Bowl Preview: December 26-29

Merry Christmas (or time thereabouts), dear readers. It is time to run down the second set of bowl games, inconsequential though they are. Because the bowls were forced to split up between December 30 and 31st and January 2nd (Thanks, NFL. I'd hate for college football to have a tradition that lasts. You guys enjoy your prima donnas and their mic hogging antics), those days will get their own entries. This post will tackle the last round of utterly meaningless bowls, providing a convenient segue to December 29, when we get to watch the mostly meaningless bowls!

December 26, 2011

AdvoCare V100 Independence Bowl

Missouri vs. North Carolina

Breakdown: Ugh. Missouri and UNC got here by being only slightly better than mediocre. Two 7-5 teams from AQ conferences battling it out in a bowl that will feature some future NFL players. Mind you that whole "We have more draft picks than you" line is the sort of thing that Miami fans say while condoling themselves that their players are "better" because they will play in the NFL. That's great, they still haven't beaten Virginia Tech since 2008. What was this post about? Oh, right, this bowl that no one's going to watch.

Should I watch this game? If you're a Carolina fan and you want me to stop making fun of you, sure. I actually would like to see what the numbers are on how many people watch this game and how many people watch the Tar Heel basketball team pummel Elon on the 29th. I'd be willing to bet the numbers are similar. Also, Mizzou fans should watch this because there's nothing else to do the day after Christmas but fight the return lines. If you don't fall into those categories, then just go out and fight the return lines...

Blogger's Pick: Mizzou, based solely on their competition. The teams' scoring defenses have identical numbers, but Carolina plays in the ACC, while Mizzouri plays in the offense-laden Big 12. I'll give the Tigers the nod for now.

December 27, 2011

Little Caesars Bowl

Western Michigan vs. Purdue

Breakdown: 7-5 MAC team against a 6-6 Big 10 team? Wow. People were knocking the FIU/Marshall game as the worst of the season, but I think this one gives it a run for its money.

Should I watch this game? No. It's 4:30, and it's a Tuesday game. Most of you will be returning to work, is it really worth getting fired or fussed at to watch this game?

Blogger's Pick: Yeesh, do I have to? Fine, I pick Purdue. They beat some stronger (I guess) teams. Purdue beat 2 bowl bound teams, which is 2 more than Western Michigan.

Belk Bowl

Louisville vs. NC State

Breakdown: Basically the same as the above summary of the Mizzou/UNC game, minus the "future NFL prospects" line and the weird rant about Miami. Short version is that we have another matchup of 7-5 teams that wouldn't be happening if we had a decent number of bowls and/or a playoff.

Should I watch this game? Eh...it's entertainment after what could be a long day of work. Sure, go ahead, just don't expect world beating football.

Blogger's Pick: Louisville is a team on the up and up. 2 years ago they were 4-8. Last year they were 7-6, and this year they could go 8-5. Charlie Strong's building a very good team in Louisville, and the Cardinals could easily be a threat next season not just in the Big East, but on the national level as well.

December 28, 2011

Military Bowl--Presented by Northrop Grumman

Toledo vs. Air Force

Breakdown: Two non-AQ teams meet in an intriguing matchup. Air Force runs the ball in an option that's second only to Army's in rush yards. Toledo's offense is pretty well balanced, and they can score points in bundles, but their defenses are both sort of "eh." There should be points, if you're into that sort of thing.

Should I watch this game? Regular readers know that I love watching the option, so I'd recommend it for that reason alone. If you want a more in-depth reason, the pairing of Air Force's #2 rush offense against Toledo's #28 rush defense has potential to be intriguing. Again, though, mid-day game during the week, so you may want to just TiVo this one.

Blogger's Pick: Should be close, very much has the potential to be a tossup. Let's go with Air Force in this one, I think their rushing attack can get it done in the end.

Bridgepoint Education Holiday Bowl

California vs. #24 Texas

Breakdown: Almost every preview of this game I've read has said something about how both these teams had "disappointing seasons." Now, that certainly holds true for the Gator Bowl's Ohio State/Florida matchup, but I'm not sure if it applies to both of these schools. Really, how many times have we thought of Cal as a legitimate threat in the Pac-10/12? They live perpetually under the shadow of USC, and now they have to compete with Oregon and Stanford. Heck, they usually have to compete with mid-level teams like Washington and UCLA to even make a bowl game. Taking that into consideration, this wasn't disappointing for the Golden Bears. Texas...yeah, they've gotten used to good seasons, but they came back from a 5-7 year last year, so it isn't all bad. At least the record's improving.

Should I watch this game? Sure. Nothing too egregious or boring here. Not great teams, not terrible either. Solidly in the middle. That, and this Holiday Bowl isn't a Washington/Nebraska match, meaning it's at least something different.

Blogger's Pick: I'm not sure I've gotten a Texas game right all year. They very well may have cost me the win in our picks competition, and I'm not 100% positive on who to pick on this one. I'll go with some logic: the top few teams of the Pac-12 was quite good. The bottom half was utterly awful. The Big 12 looked better all season top-to-bottom, so I'll go with the Big 12 team: Texas wins because their running game slows stuff down. No confidence behind that pick.

December 29, 2011

Champs Sports Bowl

Notre Dame vs. Florida State

Breakdown: Notre Dame makes the second stop on their "once relevant schools from Florida" tour, which pitted the Irish against Miami (Still not in a bowl this season. Can't emphasize that enough.) last year and takes them against the Seminoles this season. At least Florida State doesn't still entertain delusions of grandeur. Both schools had seasons that bear little to no mention, except to say that they both failed to live up to the "We're back!" expectations of their fan bases. Sorry to waste your time.

Should I watch this? Oh, why not? Both teams seem to be improving, and they might actually be back next season. You heard it hear first: a noncommittal statement by a man who is frequently wrong.

Blogger's Pick: As mediocre as they've been in recent years, the Florida State Seminoles still play dang fine defense. This year they have the #4 scoring defense in the country, and I can't bet against that.

Valero Alamo Bowl

Washington vs. #12 Baylor

Breakdown: Washington finds itself again matched up against a ranked Big 12 foe. Hey, it worked well for them last time. Neither team has a really jaw-dropping record, but Baylor's incredible quarterback Robert Griffin III took home the Heisman this year, thereby proving that the committee can, on occasion, get things right and not just hand the thing to whichever quarterback ESPN christens as the Heisman winner in September. Good on you, Downtown Athletic Club.

Should I watch this game? If you have any doubt on why Robert Griffin was chosen, then yes. The man is an awesome football player. If you like high scoring football, you might want to tune in, too. Baylor's offense is a high-powered attack, and Washington's defense is pretty bad. Washington's offense isn't superpowered, but Baylor's defense is even worse than Washington's. Points aplenty in all likelihood.

Blogger's Pick: Ignoring the "Heisman curse" and other such nonsense, I'm going to go against my usual grain and pick the stronger offense: Baylor wins in a game with more than 100 combined points.

That's all for this round. I'll be back with the big days soon! Until then, enjoy your time off! Current bowl picks standing: 4-3.

Bowl Preview 2011: Week One (Late Edition)

As is my misguided custom, the time has arrived once more for me to predict college football's postseason games.

So there's 35 bowls and only one that matters. It's not the most pleasant of postseasons, but hey, at least we get more college football, much of it consisting of teams we haven't gotten to see all season. The only problem is, some of those teams have stayed under the radar for a freakin' reason.

Let's put that another way: I'm posting this late, as the 2nd of the 35 bowls is already rolling. So the first 3 games won't be on this list because it'd be stupid for me to write a "prediction" about something that's already happened/is happening. Now, ask yourself, if I hadn't admitted to skipping the first three, would you have noticed? If you answered "yes," then why aren't you a writer on our blog?

OK, enough intro, let's get to the rambling!

December 20, 2011

Beef 'o' Brady's Bowl St. Petersburg

Florida International vs. Marshall

Breakdown: If you need proof that there's too many dang bowls, look no further. FIU at least has the record to deserve a bowl game (an 8-4 record compared to Marshall's 6-6) but I don't think that anyone outside of Huntington and Miami is clamoring for tickets. Admittedly, FIU is in a bowl, unlike another school from Miami I could mention...

Enough rambling, though, let's analyze the matchup. FIU is a team whose only salient statistical characteristic is their scoring defense, which is 16th in the country. That's better than Marshall, which has no salient statistical category. Some might argue that's because Marshall is in a better conference. I'm gonna argue it's because they're a mediocre team.

Should I watch this? Not really. Get some last second Christmas shopping done.

Blogger's Pick: Florida International. Defense uber alles.

December 21, 2011

San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl

#18 TCU vs. Louisiana Tech

Breakdown: Using the final BCS standings as our measuring stick, this is the first of seven bowls matching an unranked team with a ranked one. Because, y'know, that's the purpose of the bowl system, to give us the sort of matchups we all got sick of in September. I digress. It's been a down year for TCU, but they do have a critical win over Boise State that locked the Broncos out of the BCS. TCU's two losses were very close games, and the result is that they get locked in what has typically been a bowl given as cold comfort to its participants. Louisiana Tech started out extraordinarily slow and worked their way to a respectable 8-4 season.

Should I watch this game? Yeah, sure. Louisiana Tech has the potential to pull off an exciting upset, or TCU could win by 40. Might as well watch and find out.

Blogger's Pick: Louisiana State won the WAC the year after Boise State finally moved out. TCU beat Boise State. I'm going with the latter. TCU wins in a bloodbath.

