Links at Lunch: Arizona-Oklahoma State on Tap; Tommy Rees in at Notre Dame

Supposedly the NFL kicks off tonight, but to paraphrase an advertising hook from the professional ranks, “Thursday night IS college football night.”

Arizona and Oklahoma State have the privilege of going head-to-head with the Saints-Packers, surely to lose the ratings battles despite Jenn Brown’s presence on the sidelines per Cowboys Ride For Free. The inevitable NFL ratings win ensure various trolls on radio and TV can emerge from beneath their bridges to declare the NFL vastly superior. If UA puts up a fight as feeble as its effort against these same Cowboys in December’s Alamo Bowl, college honks will be hard pressed to counter. Arizona’s passing attack looked especially crisp in its 41-10 rout of Northern Arizona, but Nick Foles will not have his No. 1 target. Juron Criner did not make the trip for undisclosed reason, a troublesome sign for the Wildcats given the tumult of Criner’s offseason (both links via The Arizona Republic website AZCentral.com).

UA must bank on OSU’s “Thursday Night Curse,” which Cowboys Ride For Free (again) documents.

More links after the jump.

• So the quarterback controversy at Notre Dame that wasn’t a controversy is now a controversy. The Associated Press reports Tommy Rees is going to start in place of Dayne Crist, under the newly installed lights at Michigan’s Big House. An Irish loss would put UND at 0-2, with 10-2 being the realistic benchmark of making a BCS bowl and USC, Stanford, and Maryland all still to come. Not even the BCS could allow a three-loss Notre Dame in, right? Right?
  • Slap The Sign and The Subway Domer have reaction to the quarterback shake-up.
• Our friends at College Football Zealots sound the upset alarm for Week 2. Tonight’s UA-OSU game is on the radar, as well as a game picked right here at SaturdayBlitz.com to be an FCS-FBS upset potential match-up, Stony Brook at Buffalo.
• Our other friends over at Golden Bear Lair walk the lines of the Pac-12’s second week.
• Saturday’s Penn State – Alabama tilt is quite the measuring stick for an unproven Nittany Lion team with designs on surprising, writes Victory Bell Rings. This game is also of historical significance, as UA is one of just three SEC teams against which PSU has a losing record the human football encyclopedia Kevin McGuire (@KevinOnCFB) tweeted.