The Cynic's Guide to College Football: Week 6

We're right about at the halfway point of the season. Some things we know (Oregon is good. The Pistol is football's newest craze. Les Miles has replaced Nick Saban as Satan's pet project). Some things we don't (How will Taylor Martinez fare against stronger competition? Is Ohio State really the #1 team in the nation? How bad will things get for Penn State? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?). But things are definitely getting interesting. With Alabama proving to be mortal after all, the national championship race is as wide open as I can remember. You could make a pretty good case for any one of 8 or 9 different schools winning it all. We've got a bunch of really good teams, but none that are without their faults. So buckle up everyone. The next few weeks could be a wild ride. Now on to this week's observations.

You Suck. Yeah, You.
I don't care how much you can bench, how many Monster energy drinks you can chug or how many Affliction shirts you own. Unless you've lost a body part during a game-and stayed in the game-you are a great big steaming pile of pansiness compared to Virginia Tech OL Greg Nosal.

Game tape of Nolan in action.

Now That's Motivation
By now, everybody knows that New Mexico State football is really bad. But, on the plus side, the Aggie players still had the luxury of being football players, with all the girls, parties and other perks that went along with that stature. Until now. As Sports by Brooks alerted us last week, an unnamed person or persons distributed thousands of NSFW flyers around the NMSU campus, urging the local co-eds not to engage in, um, extracurricular activities with any of the football players until they won a game. (As the flyer so eloquently put it, "Once you score a win, then you can get it in.")

Crude though it might have been, the extra motivation apparently worked, as the Aggies snapped their 11-game losing streak with a 16-14 win over in-state rival (if you can call an 0-6 team who's even worse than you that) New Mexico.

I'm guessing Coach Walker's postgame press conference wasn't the highlight of the celebration.

New Math
Les Miles is 49% football genius and 51% bats*%t insane. Or vice versa. Depending on the week.

"Les, did you remember to take your meds today?"

When the Lawyers Win, We All Lose
Earlier in the week, the U. of Texas Athletic Department cracked down on an internet company that was selling Nebraska-themed shirts with the famed Longhorn logo upside down in preparation for this week's grudge match between the Huskers and the 'Horns. (FYI: Texas made over $10 million in royalties off of the Longhorn logo last year. I've always wondered how much of that came from Oklahoma fans who bought the Texas logo just to put it upside down. Never made sense to me. You do know you're aiding your enemy, right? OK, moving on.) But it raised a bigger question: shouldn't the makers of Angry Birds be paying royalties to Ball State?

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The Cynic’s Guide to College Football: Week 5

Today marks the anniversary of one of the most infamous days in college football history (more below). So, I thought it might be a good time to do a now-and-then theme for this week’s Cynic’s Guide.

A Long Time Coming
Today is the 20th anniversary of arguably the all-time worst officiating job in the history of college football. In the waning seconds of their game at Missouri, Colorado was not only given an extra down, but replays clearly showed that the Colorado QB carrying the ball on 5th down never got the ball across the goal line but was awarded a touchdown anyway. CU went on to win a share of the national championship, becoming not the first, nor the last, but certainly one of the most obvious beneficiaries of bad officiating. But football karma always catches up with you. And how far has CU fallen in the last 20 years? Instead of competing for national championships, this last weekend their fans rushed the field . . . after beating Georgia . . . who is 1-4.

“Gotta get pumped to help tear down the goal posts when we play Baylor in a couple weeks.”

Les Miles: The New Homer.
In 1991, there was an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer saved the Springfield nuclear plant from a meltdown when he just happened to push the right button by playing Eenie Meenie Miny Moe. Later, the term “pull a Homer” was added to the dictionary with the definition “to succeed despite idiocy.” As such, I propose that LSU replace its mascot Mike the Tiger with Homer Simpson. I mean, what better representation of the term “pulling a Homer” is there than Les Miles? The man makes more boneheaded decisions and clock management blunders (see Exhibit A: the last minute of last week’s LSU/Tennessee game) by Week 5 every year than most coaches do in a career. And yet he still manages to pull out wins. It’s uncanny.

