Penn State No. 17

Penn State moved up two spots in both the Associated Press and USAToday coaches' poll. Find it here. With the Lions having -- let's not mince words here -- two cupcakes (Syracuse and Temple) next on the schedule, it's conceivable to think that they might be ranked fairly high if the rankings fall the way I assume. Let's look at the schedule for the teams ahead of Penn State with my prediction for each game.

1. Southern Cal: Ohio State (Win), (By the way, what's up with the Trojans early season schedule? Two byes?)
2. Georgia: at South Carolina (W), at Arizona State (uh, W)
3. Oklahoma: at Washington (W)
4. Florida: at Tennessee (W)
5. Ohio State: at Southern Cal (L), Troy (W)
6. Missouri: Nevada (W), Buffalo (W)
7. LSU: North Texas (W), at Auburn (L)
8. Texas: Arkansas (W), Rice (W)
9. Auburn: at Miss. St. (W), LSU (W)
10. Wisconsin: at Fresno State (L), at Michigan (W)
11. Alabama: Western Ky. (W), at Arkansas (W)
12. Texas Tech: SMU (W), UMass (W)
13. Kansas: at So. Fla. (L), Sam Hou. State (W)
14. East Carolina: at Tulane (W), at N.C. State (W)
15. Arizona State: UNLV (W), Georgia (L)
16. Oregon: at Purdue (W), Boise State (L)

By my estimation that means the Lions would be ranked No. 12 by the time they host Illinois. Of course, this doesn't take into the fact that I may be 100 percent wrong about each game and the chance that a team behind the Lions will leap them.