Well, last nights UA-ASU game was a good one...and ASU pulled it out in a way that they had lost a few games this year; blocked kicks. I picked that one wrong...didn't see ASU stepping up on the road quite like they did. People were in pretty high spirits around Phoenix today, though...saw a lot of Maroon and yellow (it's not gold people - Notre Dame, Army, and Navy - that's gold) swirling around on casual Friday.
I don't think there is going to be much in the way of upsets this weekend...the Big East is the only thing I really think has any doubt about who wins the games. Here are my picks:
Again - tonight's MAC championship - Northern Illinois over Miami (OH) (see - I don't change my picks!)
West Virginia beats Rutgers
Pitt wins at Cincy
UConn gets it done in South Florida
I guess this means UConn get the BCS nod, right? They have the tiebreaker...with 4 losses - a shame meaning a good team gets left out of the BCS. PLAYOFF!!!
C-USA Championship: UCF beats SMU (even though this is Florida vs. Texas, the two states which I disdain the most for college football; I think I only like TCU and UTEP out of these states...and UTEP only because I lived in El Paso twice and what else was there to do but support UTEP and eat Mexican food?)
Boise State wins against Utah State
Nevada beats Louisiana Tech
The Ducks wins the Civil War with the Beavers (guess they fight over all that water up there)
USC beats UCLA in the irrelevant bowl of LA.
SEC Championship: Auburn goes undefeated over South Carolina
Big 12 Championship: Oklahoma beats Nebraska (to keep them from leaving the conference as champions)
ACC Championship: Virginia Tech beats Florida State
Speaking of VT, how fitting that they get a BCS bowl-game and Boise State gets left out? The voters really do have a bias at times to the establishment...I would think that if VT makes it, you would have to still seriously recognize that Boise State is a better fit than some other 2-loss team. Of course, Ohio State will bring more fans that Boise State, so they will get picked. Once again the business and money beat out merit.
Which again brings it to the point of the NCAA - how do they speak out of both sides of their mouths? With basketball...it's expand the playoffs, more teams and games with chances to win - the money is in the tournament. Yet, somehow, this would not be the case in football? Really? It seems to me that it is an old-money issue...of certain schools and teams wanting to "feel" superior to others. See E. Gordon Gee's comments of a couple weeks ago. I will always pull for those schools that maintain academic standards for their athletes - Army, Navy, Air Force, Stanford, Notre Dame (but is on the verge of leaving this list with their internal changes), even Nebraska and Northwestern.Maybe I need to do a bit of research on this - not just with student-athletes, but a look at these schools that are powerful in football and where their academic programs stack up...hmm...that's some work, but maybe over Christmas.
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