December 22, 2011

MAACO Bowl Las Vegas

Arizona State vs. #7 Boise State

Breakdown: More than the BCS ever will be, this right here is proof of college football elitism. Boise State is a one loss team from a minor conference that stumbled once against their only realistic competition for the conference title. Arizona State is a team from a major conference that hasn't won a game since October 29, and hasn't beaten a team with a winning record since October 8. And they're in the same bowl. Yeah, you have fun unraveling that. ASU's offense is probably on par with Boise's, when you consider their quality of competition, but the Arizona State defense has been pretty porous. Oh, and ASU fired their coach well before this game. That won't help.

Should I watch this game? Yeah, it's Kellen Moore's last. Watch it and applaud what might be the last game for one of the best "little guy" QB's ever.

Blogger's Pick: I hope their placement here made Boise mad: Broncos win in a runaway.

December 24, 2011

Sheraton Hawaii Bowl

Nevada vs. #21 Southern Miss

Breakdown: Nevada opened up with a slew of 3 tough teams in their first four games. Aaaaaand they lost all 3 to open the season 1-3. Then they won 5 straight, then lost 2 of their last 3 before smashing Idaho in the season finale. Southern Miss was simply "the other" team in Conference USA behind Houston, until they met the Cougars in the C-USA championship and beat them. Southern Miss is well-rounded, pairing their high scoring with good defense. Nevada runs out of the pistol, leading to middling scoring stats, but shortening the game. This actually has potential to be a pretty good ball game.

Should I watch this game? Yes. Should be close, and this may be the most interesting matchup of the first bowl week. Don't stay up too late, mind you, or Santa will skip your house.

Blogger's pick: When in doubt, pick the team with a better defense. Southern Miss takes the win.

That's all for week one! Come back later to mock the foolishness of these picks!

Saturday in Review 11/12/11

I have a totally legitimate reason for this week's shorter-than-average post.

*LSU and 'Bama looked fairly dopey in the first half of their games. No offense to the literally hundreds of articles on the Internet that claim they were "recovering" from their matchup last week, but if that were the case they'd have struggled the whole game. It doesn't make any sense to say that it required six days plus thirty minutes of football to recover. No, this was just a case of teams slacking off against largely inferior foes. Both squads pulled away in the second half, after all.

*Oregon State's offense, which appears to be led by Methuselah, keeps right on clicking. I don't want to take away anything from this team, I really don't, but does anyone else figure that they might have an advantage, what with a quarterback that's at least five years older than everyone else on the field? I'm not talking about his NFL prospects (I couldn't care less about those) but I'm just saying that having an older QB does confer an advantage. The only other example I can think of off the top of my head is Chris Weinke, but I'm sure there's others. Feel free to help me out (or call me an idiot) in the comments section.

*Oregon takes down Stanford again, and the Best Quarterback Evar didn't look so hot in the process. Still got him pegged as the Heisman winner, provided he doesn't lay another egg. Oregon has inexplicably reentered the talk of the national title game. But if I don't want a 'Bama/LSU rematch (and I don't), then I sure as heck don't want a rematch of a much less entertaining LSU/Oregon game from earlier in the season. (Yes, I assume LSU will go undefeated. Secretly I hope that's wrong, too.) Changes to teams be danged, every squad only gets a maximum of 14 games a year, and we don't need out-of-conference rematches in a sport with 120 teams and a 70 team postseason!

*If you haven't heard, another Boise State kicker missed another field goal and sent the team out of the BCS for the second straight year. Here's the thing: mock the kicker if you must, but putting a game as team-oriented as football in the hands of a single player is an indictment of the whole team, not just the kicker. The kicker didn't allow 36 points at home. Also TCU isn't bad, so Boise can cling to the fact that they only lose to good teams...

*Elsewhere in the non-AQ category, Houston steamrolled another hapless conference foe. I'm seriously going to be a Southern Miss fan if Houston and Southern Miss meet in the Conference USA championship game. Because, frankly, I believe that if Houston runs the table and goes to the BCS, we're gonna see a repeat of Hawaii/Georgia.

*Virginia Tech is a game away from taking a trip to the ACC Championship game for a (sigh) rematch with Clemson. Beating UNC this week is critical for the Hokies, but they also have to take down rival Virginia to earn a trip to Charlotte. At least one side of the ACC is up for grabs, what with Clemson clinching this week in a surprisingly close win over Wake Forest. Congrats to the Tigers.

*Texas A&M played Kansas State close in yet another example of K-State playing well above its ability. Oh, it was also an example of why college overtime is simultaneously awesome and idiotic: Yes, 4 OTs is a very cool, edge-of-your-seat thing to see. It's also why both teams scored nearly half their points in overtime: because the field is too dang short.

*Auburn will hopefully go back to being unranked. A 45-7 drubbing by Georgia might actually convince voters that the Tigers aren't the same team as last year's title winners. Well, for a week at least...

*Missouri sent Texas crashing back to Earth. It'll be interesting to see how the Longhorns do against Kansas State this weekend. One thing's for certain: Mack Brown can get away with a performance like this for maybe one more season. Texas is probably the richest football recruiting ground in the country, the school has its own network, and they're tied for fourth in their 10 team conference. Not good.

*West Virginia defeats Cincinnati to plunge the Big East further into the mire. The Big East is falling apart off the field, and it's sort of funny that it seems no one wants to win what could be the last Big East football championship.

*Baylor needed overtime to beat Kansas? Now that's the Baylor I know and love...OK, the Baylor I know and ignore...

And now Tales from the Bottom 95

Toledo and Western Michigan played a game that ended 66-63. Last time their basketball programs played, the final score was 73-60...Louisville's coach blamed his team's loss to Pitt on Call of Duty. You can't make this stuff up...Vandy smashed Kentucky. That's bad news for the Tennessee Volunteers, who have to figure out a way to beat Vandy and Kentucky to make a bowl...Eastern Michigan is nearly bowl eligible, just two seasons removed from an 0-12 campaign. Good work, Eagles!...UVa broke their losing streak to Duke...The bottom half of the Pac-12 is simply awful...The once proud Florida State/Miami rivalry devolved into a poorly played festival of turnovers on Saturday...Rutgers took down Army in the battle of the knights...Hawaii fell to Nevada.

That's all for this week! See you next time!

Penn State: An Opinion

Allow me to start by saying that it's impossible to add much to the discussion surrounding Penn State. In the time frame since I started typing this post on Wednesday night, Joe Paterno went from "retiring at the end of the season" to "fired." Events are moving so rapidly that by the time you read this post, it might be laughably out of date. Even so, I feel that it's important for anyone who enjoys sports at any level to get involved in a discussion regarding sports and morality, and if this post starts one of those discussions, then it has accomplished its mission.

First, we must assume that the accused party, Mr. Sandusky, is merely "the accused" until he is proven otherwise. It is nauseating to many that we must do so, but that assumption is what separates the American system of justice from the despotic methods used in other, less-fortunate parts of the world. If we were accused of a crime, we would want a fair trial. Like it or not, Mr. Sandusky is entitled to the same, and we would all do well to remember that, even if he quickly confesses to the crimes of which he has been accused.

What we are witnessing at Penn State is a tragedy for reasons that are utterly unrelated to sports. The victims of these crimes of abuse will bear the emotional scars for the remainder of their lives. Amidst the hullabaloo of coaches and school officials getting fired it's going to be easy to forget that the victims' health cannot, in many cases, ever be fully restored. Regardless of one's feelings regarding Paterno, Sandusky, Penn State, or college football in general, we must not shuffle the victims along like the MacGuffins in a sordid tale of corruption at the top. They are human beings, and deserve to be treated as such. Remember that they are the victims of a disturbingly common crime, and that their high-profile case should not serve to mask thousands of others like them who go quietly unnoticed because they are abused by a scoutmaster or sales clerk instead of a football coach.

The sports aspect of the story goes far deeper, I believe, than anyone cares to recognize. We accept that our sports culture, especially that of college football, is one that is tainted. Scandals at major universities throughout the nation defined this offseason, and each was treated by fans with the knowing sigh of a man walking down a well-tread path. We laugh, joke, prod, and kid about the infidelities of these institutions, as though corruption and dishonesty are just little sideshows we must endure between games. I confess that I have taken this attitude, and in retrospect it sickens me that I, that we, could be so flippant. Accepting dirtiness is what led us here. Believing that college football would always be a look-the-other way culture has enabled the permanent scarring of dozens of children in Pennsylvania. Taking minor violations as "facts of life" in sports has come back to kick us between the teeth.

Football fans move on quickly. I guess it's the nature of the fast-paced game, coupled with a 24-hour sports media that bombards us with every story until we're sick of it. We will, as fans of the game, move on from this grim milestone. Joy will return to Happy Valley and to college football in general, but with that joy should come wisdom. This is our opportunity to make something positive of this tragedy, to stop shrugging off minor violations, to stop turning our heads from truths we don't want to see, and to make the sport something we can enjoy without having to feel guilty about it later.

Let's make the most of that opportunity.

Saturday in Review 10/29/11

A good weekend of football to be certain! Fair warning: anyone caught using many days late Halloween puns in the comments section will be shot.

Baylor-24, #3 Oklahoma State-59

I've said it before and I'll say it again: jump on the Oklahoma State bandwagon at your own peril. I am legitimately curious to see how well this team will perform when it runs up against a good defense. The Big 12 really seems to be the conference of the glass cannon; every team in the league seems to be capable of posting huge numbers of points while allowing equally huge numbers of points. Oklahoma State has allowed at least 24 points in all but one of its games.

