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.

College Football Week 12-13

Plenty has happened in the past couple of weeks, shame on me for being lazy....just a lot easier to watch football than find time to write about it. And I love Nathan Williams, a beast for OSU defense.

Notre Dame Finishes Strong...for once: It is all about how you finish. 7-5 looks a lot better when its due to a 3 game win streak than a 3 game losing streak. ND has not had a strong November in quite a few years, Weiss' run was notorious for having his team fall apart as the season came to a close. Kelly has had a rough year, that looked like it was about to fall apart when October turned nasty, but they held together. They found a defense and managed to play tough, old school ND football. And not to be forgotten, but that 8 year losing streak to USC was finally broken with a 20-16 win in LA. They will get some eh bowl, or maybe something decent cause ND brings money, and hopefully another win. It is all about how you finish.

I wonder what Urban Meyer is thinking: Last season, Florida was an offensive juggernaut that was poised to win a 3rd National Championship. Meyer and Tebow was an unstoppable team, well not totally, Bama rolled them over but then they came back to utterly destroy Cincinnati in the Sugar Bowl. It is jarring to see, this season, how incredibly inept and ineffective the Gator's offense is. Florida St is better but looked like they were in another class in the rival game and finally broke the 6 game winning streak of the Gators over Seminoles. When you see Florida's trio of QBs all doing badly, inceptions and fumbles, Urban Meyer must be thinking, "I wish Tebow was here." I think it is a rare thing for a coach and player to seem to be fundamentally link in all phases of the game. Meyer has been able to adjust and tweak his offense when it moved from Leak to Tebow but there was no answer to Brantley, Burton, or Reed. It will be interesting to see what happens in the off season and into next year, Meyer has things to change.

The Fallen Lone Star: It has to be a historic fall. Texas was really one bad throw away from winning the BCS National Championship and now they are not even ranked. They are 5-7, not going anyway to any bowl this year for the first time since the late 90s. Mac Brown is going to really look through his staff and heads will roll for whats happened. Texas has no issue with gaining talent so they will rise again but it might be harder than it was. The Big 12, or soon to be 10, has much more depth now with rising powers in Oklahoma St, Missouri, Texas A&M and possibly Texas Tech. I wouldn't be surprised if Texas reigns supreme next season over the diminished conference but its hold will be more tenuous than in past years.

The Big Ten's Big Three: Wisconsin, Ohio St, and Michigan St will all share the title of Big Ten Champions this year. Each of the teams will end with a one loss record in the conference and showed varying degrees of dominance throughout the year. Wisconsin put on another show of force and seemed to be on a totally other level than Northwestern. Ohio St and Michigan went at it again in "The Game" but its definitely not the same game. Ohio St has owned Michigan the last couple of years and the only real game of national consequence was in 2006 when the teams were ranked 1 and 2. And like last year, it wasn't competitive and Ohio St extends its winning streak. The only close game was Michigan St and Penn St where Joe Pa created a rally in the 4th quarter that ultimately failed. Wisconsin has the highest BCS rank and will then go out to the Rose Bowl and Ohio St will likely go to the Sugar Bowl.

BCS Busting Bronco's Busted: The Boise St Broncos have been always knocking on the door to get into the BCS championship game, they are the constant outsider. They had played perfect through 11 games, sometimes being challenged and sometimes just walking through weak teams. They got one final test against a ranked Neveda team but even that wasn't expected to be a loss. This is why we play the game, cause Neveda pulled off the upset mostly thanks to Boise St missing two field goals. They missed one to win the game and then missed one to win the OT, so Neveda comes out with the big win. TCU is now the only non-automatic qualifier school that can possible get into the Championship game is Oregon or Auburn loses.

Newton rolls back the Tide: I honestly thought that Alabama would beat Auburn and for the first half of the game if seemed like I was right. Alabama was rolling with offense and Auburn had no answers, so yea everything was going right. Of course there are two halves in Football and Auburn turned the game around. Cam Newton seems to have cemented himself as this year's Heisman winner, barring any real evidence coming out about a pay for play issue. I think its ironic that Alabama's starting qb gets knocked out of the game, and that ultimately is what causes them to lose. Alabama knocked out Texas' Colt McCoy in the Championship game and made that game much easier to win.

MNF: Eagles at the Redskins

I think there might not be any truer statement than: "Everyone loves a winner." I really think that might be the only way to understand the transformation of Michael Vick. Vick was once universally reviled for his dog fighting activities that landed him in jail and out the NFL. There was controversy and protests when he was released from prison and signed to the Eagles. You wouldn't have thought he would be considered the league MVP and generally turn around public opinion about him.

And then he began to win, and put on a dazzling performance on Monday Night Football. He put on a historic performance of 333 passing yrds, 4 tds, and then rushed for 2 tds. The game was over in the first 15 seconds when in the first play of the game, Vick gets an 88 yard touchdown pass. Redskins never had a shot, 59-28 win for the Eagles. Vick has had an amazing season with no interceptions throw yet and has the league's highest passer rating. They are now the hottest team in the NFL, which might last for a week or they ride it on to Dallas.

I personally have ambivalent feelings about Vick. I am disgusted by what he did but he did go to prison, serve his time, and has been a productive member of society ever since. I think he gains more friends with every win he accumulates but there are definitely people who will never look beyond the dog fighting episode. It is easier to love a winner, its easier to look over the flaws when there is scoring going on.

And here is an unintentionally funny/unfortunate thing to say: "We were like pitbulls, ready to get out of the cage." DeSean Jackson said that, not the best thing to say as a teammate of Michael Vick.

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.

Golden Moment

Notre Dame hasn't had many Golden Moments in the past few years, and this year has definitely been up and down. Utah came in as the 14th ranked team, after getting punched in the face by TCU, and Notre Dame just lost to an FCS school with a last drive interception. Utah was at least a two touchdown favorite with its average scoring offense of 44 points and ND's defense is porous at best. Notre Dame needed two wins to get to a bowl game, though it looked like more that 6-6 would be the best they could muster. They had tons of injuries, almost all of their star players, which totaled about 400 yards of offense a game. The death of the young student due to unsafe wind conditions has only added another heavy cloud on Kelly. And of course, it was a raining and dark day over the stadium.

I considered this the game of their season, and they rose to the challenge. ND put on a dominating performance with a 28-3 win over the Utes. They played like the old school Irish, the physical line play, strong running game, and great special teams play. They played like Kelly had been pushing for them to play, and it finally paid off. They looked impressive, they looked like they were finally realizing expectations.

Now I'm not stupid, this was probably more a colossal failure on the part of Utah. They were flat and lifeless, they had no energy. The blowout loss at home to TCU still broke the spirit of the team. You basically had one team playing for its season and one team still holding on to the loss of its biggest game.

I am trying not to read too much into what the win might mean for the rest of the year. They need one more win for bowl eligibility, which seems possible against Army. It would be a nice change of pace over the past couple of seasons if they can finish strong, and not finish falling apart. If they can keep up their new identity, then they could win out the rest of the year and give USC all it can handle.

Fight Irish Fight