Previous mascot experience? Check.

Keep Your Friends Close . . .
Earlier this week, North Carolina head coach Butch Davis said, “I’m sorry that I trusted John Blake.” Funny. That’s the same thing Oklahoma fans were saying in 1998.

“Remember that time when I was just a 12-22 coach, instead of a crook?”

Too Early to Pull the Plug?
In 1983, Turner Gill was the triggerman for one of the most prolific offenses in college history. Gill, Heisman winner Mike Rozier and #1 overall draft pick Irving Fryar were the cornerstones of the "scoring explosion" that dominated football that year, but came up one play short in the national championship game. My, how things have changed. I’m usually a firm believer in giving new coaches at least 3-4 years to get their own players and systems in place before making any drastic moves. But I’ve gotta say that rule may be getting more flexible all the time in Lawrence, KS. Turner Gill’s tenure as the Jayhawks' head coach started off rough with a home loss to FCS North Dakota State. And, aside from an upset of Georgia Tech, has kept going downhill, most recently getting blown out, 55-7, by Baylor. (Yes, Baylor.) Gill has made more news for his “no cell phones the night before games and no girls after 10 pm” rules than anything the Jayhawks have done on the field.

Don’t worry, Jayhawks. Basketball season is almost here.

A Simpler Time
Amazing fact of the day, courtesy of ESPN’s Ivan Maisel: Before this week, the last time Texas was unranked was October 15, 2000. Today, more coaches of ranked teams in that poll (Mike Bellotti at Oregon, Dennis Franchione at TCU, Lou Holtz at South Carolina and Bob Davie at Notre Dame) work for ESPN than are still at the same schools (Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech, Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Bill Snyder—who left but has now returned—at Kansas State).

The last time UT was unranked, Meet the Parents was the #1 movie in America, the economy was good and most people had ever heard of BALCO, hanging chads, Al Queda or Justin Bieber. Ah, the good ol’ days.

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The Cynic's Guide to College Football: Week 12

Thanksgiving is always my favorite holiday. What's not to love? Every kitchen becomes my own personal buffet. I don't have to worry about what racial, ethnic, religious, etc. group might get pissed off about celebrating the holiday. A few hours of peace and quiet while the women all leave the house before I'm awake on Friday morning. And football. Lots and lots of football.

Football solves so many of the world's problems. It's the best thing ever for dealing with family. Crazy relative wants to tell you about all her medical maladies? "Sorry Aunt Martha, the game's on." Your father nagging you to move out of the basement and get a real job (insert gratuitous blogger joke here)? "Hey dad, can we talk about this when the game's over?" Mom wants to tell how glad she is you could make it home for the first holiday since Grandpa passed away? "You stupid %$%#!!! Why would you call a quarterback draw on 3rd and 12 with less than two minutes left, you dumb ^&*@#$%!!!!"

Yep, it's the perfect holiday. With that, a few football notes.

Time, Time, Time is on Our Side

Somewhere in Baton Rouge Sunday morning, an LSU graduate student was passed out with several empty bottles of vodka sitting on top of the tattered and tear-stained remains of what was supposed to have been his MBA thesis entitled “The Business Applications of Coach Les Miles’ Time Management Principles.”

Way to man up there, coach. Maybe now you can help wash the bus tire tracks off your quarterback.

Separated at Birth

Texas Tech QB Taylor Potts and Obi-Wan Kenobi

Use the Force, Nick.

How to Ruin the Holidays

Pity the poor football fans in San Antonio. The local ABC affiliate, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to air two hours of infomericals and a rerun of Oprah instead of Friday afternoon’s Nebraska/Colorado game. Look, I know there’s not much on the line in this game (Nebraska has already clinched the Big 12 North; Colorado is 3-8). But don’t you think there are more than a few folks in south Texas who are interested in the game? Like, say, Texas fans interested in seeing Nebraska play once before they meet the Longhorns in next week’s Big 12 championship game? And besides, IT’S COLLEGE FREAKIN’ FOOTBALL FOR CHRISSAKES!!! KSAT is reportedly the only ABC affiliate in the country that will not be airing the game. The decision is made even stranger by the fact that the station is preempting its local programming to show the early game, Illinois vs. Cincinnati.

