Just an FYI, I updated the bowl predictions already. I’d elaborate on them, but, eh, a few days have already passed. Just know, Hawaii accepted their bid to the Hawaii Bowl and Navy will go to Charlotte for the Car Care Bowl.

That said, I’d like to take a minute to step back from our football discussion.

Ismail Mohammed – still the man

Yup, that’s right folks, Georgia Tech’s basketball season begins this Friday against Elon. It won’t be broadcast, but I’ll be there – a great start to a hopefully great weekend.

In case you didn’t know (which I doubt, considering the places this is linked to), Tech has a lot of lofty expectation this year. I’ve been told that our new PG, Javaris Crittendon, is the real deal (as in, he passes to people and doesn’t turn the ball over all the time). Thad Young is, of course, also the real deal and we’ll be lucky to have him after this season. The upside of being so young last year is that several of those guys are back this year, giving us what is now one of the most experienced squads in the conference.

I’m not sure what to expect, but it’s sure a heck of a lot better than 11-17. I’ll have a report Friday night as I put up the TV Guide.

Considering that it was the beginning of a two-week lead-in to Michigan’s visit to Ohio State, last weekend was pretty good. The best game of the day was probably LSU at Tennessee, two teams that had little to play for but pride and an unlikely BCS berth. JaMarcus Russell was super-clutch in the final drive of the game. The senior delivered a bullet to Early Doucet (who was right on time, nyuk nyuk nyuk) for the winning touchdown with nine seconds remaining.

Ohio State and Michigan both survived scares against much lesser opponents. Who would have thought that Illinois and Ball State could give the top two teams in the country a run for their money? The Buckeyes and Wolverines will probably pummel Northwestern and Indiana to make up for last weekend’s embarrassment. In other Big Ten (Eleven?) news, Joe Paterno is still alive and well after being knocked over by a Nittany Lion receiver Saturday. If any complications do arise, Penn State won’t need him to coach their weekend romp of Temple.

The Pac-10 is looking much more interesting than it has the last three years. If USC loses its first home game in a while to Oregon, then Cal can coast to the conference championship, win at USC or not. (I doubt 4-5 Arizona or 0-9 Stanford will pose any serious problems for the Bears.) The Big East is unsettled, too. Louisville beat West Virginia 44-34 in a battle of running and passing offenses. Hopefully, the Cardinals will lose to Rutgers this Saturday. If they don’t, I’m praying for a Ohio State/Michigan rematch in January.

In the ACC, Maryland and Wake Forest pulled off rather exciting upsets against Clemson and Boston College, respectively. Although both are in the driver’s seat of the ACC Atlantic Division, neither is guaranteed a trip to face Georgia Tech in December. The Terrapins and Demon Deacons have some work to do before their November 25 showdown. Maryland hosts Miami, then travels to Boston College. Wake Forest travels to Florida State before hosting Virginia Tech.

The ACC isn’t the only conference with a weird divison race. Florida clenched the East with a win over Vanderbilt, since Tennessee lost twice and Georgia underwent self-destruction. This year’s incarnation of the Oldest Rivalry in the South, the Auburn/Georgia game, is actually set to kick off at 11:30 AM Central. It’s not even on CBS; it’s on Lincoln Financial Sports. If that’s not an indication of how bad Georgia is, I don’t know what is. I’m hoping Auburn doesn’t completely embarrass themselves by losing to the Bulldogs.

Elsewhere in the SEC, LSU is preparing to destroy Alabama in Baton Rouge. Last year, the Tigers went to Tuscaloosa and exposed the #3 Crimson Tide squad as overrated. This year, there’s nothing to expose. (Losing to 3-7 Mississippi State makes your strength pretty obvious.) Tennessee goes to Arkansas to find out if the Razorbacks are really a new conference power. The Vols need to win to keep Auburn’s SEC (and probably national) championship hopes alive. I bet Kenton $5 that Arkansas would lose the two games required for Auburn to win the West, so you know I’ll be watching this game when I get out of Jordan-Hare.

Arkansas could have lost last weekend, but South Carolina threw away their chance. On the last play of the first half, two Gamecock defenders bounced a pass into the hands of Marcus Monk for a Razorback touchdown. Later, the Gamecock defense seemed unable to defend Monk, who might as well have had a target on his jersey whenever Casey Dick was in the pocket. Down 20-26 late in the fourth, Blake Mitchell began what looked to be a comeback drive, but a quick switch to zone by the Razorback secondary tricked him into throwing an interception.

Just one more week until the three week stretch of rivalries and conference championships begins. I’m excited to see how this season ends, and I think the finale will be worth the wait.

Last weekend, the CFP posted a dismal 38-17 record, lowering the year-to-date percentage to 74.8%. Many of the mispredicted games had margins over ten points. However, the CFP did manage to correctly pick Kentucky over Georgia.

This weekend, some repeat offenders have a chance at redemption. Michigan State, Clemson, Arkansas, Maryland, and Texas A&M have all tripped up the CFP, some more than once. Other teams, like Air Force and Florida State, seem doomed to fail once more. Those two were picked to beat Notre Dame and Wake Forest, respectively. Six teams are favored by ratings margins greater than sixteen points, the most gimmees I’ve had so far this season; Virginia Tech, Penn State, Washington, Nevada, Boston College, and Hawaii are all but guaranteed victories over their opponents.

