BCS Picture

Alright it's time to discuss the BCS picture. Take a look at the link to see how the games break down. It also comes with an explanation of how the at large teams are selected.

Here are my predictions for the 5 major match-ups. Im just picking who will be in them.

BCS CHAMPIONSHIP: Florida vs Texas. (Pasadena, CA)
I think Florida will beat alabama in the SEC championship and take this spot. Texas should handle Nebraska in its championship game and with Alabama losing, Texas will slide up from #3 to #2 landing in Pasedena.

ORANGE BOWL: Geogria Tech vs. Cincinnati (Miami, FL)
Both teams would have to win a big game to win its conference but I think Georgia Teach will handle Clemson while Cincy handles Pittsburgh landing the two in Miami

ROSE BOWL: Oregon vs. Ohio St. (Pasedena, CA)
This game is always Big 10 vs Pac-10. Ohio St. wrapped up the Big Ten last week but Oregon still needs to beat Oregon St. in the Civil war to land here.

SUGAR BOWL: Alabama vs. TCU (New Orleans, LA)
Alabama would get stuck here after a loss to Florida and TCU would be picked to play here as an AT LARGE.

FIESTA BOWL: Iowa vs. Boise St. (Phoenix, AZ)
If this is the match-up, it would be the first bowl game that inlcuded two AT LARGE teams. Iowa would have the highest ranking of the remaining teams not to be picked for a bowl game and Boise is undefeated and sitting at 6th in the rankings.

Week Review

This week, nothing in particular happened that shocked me. 3 top 15 teams lost but none of those team's situations have changed. #7 Georgia Tech will still play in the ACC chmapionship, #12 Oklahoma St. wasn't going to get a BCS bowl anyway, and #9 Pittsburgh will still get a BCS bowl if they defeat #5 Cincinnati on Thursday. Texas, Alabama, and Florida won setting up our national championship picture. Texas will play #22 Nebraska If Texas wins they are in the National Championship. Alabama (as we have heard enough hype) will play Florida. Winner, obviously, to the championship. But what if Texas losses? then we have a mess. And I really hope Texas DOES lose. Because this would leave the other championship spot open. Who would fill it? The rankings would indicate that #4 TCU would be next in line, but as I've discussed before, they play in a small conference. Would the BCS machine jump #5 Cincinnati to the championship game? These are just hypothetical situations as #3 Texas is 17 point favorites in the game vs Nebraska but, either way, I cant wait.

Unfinished buisness

Its Thanksgiving week all but one of the major conference championships are yet to be decided. Of the 6 major conferences (Big East, Big 10, Big Twelve, ACC, SEC, and Pac-10) only the Big Ten has its champion, Ohio St. Here are the remaining conferences and the games that will decide them (Winner takes the title)

Big East: #5 Cincinnati @ #9 Pittsburgh
Big 12: #3 Texas VS. #22 Nebraska (Game Played in Arlington, TX)
ACC: #7 Georgia Tech VS. #18 Clemson (Tampa Bay, FL)
Pac-10: #16 Oregon St. @ #8 Oregon
SEC: #2 Alabama VS. #1 Florida (Atlanta, GA)

I'll be looking forward to all of these games, particularly the 'Bama-Florida, 1 vs 2 showdown on a neutral field. There is no better way to decide a better team than in a game like that

Pac-10 up for grabs

No one seems to want to win the Pac-10. one thing is for sure though; USC will not win it for the 8th straight year. But who will? currently 4 teams have a shot at the title. Arizona, Oregon, and Oregon St. just need to win the remainder of their games and they win. Stanford has to win out and get a little help. Make that a lot of help. This week will go a long way in determining our champ. Oregon goes to Arizona and California goes to Stanford. If Stanford or Arizona lose, they will be out of contention. Oregon can lose one more game but after that they must win out. Here's a link to the Pac-10 website. Standings are on the right side.

TCU puts on a show, while Ohio St. needs OT

Our major games for the week where TCU-Utah and Iowa-Ohio St. As I predicted the TCU-Utah game was hardly a contest. TCU rolled to a lopsided 55-28. The scary thing is that TCU is know for their stout defense. 55 points plus the D makes a pretty good case for the national championship bid. The newest BCS standings have TCU 4th and either Florida or Alabama will lose, but it appears that at best, the Frogs will be looking at #3 and most likely the Orange Bowl.

