College Football Week 14, in which Oregon sacrifices Rick Neuheisel at the altar

Big Ten's going to nine conference games for all, in short order.

 

Not sure about the Bruins, but Notre Dame turned down a bowl bid in 2009 after going 6-6 and losing its last four games, the end of the Charlie Weis era.

 

Re: College Football Week 14, in which Oregon sacrifices Rick Neuheisel at the a

Even in the 11-team Big 10 there was a chance Michigan and Wisconsin wouldn't play. And in the old 10-team SEC certain teams never or rarely played each other.

 

Understood ... and occasionally it had an impact on the conference race. If I recall, Iowa missed playing Ohio State in 2002, allowing both teams to claim co-Big 10 titles without playing each other*

The league that changed this year is the Pac-12, and I know some folks out my way weren't pleased to lose the round-robin scheduling.


*-- don't even get me started about how Iowa ended up going to the Orange Bowl instead of the Rose Bowl that year. The stars were aligned to have me see my school play in Pasadena ... this might be the No. 1 reason I hate the BCS.

 

Of the 44 starters in that Michigan State-Notre Dame game, nine became first-round NFL draft choices, and Bubba Smith, of course, was a number one overall pick. They were strong.

 

Yeah, I think they would have fared much better against Washington State than they did against USC.

 

The Pac-8/-10/-12 didn't even have teams playing the same number of conference games until 1972 that was a full eight years after the Pac-8 was formed. In that controversial 1966 season, for example, Washington played seven league games, and four other schools played as few as four league games.

 

This Wisky-MSU line is quite fascinating. It's going up in Wisconsin's favor, even though they have lost two straight to MSU. Either Vegas is stupid or everyone thinks a "neutral field" will benefit the Badgers.

 

Um, I'm not sure what you are looking at but Wisconsin has actually dropped from a 10-point favorite to 9 or 9 1/2.

In the SEC title game, LSU has gone from a 10 or 11-point favorite to as much as 13.5 and that's considering Georgia is close to home at the Georgia Dome.

Speaking of that game, I know a lot of folks are hoping Georgia wins, but I can't see how they are even in the game. I know you can't look at comparitive scores, but LSU seems superior. I haven't followed Georgia but do the Bulldogs have a signature win - maybe beating Tech last week?

 

Probably Auburn. Not because they beat them- Auburn's pretty lousy, after all- but how they beat them. Just as bad as LSU did. Aaron Murray played probably his best game ever in a Georgia uniform, and even in garbage time Georgia's running game was dominant.

They didn't play like that before and haven't played like that since. They were very good against Tech, but Richt owns Tech, so it's not a huge deal other than the fact that they didn't come out flat.

I really don't see much reason to believe the Dawgs can beat LSU, other than this: Under Miles, the Tigeaux almost always have a Really Dumb Loss/Near Loss a year. Haven't seen that yet.

 

If the Bruins win they go to the Rose Bowl, correct? That would be the sham, having a crap 7-6 team in the Rose Bowl because a much better team didn't show up at the Pac-12 title game AND because a vastly superior team from across town couldn't participate.

 

Vastly superior? You read too much into 50-0.