Yes, most of those opposing teams' points came late, but Oklahoma State has yet to play the best defensive team in their conference: the rival Oklahoma Sooners, and defense still trumps offense. Assuming that the Cowboys get through their remaining schedule and the Sooners, it's highly likely they'd have to play LSU or Alabama in the national title game. Regular readers note that I always pick defense over offense, especially in bowls. Therefore, if it comes down to Oklahoma State vs. SEC champ, I'm taking the SEC team all the way. (Especially if it's Alabama and their under-a-touchdown-allowed-per-game scoring defense.)

And Baylor...well, at least they're not getting laughed at anymore. Sure, they're an even more extreme example of imbalance than the Oklahoma State team cited above (Baylor's stats: 9th best scoring offense in the country, 115th scoring defense), but at least the Bears aren't the Big 12's doormat anymore! That's Kansas's job...

#5 Clemson-17, Georgia Tech-31

Virtually every fanbase whose team has not lived up to past glory has a set of fans who choose to live in the past. Miami fans still think it's the '80s, Notre Dame fans still think it's the '70s, Virginia Tech fans are starting to become entrenched in 1999, and Clemson fans are locked in their nuclear fallout shelters with "Vote for Reagan" slogans and anti-Soviet propaganda decorating the walls around their "Tigers: 1981 National Champs" poster. This season seemed like it could be the year that Clemson fans got to update their calendars, but alas, it was not to be.

Clemson struggled to defend the option, which is sort of mind-blowing when you consider how well Miami and UVa did just that in the previous two weeks. The Georgia Tech defense played well, and Clemson just couldn't get anything going it seemed. Near-comebacks were cut short by defensive stands and turnovers, and the ACC faded out of the national championship race once again. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't totally unexpected. Once Clemson hammered beat Virginia Tech, this was supposed to be the matchup to decide which ACC school got to compete for a title. Then Georgia Tech stumbled along the way, meaning that they could do little but spoil Clemson's national title hopes. Which they did.

Ah well, that's ACC football. Let's just sit back and enjoy it, take some time to watch more madness unfold as one team (likely still Clemson) plays its way to a BCS bowl and the other 11 sort of squabble for the other bowl slots the conference gets. Those of us who love football will shake our heads and stare. My friends who are Carolina fans are already counting the days to basketball season. What fun.

#6 Stanford-56, USC-48 (3OT)

Alright, before we go any further, I want you to read this previous post. Go ahead, I'll wait.

There. Now I don't have to go on a rant against overtime. I do have to gripe, however, about Southern California's presence in the non-essential AP rankings. Why were the Trojans ranked 20th? They have beaten precisely one decent nonconference foe, and precisely zero decent conference foes. Look at the record: a 2 point win against the worst team in the Big 10, a drubbing of a mediocre team in the worst AQ conference, and 3 in-conference wins against teams which are all 1-4 or 1-5 in the Pac-12. Aside from a good win on the road against Notre Dame, the Trojans did absolutely nothing of note until this Saturday, when they took Heisman winner (it's OK, just accept it) Andrew Luck and the Cardinal into OT. Now that I've made my case that Southern Cal isn't very good (and they aren't), let's extrapolate:

Stanford could be in real trouble here. They will likely smash Oregon State this weekend, but their game against Oregon looms large as the deciding factor in which team will go to the Pac-12 championship. Right now, it's tough to see the Cardinal winning that one. But no worries, Luck has ESPN on his side and a catchy last name, so unless Stanford loses 2 of its remaining 4 games, he'll still going to win the Heisman.

Side note: Mad props to Lane Kiffin for criticizing the officiating in Saturday's game. I detest Southern Cal, but I detest bad officiating more, especially since it is the root cause of my Southern Cal hatred. Oh, and they fined Kiffin $10,000 for being a critic, which is wrong but also kinda funny. I assume Tennessee and/or the Ghost of Al Davis was involved.

Washington State-28, #7 Oregon-43

Sweet, an easy one. Oregon crushed th--Oh what the heck?! How was this game this close? Maybe that Oregon/Stanford game will be good after all.

#9 Oklahoma-58, #8 Kansas State-17

Kansas State, meet reality. Reality, Kansas State. OK, good that you've been introduced, that will really help save time.

OU should do pretty well with its remaining schedule up until the big game with Oklahoma State. Kansas State has a chance to play spoiler against OSU, but the Wildcats had been playing beyond their ability all season long. We may be in for a Wisconsin-style slide from this team.

#10 Arkansas-31, Vandy-28

Arkansas really shouldn't have won this game. They shouldn't have been in it, and without a freak 94 yard fumble return for a touchdown, this game would have ended up being something like 35-24 Vandy. As it stands, Arkansas is looking much more mediocre than they should be, but if Sports Illustrated is to be believed, then the whole SEC is mediocre aside from #1 and #2. I don't think it's as bad as the article makes it sound, but games like these certainly make the case that the top of the SEC isn't quite as dominant as it has been in recent years.

#11 Michigan State-3, #14 Nebraska-24

MSU came out and did...well, nothing. This was a hideous offensive performance and it can be credited as much to incompetence as to Nebraska's defense. Don't get me wrong, the Huskers ran well and the Spartans had trouble against the Blackshirts, but if it was only Nebraska's defense slowing MSU down then the score would have been closer. It seems that Michigan State is in very real danger of repeating last season's theme: spoiling things for schools in their conference, but stumbling into a tie with the conference leaders. Look for MSU to make another glorious trip to the Champs Sports Bowl or something similar.

Nebraska's still in the hunt for the division title of what I will call the "West" division of the Big 10, and it looks like their November 19 game with Michigan will determine the winner of that branch of the Big However Many We Have. Provided, of course, that Michigan doesn't pull their now-annual yearly fall-apart routine.

#12 Virginia Tech-14, Duke-10

I really hope this is Tech underestimating Duke. Because, frankly, about 115 of the D1 teams out there would have beaten Tech the way they played this weekend. But many smashed soda cans and a few curse words later on my end, the Hokies emerged with a narrow win over one of the worst teams in the ACC. They'd best get their stuff together in the next week, or the Thursday game against Georgia Tech will be an uglier version of the GT/Clemson score above.

Also: Duke is going to have real trouble making a bowl, but they're not out of it yet.

#13 South Carolina-14, Tennessee-3

The Vols defense is just about where it needs to be. They have to start playing solid D for 4 quarters, but the defense is there. The offense? Not so much. Even with Tyler Bray at the helm, the Vols were racking up points against largely inferior competition. They always seem to have a front-loaded schedule, though, which is a product of the bygone era when Tennessee was a national power. Things will get easier for everyone's favorite band of Knoxvillians, provided that they survive to late November.

South Carolina's in trouble, though. They're clinging to a high ranking for another week, but the game against Arkansas will be a real test of whether or not they can beat a good opponent without Marcus Lattimore. We shall see...

#15 Wisconsin-29, Ohio State-33

If I were Wisconsin's coach, my secondary would be running up and down stairways reciting the play-by-play calls of the two Hail Marys that have beaten the Badgers in back to back weeks. There's no excuse to get burned twice in a row like that, especially in scenarios when you know the opponent's throwing deep! Yes, it was 2 fluke plays in a row, but those 2 plays have turned Wisconsin from undefeated title contender to barely ranked also-ran.

Also, congrats to Ohio State on winning a big game. Now, go back to obscurity. We'll call you if we need you to upset Michigan or something.

Missouri-38, #16 Texas A&M-31

Analogy time! 2nd half : Texas A&M lead :: crowbar : kneecap

I don't think this requires any further explanation.

Rice-34, #17 Houston-73

Congrats to Houston's Case Keenum for taking the all-time TD record. Good job! Also, your strength of schedule is pathetic and your team will get destroyed the second it encounters a semi-competent defense. OK, bye!

Purdue-14, #18 Michigan-36

Purdue exists to defeat one ranked foe per year. This year it was Illinois, so Michigan got a free pass here. I'm curious to see if Michigan can beat Iowa this weekend, or if their 3-1 conference record is a result of playing 3 of the worst 4 teams in the Big 10 and one decent one. My bet is...well, you already know what my bet is.

Illinois-7, #19 Penn State-10

This wasn't so much good defense as "our offenses don't work really well in a snowstorm." The result is a game with literally 3 highlights: 2 TDs and a field goal. I'm all for low-scoring games, but not when they're incompetently played. Penn State is currently ranked much higher than they should be. However, JoePa did get the D-1 record for coaching wins, thereby surpassing Methuselah for that coveted title.

Iowa State-41, #20 Texas Tech-7

Texas Tech served its purpose last week. The team's entire season led up to that splendid victory in Norman, which has been followed by this debacle. Iowa State hammered Tech from beginning to end, and I can't put a silver lining on it because there isn't one. This isn't so much a "hangover" game as it is a "we're still drunk on victory, so much so we might have to go to the emergency room" game.

Colorado-14, #21 Arizona State-48

Very few things are consistent in this crazy world. But you can set your watch by Colorado football, ever since the 2006 season. I kinda wonder, now that conference expansion/realignment is well and proper nuts, if the Pac-12 regrets adding Colorado. Not Utah, yet. The Utes were in a non-major conference and they're in the process of building up a team. Colorado, meanwhile, has been in a major conference since at least 1982 and they're not competitive. The Pac-12 probably wishes they'd held out for a more Pacific-area team, like West Virginia or Miami...

Arizona State? Eh, it's so hard to tell about teams in the lowest 5 slots of the top 25. The Sun Devils' loss to Illinois looks worse by the week, but the only other team to beat them was a home-standing Oregon squad. Because ASU plays some seriously bad competition in their final 3 weeks, it looks as though the Pac-12's championship game will be our next opportunity to see how good/bad the Sun Devils are.