So while you’re enjoying day 2 of your turkey and football coma on Friday while your wife or girlfriend is out shopping, be thankful for how much better you have it than those poor schmucks in San Antonio. [Ed. Note: shortly after this post was written, KSAT decided to reverse course and will show the NU/CU game on Friday. Thanksgiving is saved!]

One is a giant 300 pound freakishly unstoppable force of nature. The other is Ndamukong Suh.

A Season to Forget

Connecticut is currently sitting at 5-5, with all five losses by four points or less. So it's been a tough enough season on the field. But add in the tragic murder of UConn CB Jasper Howard and this year has been the stuff of nightmares. So it was good to see them get arguably one of the program's biggest wins ever on the road over Notre Dame. While most media outlets have been focusing on the game as the final nail in Charlie Weis’ time at Notre Dame, it was good to see UConn pull out a huge overtime win after a very challenging season.

Congrats on the win, Coach Edsall. Here's hoping you never have to go through a season like this again.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

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The Cynic's Guide to College Football: Week 7

As we've reached the halfway point of college football's regular season, we’re starting to get a real handle on who are contenders (Bama) and who are pretenders (LSU, Ole Miss). So here are some random observations on the first half of the season.

Dadgum

Remember the days when people actually respected Florida State’s defense? When guys like Deion Sanders, Peter Boulware and Derrick Brooks struck fear in the hearts of opposing quarterbacks? This season, however, the Seminoles have given up 28 or more points in four of six games marked (and they lost one of the other two). The heat is only getting hotter on Bobby Bowden, and this very non-Florida State-like defense is a big reason.

At this rate, Allstate may be able to hire the real Bowden for next season.

Does Anybody Want to Win the Big 12 North?

In the early days of the Big 12, the North ruled the roost. Nebraska, Kansas State and Colorado were perennial top-ten teams, while Mack Brown was beginning to wake the sleeping giant in Texas and Oklahoma suffered through John Blake. In recent years, however, the tide has turned, with OU and UT being national title contenders every year and the north struggling through scandals at CU, the retirement of Bill Snyder at KSU and the Steve Pederson/Bill Callahan debacle at Nebraska. Early on this season, however, I thought that maybe this was the season the Bis 12 North could finally give their Southern counterparts a run for their money. Then week 7 happened. Nebraska, just a week removed from a big win at Missouri to put them in the driver's seat in the division, pissed down their leg in a 31-10 home loss to Texas Tech.

Then, later that night, previously undefeated Kansas choked at Colorado (yes, that Colorado). Missouri looked gimpier than Blaine Gabbert's ankle in a 33-17 loss at Oklahoma State. When your "big" wins are over Texas A&M and Baylor, it doesn't speak well for your division.

Nebraska DT Ndamukong Suh is one of the North's bright spots. But even he's not good enough to make up for Nebraska's bizarrely inconsistent offense.

Where Have You Gone, JaMarcus Russell? Uh, Wait, Scratch That.

How LSU got to be a top-5 team is beyond me. Their 13-3 loss against Florida illustrated just how bad the Tigers’ offense is. Not taking anything away from Florida’s defense, but that score said a whole lot less about Florida’s D than it did about LSU’s terrible offense. LSU currently ranks 91st in scoring offense and 112th in total offense. Sure, their defense (14th in scoring defense; 35th in total defense) is good enough to win them some games. But a top 5 team should at least have a semblance of balance, something Les Miles’ squad is sorely lacking.

Speaking of unbalanced . . .

Fear the Potato

OK, raise your hand if you had Idaho in the "Who Will be Bowl Eligible Before Oklahoma, Ohio State and USC" pool. Anyone?

Bueller? Bueller?

