The College Football Thread 11/29 - 12/1

[Bored 0]

Everyone knows the scenarios. If West Virginia and Missouri win they will play in the BCS Championship. If one of them loses Ohio State will then advance. If both of them lose we'll have College Football Armageddon, which I'm personally rooting for as more chaos can only get us closer to some semblance of a playoff system.

 

Network/Basic Cable Schedule

 

THURSDAY

Rutgers at Louisville, 7:30/4:30 PM, ESPN

 

FRIDAY

Fresno State at New Mexico State, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN2

 

SATURDAY

MAC Championship: Central Michigan vs. Miami of Ohio, 11:00/8:00 AM, ESPN2

Army vs. Navy, Noon/9:00 AM, CBS

Conference USA Championship: Tulsa at UCF, Noon/9:00 AM, ESPN

ACC Championship: #11 Boston College vs. #6 Virginia Tech, 1:00 PM/10:00 AM, ABC

 

SEC Championship: #7 LSU vs. #14 Tennessee, 4:00/1:00 PM, CBS

UCLA at #8 USC, 4:30/1:30 PM, ABC

Oregon State at #17 Oregon, 4:30/1:30 PM, ESPN2

 

California at Stanford, 7:00/4:00 PM, Versus

Pittsburgh at #2 West Virginia, 7:45/4:45 PM, ESPN

Big XII Championship: #9 Oklahoma vs. #1 Missouri, 8:00/5:00 PM, ABC

Arizona at #13 Arizona State, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN2

 

Washington at #12 Hawaii, 11:30/8:30 PM, ESPN2

 

Digital Cable/Satellite/Gameplan Schedule

 

SATURDAY

FCS Quarterfinals: Eastern Washington at Appalachian State, Noon/9:00 AM, GP

FCS Quarterfinals: Delaware at Northern Iowa, 2:00 PM/11:00 AM, GP

FCS Quarterfinals: Massachusetts at Southern Illinois, 3:30/12:30 PM, GP

#19 BYU at San Diego State, 6:30/3:30 PM, Mtn.

FCS Quarterfinals: Richmond at Wofford, 7:00/4:00 PM, GP

 

All Other Div. I-A Games

 

SATURDAY

Florida Atlantic at Troy

Louisiana Tech at Nevada

North Texas at FIU

[Hawk 34 0]

I don't know about you guys but I'm really looking forward to that huge Troy-Fla. Atlantic game.

[Bored 0]

Hey it will decide the Sun Belt champion and who gets to go the much coveted New Orleans Bowl. In all seriousness Troy is the best Sun Belt team ever, which isn't saying much, who blew out Oklahoma State and hung with Georgia for three quarters. They are a solid team who deserves to play in a better bowl and against better competition than Memphis. That's why I wish there was a bowl committee who assigns who goes where rather than preset bids.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

We can't have a bowl committee, though, because otherwise we might be leaving 6 completely deserving C-USA teams out in the cold! Papajohns.com, motherfuckers!

 

I like what the ACC, Pac-10, and Big East worked out with the Gator and Sun Bowls. Over a four-year period (which started last year), the Gator gets to choose 2 Big East teams and 2 Big XII teams. So, you end up with 2 Big East/ACC games, 2 Big East/Pac-10 games, 2 ACC/Big XII games, and 2 Big XII/Pac-10 games. It's a good way to balance leagues having designated bids while keeping some flexibility in the scheduling.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

Wait, I thought Ohio State's loss to Illinois totally ruined their national championship hopes, or something.

[CanadianChris 0]

I will be watching the Army-Navy game, as I do every year. I wish Army could get a little better so the games could be more competitive. This is shaping up to be another Navy blowout.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Wait, I thought Ohio State's loss to Illinois totally ruined their national championship hopes, or something.

 

But since Illinois is pretty highly regarded, Ohio State did not take a big hit in votes and managed to stay close enough that if one more team fall, they have the inside track on re-claiming a spot. Kind of like LSU having a shot up until the Arkansas game after the Kentucky loss.

[nogoodnick 0]

Houston Nutt wastes no time in finding a job, landing at Ole Miss.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

The Black Coaches Association has objected to Texas A&M hiring Mike Sherman. I thought this was worth mentioning.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I think the BCA just does that anytime a team doesn't interview a minority, but it's still pretty funny. I really want to go on a Texas A&M message board and see what those bonfire-lovin' honkies have to say about that. I bet the lightly veiled racial slurs are some of the best we'd find on the interweb.

 

 

[Guest Vitamin X]

The Black Coaches Association has objected to Texas A&M hiring Mike Sherman. I thought this was worth mentioning.

Hell, I'd say any Coaches Association should object to hiring Mike Sherman.

[Slayer 0]

Ah, Sleeping Sherm, so glad it could be resurrected now, especially since Sherman seems to get hired by rivals of my teams.

[cabbageboy 0]

Missouri flat out cannot screw up here. Hell I don't even know if it is screwing up since OU already beat them and possibly better anyway. Either way I certainly do not want to see OSU literally back into a national title game.