#22 Georgia-24, Florida-20

So, does Florida's climb to #12 in the rankings playing the likes of UAB seem silly to anyone else now after they went 0 for October? I thought so!

Georgia, meanwhile, has pretty much saved their coach's job. Richt seems like a nice enough fellow, but he'd best start competing for SEC Championships if he wants to keep his job for a long time. That may not be a fair expectation of anyone, but it's the way things are in Athens.

Ole Miss-23, #23 Auburn-41

Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt is going to be fired. He needs to start doing outlandish things to entertain us before his coaching career in Oxford ends. Kick punts on 2nd down! Fire live ammunition skyward to signal playcalls! Run over the opposing coach with a car on the field. That's what I'm talking about.

Auburn, meanwhile, is still riding high (OK, not high, but they're still ranked) based on the strength of their national championship last year. The Tigers really aren't the 23rd best team in the country, the computers just have a machine crush on them.

Kansas-0, #24 Texas-43

Kansas is awful. Texas still isn't that great and their personal propaganda network has benefited them about as much as Notre Dame's private deal with NBC has helped the Fighting Irish. That is all.

#25 West Virginia-41, Rutgers-31

Sadly, the return of Eric LeGrand didn't lift Rutgers to the victory they wanted over West Virginia, but for me (and many others) seeing LeGrand on the field again was the highlight of this game. Keep getting better, young man.

And now Tales from the Bottom 95

NC State has been really bad in the ACC this year...Syracuse smashed the Big East's lone ranked team last week and then went out and lost to Louisville...UNC dashed Wake Forest upon the rocks of reality...Again...Mississippi State beat Kentucky in a battle of unranked SEC teams. Hooray?...Notre Dame beat the snot out of Navy, so I guess one aspect of college football's back to normal...and poor Ol' Hawaii had to travel to Idaho. Yeah, think about that the next time you complain about going anywhere.

That's all for this week! See you next time!

Saturday in Review 10/8/11

Just some notes of note (hardy har har...)

*The Virginia Tech/Miami game was really, really good. But don't take my word for it! Check out Lane Stadium before the final play. That, ladies and gents, is why I love college football, and the Hokies in particular. Good game by Miami, and a good win for Tech. High fives all around.

*Boise doesn't get the hype this season that they did last season, but they've steamrolled basically everyone except Georgia. Problem is that won't impress voters enough come bowl season without something seriously weird happening.

*Speaking of seriously weird, Wake Forest? 3-0 in conference play?! That's really great for the Deacs, but probably bad for the conference. My logic on that? Well, the year Wake won the ACC featured the single lowest-rated BCS bowl in history. So, yeah...

*Alabama and LSU have been rolling. Let's just see if that continues. If it does, we're in for a treat November 5.

*Oklahoma State and Houston, to me, seem to be kindred spirits. Namely, these are teams that put up flat-out gaudy numbers on offense, but they have little in the way of defense. Sure, OSU allows most of its points late, but they're gonna eventually run into a game where the whole team has to play 4 full quarters. They beat Texas A&M by a point, and I think it's safe to say that OSU will run into a better opponent than the Aggies somewhere along the line, specifically on December 3 when they play their rivals. Houston, meanwhile, should rip their way through their conference, gather some buzz, then play a decent team in a bowl game and get thrashed. Just like 2 years ago...

*Clemson keeps rolling along in the ACC. It's hard to see a significant obstacle between them and their October 29 showdown with Georgia Tech. Heck, that could easily be part 1 of a 2 part battle for the ACC. Clemson's other major obstacle this season is an out-of-conference game against South Carolina to end the season.

*Nebraska's comeback to beat Ohio State was quite good. Just sayin'.

*South Carolina found a suitable replacement for Stephen Garcia. At least, they think they did. They were playing Kentucky, so it's hard to tell. Either way, Garcia is off the team. Adjust your "player most likely to get arrested" fantasy roster accordingly!

*Texas A&M narrowly avoided a 3rd straight 2nd half collapse. Congrats?

Tales from the Bottom 95

*Western Kentucky and MTSU fought out a great battle on Thursday night. Just erase the names and you could make a case that it was game of the year!

*Carolina put away Louisville in a jaw-droppingly boring game.

*Minnesota...very bad at football right now.

*Georgia's recovering well from their slow start. Tennessee still looks mired in mediocrity.

That's all for this week! Hooray!

Extra-late Saturday in Review 10/1/11

The last week around the Bones household has been spent fighting a cold, fighting students, fighting an opposing tennis team, and fighting insanity. At least I'm putting up a fight, unlike a certain maroon and orange wearing team I cheer for...Let's run through the games speedily.

*No comments about the Clemson/Virginia Tech game. I called this thing 2 weeks ago (last week was my bye week for the season), and anyone who pays any attention to football shouldn't have been surprised. Tech's offense is a tire fire: they wouldn't have even scored their measly three points in the 2nd quarter if it weren't for an interception in Clemson's territory. Another year of frustration, and it's about time to ask a horrible question: Will Frank Beamer be the best coach to never win a national title? Right now the answer's a resounding "Probably."

*Serious hat tip to Clemson, the Tigers look like they might break out of their cycle of mediocrity this season. Heck, Clemson fans might even come to terms with the fact that it's no longer 1981 if the team keeps winning! Then they can stay stuck in 2011 for 30 years until the next non-mediocre Clemson team drunkenly stumbles along.

*Why no, I'm not bitter at all.

*Last Thursday, Pitt beat the snot out of South Florida. Looks like the Big East will be West Virginia's conference after all.

*Speaking of the West Virginia Generic Hill People Mascots, West Virginia's really starting to look like a paper tiger. Their big wins have come over vastly inferior teams, they had to clip a mediocre Maryland squad (that then suffered a 38-7 loss to Temple), and they got absolutely hosed (at home) by LSU. So West Virginia is likely on their way to the BCS, but who knows what'll happen once they get there.

*Bama defeated Florida, this time on the Gators' turf. Methinks the Swamp has lost some of its luster in recent years. Also, the Bama victory means that they win the annual "Who will Verne Lundquist inexplicably hype up every freakin' week on CBS" contest! As a result, SEC games not featuring Alabama will still feature at least 1 reference declaring how much better Alabama is than the two teams playing on the field. Gotta love those commentators! Games Alabama loses will be erased from Verne's memory with one of the Men in Black's neuralizers.

*Boise claims vengeance for their loss to Nevada last year...I guess that's news?

*Wisconsin/Nebraska looked good...then the 2nd quarter happened. The Huskers got run over, and Wisconsin has emerged as a potential contender for a national title.

*Auburn upset South Carolina. Stephen Garcia had his 4th straight game with more INTs than TDs. Hard to win like that, even with Spurrier at the helm.

*Texas A&M can't hold onto a lead. That's not really news to anyone who watches college football, but it is worthy of note. A&M hasn't beaten an SEC team since 1995, and they're joining that conference next season. I know things will improve once the Aggies start to play teams lower down the conference ladder, but you still have to think there's some worry in College Station.

*SMU beat TCU at TCU. The Horned Frogs are really far removed from last year's Rose Bowl squad

*Illinois? Still perfect? Heck, beats me, too!

And now, Tales from the Bottom 95

*Penn State just did clip Indiana. I'd say this could be Paterno's last year, but there are sportswriters who wrote that early in their careers who have since died. Paterno's outlived many critics, so I'm not writing anything about his job security. Because I'll almost certainly be wrong.

*Temple followed its beatdown of Maryland with a loss to...Toledo? Heck, I don't know if that's good or bad: Toledo's looked halfway decent this year.

*Wofford beat App State. Just thought I'd put that here for the Boone goons who still think it's 2007.

*In the interest of fairness: A box of kittens could defeat Western Carolina University. This week, however, Furman did the honors, letting the kittens stay home.

*Western Michigan beat UConn. Looooong fall from the top of the Big East thus far for the Huskies.

*Ohio State is feeling the effects of the scandal in full now. Michigan State isn't a slouch team, but losing in the Horseshoe is rough for Ohio State.

*Hawaii had to go to Louisiana Tech this weekend. All apologies to the Warriors.

That's all for this week. Hopefully the next one won't take so long for me to write!

(It will.)

Saturday in Review 9/17/11

It was the first chilly Saturday of the year. It was also the first Saturday with a large number of interesting games. Coincidence? Yeah, probably...

#1 Oklahoma-23, #5 Florida State-13

Allow me to preface this by saying that the ACC had a really good day. Stunningly good, especially compared to the conference's early performances in previous seasons.

That said, the ACC still won't get any national love until they beat a #1 (or at least Top 5) team. Since Virginia Tech has been criminally incapable of doing so, the conference had to pin its hopes on someone else, and Florida State put up a good fight. The game was hard-hitting, defense-oriented football, with the added plot twist of FSU losing their star quarterback E.J. Manuel. At the point Manuel went out, I figured the game was over. Instead, the Seminoles' backup Clint Trickett tossed FSU's lone touchdown of the game and made things interesting for a while. But Oklahoma somehow managed to win a road game, which is only surprising because they seem to play about 1 per year. As a result, the ACC remains a conference that hasn't had a big win in a long time. Look, this was the big game this week, there's not much to add to the dang conversation...

North Texas-0, #2 Alabama-41

I want to write something harsh here about Alabama's nonconference schedule, but they at least had the decency to play Penn State (a semi-good team) last week. We don't know too much about 'Bama yet, but they'll be playing Arkansas and Florida these next two weeks, which should give us an idea of just how good the Tide are. Or should that be Tide is? Heck, I don't know.