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Rusty Vs. Rev: Florida Vs. LSU

Each week, HHR's Southern Gents, Rusty and Rev. Shaw Moore, will steal a page from NASCAR.com and go Head2Head and argue the winners of one of the week's upcoming marquee games.

Rev Takes LSU


For LSU, the start of SEC play has been heart-stopping to say the least. Against lowly Mississippi State, the Tigers needed a spectacular punt return for a TD and a last-minute, goal line stand to hold off the Bulldogs. Then, last week against the Bulldogs from Georgia, LSU got the biggest, most undeserved early Christmas present in the 2009 season when the refs handed out a completely bogus excessive celebration penalty on UGA wideout A.J. Green in the closing minutes of that game. I don’t know what exactly was excessive about the celebration, but the penalty did move LSU into great field position for a winning TD run by Charles Scott.

It certainly hasn’t been pretty – but in all reality, SEC football rarely is. The important thing for LSU is that they are still undefeated and keeping pace with Auburn and Alabama in the West. And while their first two SEC games haven’t been picture perfect, they’ve got a great shot to polish their image with Florida rolling into town this week.

What’s astonishing about LSU and Florida that the winner of this game has gone on to win the last three BCS championships. Now consider that Florida has been an odds-on favorite to make it to the championship since the start of the season, those hopes would have been in major jeopardy had this game been played last week. Human battering ram Tim Tebow was battered himself, sidelined with a concussion he received against Kentucky. As for the rest of the team, they were all fighting the effects of a flu virus that apparently spread through that locker room like the plague in Middle Ages Europe. Fortunately for Florida, last week was their bye week, so they got a week to recover and prepare for the biggest game on their 2009 schedule.

Still, with that week off, there are lingering doubts as to Tebow’s condition and availability. He’s apparently still a game-time decision, and it’s anybody’s guess how well he could play coming off the concussion. Keep in mind, Tebow is usually the one handing out the punishment. Now with soup for brains, it will be interesting to see if Tebow is able to keep that same aggressiveness that has been his trademark these past 3 ½ years.

Tebow’s injury status aside, LSU will still be up against their biggest challenge to date. The Tigers have been positively horrible on offense – as a unit, they rank 99th out of 120 teams. It doesn’t make matters any easier considering Florida has the number one ranked defense in the country. I don’t expect LSU to score much at all on offense against UF, so special teams will be absolutely critical for the Tigers. Mighty-mite Trindon Holliday will have to have a big game returning kickoffs and punts to maintain manageable field position for LSU. Plus, he’s got the combination of speed and elusiveness that makes him a threat to take one to the house at any time.

While LSU may be slightly less talented overall than Florida, they do have one major factor working in their favor: the Tigers are damn-near unbeatable at home. The crowd at Death Valley on Saturday nights can be a crazy deranged mob, and I mean that in the nicest way possible. Mix in a chance of rain and way to much whiskey in the stands, and you know it will be the most inhospitable environment Florida will face all year. I’m calling this one for LSU: 17-14.

Rusty Takes the Gators


While the college football world tries to read the tea leaves and determine if His Excellency Tim Tebow will start tomorrow against the LSU Tigers, Rusty isn’t going to worry about it. With or without Tebow, the Gators are still the best team in college football. Tebow's good (see an earlier post before the game against Tennessee), but he's not everything. The Florida offense has not shown any real weakness this year, scoring less than 40 points only once; a 23-13 win against Tennessee. In the other 3 games, Florida has tallied an amazing 159 points.

By facing cupcakes the likes of Troy and Charleston Southern, Urban Meyer's had a prolonged preseason to get his team warmed up and ready for the serious play in the SEC. As the Rev said, the winner of this game has gone on to win the BCS the last several years. Make no mistake about it, the coaches, players and everyone involved know that. So, while LSU's had to battle to get here, Florida's bowled over a few opponents and is hitting 4th gear coming into this weekend's game.

