Thanks to a goal-line stand in overtime against Stanford, Notre Dame is 6-0 and off to its best start since opening 8-0 in 2002. The Irish have a favorable schedule the rest of the way, which features winnable games against BYU, Pittsburgh, Boston College and Wake Forest. However, matchups against USC and Oklahoma will decide how high this team can climb in the BCS standings.

Each week, the Athlon editors and others who closely follow college football vote on the most prestigious award in the sport. A 13-man conglomerate of college football gurus from Athlon Sports and other publications cast their votes this week for their top Heisman Trophy candidates. The votes will be tallied and the results will be posted as the Athlon Sports Heisman Watch List every week of the regular season.

With the completion of Week 7, the first half of the 2012 college football season is officially in the books. As expected, there have been plenty of surprises from the first two months of action and no shortage of preseason picks gone awry. With West Virginia's loss on Saturday, the race to win the Heisman Trophy is wide open, with Ohio State's Braxton Miller taking a slight lead over Geno Smith. Alabama and Oregon are the favorites to play for the national championship, but both teams still have plenty of hurdles left to clear the rest of the way.

With the first release of the 2012 BCS Standings, Athlon Sports wants to make sure fans are aware of some stats, trends and rankings when sifting through the debut of the rankings that will eventually determine who will play for the national championship.

The first BCS standings for 2012 began where they ended in 2011 -- with an all-SEC title game scenario.

The 24 hours before the first BCS standings of 2012 gave voters -- and computers -- plenty to consider.

Week 7 of the college football season doesn't feature a ton of prominent match-ups, but there are a lot of games that will set the table for the rest of the year. West Virginia scored a huge victory over Texas last week but has a potential trap game at Texas Tech this Saturday. In addition to the West Virginia-Texas Tech pairing, the Big 12 also features Texas-Oklahoma and Baylor-TCU. As usual, the SEC isn't short on intrigue, as South Carolina-LSU is one of the must-watch games for Week 7. 

Top Storylines to Watch in Week 7

The Heisman Trophy isn’t the only award worth watching on a weekly basis. The Lombardi, Outland, Davey O’Brien and Biletnikoff races are all worth watching and debating as the season goes along.

Throughout the season, we’ll keep an eye on all the prominent position trophies through college football in addition to the Heisman.

If you’re looking for our thoughts on that other trophy, check our weekly Heisman poll.

As each week passes, the pressure only increases on college football’s top 10 teams. Notre Dame finds itself in that position each week, as this team has a legitimate chance to play for the national title. The Irish rank seventh in the Associated Press and USA Today polls and have opportunities to pickup quality wins with games against USC and Oklahoma later this season.

College football's Week 6 slate is filled with plenty of intriguing games, starting in the SEC with Florida-LSU and Georgia-South Carolina. These two match-ups will play a key role in determining the SEC division winners. Ohio State and Nebraska both won close games last week and meet in Columbus this Saturday. West Virginia won its Big 12 opener against Baylor, but the stakes are even higher against Texas on Saturday night.

Top Storylines to Watch in Week 6