When I saw the Stanford-USC score, it was the most astounded I've been all season. The Stanford Cardinal hung 55 on mighty USC?! What's happened to the Trojans? USC now sits at 7-3 and is in danger of losing at least one of their last 2 (UCLA, Arizona). This begs the question: where will USC land come bowl time? If they win out, they still could manage a Holiday Bowl berth, but it would likely mean they'd be selected above a team who finished ahead of them in the Pac Ten standings. More likely is the Sun Bowl or the Emerald Bowl. How humiliating might it be for USC to play in the Emerald Bowl against a team like Boston College? Answer: about as humiliating as losing by 34 at home to Stanford.
Speaking of Stanford, those smarties have in back-to-back weeks posted a total of 106 points against teams ranked in the top 10. Their quarterback is a freshman.
I'd rank the conferences like this:
1. Pac Ten
2. SEC
3. Big Ten
4. Big 12
5. Big East
6. ACC
7. Mtn West
8. C-USA
9. WAC
10. MAC
11. Sun Belt
The Pac Ten gets the top spot because of overall quality. Oregon, Arizona, Stanford, USC, Oregon State, and California are all above average teams, evidenced by the way they keep pounding each other week after week. Washington, UCLA, and Arizona State are all a few steps behind, but they'd be middle of the pack bowl teams in any other conference. And then there's Washington State. Lets forget about them for the time being. I dare any conference this year to match the Pac Ten's top 6. Unless Oregon runs through Arizona and Oregon State without losing (a 50/50 proposition), the conference race will end with a 2-loss team winning the title. But it's not because of mediocrity.
I don't know why, but I find Georgia's home uniforms (Red jerseys, silver "britches", and red helmets with a big black G on the side) the most intimidating in all of college football.
If Penn State wins next week at Michigan State, the Nittany Lions will make a BCS bowl. You heard it here first. And here's why. If everything plays out as it's expected to (which it won't, but that would mean PSU would ascend the rankings even higher), the BCS championship game would pair Texas vs. the Florida-Alabama winner. The loser of the SEC Championship would be gobbled up by the Sugar Bowl. Automatic bids would go to Ohio State (Rose Bowl), the ACC winner (likely Georgia Tech), the Big East winner (probably Cincinnati, Pitt could slip in too), and the Pac Ten (who knows at this point, but Oregon is most likely). That would mean an Ohio State-Oregon Rose Bowl and the ACC winner in the Orange Bowl due to bowl tie-ins. TCU would get an automatic bid, likely to the Fiesta Bowl. That would leave 2 additional spots, to be taken filled by teams from this group: Boise State, Penn State, the Pitt-Cincy loser, Iowa, Oklahoma State (if they beat Oklahoma), and Georgia Tech if they lost the ACC Championship game. It would be criminal in that situation for an undefeated Boise State to be looked over, so we can assume they'd be the first team off that list. If you're a BCS bowl commissioner and those are the teams you have to choose from, wouldn't a 2-loss Penn State team be a no-brainer? One could argue that Iowa ought to be chosen before PSU based on the head-to-head win, but PSU has more selling power. Plus, after this weeks results, Penn State will leap at least to #13, possibly higher. They'll close in on a top 10 regular season finish with a win next week.
I was pretty convinced at least one of the top 5 would fall this week. Looking at the schedule gave you that feel - the top 3 with testy road games, #4 and #5 looking at tough home opponents. Alabama at Mississippi State was my upset pick (that didn't work out so well). Give the big boys credit, they took care of business and haven't felt the noose tighten around their necks. Yet.
TCU is without a doubt for real. There are those who will argue that no team from a non-BCS conference, even if they are undefeated, should be ranked as high as TCU is (and Boise State for that matter). The basis for that argument is that if they were placed in a BCS conference and given the week-in, week-out tests teams from BCS conferences face, these "mid-major" powers would invariably drop 2 or 3 (or more) games. But how true is that, really? TCU has been pounding the best their conference can offer - would this years Alabama team do the same if they were in the Mountain West? Maybe, but with their consistency issues on offense, maybe not. And with the defensive speed and offensive maturity TCU has, my guess is that they'd fare just fine in a conference like the SEC. In fact, TCU is a lot like Alabama - a fast, hungry, aggressive defense paired with a good running game and capable QB. And don't forget that Alabama was waxed by Utah in the heart of SEC country in the Sugar Bowl last year. That was the same Alabama team who ran the table in the regular season and pushed eventual champion Florida to the limit in the SEC Championship. All I'm saying is that the gap isn't nearly as large as most think. The biggest difference, as stated by Todd McShay on ESPN radio this afternoon, is depth. TCU has the same level of talent among their starters, but they can't keep up with their bench players. They, and schools like them, recruit tweeners and late bloomers rather than 4 and 5 star guys, and when those gambles pay off they come up big. But the big programs are loaded top to bottom with rich talent that doesn't need the multi-year development the tweeners and late bloomers do.
Next: week 12. What else would be?
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