Well, that’s all I have for this week’s CFP report. You can read the rest of this week’s predictions at http://tito.asimweb.org/cfp/week11.html.

West Virginia University – 6 turnovers in an ugly loss to Louisville? You’re fast, but you have to play better than that to be #3.
Clemson University – Lost 2 straight to teams that GT has beaten – after they owned GT. More proof that the Transitive Property of Football is not true.
University of Iowa – You lost to North-freakin’-Western. Not just perennially overrated, now just plain bad.
University[sic] of Georgia – You lost to Kentucky! Wooooooo!
Wake Forest University – WF and GT are on a collision course for the ACC Championship Game – aka John Swofford’s Nightmare. Just a little pre-emptive taunting to psyche them out 😉
Duke University – Now that basketball has started, no one in Durham has to watch this putrid team.
Guy Who Broke JoePa’s Leg – In the Wisconsin-Penn State game, JoePa got hit when someone went flying onto the sideline. JoePa stayed around for a quarter before being carted off with a broken tibia. Hardcore for an old dude.
University of North Carolina – Repeat what I said about Duke, but replace Durham with Chapel Hill. You and Duke are next up on the GT hit parade.

Well kids, I’m in Nashville this weekend and will probably miss most of today’s games. But just for my readers (all two of you), here’s this week’s line up as though I were on Georgia Tech’s campus:

Noon:

• Missouri @ Nebraska (ABC): Winner gets to lose to Texas in the Big 12 title game!
• UVA @ FSU (local ACC): Honestly, FSU has only gotten worse this season, while UVA has gotten better. Still, though, I’ve seen no evidence that UVA’s quarterback can complete a pass to anyone, or that any of his receivers can catch a pass. So I like FSU here.
• Ball St. @ UMich (ESPNU): I can’t come up with anything that explains why this game is being televised anywhere besides ESPN’s deal with the Big Ten.
• Maryland @ Clemson (ESPN2): UMD needs a win in Death Valley to stay alive in their division’s race. The odds of them getting said win, however, do not seem high.
• Baylor @ Texas Tech (FSN): Baylor’s halfway decent again this year, thus continuing to cement their status as the Vandy of the Big 12 instead of the Duke of the Big 12.

12:30 – Florida @ Vanderbilt (local SEC): Go ‘Dores, but UF rolls.

2:30 – UNC @ ND (NBC): Notre Dame seeks to go 2-0 against the ACC this year….

3:30:

• Washington @ Oregon (TBS): Washington needs the win to try to get to a bowl, but the Ducks need it to stay alive in the Pac-10.
• LSU @ Tennessee (CBS): Game of the week right here, or it would be, if anything was actually riding on it. A LSU win here gives Florida some breathing room in the East, and a UT win gives LSU 3 conference losses.
• Purdue @ Michigan St (ESPNU): Well, since John L. Smith has already been fired, you can’t really watch him try to get fired anymore. Can MSU rally behind their soon-to-be-departed coach? I wouldn’t bet on it.
• Ohio St. @ Illinois (ESPN2): The non-hit parade continues! Can’t OSU and Michigan just play and get it done with? Sheesh.
• Kansas St. @ Colorado (FSN): Why?!? In a way, I picked a good weekend to not watch games.

7:00:

• Oklahoma St. @ Texas (TBS): Man, TBS had a full-slate of games today! Too bad they all suck.
• Georgia Tech @ NC State (ESPNU): Well, I’d watch this if I could, but oh well. I’m somewhat nervous about this – NCSU needs to win in order to have a chance at a bowl game, and I think the best thing Tech could do is sweep their last four games. Hopefully GT is focused and comes out ready to play after the huge win against Miami last week. If GT can win this game….yeah.
• Boston College @ Wake Forest (ESPN2): Probably the game with the most conference champion implications of the day. Yes, that’s right folks, BC@WFU is probably the most important game of the day. (Don’t worry, I also struggle with this notion.) Provided UMD loses to FSU, the winner of this game is in the ACC Atlantic driver’s seat. I have to like BC here – Wake Forest is a good team, but they just have played anyone at all except for Clemson. (In fairness, WFU played Clemson a heck of a lot closer than we did. But they still lost.)
• USC @ Stanford (FSN): OH GOD WHY!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Stanford isn’t just bad, they’re horrible. The closest they’ve come this year was a 1 point loss to San Jose St. They haven’t been within a touchdown of any of their other opponents. Is USC down? Sure. But Stanford is beyond down. Duke could probably beat them by a couple of scores, though of course Duke lost to a DI-AA team. Still, though, someone should figure out a way to those teams to play each other….

7:45 – Arkansas @ South Carolina (ESPN): Well, Auburn desperately wants a USC victory here, which could set up a course for Arkansas to lose to either Tennessee, LSU, or both. However, Arkansas only has 1 other road game after this- @Miss. St.

8:00 – VPI @ Miami (ABC): Well, this game isn’t nearly as big of a deal as it used to be. I don’t know who to go for here – unless both teams lose, a loss doesn’t really help Tech since we beat both of them. Miami has the best chance to lose again after this, so I guess if they win it helps. Oh well.

That’s all I got folks. It’s unlikely the bowl predictions will be posted this weekend – I’d guess Tuesday at the earliest. Later.