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.

College Football Week 11

I already gave Notre Dame is own special post, so now its just time to clean up some loose ends from the weekend. We are coming down to the end of the season, with many teams only have 2 games left on their schedule. It is pretty amazing at how fast the season has gone this year and not to mention how disappointing...

SEC Championship Battle: For the first time in a few years, the SEC Championship game won't have Alabama, Florida or LSU. South Carolina got the big win over a struggling Florida team, which doesn't surprise me. I had my doubts that the 3-headed quarterback system would end up working out in the long run for the Gators. Auburn took the west with its win over Georgia, and as long as Cam Newton can play, they should be able to repeat another victory over South Carolina. I won't say its a lock but Auburn plays much better on a weekly basis than South Carolina.

Northwestern's upset of Iowa: For whatever reason, Iowa just can't beat Northwestern. In what had to be the best game in the Big Ten, the Wildcats score a late TD drive to once again knock off the Hawkeyes. The QB for Northwestern, Persa, injured his Achilles with his winning touchdown throw and is most likely out for the rest of the season. So it has to be a bitter sweet win for the Wildcats, but that is how it goes in sports some times.

Wisconsin's Big Blowout: A score of 83 to 20 is eye popping, especially when its one FBS school against another one.Wisconsin rolled and rolled and rolled some more over Indiana, and has started a controversy about running up scores and gamesmanship. Its very weird to see the that kind of score in the Big Ten which is noted more for its slow, physical style than offensive shoot outs. Between this game and last weeks shoot out with Michigan and Illinois, there might be a steady change to one of the oldest conferences in sports. The conference is definitely scoring up more points than it used too, but so are all the other conferences. It has a lot to do with style points argument in the BCS while a win is a win, a 30 point win is better than a 10 point win.

Escape: Many of the top ranked teams had to escape their lesser opponents to keep their BCS hopes a live. Oregon got back an unranked Cal by two points, TCU won just by 5 over San Deigo ST, Stanford over Arizona St by 4. I have my doubts that Oregon will be able to beat Auburn in a BCS championship, since they have their most problems with physical and aggressive teams.

Big East is the Big Least: The Big East is having a terrible season. Cincinnati, the champion of the past two years, has fallen into the bottom of the conference's rankings. The two teams, Pitt and UConn, thought to be big break outs have both under performed. I wouldn't want to just beat on the conference for no reason but one of its teams will go to a BCS bowl game. You could have an unranked team playing in a national bowl game while much better teams like Boise St, TCU, Standford, etc, will go to lesser bowl games. This is actually unfair but its not uncommon either, it happens in the NFL. The terrible NFC West will get a team into the play offs that might not be better than 8 and 8 while better record teams in better conferences won't get in at all. So yes while the BCS sucks to some people, nothing is perfect.