This Week In College Football

Last Week: 8-1 (Ok Oregon you’re legit)

Season Total: 19-2 (If only I had any faith I could keep that up)

My guys have state tomorrow (Come on State Championship!), & I’m enjoying my Season 1 “Community” DVDs ("Community">"The Office", now, not all-time), so I’m a little preoccupied so the analysis will be kept to a minimum this week.

Also Jan Brewer? Really Arizona? Apparently none of you watched the governor's debate, know what the GOP legislature is doing with the budget, or understands the reality of our immigration problems. But I digress...

Top 10

· Chattanooga at #2 Auburn-seriously?

Auburn 83, Chattanooga 6 (or something like that)

· #3 TCU at #5 Utah-As good as Arizona/Stanford & Bama/LSU are going to be this is the game of the week. Whoever wins this game has a good shot at going to the title game & at the very least will be in a BCS bowl. TCU hasn’t won at Utah in 4,000 years but they’ve also only given up 16 points in their last 5 games (that’s not a typo).

TCU 27, Utah 17

· Hawaii at #4 Boise State-this will be one of Boise’s last true hurdles to a perfect season, the other being Nevada. If there’s one thing you can expect, besides a Boise State win, it’s a whole lot of points.

Boise St 48, Hawaii 24

· #6 Alabama at #10 LSU-like the TCU/Utah game there are title/BCS game complications here (even LSU still has an outside shot at the title). LSU has the advantage of a bye week before this game; Bama has the advantage of having an offense that can score. LSU’s only shot at winning this game is by winning the turnover margin by at least 2, I don’t think they will.

Bama 27, LSU 20

· #7 Nebraska at Iowa State-Iowa State’s played well the last 2 weeks… Nebraska’s played better. Cornhuskers win handily even if Taylor Martinez can’t play.

Braska 38, Iowa State 17

· #8 Oklahoma at Texas A&M-the Aggies offense has been on fire since making the switch to Junior Ryan Tannehill at QB. Of course Kansas & Texas Tech aren’t exactly Oklahoma. Nonetheless…

Texas A&M 30, Oklahoma 27

· #9 Wisconsin at Purdue-Yea… this won’t be close.

Wisconsin 41, Purdue 10

Games Between Ranked Teams:

· #21 Baylor at #17 Oklahoma State-Sophomore QB Robert Griffin III has been tearing it up for Baylor & they haven’t scored less than 30 points in a game this season. Ok St. on the other hand is 3^rd in the nation in scoring (45.3 a game). Should be fun to watch.

Baylor 48, Ok St. 44

· #18 Arkansas at #19 South Carolina-these teams have combined for 4 losses this season with 3 of those coming against Auburn and Alabama (SC also lost to Kentucky. Wait… What?), so if they were in any other conference they might be undefeated. Oh well, sometimes it sucks playing in the SEC.

Arkansas 31, SC 27

PAC-10:

· Washington at #1 Oregon-Oregon against Washington without Jake Locker=your ESPN Streak for the Cash lock of the day: Oregon wins by 40+ points.

Oregon 69, UW 10

· California at Washington State-Cal hasn’t won a road game all year & WSU hasn’t won a PAC-10 game in 2 years so either way we’re watching history! Of course if you actually watch this game you really need to reassess your life.

Cal 30, WSU 17

· Oregon State at UCLA-UCLA actually resembled a Division 1 football team last week but this is the time of the year OSU starts to hit stride. Don’t bet against the Beavers.

OSU 33, UCLA 20

· Arizona State at USC-Last week I slammed ASU saying that if their game against Washington State wasn’t at home I might actually pick the Cougars & I picked USC to upset Oregon. ASU went on to beat WSU 42-0 & USC gave up 51 points in their loss to Oregon. Too bad for the Sun Devils it’s a new week.

USC 34, ASU 23

The Arizona Game:

#15 Arizona at #13 Stanford-Last year, when most pundits were talking up UCLA & ASU, I picked these 2 programs to take a leap up into the upper layer of the PAC-10 &, for once, I was right. These were also two teams that played an epic game in Arizona Stadium that saw Arizona prevail 43-38, but only after overcoming a 15-point deficit & scoring the winning touchdown on a 3^rd & 17 draw play that by the grace of God Nic Grigsby took 57 yards. That win kept Arizona’s Rose Bowl hopes alive & may have cost Stanford’s Toby Gerhart the Heisman.

This year the Wildcats are once again playing to keep that elusive Rose Bowl in sight, as are the Cardinal (if Oregon makes the BCS championship game). This game features a classic battle between offense and defense. Stanford is 5^th in the nation in scoring at 42.4 points-per-game (they’ve yet to score less than 31 points in a game) thanks to presumed #1 pick Andrew Luck and the hard running Stepfan Taylor (that’s his actual name). Arizona is 7^th in the nation in scoring defense giving up just 14.4 points-per-game thanks largely to their defensive line, which will thankfully be getting back the disruptive Justin Washington this week.

Of course most Arizona fans are more excited for Nick Foles reappearance (even though Washington’s is nearly as important). Now a few Arizona fans may have watched the last two games, got extremely excited to see the running dimension that Matt Scott brought to the offense, & then started to convince themselves that maybe he’s the better option at QB. These fans are insane. Yea Scott played well, & hopefully he can redshirt next season, but his accuracy & especially his decision-making are not in the same realm as Foles’. Make no mistake Foles being able to come back healthy this week was huge for Arizona.

At the start of this season I picked Arizona to enter this game 7-1 with their only loss coming against Oregon State & I also picked Arizona to lose this game & Stanford to go onto the Rose Bowl. So why would I back out now? Because it’s just too convenient that possibly Arizona’s most important players on each side of the ball would both get injured the week after the team’s first loss only to come back for this game, that’s why. As Mr. Eko’s said to John Locke on “Lost,” “Do not mistake coincidence for fate.”

Arizona 38, Stanford 34