Ohio St. knows they wont be playing in the BCS national championship, but they didn't want to break their streak of 4 straight BCS bowl game appearances. They ended up getting the win, but the game resulted in more of a moral victory for their opponent Iowa. Iowa was supposed to get beaten down in the 'Shoe but they were able to force over-time under their freshman QB. Nerves, however, got to their Freshman QB as he self destructed in OT dropping the Hawkeyes so far back they couldn't even attempt a field goal giving Ohio St. the easy 39-yarder to win it 27-24.

Top 5 Games

So with most teams having 3 games remaining on their schedule I've taken it upon myself to find the 5 most meaningful games remaining this season in my opinion. If the current rankings hold up and these team win all the way up to these games, they will be huge

5. #13 Oregon @ #17 Arizona - Will decide the Pac-10 conference
4. #16 Utah @ #4 TCU - Decides whether TCU gets a BCS game
3. #10 Iowa @ #11 Ohio St. - Will decide the Big Ten Champion
2. #5 Cincinnati @ #12 Pittsburgh - Will decide the Big East
1. #3 Alabama vs. #1 Florida (Atlanta, GA)- Will determine the SEC and the winner will play in the BCS national championship game

The bold games are coming at you this week. Let's break them down. TCU come into the game #4 in the country and looking for a huge win. I got them going big time all over the Utes in this one 31-14. I just think that with the pressure on and the entire nation's eyes fixed on Fort Worth (TCU's home town) they are gonna come out firing.

Then we got #10 Iowa @ #11 Ohio St. Last week I recall saying "Iowa is the #1 team in the nation" I still believe that, but Stanzi got hurt and that cost them the game last week and it going to kill them in this game. Ohio St. should roll in this one: 28-10.

Tide Roll and Hawkeyes Get Upset

The marquee match up from this the past week featured the #3 Alabama Crimson Tide and the #9 LSU Tigers. 'Bama was down 15-10 with 10 minutes to go in the 4th when they stormed back (with the help of a blown interception call) to win the game 24-15. With the win Alabama has clinched the SEC West. As i talked about in my last post 'Bama will play SEC East champion Florida in a monster game pitting #3 against #1.

But maybe the bigger story of the weekend were the happenings in Iowa City. The #4 Hawkeyes played host to the 5-4 Northwestern Wildcats (My favorite team by the way). Iowa was favored by Vegas to romp the 'Cats by 17. Iowa came out on fire, scoring 10 points in the first 5 minutes of the game making Vegas look pretty good. However, the 'Cats caused a sack/fumble which they recovered in the endzone to make the score 10-7. On the play Senior QB Ricky Stanzi suffered a fatal knee injury, knocking him out for the season, most likely killing his college career. His replacement: Freshman QB James Vandenburg. The Hawks were never the same after the change. After the injury, they failed to score any points and Northwestern slowly crept toward the win, finally finishing it with a 4th down defensive stand to win it 17-10, knocking Iowa from BCS National Championship contention.(if you want to see this, check out these hightlights)

#5 Cincy got it done on national TV, but where jumped in the rankings by then #6, now #4 TCU. I was a bit shocked but its nice to see one of the smaller teams get some respect. Although I hate your guts, good job BCS machine.

Match-up of the Week: #9 LSU visits #3 Alabama

Looking ahead to this week, there are two major match ups that will go a long way in deciding the BCS bowls and conference champions. the two games: 16 Ohio St. @ 11 Penn St. and of course 9 LSU @ 3 Alabama. The Ohio St.-Penn St. involves the 2nd and 3rd place teams in the Big Ten Standings going at it. I give the Penn St. Nittany Lions the edge as they have a stronger "D" and maybe the country's best home-field advantage with 106,000 fans in the stadium. The winner of the game wont control it's own destiny as they would still need conference-leading Iowa to lose, but the loser of this game will be out of contention to win the conference. Its a must win for both teams. I'll take Penn St. 31-17.

Now let's focus on the biggest game of the week. Its LSU going against Alabama. This one will basically decide the Winner of the SEC West Division. In the SEC, there are two divisions: SEC West and SEC East. The teams with the best record in each will play each other for the conference title. Florida has already clinched the SEC East. Back to the analysis. LSU (who comes to Tuscaloosa, AL every other year)has not lost here since 1998. Alabama, though, is coming off a bye week, which means they had two weeks to prepare for this game. Alabama should have the advantage, and although the score should be close, the game really wont be in doubt. Alabama has the better defense and their RB Mark Ingram is currently the front runner to win the Heisman Trophy. With those things working in their favor, I Like 'Bama 20-13 in this one.

