John Walters

The Associated Press poll. The USA Today/coaches' polls. Nice polls, both, but this season you may want to gaze at the U.S. News & World Report's rating of the nation's best colleges.

Why?

Seven Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) schools can be found among the top 21 highest-rated "national universities," according to the publication. And, as we head into October, all seven of these schools' football teams have compiled winning records.

Northwestern (12th, according to the USN&WR) and Vanderbilt (tied for 18th) are undefeated. Duke (T8th) and Notre Dame (T18th), which combined for four wins last season, are both 3-1 after four games. Stanford (5th) and Rice (17th) are 3-2, and California (21st) is 3-1.

Seven schools, only two of which -- Cal and Notre Dame -- are traditionally thought of as perennial Top-25 programs. So far this season our seven-school colloquium has a combined 24-7 record (.775 win percentage). If you subtract the two games they've played against each other (Northwestern beat Duke, and Vanderbilt topped Rice), the record improves to 22-5, or a .815 win percentage.

What is going on? These are the programs whose players, should they advance to the NFL Scouting Combine, will ruin the curve on the Wonderlic test. But might they really have an impact on BCS bowl invites? Has the entire FBS world gone "Big Bang Theory" on us, a parallel universe in which the guys who understand why Avogadro's number would never fit on the back of a jersey are actually slide-ruling the bowl season.

Settle down there, Poindexter. Duke has not been invited to a bowl in 14 years, and Vanderbilt's bowl drought extends back to 1982. Then again, would you rather be uninvited to the prom or have a "Carrie" prom experience? Notre Dame has lost nine consecutive bowl games dating back to '94. Rice last won a bowl game in 1953 and Northwestern in 1949.

The smart kids, as you might expect, arrived prompt and prepared for the beginning of the semester. Their September success, though, is also a function of their soft schedules. No one has defeated a team that has been ranked in the Top 25 at any point of the season thus far. Until someone does (Vanderbilt hosts No. 13 Auburn next Saturday), let's avoid any sweeping generalizations about parity, scholarship limits, the ability of said players to grasp the playbooks with more alacrity (ooh! SAT word) than their peers, or the lack of distractions incumbent with not attending a university that makes Maxim's list of top 25 party schools.

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After all, Duke, Notre Dame and Stanford, with many of the same players on their rosters as a year ago, won 1, 3 and 4 games, respectively. These are the schools -- again, excusing the Golden Bears and Fighting Irish -- where almost all of the athletes are going to go pro in something other than sports.

Still, it is a pleasant development. To see TV cameras scan student sections whose members just refuse to destroy too many brain cells on any given Saturday. As the students at these schools are well aware, you cannot ace the class before you've even taken the midterm.

We will wait until more data is available before forming a hypothesis. Until then, however, allow us to identify and describe each of our "Smart Seven." Take notes if you wish.

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