Ohio State and Miami is one of the anticipated September non-conference showdowns, when they meet in Columbus next week. Neither team had any lookahead issues in their openers last night. Terrelle Pryor and Jacory Harris each had good, mistake-free games. Miami's opponent, Florida A&M, was nothing special, but Ohio State took apart a respectable Marshall program and put the game away by halftime. At the one point in the first quarter when the Thundering Herd had hope, after a special teams touchdown cut the lead to 14-7, Pryor quickly sucked the life out of them with a 61-yard TD strike to Dane Sazenbacher. It was part of a rough night for Conference USA hopefuls, as Southern Miss was thrashed by South Carolina in the ESPN showcase.

Utah and Pitt was hyped as the top matchup of the night and it delivered. In this space yesterday I picked Utah to win by three and they did, 27-24. I also said that if Pitt's Tino Sunseri played a respectable game the Panthers would win. Blew that prediction. Sunseri wasn't great, but was better than respectable and rallied the team from a 24-13 fourth quarter deficit to force overtime. But the Utah rush defense kept Dion Lewis under control, as he could only get 75 yards on 25 carries. As far as defenses go, we can't say the same for Southern Cal. They beat Hawaii and kept the Rainbows at arm's length in a 49-36 win. But the concerns over the Trojan secondary's inexperience are real. The plus for Lane Kiffin is that he might be able to survive it until the schedule heats up in October.

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Action continues tonight with Arizona-Toledo on ESPN (8 ET). I'm also going to use this spot to take a look at five "B level" games for Saturday, including two that caught the eye of Lou Holtz and Mark May on the ESPN pre-game show last night. Dr. Lou picked Vanderbilt to upset Northwestern. I'm not sure if it was Vandy' complete lack of experience on both lines or their 2-10 record from last year that's inspired Holtz (who, sarcasm aside, is a favorite of mine). Northwestern's got plenty of rebuilding to do and this should be an ugly game that chases the students away from the TV set and into the library to do studying, but I would be very surprised if NU can't win in Nashville.

Mark May's upset prediction made more sense. Washington over BYU in Provo. This is the kind of game where the Huskies actually being the underdog surprises me. The Cougars have a freshman under center in Jake Heaps and are vulnerable defensively in the front seven. I see Chris Polk having a good game for Washington running over a solid left side of the line and opening up room for Jake Locker. The Huskies win this one 30-13.

Missouri and Illinois resume their Border War in the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis (12:30 ET, FSN). This has traditionally been a shootout and Missouri's had the upper hand lately. I don't know about a shootout this year, but Mizzou is still a much better team. Blaine Gabbert will be breaking in a new group of receivers, but he'll get plenty of ground support from Derrick Washington. The Tigers score enough points that Illinois' freshman quarterback Nathan Scheel can't keep up and is forced into mistakes. Mizzou 37-14.

A couple of Midwest teams make late-night visits to the West Coast. Fresno State gave Cincinnati all they could handle last year, and now get the Bearcats at home (10 EST ESPN2), down several key players and head coach Brian Kelly. Fresno State will control both trenches and win a 21-10 affair. And letting my own bias toward Wisconsin show, I'm including their game with UNLV in this group. Don't laugh though. The Badgers played poorly in Vegas in 2007 and while I'm not predicting a loss here, UW's inexperienced defensive front can be exploited enough to keep the game competitive. In the end, too much muscle on the offensive line and too much John Clay wins it for Bucky, but this one is, as Lee Corso would say, closer than the experts say.

Dan Flaherty is the editor of the Notebook Sports Family, published through the Real Clear Sports blog network, offering daily commentary on baseball , game analysis on college football and previews in the NFL.