To quote my main man Arty “The BeeKeeper” Solomon, “sorry for the coitus interruptus” over the last week, but now that I’m back and realize that my job doesn’t offer a whole lot in the way of “productivity” even after a week off, I’m right back on track. Pretty up and down absence: I realize I’m terrible at shooting moving objects, I was overruled on watching the TCU/SDSU game and had to listen to a choppy wunderadio broadcast version while standing in a South Dakota cornfield and, to top it all off, my dad told me I can’t have my trust fund until I’m 30! How am I supposed to buy that gameday helicopter now?!?! He can be so unfair!!
Anyway, the once Top 25 Preview is now going to take another whittling down because, let’s face it, if we win out, we have no problems from the one loss teams behind us. All we are battling now are the 3 guys in front of us, but I’ll toss in Bwaze and Cincy as they’re undefeated to give this a little more substance.
#1 Florida @ South Carolina. In what I had initially hoped would be the upset special version of the OBC Bowl, Florida takes on a South Carolina team who started the season with some promise, but have pretty much pissed it away and look headed for 6-6ville. After a ho-hum win over Vanderbilt last weekend, Florida looks like they’re pretty much on cruise control until the inevitable meetup with Alabama in the SEC Championship. By contrast, South Carolina was completely pistol whipped by Arkansas last weekend and with their last game of the season coming against a Clemson team who they rarely beat, it looks like the Gamecocks are going to be wintering in Shreveport this year at best. With this perhaps being Steve Spurrier’s last shot at his former team – assuming he retires after this season – is it possible he has one last stand left in him to go out a winner? Spurrier did beat the Gators back in 2005 during his first season in Columbia, so perhaps he’d like to bookend his career with another? Unfortunately for Spurrier, I think this is going to go the way the other 17 games played between the two schools has and end in a Gator victory, but then again, Florida hasn’t finished SEC play undefeated in 13 seasons, so I suppose the odds are against them as well. The Gators offense hasn’t exactly clicked at many points this year – the Georgia game notwithstanding, if you can even consider Georgia a legitmate football team this year – but with their top ranked defense facing South Carolina’s mediocre offense, even considering USC’s more than decent defense, I’d imagine Florida will score enough points to come out ahead. Besides, like every other SEC game featuring Florida or Alabama, the refs will keep them ahead one way or another.
#2 Alabama @ Mississippi State. Every week I like to pick a trap game where as fans we can watch for a potential upset – see: Stanford/Oregon last week – but sometimes I kind of have to force it, and this is definitely one of those times. Still, consider that Bama clinched a trip to the SEC title game last weekend, their offense hasn’t exactly been humming in the past few weeks and that MSU is 2 games away from bowl eligibility with 3 to play, thus increasing the desperation factor. Also consider that MSU hung with Florida, should’ve beaten LSU and only let Houston score 31 points – yes, I’ve resulted to very, very small victories in making this call – and it’s hard to argue that this team doesn’t have at least SOMETHING up their sleeves. Alright, so their passing game is even worse than Bama’s – and believe me, it’s bad – but they can at least run the ball some… ok, who am I kidding? They still give up 25 points a game while scoring only 27 and, as evidenced by their 4-5 record, you’re going to come out on the short end of that deal more often than not. Still, wouldn’t this be fantastic? Bama should’ve lost to Tennessee and LSU had them on the ropes until the fourth quarter. They’ve also got Auburn to worry about in the next couple of weeks, and Auburn owned that series in the pre-Saban days. I’m not saying it’s going to happen, and I do not by any means believe it’s going to happen, but I have to pick an upset and this is the best one out of the top 3 teams. Unfortunately, Bama falls under the abovementioned unspoken BCS clause imposed by the SEC refs, so if this one somehow stays close, don’t’ expect the good guys to win.