The Florida offense ranks #3 in the country, amassing an average of 526 yards a game. When the Gators make it into the red zone, they score over 90 percent of the time, and over two thirds of the time it's for 7. These boys from the Swamp know how to score. Now, granted, Tebow has accounted for a considerable portion of that offense, but it's not the passing attack that's propelling the Gators to the top. Florida is only ranked #58 in passing efficiency, but the Gators possess the #1 rushing attack with two great backs carrying the load with Tebow. Sophomore Jeff Demps and Junior Chris Rainey have combined to average well over 100 yards a game. Against a rushing defense that's giving up over a hundred yards every week, I would imagine this dynamic duo to keep racking up respectable numbers against the Tigers.

On the other side of the ball, Florida's been even more dominant. The Gators are bringing the #1 Defense in the country into Tiger Stadium tomorrow night. This is a defense that is giving up less than 215 yards of offense a week. Opposing teams have only seen double digits once against Florida, and that was Tennessee who only scored 13. Finding the end zone is going to be tough for LSU, no matter how many screaming Cajuns are bussed into Baton Rouge.

So, with an offense that's just hitting it's stride, a defense that able to crush opponents, I expect with or without Tebow, the Gators will win this weekend on their way to a 3rd national title. Florida wins 24-17.

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The Cynic's Guide to College Football, Week 14

Random thoughts from a holiday and football weekend:

• Football games just feel better when you’re wearing long underwear.
• Is there some way to amend the Geneva Convention to allow us to bring human rights violations charges against the NFL and TV network gurus who were cruel enough to subject us to Tennessee at Detroit on Thanksgiving Day?
• At what point did our society become so degraded that we are willing to trample someone to death (literally) to get to Wal-Mart?!?!
• Someone will have to let me know if anything interesting happens in the world of sports radio. This is the time of year when I turn it off as three out of every four callers, who apparently really like to hear themselves talk, just gripe about the BCS and/or lack of a playoff system. It’s about as productive as me calling in to complain about the law of gravity being biased against us fat guys.

Anyway, on with the countdown.

1. Somewhere, Bob Stoops Has Some Incriminating Photos of Bill Gates

Oklahoma fans have now and forever lost the right to bitch about the BCS. Or their computer tech support. This is the third time in six years that the system, for right or wrong, has given the Sooners a controversial shot at the national championship game. Following the 2003 season, OU was given a title game berth despite being blown out by Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship game (the human voters dropped OU to #3, but they stayed #1 in the computers). The next year, OU was given the nod over an undefeated Auburn to play USC in the title game. And now this year, thanks to some, um, creativity by the Big 12 brain trust, the BCS rankings put OU one win away from another title game, getting the nod over Texas, which beat Oklahoma on a neutral field in October.

I’m not saying that any of these breaks wasn’t necessarily warranted. OU is certainly playing some of the best ball in country right now. But after three times of being the beneficiary of BCS computers, OU fans will have to find something new to gripe about from now until eternity or college football has a playoff (my money’s on eternity).

Texas fans, address your complaints to this guy.

2. Genuine Faux Rivalry Games

Most college football rivalries I get. Sure, the in-state rivalries are a natural. But beyond that, inter-state rivalries that result as being the two biggest kids on a respective block (e.g. Ohio State/Michigan, Florida/Georgia, Oklahoma/Texas, etc.) generally have one thing in common—for the most part they are relatively a battle of equals. Sure, one school may go through a bad stretch and lose a few in a row. But, over the long haul, you don’t often see a one-sided interstate rivalry. That’s why I always find the Colorado/Nebraska game so interesting.

Nebraska leads the all-time series 47-18-2. CU has never won more than two in a row against the Huskers and has just 8 wins in the series since 1962, when Bob Devaney was hired at Nebraska. (Devaney and Tom Osborne were a combined 31-4-1 against CU.) It got so bad that one of America’s great novelists, James A. Michener, went so far as to write about it (see below). Nevertheless, in the 1980’s, then-CU coach Bill McCartney declared it a “rivalry” and went so far as to decree that CU athletic department staff wouldn’t be allowed to wear red or drive red cars. (Check out the Husker blog Double Extra Point for a good history of the series.) And while the rivalry talk hasn’t necessarily translated on the field (NU is 19-7-1 since McCartney was hired in 1982), it definitely brings out something in the CU players. Colorado easily played their best and most physical game of the season last Friday, pushing the Huskers to the limit and only falling when Alex Henery’s school record 57-yard field goal cleared the crossbar.

