What We Learned From Week 14 In College Football
The ultimate lesson this week is that the BCS is always going to screw some team, but we weren't aware that it would really do it before a conference championship game. Here are your BCS rankings per the WWL, and officially, Texas just got hooked, as the Sooners will be going up against Mizzou in Kansas City next week for the Big 12 title.1. Alabama
2. Oklahoma
3. Texas
4. Florida
5. USC
6. Utah
7. Texas Tech
8. Penn State
9. Boise State
10. Ohio State
Oklahoma's 61-41 victory over Oklahoma State last night was enough to do it for the human voters, whom decided that the recent running of 60+ points in games plus a tougher non-con schedule was enough to outweigh the fact that the Sooners lost to Texas at a neutral site. (Expect Sam Bradford to, accordingly, be the leader in the clubhouse for the worthless trophy in the stiff-arm pose.) Texas' destruction of Texas A&M on Friday wasn't enough to keep them ahead. Question is, whether you agree with the choice here. I don't like the BCS standings being a tie-breaker with the three-way, but such as it is, the post Matt Hinton wrote anticipating exactly this result over at Dr. Saturday seems to jibe with the way it went down.
Now, the rest of the notable things:
- Would you like to place bets on whether Charlie Weis is done at Notre Dame? Losing 38-3 at the Coliseum to a defensively stout USC team is still an embarrassment, particularly when the most fight the Irish showed was, well, the fight before the game started. It took until the third quarter, I believe, for the Irish to get a first down in the game.
- The BCS would like to thank Oregon State for remembering that they are Oregon State, and thus, collapsing when they least could afford it in the Civil War, losing 65-38. The Beavers allowed both Oregon running backs to stomp all over them and ceded the Pac-10 to USC, who should thrash an offensively deficient UCLA squad next Saturday. (Of course, we've written this before, and then UCLA won 13-9.)
- Compared to the Big 12 South, the SEC's picture is clear: Alabama blanked Auburn 36-0 in a display of nasty, brutish, defensive football that Nick Saban made his name on; Florida owned FSU by 30 in a rainy mess at Tallahassee. It's going to be very simple next Saturday with the winner of the SEC championship going to the BCS title game.
- Paul Johnson just sealed his ACC Coach of the Year award and probably should get a national nod, too. Georgia Tech took it to Georgia in Athens by ripping off 410 yards on the ground and taking advantage of Matthew Stafford's two picks. The funny or bizarre thing is that what looks like the best team in the ACC won't play in its championship game, because Virginia Tech beat them earlier this year, and its anemic offense was helped by its defense in beating Virginia -- which means we get another VT-Boston College ACC championship this year.
- Things you never really expected to happen in college football: an interim coach at Clemson, Dabo Swinney, curb stomps the Ol' Ball Coach 31-14, as South Carolina's Chris Smelley lived up to his last name with four picks.
- With the scuttlebutt on the interwebs leaning everything towards Lane Kiffin being the next coach at Tennessee, the now-former coach Phil Fulmer, departed with an 18-point win over Kentucky -- despite a 7-3 halftime score that would have sent anyone who enjoys offense screaming from the TV set.
- Baylor almost made this BCS/Big 12 South confusion moot -- too bad they choked on a lead over Texas Tech in Lubbock. Tech comes back despite losing Michael Crabtree, winning 35-28.
- Todd Reesing is ten feet tall in the hearts of KU fans. Some manic scoring sequences in the last six and a half minutes in this year's edition of the Border War with Mizzou, and Reesing threw a touchdown pass to Kerry Meier with 27 seconds left to give KU a 40-37 win after the Tigers' kicker left a tying FG try short.
