BYU's first big win! College Football Round up

BYU 38 Air Force 24!! Whoo hoo! From my last post readers might have thought that I was a Utes fan but in the interest of full disclosure, I admit that I have BYU leanings. This is the first victory against a winning program all season and although Air Force isn't a national power, they have had a good season. Their two losses had been to Utah in a close game and to Navy in a rivalry game lost on special teams mistakes. They haven't played the toughest schedule in the world but you get the sense their unorthodox approach would give many good teams fits. In the end they are a small program that doesn't have the size and speed to compete with the bigger schools but tends to overachieve.

Utah disposed of San Diego State and while it isn't quite the undefeated heavyweight fight that fans had hoped for, two top 15 teams playing for the Mountain West Championship isn't bad. As I stated in my last post, BYU needs this win to legitimize their ranking and season. Their schedule allowed them to lose to TCU, have a couple weeks to mope around and then gain some momentum going into the Utah game. I expect a close game as the talent level on both sides are about equal. Utah's offense has been up and down all season and so has BYU's defense. Whichever of the two shows up on Saturday will determine the winner. Max Hall has had four good games in a row and I don't expect him to have a problem with Utah's defense. I'll make a prediction later in the week.

Utah already has a solid resume. Their win over Oregon State is looking better and better each week. The win over TCU showed they can win a good defensive battle. They've already beaten Air Force and although Michigan had their worst season in history, a win in the Big House has historical significance for a program looking for national recognition. A win over BYU would mean an undefeated season, a solid conference championship and three wins over top 25 schools. In fact, you could say that this team would be more deserving of a BCS bid than the 2004 team. The only difference is the level of star power. No Heisman candidate Alex Smith and no hot shot coach Urban Meyer this year.

College Football Notes.
ACC
The ACC revolving door keeps spinning and spinning. By my count, they have had 8 different teams ranked during the course of the year. Every week, there are three new teams ranked somewhere in the bottom half of the top 25 and the very next week they lose. This week North Carolina(16), Florida State(19) and Wake Forest(24) all lost. These three will drop out and three new teams will show up next week and promptly lose. Look for BC, Maryland and Miami to take their places. Does having having 10 teams in a conference between 5-5 and 7-3 mean that the whole conference is good or that the whole conference is bad?

The Decline of Notre Dame
Notre Dame's star is gets dimmer and dimmer as they get further away from their last national championship. I know that they beat a pretty good Navy team this week, but the fact that Notre Dame fans are so ecstatic about beating a midshipmen team that they had previously beaten 40+ games in a row shows that this is not an elite program anymore. It is difficult for me to understand how a school that recruits nationally as well as they do can go through this long of a rebuilding process.

Big 12 up, SEC down.
The conference supremacy race has been between the SEC and the BIG 12 all season but we are seeing some separation down the strech. The SEC's true colors are showing as a top heavy conference with its share of weak teams. Florida has crushed teams all year long and is the favorite to represent the SEC in the BCS championship. They still have to beat Florida State and Alabama, but they certainly have the means to do it.
If you really look at Alabama's schedule, they only have one notable win vs. Georgia and an overtime victory vs. LSU. The rest of it is pretty weak and it is reflected in the computer numbers. You get the feeling that someone will expose this team and Florida is the team to do it.
LSU does not have a good win this year. They have lost all of their big games and nearly losing to Troy proves they are a middling squad who never deserved to be in the national title picture. Anyone who has watched them struggle with their offense knew they weren't going to be very consistent.
Georgia is a disappointment as the season's preseason #1. Their marquee win is over LSU. If they play a decent team, the games are close so look for Georgia Tech to give them a good game.
Auburn and Tennessee's early season rankings proved to be creations of the east coast media machine. Everyone jumped on the Vandy bandwagon but then tires went flat. In essence, the SEC is a two team race while the BIG 12 has five excellent teams that can compete with anyone in the nation.

Conference Rankings
1. Big 12 - no contest. 5 teams ranked in the top 15. All of the games between top teams have been close, competitive contests. Texas, Texas Tech and Oklahoma have true championship potential. None of the top teams have bad losses, only losses to good teams.

2. SEC - distant second. Urban Meyer might be looking at his second national championship.

3. Big Ten - Penn State and Ohio State might not be title contenders but are very good teams. Respectable middle of the pack with Michigan State, Northwestern and Iowa distinguishes the Big Ten from the MWC. On the other hand, the bottom has suffered a lot of bad losses to non-BCS squads.

4. MWC - Solid top 4 teams but terrible bottom 3 teams. Best year in the history of the conference. Bowl victories will mean more than ever. Please sign a contract with ESPN. What is the VS channel? Don't they show a lot of wrestling?

5. ACC- A lot of parity in the league with any team being able to defeat another team on a given week. This would be a tough conference to go through undefeated.

6. PAC 10 - You wonder how good Oregon and Oregon State are but if Oregon State beats Arizona and then Oregon, they are going to the Rose Bowl. That will mean 2 BCS bids as USC will get an at large birth. They were humiliated in non conference play this year but you have to like that they didn't schedule cupcakes like the rest of the big conferences.

7. Big Least - Pollsters feel obligated to rank someone so they just pick whichever team has the best record that week. Did you even know that Cincinnati had a football team? Who knew that they were good last year too? Hopefully the BCS drops this league for the MWC in a couple of years.