1.  One Burning Question:   Does Va. Tech’s loss kill Boise’s chances of making the BCS title game?

Yes & no.  Picture this: an undefeated SEC team, an undefeated Big 10 team, and an undefeated Boise St. all waltz in December.  Guess what, one of these teams has absolutely no shot at playing for a national title.  Hope you Boise fans didn’t book hotel reservations for Tempe during the second week of January, because you won’t need ‘em.  If you play in a less than stellar conference (and yes I’m talking to teams in the Big East, ACC, WAC & Mountain West)  you can’t expect me to be as impressed with your going undefeated as with a team from the SEC, Big 10, or even the Big 12 or Pac-10 going undefeated.

Having said all this I do think the opening couple weeks of the season call for some suspension of judgment.  Hey, I would love to jump into all the debates that are raging right now about Boise St., VT, strength of schedule, the horror of the BCS and all the rest, but the fact is we just don’t know enough yet to make any sort of judgment about how good many of these teams really are.  The best test of how good a college football team is remains whether or not they can run the table from August to December.  Do that and at the very least you’re good…maybe even great.  Sadly for Boise, strength of schedule does matter and so if they have any chance of being in the national title game they need to be the only team in college football who is undefeated at the end of the year.  And from here on out style points are going to count big time.

At the end of the day though, this is hardly a different situation than the one facing Boise at the start of the season.  Yes, the loss hurts public perception in the short term, but Boise was always going to have to run the table in impressive style and probably be the only undefeated left on the board to even have a greater than 50% chance of playing for the title.

2.  If you want my advice… Steve Spurrier, if you are ever going to beat Florida and win the SEC East at South Carolina do it now…but don’t count on it.  South Carolina is good. How good you ask?  Well that is still to be determined.  But with Lamarcus Lattimore, Steven Garcia, some athletic skill players and a reputable defense I feel comfortable right now saying that S.C. could win 5 conference games which would be impressive.  Oh, and did I mention that Florida looks less than impressive at the moment.  This, however, is where the good news ends for Spurrier and the Gamecocks because they have some huge disadvantages chief among them is their schedule.  S.C. has to play Auburn, Bama & Arkansas from the SEC West.  The bad news, is that the most winnable game (Auburn) is an away game, meaning they could easily go 0-3 against the West division.  This will put a lot of pressure on them to take care of business against some very mediocre SEC East teams (Tenn, UK, & Vandy).  Assuming they win all three of those games S.C.’s chances of winning the SEC East will likely come down to their head-to-head against Florida and that game isn’t going to take place until Nov 13^th…in the Swamp, which means John Brantley should have had time to figure out how to run an offense for four quarters.  At least South Carolina fans can take comfort in being the best S.C. team in college football for a year…

3. Battleship hit and sunk…The ACC has now lost all credibility to me.  Your three big name teams just got humiliated, and Georgia Tech got beat by a Kansas team who lost last week to North Dakota State.   Florida St. was supposed to be returning to prominence.  Instead they served as Oklahoma’s punching bag as the Sooners worked out their frustrations from last week’s embarrassing win over Utah St. on the poor Seminoles who had to slink back to Tallahassee.  The good news for the ‘Noles is that they weren’t the only Florida team slinking back to the Sunshine State on Sunday.   The Miami Hurricanes attempted to make landfall in Ohio but by the time they got there could hardly be called a tropical depression.  OSU flexed it muscles and solidified their spot as the best team in the Big 10 and the second best team in the country by dismantling a Miami of FL. team that was searching for validation and respect.  But of course the biggest loss for the ACC has come courtesy of Virginia Tech, who last week managed to lose to Boise St. (WAC champion > ACC champion…no the equation you want as a BCS conference) but then managed to lose to an FCS school, James Madison.  This is one of the worst openings to a Top 10 season I’ve seen in a while.  It may rank up there with that year everyone thought Georgia was going to win the national championship, and it certainly surpasses OU’s massively disappointing opening from last year.

4. One of these is not like the other…One of those top 10 teams is a faker and for now I’m going with the obvious choice of Florida.  Sure they’re probably still the best team in Florida (and yes that used to mean something) but it doesn’t mean much right now.  Florida isn’t so much a bad team as they are a team that seems to have no identity and struggles to really do anything consistent other than be mediocre on offense for most of a game.  Thankfully Florida still has some time to figure things out and put together a good season but that needs to happen soon or Florida will jump into contention for the most disappointing team of the year along with Virginia Tech.  An ignominious race if ever there was one…

5.  Five things to look forward to…Because the start of the work week demands some ray of hope to fuel long hours of darkness here are five things you can look forward to next Saturday.

