Saturday in Review 11/13/10

Sorry this is late (unsurprising) and short (incredibly surprising) but real life does, unbelievably, occasionally have to take priority over the blog. Guess that bumps me down a notch on the loyalty scale, eh? So without further ado, rambling on the week that was:

#1 and #2 in trouble? What was this, a flashback to 2007? The Oregon Ducks escaped on what can only adequately be described as a technicality (Oregon fans, remember, build your effigy flammable, but not too flammable. It should be a slow burn) and Auburn, well, they struggled, and it's anyone's guess as to why.

Yeah, I know, it seems "obvious" that it was the "pressure" on Cam Newton, but I have a hard time buying it. You'd be a fool to deny that there's a psychological aspect to any sport (football included) but if Newton's activities really were illegal (innocent until proven guilty, kids, like it or not) then he had to be playing under the pressure of getting caught all season. I think we should attribute this less to Newton's off the field indiscretions, and more towards the fact that Auburn struggles when they play teams with halfway decent defenses. Yeah, the Tigers are undefeated, but all of their close games except for one (Kentucky) have come against teams in the Top 40 in scoring defense. Auburn is a Big 12 school in the SEC: They score points in bundles, but they have a paper thin defense. Something will have to give next week against Alabama, and for the sanctity of college football, I kinda hope it's the Tigers' undefeated season.

In analogy news, James Madison : Boise State :: Notre Dame : TCU. Seriously, Utah, what the heck?

Speaking of TCU, they too skated by the San Diego State Aztecs. That's much more damaging for the Horned Frogs, because voters are, generally speaking, ignorant. They'll cut down TCU for narrowly defeating their mediocre competition, but Oregon narrowly nips Cal and stays #1. I will put money that if the Boise State/Nevada game is close (it probably won't be), Boise will lose points in the BCS standings. Despite the fact that Nevada beat Cal who nearly beat Oregon! Know what? Let's just skip the pretense right now. If Oregon and Auburn each lose late in the season, I'm calling an LSU vs. Wisconsin final. And then I will personally lead the mob that marches on NCAA Headquarters.

Boise State hammered Idaho back on Friday. Good to know that Western Carolina/App State isn't the only obscure, one-sided rivalry with one media darling and one punching bag.

LSU played in-state "rival" UL-Monroe and beat them 51-0. Props to LSU for only having one loss this late in the season, but I'm still convinced that this team is 4 or 5 unlucky breaks away from being 4-6. And they're about 2 lucky breaks away from being the undefeated frontrunners for the national title. Isn't having a sport with an arbitrary and outdated championship system fun?

I will only mention Wisconsin's hammering of Indiana briefly: Sure, it was wrong, but the Oregon team that I like to praise has delivered similar beatings to multiple teams this season, so I can't be a total hypocrite and hammer the Badgers. Allow me to say, though, that Bucky Badger is a stupid looking mascot. There. Take that, Wisconsin!

Texas is in last place in their division. Look, we all expected a little fall, but this is absurd!

Southern Cal defeated Arizona. Congrats, Coach Kiffin! You've now ruined 3 teams' seasons!

Baylor has, once again, remembered who they were. That is to say, Baylor.

Virginia Tech avenged (I guess) last year's loss to North Carolina. They still have to beat Miami or UVa to wrap up a spot in the ACC Championship. As to the other division of the ACC? Ugh...hard to figure out.

I do, however, have a suggestion for a new conference motto: "The ACC: At least we're not the Big East." What do you think? Catchy?

Quick shout out to the Southern Miss players who were badly wounded in a bar shooting on Saturday night. No, they shouldn't have been there, but they also didn't deserve to get shot.

That's all for the week. I promise next week will: A) not be so short and B) not end on such a downer. Until then...take care!

Saturday in Review 10/9/10

Sorry this one is so late, so I'll just hit some fairly random points, rather than doing the normal Top 25 rundown. So, without further ado, imagine this as a really long and weirder than average tales from the Bottom 95 which just happens to include more than the Bottom 95. Moving right along:

Alabama's loss to South Carolina wasn't all that surprising. Sure, it's great that South Carolina won, but Alabama is still a darn fine team who just happened to come off of a brutal 3 game schedule. That, and they haven't looked that impressive on the road this season. So it remains to be seen if they can right the ship. Odds says they can, but a one-loss Alabama team should not jump over an undefeated Ohio State or Oregon or Boise State or Nebraska squad. If they do, then I'll be leading the mob that burns down BCS HQ. Because the SEC doesn't look as intimidating as it used to.