 

WVU is a 28 point favorite vs. Pitt by the way. What I wonder is this: If WVU struggles to beat Pitt and wins like about 7 points will voters put OSU in there anyway for the hell of it? WVU has to just squash the crap out of Pitt. Pitt hasn't really been squashed in most of their 7 losses, only by UConn and Virginia. Pitt may hang around for a half or so, but by the end WVU will have them by 3 TDs.

[CanadianChris 0]

Missouri flat out cannot screw up here. Hell I don't even know if it is screwing up since OU already beat them and possibly better anyway. Either way I certainly do not want to see OSU literally back into a national title game.

 

WVU is a 28 point favorite vs. Pitt by the way. What I wonder is this: If WVU struggles to beat Pitt and wins like about 7 points will voters put OSU in there anyway for the hell of it? WVU has to just squash the crap out of Pitt. Pitt hasn't really been squashed in most of their 7 losses, only by UConn and Virginia. Pitt may hang around for a half or so, but by the end WVU will have them by 3 TDs.

This is going to be a 50-pointer. Book it.

[Hawk 34 0]

UCONN is going to the Car Care Bowl. This means Cincinnati, whom murdered them get the worst bowl of all (PapaJohn's). That's a hell of a message. Finish with the same record and the team in your conference that you waxed gets picked anyways. It's not like Connecticut has some die-hard travel anywhere fanbase. A top 20 team shouldn't be in the fucking Papa John's Bowl. That is reserved for the 7-5 teams that didn't do anything of note.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

Not just Papa John's, it's the papajohns.com Bowl! So there's a bowl lower than the Poinsettia?

 

That whom doesn't sit with me.

[Bored 0]

BCS = Bad College Stupid

 

Carl from ATHF gives his thoughts on the BCS. The description of the Mangino Gatorade bath had me dying.

[cabbageboy 0]

In all fairness UConn did actually finish above Cincy in the Big East standings due to that U of L screwjob win they had. Both were 9-3 overall but UConn was 5-2 in conf. while Cincy was 4-3. I was hoping for irony's sake that U of L would somehow end up in the Papa John's bowl, but the suckage was too great.

[AboveAverage484 0]

Who else thinks that Ohio St. should be playing Mizzou instead of WVU? Anybody?

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Tough call. They're really very similar teams, with nearly identical strength of schedule ratings (46 vs. 48, I think), a loss to a pretty good 9-3 team (Illinois, South Florida), and wins over a bunch of average to good teams (Penn State, Michigan, Wisconsin, Michigan State; Connecticut, Cincinnati, Rutgers, Mississippi State). Having seen a fair amount of each team's games this season, I think Ohio State is the better team, but I'd much rather watch Missouri/WVU. Neither will really feel like a true championship game given this season's glut of relatively even 1 and 2-loss teams.

[HarleyQuinn 0]

Here are some early Bowl confirmations (according to Sports Network)

 

Navy will play in the Poinsettia Bowl

Southern Miss will play in the Papajohns.com Bowl

Houston will play in the Texas Bowl

South Florida will play in the Brut Sun Bowl

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Air Force, appropriately enough, will be playing in the Armed Forces Bowl.

[Bored 0]

Here's a full list of invites handed out so far.

 

Poinsettia: Navy

New Orleans: Memphis

PapaJohns.com: Cincinnati vs. Southern Miss

Texas: Houston

Meineke Car Care: Connecticut

Armed Forces: Air Force

Sun: South Florida

Outback: Wisconsin

[cabbageboy 0]

I took a look on www.realtimerpi.com and compared OSU with WVU. WVU was #2 and OSU was #3 overall, with WVU having an SOS of 5 and OSU with an SOS of 12. As noted the losses for both are comparable, though OSU lost at home while WVU lost at USF. The one thing I will say is that OSU has played more teams out of the top 100 (4) than WVU has (2). So I would give WVU a slight edge in overall profile, with Mizzou #1 right now.

 

Am I the only one who thinks Missouri vs. WVU is a fascinating matchup? OSU vs. WVU just has zero heat to me, whereas if you have Missouri/WVU then you do the Rose with OSU vs. USC and that is obviously the hyped #2 BCS game.

[Smartly Pretty 0]

Can you play a member of your own conference in a bowl game?

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

None of the bowls have affiliations that would allow for that, though I could see a BCS bowl matching up some conference opponents if they didn't play during the year. It would be a pretty rare situation, though. The only way I could see it happen this year is if Kansas and Oklahoma played in the Fiesta bowl. It still wouldn't be terribly appealing to most people though, and I imagine they'd try anything else first unless their options were really limited.

[Vern Gagne 0]

Oklahoma and Nebraska played in the 1979 Orange Bowl.

[cabbageboy 0]

Haha! U of L somehow managed to storm back and beat those Rutgers douchebags 41-38 on a last minute FG. I don't think U of L even led until that point during the game.

 

This has been a wretched season for Cards fans but this one does feel pretty damn good. If there was one game I wanted to win all year, this was it.

[MFer 0]

It's gotta feel great for Brohm especially...the season as a whole was definitely not what he bargained for when he decided to come back.

 

It's kinda funny thinking about that Big East commercial hyping the 4 Heisman contenders...and White ends up being the only one left that even has a shot to be a finalist.

[Bored 0]

ESPN is reporting that Michigan will name Les Miles as head coach next week. It will be very interesting see type of performance LSU shows up with today.