Texas at Texas Tech/Florida at Tennessee. These are basically the same game.  Both Texas and Florida have had lackluster performances against overmatched foes the first couple weeks.  Now they both go on the road to visit divisional foes who would love to exploit some apparent weaknesses in both teams.  It will be the first true road test for both Gilbert and Brantley and it will be interesting to see how both perform.  Gilbert has looked solid, although not spectacular so far.  The Longhorns will almost undoubtedly need more out of him in this game.  For Florida, Brantley will need to be patient and trust his defense.  As little firepower as Florida has shown in the first two games, Tennessee has less…a lot less.  Some opportunistic offense should work wonders and a win for Florida.

Big 10 vs. Pac 10 matchups – Iowa visits Arizona as the second best team in both conferences face off against each other.  Also on the docket, Arizona St. visits Madison and U.S.C. (the other one) goes to Minnesota.  I’m interested to see if Minnesota can pull a Kansas and lose to a Dakota school one week and then knock off a top-20 team the next.

Denard Robinson attempting to singlehandedly gain 1,000 yards against UMass – Seriously…this is getting ridiculous.  I expected a letdown against Notre Dame and all he did was gain over 500 yards…by himself.  That’s just dumb.  Add to that the fact that Michigan is basically playing the role of embarrassed bully right now and poor UMass is going to be in for a long day.

Notre Dame at Michigan State – Say what you want to about Notre Dame football it generates excitement.  Actually, this makes me think that Notre Dame is basically the institutional incarnation of the BCS, an entity that is simultaneously overrated and underrated, absurdly lucrative, and sometimes outrageously fun to watch.   You can be sure that Sparty is going to try his hardest to give Brian Kelly and the Irish a losing record, let’s face it, straight up who are you going to pick against?  A Brian Kelly team that just lost a close game they feel they should have won or a Mark Dantonio team?

Being one week closer to Texas/OU weekend…

1.  The Ravens run game vs. the Colts defense.  The Ravens will have to run the ball well to give them a chance to win.  If the Ravens running backs start reeling off 5-10 yard gains, then the Colts defense may have to pull the safeties up and give Joe Flacco a chance at some easier passes down field.

2.  The Colts receivers vs. the Ravens secondary.  The Colts receivers must get consistently get open.  Baltimore’s line will probably get to Manning a few times in this game so he’ll need his receivers to get open and do so quickly from time to time.

3.  Joe Flacco vs. Peyton Manning.  These teams require very different things from their quarterbacks.  Indianapolis rests on the shoulders of Peyton Manning, and as far as I’m concerned there is no better quarterback in the NFL.  Manning has the unenviable task of not only avoiding mistakes but also making the plays to keep his team moving.  Flacco on the other hand is in a bit of an easier spot.  The Ravens defense should be able to keep them in the game but he must avoid mistakes.

4.  Game plan.  I’m curious to see how Baltimore comes out.  My expectation is that they will try to win with aggressive defense and a punishing running attack.  If the Colts can slow down the running attack and force Flacco into some 3rd and longs it could spell trouble for the Ravens.  Baltimore cannot afford to play from behind in this game.  On the other hand, Indianapolis on the other hand could conceivably mount a comeback were the game to take a bad bounce in the early going.  My assumption is that Indianapolis will play with a sort of measured risk early in the game attempting to open up the field.

5.  Field Position.  Baltimore must generate a few first downs on every drive just to force the Colts to drive the field.  If the Colts can get short fields and easy points the Ravens will get run out of town.  The team that controls field position could slowly pull away in this game.

6.  Red Zone production.  The Ravens must put the ball in the end zone.  Whichever team can convert red zone trips into TD’s should win this game.  This is where Manning should prove to be the difference.

Pick: Colts 23, Ravens 20.

1.  The Saints should be healthy and rested.  Yeah, yeah, I know the Saints have lost three in a row entering the postseason.  And yes, I have heard the whole, “You can’t just flip a switch” argument.  In fact, I said the same thing about the Cardinals after they were thrashed by Green Bay in week 17.  Brees and co. have had all week to look at Green Bays game plan and find the holes in the Cardinals defense.

