Week 13 Postlude

It was an interesting second-to-last week of the regular season, as several ranked teams were knocked off by lower-ranked rivals. However, nothing truly earth-shaking occurred to the BCS projections, as only one team that was a tenuous pick for an at-large spot got knocked out of contention. The rest of the national and BCS races are still in the same spot as before.

Boise State over Nevada

It was a mistake to go against Boise State on the Smurf Turf, but Nevada seemed to be an attractive pick. Then I watched their offense. I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate the new style of offense that requires an offense to race to the line of scrimmage to call a play, get lined up, then look at the sidelines to get the actual play. It is micromanagement to the level of enforcing the stupidity of your players. If you don't have a quarterback you trust to make adjustments at the line, you need a better quarterback. And you're not going to get a better quarterback by preventing him from reading defenses. After all, once that play starts, the coaches are not the people figuring out where to throw the ball.

On top of that, I've noticed that it often actually takes longer to yell play calls to your team at the line of scrimmage than it does to get into a huddle where everyone can hear the quarterback easily. The quarterback has to yell the play call to the linemen, then the receivers on the left side of the line, then the receivers on the right side of the line, then any backs in the backfield. If your offense races to the line to get lined up for every play, then still barely gets the plays off in time, either you or your offense is doing something horribly wrong. This is particularly true in big games on the road, where your offense will be dealing with crowd noise that will make it hard to hear the play calls at the line.

West Virginia over Pittsburgh

I said last week that West Virginia looked like they didn't care what happened against Cincinnati. This week, they clearly had an emotional investment in the game. It was a big win for the Mountaineers and Bill Stewart, and I'm happy to see them putting together a big year after their acrimonious parting with Rich Rodriguez. However, Pittsburgh didn't look all that fired up about this game. I get the feeling they had trouble getting excited for a game that did not affect their postseason fate one iota. That's a shame when your big rivalry game really doesn't seem all that meaningful. Unless, of course, the budding and anticipated Pittsburgh-Cincinnati rivalry really is becoming the highlighted weekend on Pitt's schedule.

Cincinnati over Illinois

And speaking of Cincinnati, it smelled of upset, but it seems that I was actually smelling something else brewing in Morgantown that I should have expected that, but didn't. Unfortunately for Cincinnati, they picked the wrong year to go undefeated. With Texas, Florida, Alabama, and even TCU taking all the headlines, there isn't much room at the top for an upstart program in a somewhat-overlooked conference. Next week is their last chance to make a statement over TCU, but that statement won't be heard unless Texas loses. But if Pittsburgh knocks off Cincinnati, there ain't a BCS bowl out there that will take the Bearcats.

Meanwhile, I keep hearing about Brian Kelly this and Brian Kelly that for the Notre Dame job. I even read one commentator who said that he has been politicking nonstop for the job. Honestly, if Notre Dame wants him, they would do well to keep it on the down-low at present, as they will not make any friends by publicly announcing their intentions to hire away a coach about the play in perhaps the biggest game in his program's history.

Oklahoma over Oklahoma State

Is it really an upset if everybody picking games picked this upset? This game decidedly put an end to Oklahoma State's chances at the BCS, but those chances were slimmer than many commentators would have you believe. While Oklahoma State is a Big XII program, I don't know that their fanbase is known to travel well. And they certainly don't provide as intriguing a matchup as Boise State. Right now, Boise State is a bigger name than Oklahoma State. And folks from Idaho will follow their team to a BCS bowl game. Most of the BCS talk surrounding the Cowboys was their Big XII connection to the Fiesta Bowl, but the Fiesta Bowl can be pretty mercenary, when you get right down to it. I think they would overlook the Big XII connection if it meant that butts would be in all the seats.

Georgia over Georgia Tech

South Carolina over Clemson

As many have said, these two games only went that much farther toward making the ACC look bad, as the two top teams in the conference were beat by two middle-of-the-road SEC East teams. It was another black eye for a conference that's had shiner every year since it expanded to 12 teams. Add in the Florida beatdown of Florida State and there isn't much good happening in the Atlantic Coast Conference portion of the Atlantic coast. However, neither Clemson nor Georgia Tech had their BCS chances affected by this game. Neither was getting an at-large bid if they lost the game, so everyones' eggs were already in next week's basket.

Ugh, I sound like an NFL commentator talking about the raft of meaningless games at the end of the regular season. How pathetic. These are the biggest games of the year in college football and I'm writing like it's a Colts-Titans game in week 17.

Stanford over Notre Dame

I should be talking about Stanford here. They have put together an excellent season while upgrading the talent and skill level of their football players. Toby Gerhart is a monster at running back and it is with good reason that he has been in the Heisman discussions. He's tough, he's durable, and he's got some good speed and burst for a man his size; a very rare combination. Good things are happening at Stanford and that is why Jim Harbaugh's name keeps showing up in this year's coaching carousel. I spoke of Brian Kelly earlier and he seems to be a good selection, but Harbaugh also seems to be a good selection, and he is more available right now.

Unfortunately, the very fact that we are talking about possible coaches for Notre Dame is that Notre Dame is coachless right now. Weis got the axe, just like everyone expected. I appreciate that Notre Dame let him finish the season, though. There was no reason to sabotage things prematurely. The players all seem to be behind him, but that doesn't mean diddly when those players aren't getting the wins that will support the coach much more effectively.

USC over UCLA

Thanks to the magic of zonking in and out of sleep at just the right times, I was able to watch the end of this game. You know, I rather try to like Pete Carroll. He's seems like a pretty likeable guy and the sort of dude who would be fun to hang out with. And his teams seem to have a genuine love for the game. But he was naive if he thought that UCLA wouldn't use its timeouts to try to get the ball back late in the game when they were still only down by two scores. However, throwing the long ball as punishment for a team who was not content to just lie down and accept defeat... that is really just causing pain for the joy of causing pain. I realize that Jim Harbaugh went for two on them a couple weeks ago, but having been on the receiving end of vindictiveness does not make it okay to be vindictive.