All I was doing was looking for NFL statistics to fill out my fantasy football lineup in a unique way a high school pal and I match wits on fall Sunday’s. Going to the cbssports.com site, I saw another link that I just had to click first.

Bowl projections. Waking up on the fourth Sunday of September, before a single Big Ten Conference game has been played, to see that link was a pleasant surprise. When the page opened, of course the first game listed was BCS championship game – this week it’s Alabama vs. Florida State.

But I didn’t have to scroll down very far to find Nebraska’s projected game. A return trip to Pasadena to represent the Big Ten as conference champions playing Pac-12 champion USC. Oregon is projected to be the Pac-12 runner up and play Big 12 champion, gulp, West Virginia in the Fiesta Bowl.

These projections come to you courtesy of Jerry Palm, who is credited (rightly so) as ‘a pioneer in what is now the cottage industry of bracket projections.’

If he’s right, the Huskers are headed back to Southern California to face LA’s other team in a little over three months. Here are Palm’s projections for all of the other bowl games four weeks into the regular season – http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/bowls/predictions