2.  The TE factor.  I can’t stand Jeremy Shockey.  I was disgusted by him when he played at Miami (Fl.) and was furious when he ended up in NY.  Add to that his ridiculous long hair (he Hawk & Carpenter should all start some convention) and I vomit in my mouth a little every time he catches a pass.  But I have to admit he’s a heck of a TE and in a passing attack a TE like Shockey can wreak havoc on a defense.  If Shockey plays well in this game it could be a long day for the Arizona defense.

3.  The Dome effect.  New Orleans is going to be rocking.  Granted Kurt Warner is no stranger to domes or big play off games and it isn’t like this Cardinals team doesn’t know how to win games.  However, I still expect a false start or two from the offensive line and those little mistakes can kill drives or force FG’s from red zone trips.

4.  The response of Arizona’s defense.  I want to be bold and say that Arizona’s defense will respond with a gritty and tough performance this weekend.  And I think they’ll play better than some expect.  But I don’t see it being enough to stop Brees and co.

5.  QB’s, QB’s, QB’s…the quarterback matchup in this game is extraordinary.  The new(ish) kid in Drew Brees still trying to prove himself versus the experienced veteran who after resurrecting his career is leaing his last campaign. And that leads me to my next thought…

6.  Safeties, safeties, safeties.  This game will come down to which teams secondary (and really the safeties) come up big.  Warner and Brees are both too good to beat themselves.  However, if the safeties can keep things in front and force long drives, rather than big plays they’ll at least slow these offenses down.  However, if the safeties start biting on play action or can’t provide help over the top to the corners this game could get out of hand for one team.

7.  Running the ball in the red zone.  This is probably why I don’t like either of these teams to win it all this year.  While the quarterbacks are great, the running game is lacking.  It’s not for a lack of talent in the backfield, it just seems that neither team is really able to blow teams off the line and establish the run.  Whoever runs the ball in the red zone could come away with the victory.

8.  Fatigue.  If the Saints are rested and supposedly healthy, the Cardinals may be limping a bit.  They’re playing only six days after that long and emotional battle against the Packers, so it will be interesting to see how they come out.  Arizona may want to lean more heavily on its run game but to do so they cannot afford to get behind early.

9.  Anquan Boldin.  He didn’t even play last weekend and the Cardinals still managed to put up 51 points.  While this may seem like a problem, I don’t expect it to have a big effect.  Fitzgerald, Doucet and Breaston all played great last week and Kurt Warner played maybe the best postseason game of his life.  The difficulty is I don’t see them doing that again this week.

10.  Drew Brees.  The guy is ridiculous.  His work ethic is well chronicled and now after some stupid comments by the Cardinals he’s ticked off and playing with a chip on his shoulder.  Add to that his ability to distribute the ball and New Orleans should be able to score just enough points to stay in front of Kurt Warner and his fleet of receivers.

Pick: New Orleans 34, Arizona 30.

Edit:  Boldin has been ruled out for today’s game, which shouldn’t be that big a factor considering last week’s performance.  Still doing it two weeks in a row without one of your big receivers will be difficult.  I’m feeling more confident in my pick.

Rated: R (Violence & Language) – The violence in the film is intense and personal.

Worldview & Values:  The redeeming qualities of the film however, are that loyalty and friendship are valued.  The movie also raises the question, where is the line between justice and vengeance?

Grade: B

Rose Bowl – USC vs. Penn State

Big Ten fans should be excited to get another shot at the Pac-10.  USC’s offense looks less than spectacular, particularly the offensive line.  If you watched that UCLA game you know what I’m talking about.  Penn State’s defense is fierce and should be licking their chops at getting to Sanchez.  However, that defense for USC is a force to be reckoned with. I’ll be extremely interested to see how Penn State’s offense will respond to really getting hit in the mouth.  I anticipate a game similar to the Ohio State. Penn State game earlier this year.  Two top notch defenses going at it.  Gotta love the coaching sub-plot in this game too.  Doesn’t get more old school than Joe Pa and Pete Carrol is as California cool as they come.

Orange Bowl: Cincinatti vs. Virginia Tech

Quit rubbing your eyes.  You read it right the first time. That’s right Cincinnati is going to a BCS game.  And what’s more Brian Kelly is a good enough coach that I think he could coach them to a win too.  This is a big game for a program that is on the rise.  Kelly is a great coach who has been successful wherever he has been.  Beamer on the other hand is the third winningest active coach in college football.  Virginia Tech has survived a number of close games this year and has proved they can win nail biters.

