This Week in College Football 12/19 - 12/24

[Bored]

Just two days away from the bowl season starting. Not exactly a compelling slate of games so feel free to talk about future games as well. If anyone feels that the BCS Title Game or the Rose Bowl needs their own threads go ahead and create one.

 

Las Vegas Bowl has the only ranked BCS team this week in BYU and if you do tune in on Thursday Oregon might unveil their latest fashion statement, helmets that change colors depending on the angle you're looking at them.

 

 

TUESDAY

Poinsettia Bowl: Northern Illinois vs. TCU, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN2

 

THURSDAY

Las Vegas Bowl: #20 BYU vs. Oregon, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN

 

FRIDAY

New Orleans Bowl: Rice vs. Troy, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN2

 

SATURDAY

Papajohns.com Bowl: South Florida vs. East Carolina, 1:00 PM/10:00 AM, ESPN2

New Mexico Bowl: New Mexico vs. San Jose State, 4:30/1:30 PM, ESPN

Armed Forces Bowl: Tulsa vs. Utah, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN

 

SUNDAY

Hawaii Bowl: Arizona State vs. Hawaii, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN

[Guest Princess Leena]

BYU is gonna beat the hell out of Oregon. Bet all your money on this game!

 

The rest of these games are completely unwatchable.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

Arizona State/Hawaii will be totally watchable too. The rest will just be those awkward bowl games where the stands are 2/3 empty and you wonder how on earth the administrators got the money to put it on in the first place.

[Hawk 34]

Is the idea for the helmet to distract the viewers from the game? It might work.

[yankovic fan]

I wonder how much tickets at the gate are for the New Orleans bowl.

 

Rice is supposed to play my alma mater next year and I'd like to see them in person for personal information scouting purposes.

[Guest Princess Leena]

Arizona State/Hawaii will be totally watchable too. The rest will just be those awkward bowl games where the stands are 2/3 empty and you wonder how on earth the administrators got the money to put it on in the first place.

Yeah, but it's on Christmas Eve. I won't be in the mood to watch Hawaii win 77-52.

[Vern Gagne]

I miss the Hawaii Bowl being called the Aloha Bowl and being played on Christmas Day.

[Bored]

Ya this will probably be a one time thing.

 

Last Year's Result: Navy 51, Colorado State 30

 

Northern Illinois Huskies (7-5, 5-3 - #4 in the MAC)

 

Best Win: defeated Central Michigan 31-10 on November 17th

 

BCS Rankings

 

Coaches: N/A

Harris: N/A

 

Anderson-Hester: 75

Billingsley: 60

Colley: 68

Massey: 79

Sagarin: 78

Wolfe: 68

 

BCS Ranking: 70

 

Team Stat Rankings

 

Scoring Offense: 42

Total Offense: 24

Run Offense: 17

Pass Offense: 50

 

Scoring Defense: 42

Total Defense: 80

Run Defense: 34

Pass Defense: 104

 

Turnover Margin: 43

 

Best Offensive Player: RB Garrett Wolfe - 289 rushes, 1900 yards, 6.6 avg, 18 td

Best Defensive Player: DE Larry English - 49 tackles, 15 tfl, 11 sacks, 4 ff

 

 

TCU Horned Frogs (10-2, 6-2 - #2 in the Mountain West)

 

Best Win: defeated Texas Tech 12-3 on September 16th

 

BCS Rankings

 

Coaches: 24

Harris: 24

 

Anderson-Hester: 32

Billingsley: 21

Colley: 25

Massey: 43

Sagarin: 44

Wolfe: 37

 

BCS Ranking: 27

 

Team Stat Rankings

 

Scoring Offense: 33

Total Offense: 17

Run Offense: 9

Pass Offense: 49

 

Scoring Defense: 5

Total Defense: 4

Run Defense: 4

Pass Defense: 34

 

Turnover Margin: 27

 

Best Offensive Player: QB Jeff Ballard - 171/278, 61.5%, 2136 yards, 12 td, 5 int, 136.7 rating

Best Defensive Player: DE Tommy Blake - 51 tackles, 13.5 tfl, 5 sacks, 2 ff

 

My Meaningless "Analysis": NIU is the first of several teams you'll see this bowl season that really no business being a bowl. You can't run the ball on TCU so don't expect anything big out of Garrett Wolfe. It will be a major upset if this game is still interesting going into the final quarter.

