By JAKE CURTIS, San Francisco Chronicle

Let's throw out a few names to show how dramatically a couple of off-field decisions can affect college football:

After one game, the consensus is that Oregon is doomed to mediocrity, the Pac-12 is awful, Auburn is nothing without Cam Newton, Notre Dame will finish unranked for the fifth straight season, and Georgia coach Mark Richt will lose his job. Premature conclusions run rampant after the first weekend.

Here are the top six doomsday scenarios that ended quite differently:

Some NCAA Tournament items, with selections coming Sunday and the first games next Tuesday:

NBA PREVIEWS?

Some underexposed, potential first-round picks whom you might see for the first time in the NCAAs:

Kenneth Faried, Morehead State -- The 6-8 forward leads the nation in rebounding at 14.6 a game.

A first-round NCAA Tournament game that could match St. Mary's against Michigan State two days after Selection Sunday, before anyone is paying serious attention, is one of the tidbits that should be exposed now that we've entered March, the month that made college basketball famous.

Our list of March issues:

Texas' win over Kansas, ending the Jayhawks' 69-game home winning streak, showed no team is unbeatable at home, but the venues for this week's two big-time games in the West are as tough as they get.

Temple's players and coaches must be wondering how their season can be over.

Ten Southeastern Conference teams are eligible for bowls. The Atlantic Coast Conference has nine bowl-eligible teams, the Big 12 and Big Ten eight apiece.

And here sits the Pac-10 with just three teams eligible to play in bowls.

Stanford's most likely path to the Rose Bowl is finishing second in the Pac-10 with Oregon and TCU playing in the national championship game.

And try this one on for size: The Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl (previously the Emerald Bowl) in San Francisco could feature Boise State. And the opponent could be Cal.

Such are the subtleties of the BCS selection process.

Oregon's college football contemporaries no longer provide an accurate gauge for the Ducks' offensive dominance.

Perhaps Chip Kelly's scheme should be compared to John Jenkins' wild Houston offense of 1989. Maybe Darron Thomas' skills should be measured against Nebraska's Tommie Frazier in 1995. Perhaps LaMichael James should be compared to Army's Glenn Davis of 1944.

Zero is a powerful number in college football, and it has particular relevance to some West Coast teams:

0 -- Games Stanford has played since the 1951 season in which both teams were ranked among the top nine. (No. 9 Stanford plays at No. 4 Oregon on Saturday.)