Half the way into the NCAA season, here's what we know

We're about halfway home in the college football season, and there are a few things I think that we know about the FBS landscape at this point.

We know that Florida, Alabama and (probably) Texas are really, really good. We know that everyone else is fatally flawed, with the possible exceptions of Boise State and the new-and-improved Virginia Tech. We also know that Boise State could win the rest of its games by 75 points, and it still wouldn't get a shot at a national title, barring some of the others ahead of it in the polls suffering unlikely losses.

We know that Iowa could be the best team in the Big Ten Conference, since it's the only unbeaten left. We also know that, even though the Hawkeyes have played only one ranked team in then-No. 5 Penn State, they have won exactly once by more than 11 points.

We know that Ohio State is currently the highest-ranked team in the conference, even though the Buckeyes have yet to beat a top-25 team. They're not about to show us what they can do against a real opponent any time soon, either. Their three games leading up to their Nov. 7 clash with Penn State are at Purdue, home with Minnesota and home with New Mexico State.

We know that Northwestern is probably the best team that calls Illinois its home state. The Wildcats are 4-2, but calling what they've gone through so far a cake schedule is an insult to cake. Not sure if there's truth to the rumors that coach Pat Fitzgerald is trying to replace Iowa and Penn State on the upcoming schedule with a rematch against Towson and a Class 1A Illinois high school team.

Even so, we know that Northwestern looks a heck of a lot better than does the team bearing our state's name. The Fighting Illini are terrible. They're so bad that QB Juice Williams said he thought he'd given the team a "spark," and was credited with playing some of his best football of the year, after coming off the bench to complete 7-of-17 passes in Saturday's loss to Michigan State. Of course, a completion percentage of 41 was light years better than that of Eddie McGee, who replaced Williams as the starter and went 2-for-11 with an interception.