Case in point: Florida losing to LSU. Les Miles is the luckiest sonofagun under the sun, and he has proven this for 2 consecutive weeks with narrow escapes, though this one is at least against a decent team. And Florida's orange jerseys suck.

Auburn narrowly escaped Kentucky, so I'm curious as to how good they really are. Maybe Alabama teams just can't play on the road.

Boise State and TCU destroyed their opponents, big freakin' surprise.

Big Top 10 upset: Arizona loses to Oregon State. Not sure what this teaches us. I guess there's parity in the Pac-10, or Iowa was just overrated, or the blind squirrel found an acorn a while back. Either way...that was the major one.

Maybe the lack of road presence in the SEC is contagious, Arkansas barely escaped Texas A&M, narrowly beating an unranked squad from a theoretically inferior conference. No, I don't care about the "12th man" making life hard, if you have trouble on the road against a bad team, Arkansas, then you're screwed on your road trips to Auburn and South Carolina.

Florida State hammered Miami. The ACC continues to depress.

Wisconsin and Minnesota nearly had a fight. I don't care what the card said, coach, you don't go for 2 when you're up by that much. Anyone who tries to defend this decision will get yelled at by yours truly. Minnesota's already bad, and it's not like you were avenging them running up the score on you last season. In fact, unless you're "avenging" the 1990 Wisconsin squad that got beaten 21-3, this was just a flat out classless maneuver.

Dear Michigan,

Told you so.

--Bones

San Jose State played their 4th ranked opponent in 6 games. They did the same thing they did every other time: they lost.

Southern Cal dropped their second straight, though this one was a squeaker with Stanford. Pity that it doesn't matter this year.

Hat goes off to Ohio State who hammered Indiana. Good job, and congrats on your brand new #1 ranking. Now, try playing more than 1 meaningful road game per season.

Bottom 95 stuff: Virginia Tech won again...Tennessee got killed by Georgia, thus keeping the effigies of Mark Richt down to a manageable level this week...Penn State got hammered in Happy Valley by Illinois, so times are dark for JoePa...Clemson dropped one to North Carolina. Seriously looking forward to Dabo Swinney's firing....Florida International won their first game...Navy beat Wake Forest. No one cares...Vandy beat Eastern Michigan, thereby proving absolutely nothing...Cincinnati won the battle with Miami (Ohio), meaning that Miami is officially the worst team in Ohio. I think...New Mexico State beat New Mexico 16-14 in a battle of particularly bad teams...Hawaii actually had to go to a road game. That sucks for them...

College Football review proudly presents...

A cheap cop-out. Er, I mean, the lightning quick overview of the New Year's Day and January 2nd bowl games! Because of a long drive, I can't do in-depth anything for these 10 games. I promise to make it up to you with good reviews and a decent preview set for the last couple games. Thus, without further ado...here are the games (picks in school color and in bold) and a list of games you should watch (particularly compelling reasons given in parenthesis:

January 1, 2010:

Outback Bowl: Northwestern vs. Auburn

Capital One Bowl: #13 Penn State vs. #12 LSU

Gator Bowl: #16 West Virginia vs. Florida State (side note for this one, pour out a glass of your favorite beverage for Bobby Bowden. The man's earned that much from all of us who love college football.)

Rose Bowl: #7 Oregon vs. #8 Ohio State

Sugar Bowl: #3 Cincinnati vs. #5 Florida

January 2, 2010:

International Bowl: South Florida vs. Northern Illinois

Cotton Bowl: #19 Oklahoma State vs. Ole Miss

Papajohns.com Bowl: South Carolina vs. UConn

Liberty Bowl: Arkansas vs. East Carolina

Alamo Bowl: Michigan State vs. Texas Tech


Games you should watch:

• Capital One Bowl
• Gator Bowl (last game of the second winningest coach of all time. Watch this game, if only for historical value)
• Rose Bowl
• Sugar Bowl (Tebow's last game, forget Urban Meyer.)
• International Bowl (to say that you watched it. You'll be in the minority.)
• Cotton Bowl (you might just see me on TV. Isn't that worth it?)
• Alamo Bowl (see how Texas Tech performs without its coach...

That's all for that. Happy New Year, and I'll see you guys with a full writeup of the week and a half I've missed...