CENTER OF ATTENTION: WEEK 9

Hawaii has the most prolific offense in college football this season and sophomore Watch Lister John Estes has more than a little to do with it. "The first couple games I was so worried about the calls, worried about the snap that I wasn't thinking about the guy I had to block. Now it all comes natural," said Estes, a first-year center who spent his redshirt- freshman year as the Warriors' starting right guard. "We lost three seniors, three starters, and all three are in the NFL right now," offensive line coach Dennis McKnight said. "We had big shoes to fill, and June felt John was a natural to move over there and anchor down the center of the line." Estes played center in high school and figured eventually he'd play center in college, too. It just came sooner than expected. "I wouldn't say (the transition) was really difficult," Estes said. "At St . Mary's we were in the (shot)gun a lot. And, I learned from the best center in the nation last year." Said McKnight: "He's getting better and better with each game. It's a different technique; the guy is close to you; you're making the calls and playing a shotgun." Said Estes: "My dream in high school was just to play college football. Now my dream is to play in the NFL," Estes said. "I'm not thinking about the NFL now. I still have a lot of work to do."

LEFT OF CENTER

According to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer's Doug Lesmerises, Buckeyes center Jim Cordle has never done anything left-handed, except snap for the No. 1 team in the country. The sophomore has been so smooth with his transition after falling on his right thumb in practice, an injury that forces him to wear a cast during games, that few people noticed the switch until quarterback Todd Boeckman brought it up last week. Cordle has snapped unnaturally for each of the last four games. "That's something he doesn't get enough credit for," Boeckman said. "I guess that first week it was a little different on the snaps because they weren't coming back as fast, they were a little right-to-left and maybe not as accurate, but now he's improving. Now it's routine." Offensive line coach Jim Bollman said initially he was worried the Buckeyes might have to scrap their shotgun formation. Coach Jim Tressel wondered if Cordle would have to swap positions with guard Ben Person. But there wasn't a great second option, and Cordle wasn't going to sit down. "The way he is, he's got that starting position and he's not going to want to give that up," said Cordle's father, Jim Sr. "I think it probably just took a little extra concentration to get that down."

THEY SAID IT

"It doesn't matter. I got it."

-- Missouri Watch Lister Adam Spieker, on when he finally came up with a key fumble by Chase Daniels on the five yard line early in the second half of the Tigers win over Texas Tech last week.

DID YOU KNOW?

UCLA center Chris Joseph, an Academic All- American and geography major carrying a 3.95 grade- point average, lists his favorite classes: Introduction to Geography ("It's eye-opening to see how small you are in the big scheme of things"); Past Civilizations and Lessons Learned ("The professor was a Pulitzer Prize winner, Jared Diamond"); and Scandinavian Literature ("I grew up in Solvang, the Danish capital of America, so it was cool to get a little perspective").

GAMES TO TIVO

This week's head-to-head match-ups of Rimington Watch Listers (all game times are ET): Saturday, October 27, 2007

• North Carolina (Scott Lehan) at Wake Forest (Steve Justice) noon
• Indiana (Ben Wyss) at Wisconsin (Marcus Coleman) noon
• Mississippi (Corey Actis) at Auburn (Jason Bosley) 6 p.m.
• UCLA (Chris Joseph) at Washington State (Kenny Alfred) 6:30 p.m.
• Ohio State (Jim Cordle) at Penn State (A.Q. Shipley) 8 p.m.
• California (Alex Mack) at Arizona State (Mike Polack) 10 p.m.