What I do know is this: North Texas is still not very good. Big shock there.

#3 LSU-19, #25 Mississippi State-6

It was good to see that some SEC teams still play defense. After watching South Carolina, Georgia, and Auburn demonstrate defensive ineptitude on a grand scale these first few weeks. Mississippi State and LSU put on an excellent defensive show on Thursday night. A few folks might murmur that this was boring, but these people are probably Southern Cal fans, and their opinions won't count again until next year. LSU has looked good, and they should be able to hammer through West Virginia, provided that the couch burners don't pelt the Tigers with flaming upholstery.

#4 Boise State-40, Toledo-15

Boise beats Toledo. Nothing to see here, move along.

#6 Stanford-37, Arizona-10

Stanford has been starting slow this season. The good news for Luck and crew is that they can start as slow as they like for about a month and a half until they play Southern Cal at the Coliseum. They'd best quicken up, though, if they hope to beat the Trojans and the Ducks to take the Pac-12 and get a shot at the national title.

Tangent time! What I want to know is this: Who the heck drew up the Pac-12's divisions?! How did Stanford and Oregon wind up together? For that matter, how did Cal get stuck in that division, too? Meanwhile, perennial conference favorite Southern Cal is in a division with a group of teams that haven't been good in at least 2 years. This is a political move, dang it, to ensure that the Trojans are perpetually in the championship game every year. And I might be the last person in the college football world to have figured this out, but that doesn't make me any less angry about it...

#7 Oklahoma State-59, Tulsa-33

The only truly remarkable part about this game was the amount of time it took before the thing started. The game ended at 3:35am, albeit with the same results it would have had if it'd ended at 3:35pm. Well, maybe fewer fans killed by lightning thanks to the late start. But that's about it.

Good news for football fans, though, we might see one of the last great Big 12 matchups this weekend when OSU plays Texas A&M. Well, that or we'll see a 65-63 game that ESPN will call a "shootout" while I mutter crazily about defenses in next week's post.

#8 Wisconsin-49, Northern Illinois-7

Northern Illinois is better than most non-AQ teams (Well, they were good last season. Every year's a crap shoot with these mid-level teams). It was nice of Wisconsin to play the Huskies at a neutral site, especially considering that the #7 team in the nation boldly plays 4 games away from home this season. Their first true road game is October freakin' twenty-ninth! Please, someone, explain how this is legal! I don't deny that good schools should play their cupcake games at home, but how is it possible for a team to have 7 home games, a neutral site game, and 4 road games?

As it stands, Wisconsin looks to face 2 possible road tests: Ohio State and Illinois. A team devastated by scandal and a team coached by Ron Zook. Have fun in the BCS, Badgers! Better hope you don't play Boise, there, Badgers. You don't do real well against good nonconference teams...

Idaho-7, #9 Texas A&M-37

Speaking of Texas A&M...this game looked like it coul--eh, who am I kidding? We all got what we expected in this one.

Washington-38, #10 Nebraska-51

I've had my fill of Nebraska/Washington games. The Huskers took the rubber match of their three game series, which is something that should only ever be written about baseball. A quick memo to the bowl committees: I do not care what these two teams' records are come December: do not let them play each other again. There's 120 1A teams in college football, no reason 2 of the three should play one another three times in a year outside of conference play...

Navy-21, #11 South Carolina-24

South Carolina has risen to be a top team thanks to a very strong rushing attack led by Marcus Lattimore. That's the good news for the Gamecocks. The bad news is that their defense is in 100th place in terms of scoring defense. South Carolina had best find itself a defense quickly with their SEC schedule starting this week, because there will always be at least one game in that conference wherein a team's defense has to carry an offense that hits a brick wall. Right now, South Carolina's defense couldn't hope to do that. The good news is that SC should have some time to straighten things out; even though they're in the mighty SEC, they don't play a currently ranked team until November 5th. Beware of Vandy, though (and I say that only half sarcastically, because the 'Dores are 3-0...)

Arkansas State-7, #12 Virginia Tech-26

What I have learned from Virginia Tech football thus far this season:

1) The defense appears to be back, healthy, and ready to play.

2) Logan Thomas will someday be a good quarterback.

3) Today is not "someday"

4) As it stands, Logan Thomas is a mediocre quarterback who will need the Hokie defense to be playing its best in every single game this season. If the defense has a down game, even against a lesser foe, Tech will lose.

What I anticipate happening:

1) Tech will lose its game against Clemson on October 1

2) Somewhere along the line, Tech will also lose a game to an opponent they should beat (Think Duke, Boston College, or Wake Forest)

3) I will stop writing in numbered lists that make me look like a smug and pretentious feminine hygiene product.

Troy-28, #13 Arkansas-38

Troy never gave up in this game. They also fell behind 24-0 at one point and scored their last touchdown with 28 seconds to go, making this game look a heck of a lot closer than it actually was. To quote Public Enemy, "Don't believe the hype."

Missouri State-7, #14 Oregon-56

Missouri State's scheduler should be injured by what's left of the team. They've had to play 2 ranked schools in three weeks! And not, like, #23 and #25. We're talking 2 schools that were in the BCS last season! Who the heck made that decision. (I know, I know, paycheck. Spare me the comments.) (Pfft, like you're reading the review of the Oregon/Missouri State game...)

#15 Michigan State-13, Notre Dame-31

Is this the Notre Dame we were promised before the season?! A Notre Dame that is the 18th best team in the nation? Or is it just that Michigan State probably isn't as good as their ranking indicated? Yeah, I'm banking on #2, too.

#16 Ohio State-6, Miami-24

You know, the ACC had a good weekend. Just thought I'd reiterate that. Both of these teams had rough offseasons, and it was really only a matter of time before reality caught up with Ohio State. The Buckeyes, like too many other teams, play only one semi-difficult nonconference game per year (occasionally less than that). So after a way-too-close matchup with Toledo, the Buckeyes rolled into Miami and got beaten by a team that lost to Maryland 2 weeks prior. It'll be interesting to see where these two schools go from here, but I think that, by virtue of playing in a weaker conference, Miami will come out of 2011 looking a heck of a lot better than Ohio State.

Tennessee-23, #17 Florida-33

Give Tennessee credit, they hung in a game with their hated southern rivals. But a late charge couldn't make up the 10 points spotted to the Gators early, hence the final score. These two teams are still an enigma in my mind. As near as I can tell, history will repeat itself with these two: they could both be mediocre (last season), Florida could be good and Tennessee bad (2009 season), or they could both be good (the 1990s). But since we're three games in, the only way to find out is to keep track of these two as they play. I know, a noncommittal review if there ever was one.

#18 Arizona State-14, Illinois-17

Well, the Sun Devils' stay in the Top 25 was awful brief, now wasn't it? Give ASU credit, they played a much tougher nonconference schedule than most, going up against 2 foes from AQ conferences. Their reward? By losing this game in week 3 of the season, Arizona State could go undefeated the rest of the way and they would almost certainly not make the National Title game. Gotta love this system!

#19 Auburn-24, Clemson-38

I really wanna hype up my conference of choice some more, but we all know Auburn was living on borrowed time. If they hadn't had home field advantage in weeks one and two, there's a very real chance they could've been 0-2 coming into this game. So congrats to Clemson for exposing Auburn as a shell of last year's championship team.

There are real highlight for Clemson is that they staged an excellent comeback after falling behind 14-0 and 21-7. They also have 4 consecutive home games to open up the year, but we'll ignore that for now. If Clemson can beat Florida State at home and Virginia Tech on the road, though, I believe we'll have found ourselves the ACC Champion for 2011 by week five.

Auburn, meanwhile, gets to dust off and tune up against an awful Florida Atlantic team. Then they play South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, and LSU in consecutive weeks, with 3 of those games on the road. Have fun, Tigers!

#20 West Virginia-38, Maryland-31

Maryland, probably the 4th or 5th best team in the ACC, made a real run at a comeback against the best of the Big East. Oh, sorry, I was doing that ACC thing again.

Ahem, the couch burners of Morgantown managed to use the power of inbreeding to narrowly defeat a team with none of their tradition or recruiting pull.* Those same furniture-torching, cousin-marrying, mediocre-conference-dwelling West Virginians had best hope that their team can put together two good halves of football, or it'll be a long game this week against LSU.

Oh, and the Maryland/Temple game might actually be good! (See Bottom 95 for all your hot, breaking Temple news!)

#21 Texas-49, UCLA-20

Texas avenged the first of its many miserable losses from last season. Well, one down, 6 to go! Texas now gets to play (and likely destroy) Iowa State. Then we'll see just how much better this year's edition of the Longhorns are when they play Oklahoma in the Red River Non-violent-substitute-for-the-word-"Shootout"-goes-here. Should be a good one!

Florida A&M-17, #22 South Florida-70

About the only good thing Florida A&M can take away from this is that if you mumble the score really fast, then it kinda sounds like they tied. South Florida looks like they could be West Virginia's lone threat in the Big East, but there's a looooooong way to go before the Bulls play the Generic Hill People Stereotypes in their season closing game on December 1.

UL-Monroe-17, #23 TCU-38

After getting beaten by Baylor in the opener, TCU seems to have recovered nicely. They don't get tested again until they go to San Diego State on October 8, so look for that to be the day we find out how far-removed these Horned Frogs are from last year's Rose Bowl Champs.

Stephen F. Austin-0, #24 Baylor-48

The weather in the Midwest really sucked this weekend. So did this game...