[Art Sandusky]

Save the cool breakdowns for the late December bowls onward. I like 'em, but they're a tad silly with the lesser games.

[Bored]

Jim Harbaugh is new head coach at Stanford. Um, interesting.

[Bored]

Again there are just waaaaaay too many bowl games and too many mismatches. Dreadful start to the bowl season.

[Guest Princess Leena]

This game was the worst mismatch, though.

 

It will get better. Maybe.

[CanadianChris]

Nice to see the football gods rewarding NIU for going for it (though failing) on 4th and 5 on the TCU 20 instead of kicking a weenie field goal.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

Reggie Ball has been ruled academically ineligible to play in the Gator Bowl. I don't know if this is a good thing or bad thing for Georgia Tech, though I'm leaning towards bad at this point, unless they go with an offensive gameplan that's strictly "Hey backup, throw to Calvin Johnson." That might be better than whatever their offensive gameplan was for the second half of the season, though.

[Bored]

It all makes sense now, he was too stupid to play quarterback.

 

In case you missed it during halftime of the Poinsettia Bowl, Desmond Howard went on about a mythical Cal/Texas match-up in the Holiday Bowl and no one bothered to correct him.

 

Link

[Guest Princess Leena]

Crap, I wish I picked Georgia Tech to win in all my pools now.

[Vern Gagne]

It all makes sense now, he was too stupid to play quarterback.

 

In case you missed it during halftime of the Poinsettia Bowl, Desmond Howard went on about a mythical Cal/Texas match-up in the Holiday Bowl and no one bothered to correct him.

 

Link

 

What a non-story.Texas A&M rubes probably thought their team was getting treated unfairly.

[Vern Gagne]

Why does ESPN have to do this stupid mock tournament every year?

[Guest Princess Leena]

I hate paid programming, but ESPN would probably be better off bringing it back. The filler has just gotten too bad now. That, or the exercise shows.

[Art Sandusky]

Hells yes, those exercise shows ruled. I don't say that for the boner factor, but because it's at least encouraging people to get off their asses instead of SportsCenter all morning.

 

I couldn't watch that Desmond Howard clip, it was too painful.

[Hogan Made Wrestling]

Some hotshot high school QB prospect de-committed from Texas to go to Florida instead. Now I can certainly understand not wanting to go to Texas with Colt McCoy there, but why pick Florida when you know Urban Meyer has a huge boner for Tim Tebow? I can just see this guy transfering in a year after it's clear he's not getting any playing time.

[Vern Gagne]

Maybe he thinks Florida will use two QB's like they did this year with Leak and Tebow.

[Conspiracy_Victim]

Ugh. There should be a new warning sticker on chemical bottles.

 

"If ingested induce vomiting by looking at the University of Oregon uniforms."

 

Those helmets match the numbers I guess, but that is one hideous color scheme.

[Hogan Made Wrestling]

Lou Holtz and Mark May are just unspeakably horrible.

[Edwin MacPhisto]

This game hasn't looked much closer than the first bowl so far. Go Mormons, go.

[Hawk 34]

The first two bowl games are making me feel that maybe it is time for a fucking tournament and it won't get any better with tomorrow's delight.

[2GOLD]

Mountain West about to move to 2-0 on the Bowl Season with dominating wins. Oregon hasn't even looked like they have a clue.

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe]

I don't care what anyone says, those Oregon uni's are awesome.

[nogoodnick]

I like the uniforms but the yellow helmet just looked stupid. Maybe if they wore it with yellow jerseys it would look alright but not with the black or the green ones. That was a pretty big beatdown by BYU.

[2GOLD]

Maybe they should have focused more on their game plan and less on their fashion sense. Half the time the Ducks uniforms look like they were sewn together by the team moms.