The rotted pumpkins are in this week's garbage.

The trees are bare.

If you're in Columbus, it's Michigan Week. If you're up north, it's Buckeye Bashing time.

And you're either envisioning Notre Dame's role in the national championship hunt. Or not.

Early in the week, of course, the diplomats in Columbus and Ann Arbor offer sweet nothings to the media through gritted teeth.

"Chris Perry might be the best running back we'll face this year," you could imagine Ohio State defensive end Will Smith saying. "We've seen some awfully good ones, but he's probably a Heisman candidate."

Or...

"Ohio State's defense is awesome," Michigan quarterback John Navarre will most likely tell the enraptured Wayne and Washtenaw County media. "We have seen them up close and personal the past two years and coach (Jim) Tressel really knows how to put things together for any big game."

And yadayadayada. Meanwhile, in practice, Lloyd Carr and Tressel won't have to do any Knute imitations to get their players' focused on the grim task ahead that unfolds Saturday at 12 noon local, 11 Chicago time.

ABC breaks out the most respected heavy artillery — Keith Jackson and Dan Fouts, who seems to have recovered from the misformations of Monday Night Football with plenty to spare, and viewers should be in for a double-dose of college football Americana — a symphonic end to a great Big Ten season and electrifying commentary.

No. 4 O.S.U. (10-1 overall, 6-1 in the Big Ten), known as the "Luckeyes" up north and in some other league provinces, dodged several brave Purdue thrusts to escape with a 16-13 overtime victory over the No. 16 Boilermakers (8-3, 5-2) on Mike Nugent's 36-yard overtime field goal before 105,285 in Ohio Stadium.

The win moved the Bucks past U.S.C. into second place in the ever-popular Bowl Championship Series ratings. A win in Ann Arbor would virtually guarantee the Bucks a chance to defend their national title.

Fifth-ranked Michigan (9-2, 6-1) needed little extra push to flatten host Northwestern 41-10, pretty much killing the game Wildcats' bid for a post-season as Perry rushed for 122 yards and two touchdowns against the clearly outmanned Wildcats (5-6, 3-4).

But this turns out not to be a normal weekend when word out of South Bend of growing discontent with coach Ty Willingham and certain actions of Athletic Director Kevin White surfaced.

"They have raised the ticket prices twice in the last two years," one well-placed monogram club source told CollegeBLITZ.com, addressing one of the White issues. "The same ticket that was $38 just two years ago is now $48. That did not sit well with a lot of the guys. The money goes to fully fund (Olympic sports)."

The Irish take in an extra $2.3 million this fall, after a similar pickup in 2002, reportedly enabling the Title IX scholarship funding situation to be fully covered. But the loyal legions are not happy about this.

In one of a handful of Bowl Championship Series schools whose fanbase could most easily use the motto "Win or Tie, we love you," when assessing its coaching staff, Notre Dame fans are grumbling beyond their second-year coach's collective 6-9 record since the dreamy 8-0 start last fall.

One source put it this way: "Joe Theismann (who quarterbacked the Irish to the 1971 Cotton Bowl victory over Texas and went on to a brilliant career with the Washington Redskins) was back on campus and he was pretty unhappy, along with others, about (Willingham's) practice schedule. They practice Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and go through light workout Friday.

"Ara, Dan Devine, Holtz (and, yes, Gerry Faust) all practiced on Sundays and Mondays. Game preparation is an issue and so is the coach's relationship with the players."

One word used often is aloof. Notre Dame is notorious for historically offering its coaches five-year contracts, but there is a building consensus that Tyrone Willingham will have to perform a magic act unlike any other since he arrived on campus to recapture the early-season 2002 euphoria.

In Columbus, meanwhile, there are a variety of early-week signs that the Buckeyes will, to coin the popular 1940s expression, leave it all on the field in Ann Arbor.

History hasn't been particularly kind to the Bucks in such cases -- nightmarish visions of Cleveland native Charles Woodson standing in the Michigan Stadium end zone striking a Heisman pose five years back as the Wolverines threw a near perfect-game at O.S.U., for one. Tai Streets cutting across the middle as an outplayed Michigan team caught the lightning of the moment, a small crack in the Bucks' short-pass defense, and converted it into an 87-yard touchdown and fourth quarter defeat.