And now, gird your loins for Tales from the Bottom 95:

Wyoming is 3-0! Great job, Cowboys...Penn State very narrowly edged past Temple. That's not a particularly good sign for the Nittany Lions as the meat of the season draws ever-nearer...Iowa staged a massive rally to beat Pitt on Saturday. This week we'll learn if that was Iowa's fighting spirit, Pitt's ineptitude, or both...Georgia Tech avenged last year's loss to Kansas by running up the score on the Jayhawks in Atlanta. The Jackets may be back atop the ACC sooner than you'd think. The Jayhawks, meanwhile, are already counting down the days to basketball season...Vandy creamed Ole Miss. Houston Nutt should probably print some copies of his résumé while he still gets free ink...Georgia grabbed their first win of the season, albeit against Coastal Carolina...Duke beat Boston College. Heaven help us all if Richmond were to join the ACC, because there's at least 2 teams in the conference they could beat...Carolina defeats UVa. This game won't really be in good perspective until both teams play a few more ACC foes...Florida International is 3-0? The heck?!...Houston still can't play defense...Lastly, Hawaii had to go to Las Vegas. Wow, leaving Hawaii to go to Las Vegas. The only bad part about the trip must've been the beatdown the warriors suffered at the hands of UNLV...

That's all for this week! See you next time! West Virginia fans, be sure to dictate your hate mail to one of the 5 literate people in your state!

*--To any Maryland fan who argues about tradition: You are the only person who has ever been on this blog that knows Maryland won the 1951 National Title. No one else cares.

Cliff's Notes Saturday 9/10/11

Another truncated post? Jeez, I need to get my act together!

*This week was actually sort of dull. I know I might be asking too much of early season games, but come on! Last week we had LSU/Oregon, next week we get FSU/Oklahoma. This week? Georgia/South Carolina? It was an exciting game, but let's not get too carried away.

*Georgia's loss to SC probably cements them as the best 0-2 team in the country. Mind you, an 0-2 record and a nickel is worth 5 cents, but you can't call Georgia a slouch team.

*Arizona State donned some slick-looking black alternate uniforms this week and knocked off Missouri. What can I say, I'm a sucker for black alternate uniforms, so long as they don't have Tron numbers and orange clown shoes.

*Oregon State got smacked by Wisconsin. Could be a great year for the Badgers. Could be a terrible year for the Beavers. In all likelihood, it's gonna be both.

*Virginia Tech avoided puking up an inexplicably stupid loss to ECU. Barely. Now they have the mighty Arkansas State Red Wolves

*Auburn's gonna be this year's version of LSU: inexplicably winning games they have no business winning.

*Ohio State escaped Toledo. That Miami/OSU game could actually be interesting!

Moving downward...Tales from the Bottom 95

*Louisville showed improvement last season, then they lost to FIU on Friday...the heck?!

*Carolina won despite desperately trying not to. How desperate was it? Well, they fumbled on a kneel-down play. That's how ugly the game was.

*Clemson beat Wofford by 8. Go ACC.

*Notre Dame/Michigan was a very good game with an exceptional finale. Heck, that may have been the game of the week! (<-No sarcasm!)

That's it for this week. See you next time...

Saturday in Cliff's Notes: 9/3/11

Between work and travel, I haven't had time to compose an unnecessarily long and verbally abusive post. No matter, I shall rectify this with a super-short (for me) rundown of the first Saturday's slate. Behold! The bulleted list of the Top 25!

• The following ranked teams played a 1-AA (FCS) school in their season opener: Nebraska, Arkansas, Virginia Tech, and Michigan State. Unbelievably enough, that's not too bad...
• The following ranked schools played teams from other major conferences: Oregon, LSU, Boise State, TCU, Notre Dame, and Georgia. (Note: I use the Coaches Poll when writing these, so Southern Cal's game against Minnesota doesn't count. Much like the rest of SC's season...) Unfortunately for fans, 4 of those schools were playing other ranked schools, meaning they had 2 of the most challenging games of the week. This sort of scheduling won't ensure good first weeks! Letting Nebraska, Georgia Tech, and Virginia Tech pummel members of the SoCon while Georgia has to play the #5 team in the country isn't fair to Georgia! There really should be some sort of rule against this. Well, that or a system that didn't virtually lock out any team who lost in week 1...
• Of further note, in the matchups involving ranked teams and unranked major conference teams, the ranked team lost. This proves little more than something that's been said over and over again: preseason polls are heavily overrated.
• As a Virginia Tech fan and a Western Carolina grad, I have to admit that the App State/Virginia Tech game was the most entertaining television I've seen in a loooooong time.
• Auburn's scare at home should really wake up Tigers fans. Last year's senior-heavy team is gone, and this year's edition of the Tigers might resemble Gene Chizik's other teams...
• East Carolina held an edge on South Carolina for a while. Virginia Tech had best not get complacent...
• South Florida upset Notre Dame. Seriously, when are college fans going to learn their lesson about the Fighting Irish?

There's more that could be said, but let's move further south on the rankings radar, down to Tales from the Bottom 95:

• This year's FCS wins weren't as noteworthy as last year's JMU over Virginia Tech win. Still, the ACC was involved in an FCS/FBS upset, thus upholding the conference's proud tradition. This year, Duke carried the torch.
• But don't go accusing me of East Coast Bias: Oregon State also fell to Sacramento State! I look forward to the coming arguments (probably from the Sporting News) about how the Pac-12 plays the toughest schedule and how Sacramento State is a tough team and how this loss proves nothing. Seriously, can't wait.
• Kentucky struggled with Western Kentucky. The SEC may yet turn into a conference of haves and have-nots.
• Michigan won a game so convincingly that they didn't even play the 4th quarter! How long until they're ranked again? I give it two weeks: beat Notre Dame and Eastern Michigan, climb into the Top 25, probably beat San Diego State, enter conference play and just turn on the highlight reels from '09 and '10. We've seen this show before...
• The ACC avoided any really egg-on-face level losses this season (Duke sucks at football, don't act surprised.). That said, the conference on the coast didn't look that impressive with Wake blowing a late lead, Boston College losing to Northwestern, and the rest of the conference playing 1-AA schools, Sun Belt Schools, or conference games.
• One final ACC blurb: Maryland and Miami. Fun game, close game, blah blah blah. My focus is on Maryland's uniform. The State of Maryland seems extremely proud of its hideous excuse for a flag, so much so that they permit it to be worn on their university's uniforms. And, somehow, it manages to look even worse there. Please let this be the last time I see those things...
• Other conferences? Eh, it's week one. We'll keep tabs on things during the nonconference schedule, but don't expect any real judgment until week 3 or 4. Until then, enjoy the new season! I intend on it...

A Metaphorical Iceberg of Cheating

As a baseball fan, I normally spend the college football offseason focusing on the national pastime, going on long-winded tirades about batting stats and such. I typically eschew recruiting talk (see here), and I'm of the opinion that offseason workouts and spring games are about as applicable to real football as playing Red Baron on an Apple II is to flying a fully loaded passenger jet. Sure, like any good fan I read the preseason magazines and listen to the predictions about how the season's going to go (non-sarcastic hat tip to Kirk Herbstreit for his Auburn prediction last season. I thought it was stupid. I was really wrong.). But the bottom line is this: normally, the offseason is just a bunch of hypotheticals and intangibles, with only a marginal bearing on the events of the field.

You know, I'm kinda missing the days of the boring prediction-based offseason.

For those of you who have been under a rock for the past six or seven months, college football is facing an avalanche of scandals. So many that I'm not even sure where this started, though I'll be focusing on what is almost inarguably the biggest one: the Ohio State player tattoo scandal. You know, the one that was solved way back in December with the decision that the players would serve a largely meaningless suspension to start the 2011 season? Yeah, in the meantime that's morphed into the coach getting suspended for 2 games, then volunteering to serve a five game suspension after some backlash from the first suspension, then that same coach being outed for having had prior knowledge of his players' illicit dealings, and finally in that coach resigning from his position in the face of mounting pressure from people outside Ohio State, because Lord knows the university wasn't going to do anything. That was followed by the team's star quarterback withdrawing from the university to serve as that most unheralded of NFL heroes: Guardian of the Water Cooler.

Ohio State fans spent the majority of December and January whining and moaning, pulling out every lame excuse in the book to defend their beleaguered Buckeyes and Coach Jim Tressel. For the most part, these complaints have boiled down to a three-headed monster:

1. It wasn't that big of a deal! They were selling things that were theirs! (See below)
2. It was the players! Jim Tressel knew nothing and is a saint who only had the interests of the players in mind and he will wash your car, pat your back and give you twenty bucks even though you have accused him of such criminal acts you terrible person, you. (Wrong. Nothing further.)
3. The NCAA is picking on Ohio State either out of a desire to make them an example or to avenge some sort of personal vendetta that a committee member somewhere has against the Buckeyes. (Believing this requires ignoring February-July, plus a level of devotion to a team that can best be described as "stupid" or "cult-like." Also, see below.)

Complaint number one is the only one of the three that makes all that much sense. I agree that, unlike a steroid violation, no competitive advantage was conferred by the OSU tattoo scandal. There wasn't a crime being committed and no one was hurt, so what's the big deal? Well, they broke the rules. It doesn't matter how minor the violation is, the bottom line is that being an athlete is a privilege, and the complex and sometimes ludicrous set of NCAA regulations are the rules which must be obeyed to keep that privilege. If I drive down an empty highway with a 55 mph speed limit at 120 mph and don't hurt anyone, I've still broken the law and I will likely lose the privilege of driving if a police officer catches me. If the officer decides to wink and grin and say, "Oh, it's OK.", then he's violated his code of conduct and could lose his badge. He didn't break the law. He didn't hurt anyone. He just broke the rules associated with his job. And that's enough to fire him and it dang sure should be enough to get rid of someone who gets a free education to play a game. So, in short, I understand the complaint about the lack of a crime, but the rules are different in the weird alternate universe of college football, and if you choose to live in that universe, you have to live by the rules.