Sugar Bowl: Utah vs. Alabama

Tough draw for Utah.  Alabama is a great team.  I love their defense.  Probably the toughtest thing I’ve seen this year.  They should have no problem slowing down Utah’s offensive attack.  I also love the way Alabam can wear down a team with their physical running game.  Utah has proved they have some toughness too.  In their best win of the year, a 13-10 nailbiter over TCU.  You have to think that ‘Bama’s defense is every bit as stiff as that TCU bunch, and that ‘Bama offense should post a few more than 10 points.

Fiesta Bowl: Texas vs. Ohio State

These two schools have met a couple times over the last few years.  A possible preview of next years national championship game.  Perhaps the biggest question will be whether Texas can get excited about playing in a game that is somewhere other than Miami.  On the other side of the field is an Ohio State team that will be looking to prove they can win a big game.  Texas is balanced on both sides of the ball.  If Texas has a hangover you have to like Ohio State’s chances of pulling the upset (something the BCS pollsters will absolutley be pulling for).

BCS National Championship Game: Florida vs. Oklahoma

I’m not writing about this joke of a game.  Oklahoma doesn’t deserve to be here.

1) The Big 12 needs to change their tiebreaker to that of the SEC.  If three teams are tied and and all other tiebreakers are equal, BCS rankings should decide the top two and then it should go head-to-head from there.  This allows greater wait to be placed on games played either earlier in the season or head-to-head..or both in this case.

2) The BCS needs to boycott computers which give more weight to to November victories.  I understand reworking rankings later in the season based on a teams total body of work over the course of the year.  That only makes sense.  Alabama’s win over Clemson (and over Georgia for that matter) does not look as impressive now as either win did when it occured.  However, Billingsley’s computer rankings purportely simply rate a late season victory higher than an early season victory.  Under this rationale Oklahoma’s victory over Missouri will not simply be comparable, it will actually be worth more than Texas similar victory early in the year.  I wonder if there isn’t an argument to be said that beating a team for the first time is actually the hardest thing to do.  It takes away some of the teams mistique and also reveals to teams that play it later in the season how to beat it.  For instance, beating Oklahoma’s defense should be easier now than it was earlier in the season since Texas and Oklahoma have dropped more than 40 on them.

3)  Pollsters should be forced to make every ballot public.  Hidden agendas by coaches or by those who simply want to validate their pre-season rankings is ridiclous.

4) How impressive a team looks late in the yea (or any other time of year) is not the final criteria for deciding ranking.  Wins and losses are.

Either way, here’s to hoping that Florida absolutely destroys Oklahoma!  Oh, and Tim and Urban if you need any advice you know who to call.

Big East:  South Florida – This is a team that in pre-season was supposed to compete for the Big East title.  Remember this is a team that is just a year removed from a #2 national ranking and just earlier this year played in a big time early season matchup against Kansas.  Think South Florida fans aren’t happy to hear Brian Kelly’s name come up in talks at Clemson.

ACC:  Clemson - A few weeks ago we wondered if Clemson could actually go from pre-season top 10 to not even playing in a bowl.  Turns out they can’t quite pull it off.  Shame, because that would have been by far the biggest accomplishment for this team.  In hindsight some of Clemson’s struggles have been because of an ACC that had more competitve teams (or at least Jekyll/Hyde teams) than thought at the beginning of the season.  But even with that, this Clemson team had too much talent (like many in past years) and is a solid pick for our ACC big time disappointment.

Big Ten:  Wisconsin – The Big Ten honestly deserves two spots on this list.  But I think it was pretty clear that Michigan was going to have a hard time doing much this year.  However, Wisconsin’s fall is pretty inexplicable.  How does a team that was once ranked #9 blow a 19 point half-time lead to Michigan (3-9 Michigan), and then go on to self-destruct so that it’s most meaningful moment down the stretch is battling Minnesota for Paul Bunyan’s axe.  No disrespect to the axe but that’s just sad.

Pac-10: Arizona State - The Pac-10 is bad.  Really bad.  The bottom two teams in this conference are the worst two teams in the nation.  Underperforming in this conference takes some doing.  But thankfully for this article Rudy Carpenter and gang were not afraid to lose big to a mediocre SEC team in Georgia during a six game losing streak in mid-season.  Thanks to a cupcake schedule over the last three games the Sun Devils are bowl eligible but going 6-6 in the Pac-10 is good enough to put you on this ignomious list.

