest

• Today’s college football news headlines