So is CU/NU a real rivalry? Would it be considered a rivalry if the creation of the Big 12’s divisional alignment hadn’t done away with the annual Thanksgiving weekend clash between Nebraska and Oklahoma? Or is this just a case of TV executives needing to shoehorn a “rivalry” game in a Friday afternoon slot? Whatever the answer, the game was definitely worthy of rivalry status.

“Each Year Colorado enthusiasts vowed that this year they would defeat Nebraska, and each year their hopes were dashed.” --James A. Michener, Centennial

3. Les Miles. International Man of Mystery.

Look, I know he has a national championship and a couple of big wins over Bob Stoops to his credit. But can we still say that the jury is still out on Les Miles? Over the last two months, LSU has lost five of eight games. Their only three wins in that stretch have come against South Carolina, Tulane and Troy. Sure, losing guys like Glenn Dorsey and Bo Pelini hurt, but I don’t think anyone expected it to be losing-to-Ole-Miss-on-Senior-Day bad or losing-four-straight-SEC-games bad. Long term, here is what I mean by the jury still being out—Les Miles has virtually never had to play with his own recruits. He was the head coach at Oklahoma State for four years, going 28-21 courtesy of many of the recruits of former OSU coach Bob Simmons. And now he’s been at LSU four years, winning last year’s national title with mostly Nick Saban recruits. Only once in his life has he been in a job more than five years (offensive line coach at Michigan from 1987-94). So it remains to be seen whether he can actually recruit and be successful with his own recruits.

Look, I’m not saying that he can’t or won’t have long-tern success. Or that this season wouldn’t have been different if Ryan Perriloux’s brain hadn’t been the subject of an FDA recall. I’m just saying that, if Les Miles is going to be recognized as an elite coach in the annals of college football history, he’s going to have to prove that he can recruit and coach.

Wonder if Snoop has any eligibili-bizil left?

4. My, How Time Flies

Remember that time when Georgia was the #1 team in the country? When all you heard was about how many starters the Bulldogs returned from a team whose biggest claim to fame a year ago was beating up on Hawaii? Remember? Yeah, me neither. This week, Georgia was up 28-12 at halftime on archrival Georgia Tech. Then they gave up 26 unanswered points in the third quarter and 409 rushing yards en route to a 45-42 loss to the Yellow Jackets. Get this—the Bulldogs defense gave up 45 points in spite of GT completing only one pass. In their last four games, the Bulldogs were destroyed by Florida (49-10), barely managed to eke out wins over Kentucky and Auburn (42-38 and 17-13, respectively) and now lost to Georgia Tech. Calling this season a disappointment for UGA would be a massive understatement, and limping down the homestretch will leave Bulldog fans wishing they were back at the Cocktail Party.

It’s gonna take more than one to forget this season.

5. The (Black) Eye of the Tiger

And speaking of disappointment, let’s examine Missouri’s season.

National title hopes gone? Check.

Heisman hopes for your star QB gone? Check.

Losing in the snow to your archrival? Check.

Being the fifth straight team to give up 60 to Oklahoma? Check back next week.

Mongo only pawn in game of life.

6. Take a Kid to a Game

And for my one positive note, I just wanted to comment on a personal experience I had last weekend. I’ve been fortunate enough to see some really great college football games over the years. I’ve been there when my favorite team and my alma mater (different schools—it’s a long story) each won national championships. I’ve been there to see them beat their biggest rivals. I’ve seen blowouts, I’ve seen nailbiters and I’ve seen losses. I’ve met many of my football heroes and killed more brain cells at tailgate parties than I care to admit. But I learned something this weekend: there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that can top the feeling of seeing your son or daughter experience your team’s football game day traditions for the first time. Seeing my daughter high-fiving the mascot, getting her picture taken with the cheerleaders and inhaling her first stadium dog—it just doesn’t get any better than that. Oh, and the game was good, too.