SEC: Georgia – Another conference that needs two spots.  Georgia opened as a pre-season #1 and somehow managed to hang around the top 10 despite a couple of embarrasing losses to Florida & Alabama.  Then to cap off a disappointing campaign Georgia managed to lose to in-state rival Georgia Tech in brutal fashion giving up over 400 yards of rushing to an ACC team.  If there was even the slightest amount of doubt in anyone’s mind about which conference was the best then it should be gone now.

Big 12: Kansas – A team that last year went to and won a BCS game found itself flirting with .500 until a win over Missouri boosted them to 7-5.  Still the defense was surprisingly bad and Kansas’ demise makes all that talk about the Big 12 North being back a little bit premature.  Things don’t look particularly promising either next year with Todd Reesing’s departure.

Independents:  Notre Dame – The Fighting Irish would have stayed off this list (despite a poor season) until last Saturday’s inexplicable loss to Syracuse.  Few things fill my heart with more cheer than seeing Notre Dame struggle in such a mighty way.

Historically Bad Seasons that We Simply Must Include:  Michigan & LSU - 9 losses for Michigan, the winingest program in all of college football is dumbfounding.  We all expected Michigan to take a step back this year.  Perhaps battling to 7-5 or even 6-6.  But no one saw Michigan’s bowl streak getting broken, or at least no one was saying it openly.  No one saw Michigan passing out footballs like candy on Halloween.  No one saw Michigan losing to both Utah, Toledo & Northwestern at home. For Michigan fans the apocalypse is now.  For Rich Rodriguez, the honeymoon is over.

We all knew that LSU winning another title was a long shot but then when Georgia looked weak we started wondering.  Turns out we shouldn’t have.  The dismissal of Ryan Perilloux set LSU back a long way but it’s been a long time since a defending national champion has struggle in the way LSU has this year.  Consider that in a down year for the SEC LSU went 3-5, losing in blowouts to Florida, Georgia & Ole Miss and then dropping close games to ‘Bama and Arkansas.  But it’s not just the losses it’s the wins that are far from impressive.  In their three SEC wins the largest margin of victory was 10 points in a win at home over Miss. St.  Even worse was the desparation comeback over Try at home late in the season.  For LSU fans next year can’t come soon enough.

Don’t get me wrong, Tebow is a phenomenal player, certainly one of the great players in college football.  But calling Tim Tebow the greatest player of our era is just moronic.  Maybe Urban forgot that people played college football before he lef the safe confines of the Mountain West and came to the real world of the SEC.

Supporters will doubtless point to Tebow’s having “won” a national championship his freshman year and then the Heisman his sophmore and now is right back in the thick of both races this year.  And yes, not many quarterbacks can say that.  However, last time I checked some guy named Chris Leak actually played a pretty decent amount of quarterback the year the Gators won the title and giving all the credit to Tebow is frankly not fair at all.  Second, if you’re looking for winning resumes there was this guy up at USC a couple years ago who was a pretty good college quarterback…what was his name…oh, yeah Leinart.  Matt Leinart.  He won a Heisman and two national championships in three years of starting at quarterback.  And if it hadn’t been for his own teammate (Reggie Bush) beating him out in the Heisman he might have had a second one of those.  But probably not because some guy named Vince Young probably would have won the Heisman.  Speaking of which VY also kept Leinart  from having a third national championship. All this to say that while Tebow is certainly in rarified air we probably shouldn’t put him on Mount Olympus.

Also, the past two years can be viewed in a negative light as well.  Tebow really wasn’t the centerpiece of that 06 Gator team.  In fact as starting quarterback Tebow has yet to win an SEC title or national championship.  Tebow also has yet to have a legacy defining win.  There has been no fourth quarter comeback, no hotly contested game where Tebow willed his team to victory.  I don’t doubt for a second that Tebow can do it (probably will do it this year against Alabama and possibly against a Big 12 foe in the NC).  But he hasn’t yet.

At the end of the day you can’t help but wonder about a coach who over off season makes such a claim about one of his players.  Could give us some insight as to how a team as talented as Florida could do something as inexplicable as lose at home to Ole Miss.  Urban, you should probably spend a little more time in the shade next Summer, buddy.