Saturday, September 27, 2008

And now we start to discover who really is good.

East Carolina - Well it was nice while it lasted. Stick with playing those ranked "big 6" schools. They are obviously much easier to handle the 'lowly' conference USA teams.

Georgia - The Alabama loss was much closer than the final score. (It was 31-0 at the half). And this was in Georgia! There was justification in their gradual fall.

Florida - A narrow loss. These guys will always be ranked high, no matter how good they are. But, they have shown a weakness.

Oklahoma - They have dominated everyone they've played, but they've been playing mostly cupcakes. TCU has won in Norman before, and is the first serious challenge for the Sooners. (Of course they have to go out of the 'big 6' to find one a challenge.) That they were able to dominate shows that they are worthy of a high ranking.

USC - Lost to Oregon State in Corvallis. Yes its bad, but not that bad. (They have a nasty history of losing there.) Maybe the Pac-10 isn't so bad after all.

Cal - The pac-10 finally beat a Mountain West School. And Cal's lone loss at Maryland is not looking so bad after all. (we'll still call it jet lag.)

Oregon - It's great to have Washington State on your schedule after Boise State

UCLA - It's not so great to have Fresno State on your schedule.

With Wake Forest and Clemson both losing, the ACC is pretty much shut out of the top 25 (though Maryland should bubble up) This means an 'outsider' would only need to crack the top-16 BCS standings to make a big bowl. Boise, Utah, and BYU are all in good condition to do it. Fresno and TCU may even have an outside chance. (If TCU manages to beat BYU and Utah, its road loss at Oklahoma may not be so bad. Fresno may have a tougher time, with its weaker schedule, with the next big test not until the season ending showdown with Boise State. The BYU-Utah and Boise State-Fresno State games could be big. If Utah and BYU get past TCU and the rest of the mountain west, they could easily be top-10 behemoths battling it out - potentially even top 2)

It would be nice if the conferences grouped together to schedule there games. Then pac10, big12, WAC and MWC could arrange a sort of 'promotion/demotion' structure like in international soccer. The best teams in the 4 conferences would bubble up to play more of each other, while the worst would fall down to play each other more. Idaho and Washington State, in addition to being close by, are also equally mediocre. It would be more entertaining to see Oregon, Cal, and USC take on the likes of BYU and Boise, than make regulat blowout trips.

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