November 2006 sure looks a lot like November 2001. Top 5 teams got stuffed weekly in turkey month that year, and this year is no different. A few weeks ago, it looked like the winner of the Louisville/West Virginia game was in if they both got by Rutgers. Not so much. Now, it’s looking more and more like the loser of this weekend’s Ohio State/Michigan game may get into the BCS Championship game against, um, the winner of this weekend’s Ohio State/Michigan game. Too bad the Big Ten doesn’t play a league championship game, or maybe we could watch them play a best-of-three. I’m still keeping my fingers crossed for an Ohio State/Florida title game, but I had neither Florida nor Michigan nor mighty Rutgers (what was I thinking?) in my preseason Top 10 Teams That Could Win the BCS, so I’m rooting for Ohio State from here on out so I can keep my “sage” status alive and keep USC out of the picture.
Speaking of sage wisdom …
I called a Kansas State W on Friday. Suffice to say, no one believed me. Let’s see … an in-conference night game on the road late in the year against an improving ball club with a young stud quarterback. It’s not rocket science, people! Gene Chizik’s vaunted Texas defense looked awful giving up 45 points to a very average KSU club on Saturday night, in one of the most entertaining games in recent memory. The Wildcats went deep early and often and torched the Horns mercilessly, even running halfback passes on consecutive plays. It was also probably the first time in my life I was caught rooting hard for the Mildcats. Adios, Horns. Maybe next year. Or maybe 34 years from now. You could just feel the doubt creeping back onto the 40 Acres when Mack Brown went back to his old playbook of wishy-washy excuses on AM 1300 after the game, “I told the guys, ‘You didn’t lose, you just ran out of time.'” What a maroon!
Oh, Oregon. What hath thou wrought? If the Oklahoma Sooners record said “9-1” instead of “8-2” they’d be almost assured of a BCS bowl berth and maybe, though, undeservedly be in the hunt for the championship. It’s hard to believe that OU is still hovering out of the Top 15 in every poll given the fact that everyone in America knows they got jobbed in Eugene. And, no, I’m not going to stop crying about it because it is a big deal. We’re talking about the difference in millions of dollars of bowl payout, not to mention prestige and recruiting windfalls. If there is a god, he’s a Sooners fan, and A&M will beat Texas in two weeks and the Sooners will beat Nebraska in the Big 12 Championship Game and go to the Orange Bowl where Adrian Peterson will run for 312 yards against hated Notre Dame.
This article appears in November 10 • 2006.