College Football Madness!!!!!!

I apologize for the lack of football recaps, but I found it very hard to write about college football this season. With all the upsets it just seemed like not even the college players were all that passionate about playing the game.

Look at the following lists and you’ll see what I mean. This season seven #1 and #2 ranked teams have been defeated by unranked opponents. Compare that to last season when the #1 team Ohio State was undefeated until the BCS title game and only two #2 teams lost to unranked opponents.

LIST OF #1 RANKED TEAMS DEFEATED IN 2007
1. LSU vs. #17 Kentucky 43-37 (3OT) 10/13/07 (Week 7)
2. Ohio State vs. Illinois 28-21 11/10/07 (Week 11)
3. LSU vs. Arkansas 50-48 (3OT) 11/23/07 (Week 13)

LIST OF #2 RANKED TEAMS DEFEATED IN 2007
1. USC vs. Stanford 24-23 10/6/07 (Week 6)
2. California vs. Oregon State 31-28 10/13/07 (Week 7)
3. South Florida vs. Rutgers 30-27 10/18/07 (Week 8)
4. Boston College vs. Florida State 27-17 11/3/07 (Week 10)
5. Oregon vs. Arizona 34-24 11/15/07 (Week 12)
6. Kansas vs. #4 Missouri 36-28 11/24/07 (Week 13)

LIST OF #1 RANKED TEAMS DEFEATED IN 2006
· No #1 team was defeated.

LIST OF #2 RANKED TEAMS DEFEATED IN 2006
1. Texas vs. #1 Ohio State 24-7 9/9/06 (Week 2)
2. Notre Dame vs. #11 Michigan 47-21 9/16/06 (Week 3)
3. Auburn vs. Arkansas 27-10 10/7/06 (Week 6)
4. Florida vs. #11 Auburn 27-17 10/14/06 (Week 7)
5. Michigan vs. #1 Ohio State 42-39 11/18/06 (Week 12)
6. USC vs. UCLA 13-9 12/2/06 (Week 14)

It’s just been unbelievable and unprecedented the sheer amount of upsets. I’m hearing the term “parity” being bandied about from the pundits, but I really do think it’s the lack of discipline of college players. The biggest example of this was that Stanford-USC game in week 6. Granted quarterback John David Booty played with a broken finger that led to four interceptions, but the defense couldn’t hold back a Stanford Cardinal offense that started backup quarterback Tavita Pritchard from a touchdown drive in the final minutes of the game!

So here we are now with the final weekend of games with the following BCS rankings:

1. Missouri (11-1)
2. West Virginia (10-1)
3. Ohio State (11-1)
4. Geogia (10-2)
5. Kansas (11-1)
6. Virginia Tech (10-2)
7. LSU (10-2)
8. USC (9-2)
9. Oklahoma (10-2)
10. Florida (9-3)
11. Boston College (10-2)
12. Hawaii (11-0)

The intriguing part is if Missouri defeats Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship and West Virginia beats Pittsburgh on Saturday, they will face each other in the BCS Championship game.

But perhaps the most fucked up thing can occur in the Pac-10. If UCLA beats USC and Arizona State loses to Arizona, UCLA will win the Pac-10 by virtue of tiebreakers. UCLA, an unranked five-loss team, will be in the Rose Bowl. Meanwhile undefeated Hawaii is still on the outside looking in.

Even worse is that if the above scenario happens, then it's highly unlikely head coach Karl Dorrell will be fired. As we have seen with UCLA and Nebraska the much heralded West Coast offense does not work in college, and Dorrell insists in using it. Dorrell has been a failure in his five years at UCLA having only two winning seasons. Although he has been to a bowl game in every year of his tenure, he has only one win in the 2005 Sun Bowl against Northwestern. None of the bowl games were New Years Day bowls.

With that said here's how I see things going down this weekend.

Big 12: Missouri will beat Oklahoma in the conference championship. Although the Tigers lost to the Sooners in Norman, OK earlier in the season, this game will be at a neutral site. Since that loss, the Tigers have played in a high profile game last week so will be better acclimated to the media glare. This won't be a close one.

Big East: West Virginia will spank Pittsburgh. There's no way Pitt has an answer for Pat White or Steve Slaton. This will be an absolute laugher.

SEC: LSU has flirted with disaster all season and will tempt fate once again with Tennessee. But the Tigers will show bare their teeth against the Volunteers and escape with a victory.

ACC: Boston College will play another close one against Virginia Tech. Yet again, the You-Can't-Beat-a-Team-Twice axiom will hold. QB Matt Ryan will put the game on his shoulders and come away with a win.

Big 10: Um. It's over. Ohio State is the winner. They played a horrible non-conference schedule and the Big 10 was horrible. They lost to an improved Illinois team, but Illinois wasn't all that great either. If either West Virginia or Missouri loses and Ohio State makes it to the BCS Championship game, it will be a shame.

Pac 10: It's down to three teams: USC, Arizona State and UCLA. USC needs to beat UCLA to get to the Rose Bowl. Arizona State can get there with a win against Arizona and a loss by USC. And we already went through the scenario for UCLA to get there. But it comes down to this. USC will beat UCLA. It won't be a repeat of last year.

At-Large teams: Hawaii will beat Washington this weekend for one reason alone. The game is at Hawaii. This win will give Hawaii an at-large bid for a BCS game.

The other at-large teams will be Georgia, Kansas and Virginia Tech.

So the bowl games will be as follows:

BCS Championship: West Virginia vs. Missouri
Sugar Bowl: LSU vs. Hawaii
Orange Bowl: Boston College vs. Georgia
Rose Bowl: Ohio State vs. USC
Fiesta Bowl: Virginia Tech vs. Kansas

Let's see how right I am this coming Sunday when the final BCS standings are revealed.

Flickr Photo by boomcha7