The Brand New Big Ten!

So this week the Big Ten unveiled is new logo and its new divisions, since it started off this last around of college alignment by poaching Nebraska from the Big 12. And even though there is now 12 members, the conference will always be known as the Big Ten. I really doubt the conference would ever change its name, which is basically a brand and not so much just a conference. The logo isn't as creative as the old one, which had the 11 number put in the negative space, but its not bad. Its big, bold, retro, like the Big Ten.

So we have the divisions, Leaders and Legends. Right, which is basically pretentious and not that well thought out. Ohio St and Penn St are in the Leaders, even though they more known for their legendary traditions. It probably looked really good and sounded great in the flashy power point presentation but seems kinda stupid to the outsiders. The Leaders division will include, Ohio St, Penn St, Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin, and Indiana. The Legends will be Iowa, Michigan St, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Northwestern.

The entire conference is set towards honoring the history of the Big Ten. The championship trophy is named after two great Big Ten coaches, Stagg-Paterno, and then the Big Ten Coach of yea will get the Hayes-Schembechler trophy. Basically, it is all self love for the conference and what it has done for the last hundred years.

Too bad Notre Dame missed out on joining in, they love beating off to their own history.

College Football Week 14

Christian Ponder in warm ups, if only he got to finish his year.

We Cam, We Saw, We Conquered: The SEC championship was a rematched of an exciting game earlier in the year, Auburn and South Carolina. The last time they met Auburn had to rally from behind to win and SC had to self destruct to give the Tigers a big enough opening. This time, it wasn't such a good game with Auburn winning 56-17. Cam Newton, who seems to be in the clear, played well and his hail mary TD at the end of the first half helped to push SC to the brink. SC pretty much fell apart in the second half and Garcia was eventually pulled by Spurrier, though it was pointless at that point. Auburn looked as good as they did all year, no comebacks needed and their defense was stout. I definitely think Auburn goes in as the favorite to win the championship and Cam is a likely lock to win the Heisman.

Blowouts to finish it off: Oregon played Oregon St, in what they call the Civil War, and these in state rivals can be very tricky. Oregon was slow to start bu eventually began to roll and ended up winning the game over a spunky but ultimately outclassed Oregon St. Not there was a Pac-10 championship on the line, but it was the final huddle for Oregon to get into the National Championship song. In the other blowout of the day, Virgina Tech and Florida St played another for the ACC championship. Florida St was without its attractive QB Christian Ponder, but his replacement did a rather good job of filling in by VT's offense was just too much and Seminoles couldn't keep up in the scoring match.

Big East ends with a....whatever the opposite of a bang is: The Big East has had a rough season, which it basically becoming a whipping boy for everything thats wrong with the BCS system of automatic bids. I'm pretty sure most of the Big East and BCS supporters were hoping that at least 24 ranked West Virgina would get in which would probably be less embarrassing than an unranked Connecticut getting the bid. Connecticut was in a close struggle with South Florida and it all came down to a field goal, a field goal to win the terrible, terrible Big East conference. 19-16 sends the Huskies to their first ever BCS bowl game and might give us the worst BCS game of the year, or ever.

Big 12 ends with a Big 8 rematch: Oklahoma and Nebraska meet up for what might be the last time in a few years, as Nebraska leaves its long time companion for the Big Ten. Nebraska and Oklahoma have a long historic rivalry that was often the center piece of the college football world in the 80s and 90s. They were meet up often in the old Big 8 conference before it was became the Big 12 and Texas took over. Most people thought it was going to be a rematch of last year's close, controversial game of Texas v Nebraska. And then Texas went from great to terrible, and we have Oklahoma from the south division. And it was probably the best game of the day, with leads going back and forth and it all coming down to the end. With 23-20, Oklahoma keeps the Big 12 championship in the conference and out of the hands of the departing Corn-huskers.

TNF: Texans at the Eagles

Thursday Night Football is a good time, provided you have access to the NFL network. I have yet to buy it for my house, well I can't anyway cause Time Warner doesn't offer it...Time Warner sucks.

Anyway, I get to see my favorite linebacker, Brian Cushing of USC and steroid fame, get to rough house and manhandled offenses. Cushing is really the only reason I root for the Texans, beyond the fact I like to root for underdog teams. And living in Ohio, the games I get to see of them are limited so going out to Buffalo Wild Wings to watch them was enjoyable.

Well it would be if the Texans had been able win, and their defense once again gave up on critical plays to let the Eagles in 34-24. I won't put it all on the defense though as the offense had several miscues. Schaub throws an interception at the end of the first half, and for once, the defense held the Eagles offense to just 3 points.

Texans actually took the lead of 24-20 in the third quarter but that wouldn't last, Vick does what he has been doing all year. He made big plays and ended up rallying the team, fly eagles fly.

Texans were expected to finally have a break out year and get to the play offs, and with the weakness of the AFC south its not totally impossible. But with a 5-7 record, they would need to win out to manage that feat and hope the other AFC south teams struggle on

Well Cushing, still hot and still enjoy watching you.