#3 Texas @ Baylor. Oh what this game could’ve been. Had Baylor QB Robert Griffin not gone down with an injury, the Bears would likely already be bowl eligible and possibly fighting for a spot in the Holiday or Cotton Bowls based on the performance of the rest of the Big 12. Now? This is going to look like a typical UT/Baylor game in Waco, several of which have recently featured scores along the lines of 62-0. Now, you all know me well enough to realize that my two favorite teams are the Frogs and whoever is playing Texas, but due to recent hoopla, that second team takes on a whole new luster. Now, I know there’s no reason to count our chickens before they hatch, that the voters would have to have a collective lobotomy and that the economy would have to take such an upswing that money didn’t matter to anyone in the entire country, but the whole TCU in the National Championship thing is pretty fun to think about, no? I mean, when I wrote that Gameday thread, pretty much everyone called me an idiot for even proposing such a thing, and look how that turned out? Also, who would’ve ever thought that’d we’d have the highest regular season BCS ranking for a non BCS team ever with 3 games still left to play? I’m not saying I’m counting on it, and I’m not saying I’ll throw a fit when it doesn’t happen, but isn’t it fun to have just a little more fuel for the anti UT fire we so often light around here? Has all this recent success made me a bit greedy, especially considering our biggest game in years is in two days and that we’ve never even reached a BCS game? Well yes, of course it has, but I figure the only way we have any chance of attaining even further heights is if the Longhorns lose, and I just want to inform the 3 or 4 people who were unaware of this fact. Is Baylor going to be the one to do it? No, but this will definitely become an interesting topic come Thanksgiving week. Regardless, even if the Horns did lose, it probably won’t matter for us because of an often overlooked fact…
#5 Cincinnati vs. #25 West Virginia. ...Oh yes, those guys. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t they almost lose to Connecticut last weekend? Connecticut has sports other than basketball? Color me shocked. Anyway, what was recently considered the defacto Big Least title game is now not much more than a schedule booster for the Bearcats outside shot at Pasadena. True, with a win West Virginia would still be very much in the conference championship hunt and likely would only need to defeat Pittsburg when they go brawlin’ next week to win the thing, but… wait, what am I saying? This is definitely not just schedule padding for Cincy; this is a serious damn ball game. I think the Friday night ESPN time slot is what threw me off. West Virginia may have two losses, but one of those losses was at Auburn when they were still a competent football team, and the other came against ranked South Florida. The problem this week for the Mountaineers is that starting QB Jarrett Brown and RB Noel Devine are playing injured and they are pretty much all the Mountaineers have in the way of offensive production. Even worse, Cincy is sticking with QB Zach Collaros who, filling in for the injured Tony Pike, has been absolutely phenomenal, throwing for over 1000 yards and 8 TDs with no INTs in three starts. Not exactly good news for a pass defense that gives up 220 yards a contest. The media is attempting to play up the “OOOOOOOHH LOOGIT!! A QB Controversy is a-brewin in Ohio!!” but don’t buy into it. Brian Kelly isn’t going to throw in a somewhat damaged Tony Pike until he’s absolutely certain he’s ready, and as evidenced, Collaros isn’t exactly a scrub back there. Cincy’s defense may have lapsed last week, but for the season they only give up 16 points a game, so don’t expect the Couch Burners to go rogue on them like the Huskies did. In all truth, though, this game doesn’t really matter all that much unless one of the top 3 teams lose first, but it’d be nice to go ahead and get Cincy off our backs just in case.
#6 Boise State vs. Idaho. Ah, the Spud Bowl. This one definitely looked like it had all the fixins of a brief changing of the guard in the state of Idaho early in the season, but after Nevada Tea bagged them for 70 and they got hash brown’d by Fresno State, the Vandals look a lot more like mashed potatoes. Still, Vandals QB Nate Enderle is one of the more underrated in the country, and has been pretty au-gratin-some against most of the defenses he’s faced, so perhaps he has what it takes to turn the broncos into glue? Eh, probably not, but hey, at least I got to bombard you with a bunch of cheesy potato references that only a twice baked pot head would enjoy.
Mostly importantly this weekend, the Frogs have to take care of business against Utah in the most hyped game ever to be played in FW, at least from a media standpoint. Sure, the 35 game against SMU was technically bigger, but let’s not browbeat about the past like some aggy – the future is now and now is what we know. The rest will take care of itself. Go Frogs!
While it's pretty apparent that TCU's fate rests in it's own hands at this point, you never know what could happen over the next few weeks.
