Many people (actually, just Elliott) were severely disappointed that this week’s sermon did not hit the blogosphere on its normal schedule. As usual, I have a few excuses for my tardiness. I spent the entire weekend with my girlfriend Laura at Michigan State University, and I definitely wasn’t going to post my thoughts there. When I got back to Auburn, I had a ton of work (one project) to catch up on before Tuesday’s class.

Because I wanted to spend time with Laura, I didn’t watch many games this weekend. I did see Indiana’s 46-21 (let’s just admit it: 46-7) trouncing of Michigan State. The Spartans recently announced the end of the Smith era, which is understandable, considering his season-ending performances the past few years. I also got to watch the last five minutes of Oregon State’s “upset” of USC. Laura and I were eating dinner with some of her friends during the second half, so I had to leave the table a few times to check the score online.

Like I predicted, USC did not going to go undefeated this season. Still, who would have guessed that their first loss would come so early? Here’s hoping one or two (or three) of California, Oregon, and Notre Dame will deliver another loss to the Trojans. Vanderbilt-ed Georgia, another early loser, is still on track to make me look like a genius (or Captain Obvious). The Bulldogs lost a dogfight (literally: think “Smokey vs. Ugga”) against Tennessee and a Florida game that was not as close as the final score. Now, Georgia has a week at Kentucky before being slapped around by Auburn and Georgia Tech.

The ACC: what is up with this now-whacky conference? Miami, then Virginia Tech, was the favorite to win last year’s ACC, which was ultimately won by Florida State (who finished 5-3 in conference play). This year has been just as ridiculous. BC, Wake Forest, Maryland, and Clemson all seem to have a shot at the Atlantic Division title. Georgia Tech, after getting past NCState this weekend, should have an easy road to taking a 10-2 record into the conference championship. I guess I shouldn’t complain. The ACC of the recent past is definitely more interesting than the decade beforehand, when Florida State never lost.

Virginia Tech plays Miami this weekend, and honestly, I’m not sure who to pick. This used to be the game that determined the Big East championship, but now it seems to determine who is the best decent team in the ACC Coastal Division. Larry Coker is basically done at Miami, but a decisive win against the Hokies could make his argument for continued employment a tiny bit more interesting. He’d probably have to win the rest of his games (at Maryland, at Virginia, Boston College) to keep his job, though.

This weekend is chalk full (what does that even mean?) of interesting conference matchups. West Virginia goes to Louisville to decide the Big East (until they both have to play Rutgers and Pittsburgh). Missouri goes to Nebraska to decide the Big 12 North. Oklahoma travels to College Station, where Texas A&M must win to have a shot at the Big 12 South. Arkansas goes to South Carolina to begin a three-game crusade for the SEC West. Tennessee hosts LSU, trying to keep their SEC East hopes alive. Boston College plays Wake Forest, and Maryland plays Clemson to bring the ACC Atlantic race into focus.

I’ll end this week’s sermon by addressing the question on everyone’s mind: who will play for the national title on January 8? The Ohio State/Michigan winner looks like a lock for No. 1, but the No. 2 BCS spot is still up for grabs. A close loss by Ohio State could set up a rematch, but that seems unlikely. I’m guessing West Virginia, Louisville, Florida, Auburn, or Texas will face the Buckeyes in Arizona, and I don’t think any of those teams would win. Thankfully, there is still a lot of football to be played (and watched) before then.

Well, last week was pretty awesome for the Tito College Football Predictor. The CFP went 44 and 11, an 80% success rate in its first week of the 2006 season. The system even correctly picked the Washington State upset over Oregon. The largest margin of a missed pick was 5.0 (Oklahoma State over Texas A&M), so the higher margin ranges looked really good last weekend.

This weekend, the CFP went out on a limb and made five questionable upset picks. Oklahoma State is up 10 points on Nebraska, who looked pretty good against powerhouse Texas last week. Missouri is actually 4.9 points up on Oklahoma, but that’s with the 5-point home field advantage. Navy is picked to beat Notre Dame (also with the home field advantage) by a ratings margin of 3.2. (This is the one I doubt the most. The last time Navy beat Notre Dame was in 1963. That’s 42 straight losses to the Fighting Irish.) Purdue was picked over Penn State by 2.4 points. Lastly, Oregon State was picked by 0.2 over USC. (You know which one I want to happen most.) What’s the likelihood that all five of these will happen? Almost zero. Still, I’ll be surprised if none of them do.