Hot and Fresh Off the Presses: The New BCS Rankings

Yes, they have arrived. The new rankings officially checked in at 8 p.m. literally seconds before I started writing this post. But enough of that, lets break down the rankings. Big news! Shake up at the top. Of course Florida, led by everyone's favorite super hero: Tim Teebow, is still #1. However, look who is number 2. It Texas everyone! a convincing win over then #14 Oklahoma St. has caught the BCS machine's eyes and it decided to jump the longhorns over Alabama. Obviously nothing has really changed. If (currently #3) Alabama beats Florida, they will play in the national championship so Tide fans have nothing to worry about. Besides, they only moved down because they didnt play last week. Iowa remains at 4. But look who is finally getting paid some respect from the BCS machine!!! Cincinnati has moved from 8th in last week's rankings to it's rightful place at 5. I have no complaints about the current rankings, but as discussed in my previous post, Iowa and Cincinati are clearly getting less respct. Of the 5, Iowa actually has the most impressive win to date. They deafeated then #5 Penn St. (now #11) in State College, PA. (yeah, the town really is called "state college") But the point is, it was a road win against a formidable opponenet. In my opinion, this team in #1.

This Could Be The Year

In a week that provided little to no excitement and hardly any upset scares, there was the one big game on ABC Saturday night. 5 USC @ 10 Oregon. The USC Trojans came in favored to win by 3 points, according to Vegas lines, but were trounced by 27 points. This drubbing surely knocks USC out of national title contention (as they already had one loss) and if Oregon keeps winning, USC wont even win the Pac-10. The new BCS rankings have yet to be released, but we can expect Oregon to move up a few spots. Elsewhere 4th ranked Iowa faced Indiana this week and went into the halftime locker room trailing 21-7, but you would never know it as they left the stadium with a 42-24 win. If they had lost, that would have been the major story of the weekend, but would it really matter? The BCS really doesn't give them a chance to get one of the top two spots to play for the national championship!

That's the real problem with this BCS: Who is anyone to say that an Oregon team, who convincingly beat up on USC(its not like they won on a last second field goal, they dominated!) couldn't beat a Texas or a Florida? The problem is that these teams: Iowa, Oregon, Boise St, TCU, and Cincinnati wont be getting a chance to play for the title unless Texas, Alabama, or Florida lose. Oregon has absolutely no chance as they are already a 1 loss team. This, however, could be the perfect year to over throw the BCS... In past years we have had teams like Boise St. and Utah finish the season with no losses but they play in smaller conferences that don't generate a tough enough schedule. Last year Utah finished 12-0 (the country's only unbeaten team!) and were 5th in the rankings. They got demoted to the Sugar Bowl against #4 Alabama and Utah won the game 41-14. that's right, 41-14, they killed them!!! It was never close, Utah was clearly better, yet a team who had not lost never got a chance to prove that they were the best team!

But this year we have potential unbeatens from some of the big conferences Iowa 9-0(Big Ten), and Cincinnati 8-0 (Big East). Say those two go undefeated along with Texas. Alabama and Florida are in the same conference and play each other late this year. That will knock one of them out of contention with a loss. That would give us 4 unbeaten teams from mainstream conference plus the potential TCU (mountain west) and Boise St. (WAC). so we could have six unbeaten teams, but only the 4 really have a chance. The BCS machine would have to pick 2.(click to see exactly how the BCS machine does this. In my opinion its a little confusing.) However, we all know who it would take: Texas and Florida/Alabama.

Why? because of last year. These teams where near the top last year, thus placed at the top for the start of this year and all they had to do was win and they were in. Iowa and Cincinnati started the season unranked and have had to climb all the way up to their current place. This has them behind the top teams and they cant make up that ground. However, last year people where upset (very upset!) about Utah, and that team plays in a small conference out west with little competition. People were so mad, in fact, that the case to remove the BCS and have a playoff system was taken all the way to the Supreme Court. Obama himself was in favor of a change. Just imagine what could happen this year.