Rev Picks 'Em: Week 11

LOUISVILLE (+6) at Pittsburgh: Were this game played a week earlier, I'm not so sure that the Cards would be getting six points here. But that's what happens when you lose to Syracuse - people, and more importanly, people who bet, tend to lose faith in you. On a side note, at least UofL is coached by the commissioner of the More Taste League.

OHIO STATE (-10 1/2) at Northwestern: Northwestern's had a nice season. But they're not going to come within two touchdowns of the Buckeyes. Let's move on, shall we?

#22 Georgia Tech at #19 NORTH CAROLINA (-4): UNC is coming off a bye week and is looking to knock of GT, which sits just above UNC atop the ACC Coastal division. With aspirations of playing for the ACC championship, I think this game sets up very well for the Tar Heels at home.

Kansas at NEBRASKA (-1): Flip a coin time. Guess I'm a Husker fan this week.

Cincinnati at #20 WEST VIRGINIA (-7): After demolishing UConn last week, West Virginia's starting to run away from the rest of a truly awful pack in the Big East. Which is a good thing for the Big East, because the Mountaineers might be the only team in the conference this year that would be remotely competitive in a BCS bowl game.

Notre Dame at BOSTON COLLEGE (-3 1/2): After losing in four overtimes to Pittsburgh in South Bend, you can bet the Irish would much rather be facing off against upcoming opponents Navy or Syracuse. Instead, they get BC, which like the Irish sports a 5-3 record entering this contest. BC has been a major thorn in the side to ACC opponents thus far, and you can bet this will be a very tough bounce back game for the Irish. The Irish haven't won a game on the road so far, and I don't think they will reverse the trend here.

#21 California (+22) at #7 USC: Pete Carroll is right - how do you beat a team (Washington) 56-0 and drop a spot in the polls? And for the record, why is Cal ranked? They will be smoked by the Trojans. That said, I'm a sucker for the line, so I'll gamble with the points in hand and hope USC doesn't beat the Bears by too much.

#3 PENN STATE (-7 1/2) at Iowa: A trap game if there ever was one. Common sense tells me to take the Lions because they've been so good all year ... but for some reason I feel this game has evil written all over it.
#8 Oklahoma State at #2 TEXAS TECH (-3 1/2): Color me impressed. Texas Tech achieved the impossible last week in knocking off Texas, doing so in last-minute dramatic fashion. Now, of course, they are the new front runners. This game screams "LET DOWN!", but I've got to think they'll get by the Cowboys. If I were a Texas Tech fan, it's the matchup against Oklahoma that I would be worried about.

#1 ALABAMA at #15 LSU (+3 1/2):

Welcome back to Baton Rouge, Coach Saban. Enough said.

Last Week: 5-5

Fox's Josh Booty: Drunk, Arrested, Tased

According to TMZ and the Associated Press, John David's brother, former QB and current Fox "sportscaster" Josh Booty was arrested for a DUI this morning.

From TMZ:

Law enforcement sources tell TMZ Booty was taken to the Orange County Jail, where he was booked -- and that's when he went ballistic.

O.C. Sheriff's spokesperson Jim Amormino tell TMZ, "Booty was belligerent and uncooperative." Amormino says his deputies used a taser -- "less than lethal force" -- to contain him.

After being tased, Josh fell to the ground, hitting his head on the floor and cracking it open. He was taken to a hospital where he was stitched up.

Hopefully, someone can get a hold of the tasing vid.

Wolf Watch: Online Spotting

T-Wolf keeping it real. Awful Announcing has footage of HHR's honorary official sideline reporter getting the lowdown from Les Miles. Note of advice to AA: If you keep featuring Tracy Wolfson, you'll have to change you moniker to "Awesome Announcing."

Awful Announcing: CBS Clears Up The Whole Miles Controversy By Actually Talking To Him

Wolf Watch

As always, thanks to Awful Announcing for the heads-up on NCAA broadcaster scheduling.