As for the "we're being picked on" argument, the best response I can offer there is simply this: hogwash. Ohio State has suffered the loss of some star players and a coach. Damaging, to be sure, but it's about the equivalent of having a lot of players graduate and a coach departure. The Buckeyes won't be as good this year as they were last season, but there will be no lasting damage done to anything but the program's image. It seems that complaint #1 (no crime, no competitive advantage, etc.) was valid enough that the NCAA decided some semi-meaningless punishment would be appropriate. Who cares about vacated victories? I saw the Sugar Bowl last year. Even if Ohio State "didn't win," Arkansas still lost. The Buckeyes aren't losing any scholarships and they're not prohibited from going bowling at the end of the season. At worst, they'll suffer a single down season and be back in the hunt for the Big 10 + 2 title during the 2012 season. Southern Cal, meanwhile, is going to be living with the consequences of the Pete Carroll/Reggie Bush era for at least another season, and probably many more to follow that. Now I hate (hate) Southern Cal, but you have to admit that, compared to the Buckeyes, they got hit much harder. Yes, there were actual competitive advantages from USC's violations, but the punishment for those violations was doled out, what, 5 or 6 years after the player in question was gone? That'd be like a teacher punishing my younger brother for what I did in high school.

Back on the Ohio State topic of being "picked on," though I don't have much else to add other than to say that it's laughably wrong. Schools around the country are starting to feel the hammer of the NCAA's wrath. On July 27, UNC fired Butch Davis in the midst of a major recruiting scandal. As a North Carolinian, it's my duty to report just how unsurprising this is: the guy took a team that had been utterly, laughably bad for years and started pulling in top 25 and top 10 recruiting classes year after year. OF COURSE HE WAS COMMITTING RECRUITING VIOLATIONS! I'd venture to say that in the ACC, either the worst or second-worst AQ conference around, there are probably two programs with no violations of any sort: Duke and Wake Forest. You may recognize them as two of the worst teams in the league and in the country. As I've said before, college football is a dirty, dirty business. And we should all relieve ourselves of the notion that it's just become that way recently. The SMU scandal of the 1980s was just the pinnacle of a filthy decade in college football. Lou Holtz almost certainly won his national title with ill-gotten players (still love ya, Lou!). Miami recruited big, strong players throughout the 80s and 90s who might or might not have been able to spell their own names correctly. I'm not saying we should accept cheating as a fact, but schools realize that big-name football is a money maker, and they want to have the best team around. If they have to bend the rules to get the best players...well that's a chance most AD's are willing to take.

In closing, the scariest part of this summer is the knowledge that we're looking at the tip of the cheating iceberg. It seems like a new suspension or firing appears in the headlines every day. This offseason alone we've seen Tennessee, LSU, UNC, Ohio State, Boise State, and West Virginia come under NCAA scrutiny. Methinks the season will provide us with a break from all this, but look for these investigations to continue the second the confetti's done dropping at the National Championship game.

OK, that's all for now. My next post won't be as depressing, unless you're a former coach. That's right, it's almost time for the not-at-all-anticipated 2011 edition of the coaching carousel!

Ripping Recruiting

"As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly."

-Proverbs 26:11

Sorry, I don't normally go Biblical until at least the second paragraph. Still, avid college football fans (or anyone who watched ESPN for 30 seconds this week) know that Wednesday is National Signing Day. Every year signing day gets bigger and bigger, with more and more focus being poured onto the actions of high school seniors scribbling onto pieces of paper. And every year, we hear about how a few teams have crushingly good recruiting classes that will lead to inevitable greatness in a few years. And then we forget about all that coverage and wind up in the same place the next year, which is sad because we should look up and say, "Wait a minute...[school name here] turned their Top 10 recruiting class from 4 years ago into a 7-5 season. Maybe we shouldn't put so much emphasis and sink so much time into staring at recruiting numbers." But no, we choose to fall into the trap again and again and again.

For those of you who typed "recruiting science" into google and decided to go to the very last result, allow me to explain: National Signing Day is the day on which top recruits, having been promised fame and fortune if they go and play football at various universities, can finally sign a letter of intent to play football for one of those schools. Mind you, the name is sort of misleading, since a player can choose to sign days or weeks after signing day. But Wednesday, February 2 is the day on which most of the top recruits in the nation will sign a legally binding contract and shackle themselves to a given college for at least one academic year.

Recruiting, however, is so rife with filthy policies and outright lies told by coaches and boosters, that glorifying it for the better part of a month is the equivalent of praising a tapeworm inside the stomach of a woman you love. Just because the packaging is attractive doesn't make it a good thing. Furthermore, ranking recruiting classes is such a crap shoot that you might as well just make a dart board with the top 50 teams in the country and start chucking.

There are dozens of examples I could use, but since you don't want to read 7 pages of frankly repetitive bile, I'll try and keep it short. Let's start with a look at one conference, the ACC. I know, I know, not a power football conference, but you're reading a post by a guy from North Carolina. Geography trumps all, and this is ACC country. Any hoo, ESPN's ACC football blogger Heather Dinich did most of my job for me by posting this article about how many of the Top 150 recruits were landed by ACC teams. The list goes back to 2006. The team that's easily landed the most "high brow" recruits in that time, Miami, has gone to precisely 0 ACC Championship games. They haven't even won their division in that time span. Folks, if you land top recruits year in and year out and can't win the 2nd worst AQ conference, then either your coaching sucks or recruiting rankings are off.

Looking more closely at the ACC stats reveals further disturbing numbers: Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech have had a combined 9 "top recruits" come to their schools, yet they are the only representatives that the Coastal Division has had since the ACC Championship Game came into existence. Now, you can credit coaching consistency at Virginia Tech, but Georgia Tech has had two different head coaches running two completely different offensive styles, yet they've had two more championship appearances than the much more "loaded" Miami Hurricanes. Rivals.com's recruiting class database goes all the way back to 2002. They rank Miami's recruiting class in the Top 10 five times between 2002 and 2010. Miami finished in the top 20 class rankings every single year during that time span, but they finished in the top 20 in the rankings only 5 times. There's a disconnect there, and it's high time that someone recognized that recruiting doesn't need to be as highly touted as it is.

Some might accuse me of Miami bashing. I am, but that doesn't mean I'm not right. Still, let's look at a team I have no real bias for or against: the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Notre Dame had top 10 recruiting classes in 2006, 2007, and 2008. Most of their starters in 2009 and 2010 would have come from those highly ranked classes. Yet in 2009 and 2010, Notre Dame went a combined 14-11, with one win over a ranked team.

Perhaps the most extreme example is this: The USC Trojans had the #1 overall class from 2004-2006 according to Rivals. Both Rivals and ESPN say that Southern Cal had a Top 10 class from 2006-present. Yet last season, stocked to the gills with Top 10 recruits, they went 9-4. This year, ineligible for postseason play due to the Reggie Bush affair, they went 8-5. All ye disciples of recruiting, explain this!

So why all the inaccuracies? Well, there's a number of factors that make accurate recruiting numbers a virtual impossibility. First off, recruiting class rankings basically entail trying to predict the future 3-4 years in advance, which is how long it will take for most recruits to see decent playing time. Sloppy did a good piece on the accuracy of preseason predictions. If the experts were wrong about the best teams 4 months ago, why place so much stock in what they say will happen in 4 years?

Secondly, the recruits we're talking about are overwhelmingly high school seniors. High school is nothing like college (no matter what Degrassi tells you). And high school seniors, as a rule, are unpredictable. Most 18 year olds are! A high school senior who seemed to be a rock solid, straight A student might discover Professor Jim Beam in his first week of school. Then your 5-star recruit becomes a walking hangover who gets cut from the team. Or that five-star recruit might turn into a whiny little so-and-so who demands play time. Or, he might get arrested and transfer out. It's not the fault of recruiting prognosticators for not seeing these events coming, but it is our fault for pretending like a #1 recruit tag means a Heisman in 4 years. Sometimes it means a mediocre, injury-riddled career. And if your coach says he will take control and keep the players in line, then he's probably wrong. Urban Meyer, with 2 national titles under his belt, thought he could. It didn't work well.

The final reason (at least that I see) that recruiting predictions are pure bunk is this: According to the diverse and wildly varying stats I got in a google search, there's somewhere in the neighborhood of 26,000 public high schools in the US, with about 10,000 more private ones. Now, I know many of those schools don't have football programs, but even if you cut those numbers into 1/3rd, that's still around 12,000 football programs. Far, far too many to hope to analyze successfully with the relatively small staffs available to recruiting websites. Even if you cut that number in half, or into quarters, you're still looking at far too many players for recruiters to analyze. Tell me, how many times have you heard the phrase "former walk-on" when watching college football? Any time you hear that, you're hearing about a player who was good enough to play college football at the highest of levels, yet "bad" enough in high school that he did not merit a recruit ranking.

Put another way, there are dozens of lists out there ranking draft busts in the NFL. (Look it up yourself, pro football isn't the purpose of this site.) Those "busts" are the missed predictions of only 32 teams picking up just a few hundred players total. How much more inaccurate will the rankings of 120 teams pulling in thousands of players be? And yet every year fans decide to compare and drool over their recruiting classes, eagerly awaiting that National Championship in 4 years.

