NCAA Football Week 9 – Lessons Learned

This last week of the NCAA football season was one of the best I can remember in recent years. We’ve had plenty of “Showdown” Saturdays, but few lived up to the excitement that was 10/23/2010. What was learned? Let’s find out.

Oregon

The Ducks delivered another huge win Thursday night over a perennially-weak UCLA team. UCLA is currently ranked behind Notre Dame by math-whiz Jeff Sagarin, meaning this loss. . . is meaningless. In fact, Oregon’s schedule currently includes only a single win against a ranked team, albeit it was an impressive win against Stanford. If they win out against Arizona and Oregon State they deserve a National Championship shot.

Oklahoma

Unless you’ve been under a rock, you’ll know that OU was the third straight team to fall from the #1 spot. Looking at their schedule, sure they have good wins against Florida State and Texas, but. . . 7 pt victory against Utah State? 3 pt win against Air Force? This is not the resume of a #1 team. The jury is still out on Texas and Florida State in my opinion, too. To sum up,

They are. . . not. . .who we thought they were.

Missouri

Oh Jeff Sagarin. . . you have Missouri #1 in your ELO_CHESS, the ranking the BCS uses. They have wins over #1 Oklahoma who. . . see above. Aside from that, their best win is literally a 10 pt win against Illinois. That’s OK, you have a probable loss in Lincoln this coming week.

Notre Dame

They ARE, who we thought they were.

Ah, I love it.

Aurburn

OK, so Cam Newton sucks at passing, and the Tiger coaching staff has realized it. No longer are they even trying to throw. They’re Denard Robinson’ing it. As such, they’ve been dominate. Teams have realized over the last couple years that if you plan for the QB running, you get an extra blocker.

Their offense has been nearly unstoppable, and their defense has shown the ability to make enough stops.

Unfortunately, they play their last game against #7 Alabama, meaning they could both go 1-loss and get snubbed, despite a much “resume”.

Advertisement