But these games came with John Cooper at the helm. The Jim Tressel difference is this -- 2-0 vs. Michigan, the 16-13 win over Purdue Saturday that many Cooper teams likely would have lost.

After Will Smith had sacked Kyle Orton at the goal line, he stripped the Boilers quarterback with the classic new-era one-arm pounding and linebacker Mike Kudla recovered to give O.S.U. a 13-6 lead.

"It was simply one of those very, very fortunate things," he told The Associated Press's Rusty Miller. But the Bucks' defense has made plays like that through the past two seasons.

What hasn't happened very often was an opponent, even one as good as the underrated Boilers, driving the length of the field in response -- much of it on the ground, no less.

Purdue was penalized by many know-nothing pollsters and shoved from 11th to 16th in the A.P. poll, 10th to 16th in the coaches' poll -- likely many of the same knuckleheads who did NOT penalize then No. 4 Georgia after the Bulldogs barely beat Alabama-Birmingham in Athens two weeks ago.

A few folks must have been a little too deep into the Southern Comfort late last Saturday afternoon, because Purdue's bounceback 81-yard drive, which culminated with Jared Void's 11-yard touchdown run that created a tomblike stadium silence, was a classic display of a word those pollsters can relate to...

Grit.

The Boilers earned a 13-13 tie and even more respect when the Bucks forced another Purdue turnover on the Boilers' 29 when Orton was hit again. But Bobby Iwuchukwu blocked a 41-yard field goal attempt by reliable O.S.U. kicker Mike Nugent as the crowd chanted "Nooooge," then fell silent again.

"I thought it would be a defensive, low-scoring struggle," Purdue coach Joe Tiller told the Chicago Tribune's Melissa Isaacson, "and it was."

So you could say the Bucks had Purdue exactly where they wanted.

"We just don't ever get into a position where we panic because it's a close game," defensive tackle Tim Anderson told Isaacson. "Overtime is not a big deal to us."

Oh yes it is, but hey, diplomacy is diplomacy. The Boilers had lost two of three in O.T., the Bucks had won three straight. And in the end, it came down to two of the country's best kickers -- Nugent and Purdue's Ben Jones, who had both kicked two field goals in regulation.

In Ohio State's possession, Purdue's defense stiffened and Nugent lined a 36-yarder straight through, feeling little or no effects of Iwuchukwu's block.

But Jones' attempt, a 37-yarder, hooked just wide left in Purdue's subsequent possession.

"This was our first zero-turnover game of the season," said O.S.U. quarterback Craig Krenzel to the assembled media. "And it couldn't have come at a better time."

Particularly with you-know-who coming up.

Elsewhere

Penn State's 52-7 romp over Indiana hardly erased memories of a 3-8 season, but its first Big Ten victory included a virtual shoutout of the Hoosiers (2-9, 1-6) after I.U. scored on its first possession.

After Notre Dame transfer Matt LoVecchio hit Glenn Johnson for a 12-yard score early, the Lions rallied behind Zack Mills' strong outing and jumped out to a 21-7 halftime lead and then hit the Hoosiers for 31 third-quarter points before going on auto pilot for the last 17 minutes.

"(Indiana's first score) made me nervous," Paterno admitted to A.P. afterward. "But the coaches and the kids, they made some adjustments. We settled down and played better."

Maurice Humphrey, who'd had a difficult afternoon the week before at Northwestern, caught five passes for 121 yards and a T.D.  The Lions blew up I.U.'s defense, one which many good I-AA teams would enjoy playing against.

"This was something we saw during the week that we thought we'd have chances to do," Mills told A.P.

If the Lions can come up with a defensive difference maker or two next year, Penn State could make its presence well-known in the 2004 title chase.

Relative Merits Dept.

Don't know if this helps all the computer-readers, but here are the relative rankings of the major B.C.S. conferences in non-league competition...

1. BIG XII 37-12
2. SOUTHEASTERN 31-15
3. BIG TEN 29-14
4. PACIFIC-10 25-14
5. BIG EAST 23-14
6. A.C.C. 19-13

What this all means is up to the Jeff Sagarins and resident compugeeks from sea to shining sea.