Look, I'm not going to lie: Recruiting is important. Necessary, even. Most of the teams in the national title hunt each have had at least one top 10 recruiting class. It's impossible to win without talent. Bear Bryant in his prime could not take the talent at Western Carolina University and win a national title. However, we must not place too much emphasis on recruiting, because it's a woefully inexact science. Claiming that a top 10 class means anything before the players hit the field is sheer folly. Drooling over recruits before they produce results is a one-way ticket to Disappointmentville. So don't get worked up about the recruiting bonanza. If your team is in the Top 50 or so, they'll be fine. And whatever you do, do not watch the 10 hours of recruiting on ESPNU. Unless, of course, you want a pile of vomit to return to...

Bowl Preview: The Big One

Well, we're here. 34 bowls after we started, we have finally arrived at the National Championship Game. And after gems like the Humanitarian Bowl and the Capital One Bowl, as well as slaughters in the Orange Bowl and the Fiesta Bowl, who can wait?! Ironically, despite the fact that this is the only game since December 4th that's mattered, this will be a pretty short post by my standards, as there's only one game to preview. Don't worry, the excruciating posts you can read aloud to put unruly children to sleep shall return at season's end. For now, however, let's take a look at the big show!

January 10, 2011

Tostitos BCS National Championship Game

#2 Oregon vs. #1 Auburn

How they got here: By being undefeated teams from major conferences, because there's no way that an undefeated team from a minor conference could hope to stick with a conference champion from a major conference! Wait a minute...

Should I watch this game: If you actually asked yourself this, go away. Find a blog more your speed. Here's one.

Blogger's Pick: Oregon. The Ducks are, for obvious reasons, known for their prolific offense. 1st in the country, nearly 50 points per game, blah blah blah. You know the friggin' drill. Auburn and Oregon are pretty danged similar, as you know if you've watched anything about this game on any sports network. The lone big edge that either team has is in scoring defense, where the Ducks place 12th. Each team runs the ball well, with rushing offense ranks of 4th for OU and 5th for the Tigers. It is important to note, however, that both teams also rank in the top 15 in rush defense, with Oregon at 15th and Auburn at 11th. Both sides' defenses play against running spread teams in practice, so that makes sense.

The noticeable statistical difference (aside from scoring, which isn't a bad stat, but it's not super reliable) lies in passing defense: Oregon ranks 56th, compared to Auburn's 105th. Neither team passes well, but if Oregon's defense is able to shut down Cam Newton on the ground, then Auburn will have to go to their 67th ranked air attack. Oregon should also have trouble going to the ground against Auburn's strong rush D, but the Ducks' passing attack is more well-suited as a fall-back plan than Auburn's. Throw in the fact that Oregon's defense is pretty much a stone wall in the 4th quarter, and you have a recipe to send that ugly crystal football to the Pacific Northwest.

That's all for the previews. Stay tuned for the various "year in review" articles on this and every other college football blog on the face of the planet! (PS: Bowl predictions stand at 24-10 with one more game to go!)

Bowl Preview: Cotton and Scraps...

With the majority of the bowls behind us, most eyes in the college football world will turn to Tempe, Arizona, where Oregon and Auburn are set to play in the National Title game. A few eyes will turn to Dallas, where LSU and Texas A&M will play in the second-to-last battle of ranked teams. But that's silly! That would ignore such giant games as the GoDaddy.com Bowl and the BBVA Compass Bowl. OK, so most of the games between here and the end of the season feature a mix of non-AQ teams and middling teams from other conferences, but that doesn't mean we should just ignore them. After all, come January 10 we'll have to wait 8 months for college football to start again, and we'll even be longing for matchups like...

January 6, 2011

GoDaddy.com Bowl

Middle Tennessee State vs. Miami (OH)

How they got here: MTSU finished in second in the Sun Belt, which is actually sort of embarrassing. I guess it's not that bad, as they're one of only three teams from the conference to finish .500 or better. Still, the Blue Raiders are really not that remarkable, with the exception of their nickname, which is quite unique. (For the 2 of you who care, don't try cramming Dwight Dasher down my throat. He missed the first 4 games of the season because he took a $1,500 loan, and in the truncated year he's managed to throw as many picks and get sacked as many times as he did last season. Color me unimpressed.)

Miami got here by pulling an upset of Northern Illinois in the MAC Championship (Attendance: 12,031. Ford Field seats 65,000. Why does the MAC need a championship game?). Miami is a good story, completing a turnaround from 1-11 to 8-4 with a conference championship. The MAC Champions get to go to one of, like, 3 games, since they have no strong ties with any one bowl. Almost no one cares, but I thought I'd point that out.

Should I watch this game: Probably not. Thursday nights aren't necessarily strong TV nights, but if watching the winner of the MAC play the 3rd place Sun Belt team is your idea of a good application of your time, then you're probably the type of person who reads my blog posts. Wait...

Blogger's pick: Miami. The RedHawks have the 18th best rushing defense in the nation. MTSU's only salient feature is their running game with Dasher, and Miami should shut it down. MTSU's pass defense isn't a slouch unit (and Miami is a passing team), but I believe Miami has a slight edge on the Blue Raiders. Should be a good game, though...

January 7, 2011

AT&T Cotton Bowl

#11 LSU vs. #17 Texas A&M

How they got here: Trying to tell you how LSU wound up going 10-2 this season would be an exercise in futility. I could type and type and type (I frequently do) but unless you've followed college football this season, then you really wouldn't understand how LSU went 10-2. Heck, I did follow college football this season, and I'm still not entirely sure. So, to revive an old, unfunny gag and to give you something to look at, here's a picture of a kitten:

Texas A&M, meanwhile, had a good season in the Big 12. They missed going to the conference championship game, but they did defeat both of the teams that went to said championship game. In fact, the Aggies went on a 3 game losing streak mid-season, and some idiot said they were done. Since then, they've won 6 straight, and they look like one of the best teams in the Big 12.

Should I watch this game: Yes! Oh, goodness yes! This is the second-to-last ranked matchup of the season, meaning that we'll be stuck with inexplicably mediocre post-New Year's Day bowl games until the 10th. And after that, the season ends. So enjoy this while you can. I have also discovered, through research, a phenomenon that I am calling Miles's Law. Miles's Law is, in effect, if something weird can happen, it will.

Oh, and this game will again feature the "conflicting styles" narrative: Texas A&M is a passing team, and LSU is a rushing team LSU, Kentucky, and Auburn also have to "prove" that the SEC is still the best conference in the country. A loss here and we might start to see the national media question the SEC's dominance. (BWAHAHAHA, I almost typed that with a straight face.)

Special Note: Be sure to keep the remote handy, as this is the same night as the 1-AA (FCS, if you're a tool of the system) championship. Tune into that game as well, if only for keeping college football's sanctity intact. Plus, to keep people from believing that college is just a meat farm for the NFL, since very few of the players for Eastern Washington or Delaware are going to go to the pros.

Blogger's pick: LSU. The Big 12 has honestly looked just as bad as the Big 10 this bowl season, with two Big 12 teams losing to unranked foes and 2 of the 3 Big 12 wins coming with ranked teams beating unranked teams. Not a great sign for the Big 12 team in this one. Mind you, thanks to Miles's Law, this game will likely be a game decided by a blocked extra point or something similarly bizarre.

January 8, 2011

BBVA Compass Bowl

Pitt vs. Kentucky

How they got here: Pittsburgh started the year as the favorite to win the Big East. They finished as just another mid-level Big East team, to go along with West Virginia, UConn, Syracuse, South Florida, and Louisville. A good example of how Pitt's year went can be found in their game with Miami, a mid-level ACC team. Pitt lost that game 31-3--at home!

Kentucky's claim to fame this season is their 2-game series with Auburn and South Carolina, where they stuck within 3 of Auburn and beat the South Carolina team which had just knocked off #1 Alabama. The rest of their season was sort of blah, and the final game was a 10 point loss to Tennessee--Kentucky's 26th consecutive loss to the Volunteers.

Should I watch this game: Only because this is the last Saturday game of the year. This is a matchup of a .500 team and a slightly above .500 team. We might be in for a good one, possibly because of the fact that neither team is remarkably good or bad in any given statistical category. Meaning we might have a good one here. Or a bad one, it doesn't matter. Oh, and this is another one to watch for the sponsor. Is it sponsored by a compass-maker? We'll have to watch to find out.

Blogger's pick: Kentucky. When given a choice between an SEC team and a Big East team, always go SEC. Yes, even if it's Vandy. Plus, with Pitt's coach drama...things could get rough, really quickly.

January 9, 2011

Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl

#15 Nevada vs. Boston College

How they got here: Nevada won a piece of the WAC title and got to go to this one by virtue of being the "champion" thanks to having a better overall record than Hawaii and the head-to-head tiebreaker with Boise State. BC got all their losses in a 5-game streak in September and October, and they finished 4-4 in the fairly awful ACC.

Should I watch this game: Only by virtue of this being the second-to-last game in the season. That's really it. Well, that and to see some heart-wrenching and/or feel-good ads about helping to fight hunger in America.

Blogger's pick: Nevada in a close one. The Wolf Pack run well, but BC has the best rushing defense in the country. The difference will be on the other side of the ball, where Nevada's decent defense will play against Boston College's awful offense. BC stands at 109th in terms of scoring offense. Not a good sign.

That's all for the meaningless bowl games. Next time, I'll be writing one for the National Championship game. I'm at 21-9 as of this preview. Hooray?