Michigan, Boston College, Ohio State, and Arkansas all get gimmees this week. They are all favored by 16 points or more over their opponents (Northwestern, Buffalo, Minnesota, and Louisiana-Monroe). We’ll see how my year-to-date record is holding up at the end of Saturday. You can find the rest of this week’s picks at http://tito.asimweb.org/cfp/week9.html.

Remember when you went to arcades as a kid? Some of the games were really cheap, like Whack-a-Mole. Others, like Cruisin’ USA, cost four quarters to play. Likewise, a team needs to put in four quarters of effort to have a chance at winning a college football game. This fact was readily apparent in the following matchups of week 8.

California at Washington: Down 17-24, Washington quarterback Carl Bonnell tossed the football towards the end zone on the last play of regulation. None of three Cal players underneath the ball managed to bat it to the ground. Instead, the ball bounced into the hands of Husky receiver Marlon Wood, who dove into the end zone for a touchdown. In overtime, Bonnell threw into another Cal jersey, and this time Desmond Bishop picked him off. Luckily, the Bears’ poor defense against the Hail Mary didn’t cost them the game.

Texas at Nebraska: Halftime in Omaha found Texas winning 16-7. In the second half, the Longhorn defense gave up two touchdown drives to the Cornhuskers. Up 20-19 with 2:17 left, all Nebraska had to do to win was make a few first downs and kill the clock. It looked like they would do just that until Terrence Nunn fumbled a nine-yard pass. Texas walk-on Ryan Bailey made his first ever college field goal, and the Longhorn D batted down two Hail Mary’s from Zac Taylor to end the game 22-20.

Thanks to Nebraska, these guys stood half-naked in 40-degree weather for nothing. Nice going, Cornhuskers.

Notre Dame at UCLA: Up 17-13 with 0:55 left on the clock, UCLA looked as if it was going to upset Notre Dame right beneath the gaze of Touchdown Jesus. However, the Bruin defense backed off of Brady Quinn for his final drive, allowing the quarterback to move the Fighting Irish from their own 20 to the UCLA 45 with two passes. Then, Quinn hit Jeff Samardzija, who faked out defenders and hightailed it to the end zone. Talk about defensive self-detruction.

Michigan State at Northwestern: The other three games pale in comparison to the second-half nature of this Big Ten matchup. Northwestern went to the locker room leading Michigan State 38-3 at halftime. The Spartans scored 38 unanswered points in 24:36 minutes of gametime to beat the Wildcats 41-38. Michigan State came back from the largest deficit in the history of Division I-A college football.

You need four quarters to play Cruisin’ USA, and you need to play four quarters to win a college football game. ‘Nuff said.

Hey folks. I want to let everyone know about the computerized college football prediction system I run. You can track my progress over the season at http://tito.asimweb.org/cfp. Click on “Week 8” on the left of your screen to check out this week’s picks. (I start making predictions midway through the season, for reasons explained on the site.)

This week, the CFP (College Football Predictor) picked Vanderbilt to beat South Carolina, which would be a big win for the Commodores following their October 14 upset of Georgia. 4-3 Washington State has a slight edge on 6-1 Oregon, but only because of the home-field advantage. Also, undefeated Louisville is not very heavily favored on the road against Syracuse. LSU, Auburn, Northern Illinois, Ohio, and Ohio State essentially have bye-weeks; the CFP has never mispredicted a game with the ratings margin that these teams will enjoy on Saturday.

Obviously these predictions aren’t guaranteed, but you can find my rate of success within certain rating margin ranges on the left of the CFP site. Here’s hoping the 2006 system’s inaugural run is a success!

In light of the greatness that was the Auburn/Florida game, I left out my thoughts on the rest of college football in my Sunday post. Here are those thoughts.

Miami and Florida International got into a fisticuffs midfield on Saturday, which was pretty ridiculous from what I hear. In related news, ESPN.com ran a story about Lamar Thomas, a former Miami player and color commentary for CSS. Thomas was fired for his on-air comments about the fight. Here’s a sample:

“Now, that’s what I’m talking about…You come into our house, you should get your behind kicked. You don’t come into the OB playing that stuff…You can’t come over to our place talking noise like that. You’ll get your butt beat. I was about to go down the elevator to get in that thing…I say, why don’t they just meet outside in the tunnel after the ball game and get it on some more? You don’t come into the OB, baby…We’ve had a down couple years but you don’t come in here talking smack. Not in our house.”

Later, Thomas tried to apologize:

“Anybody who knows me knows I played the game of football with my heart on my
sleeve…Unfortunately for me during the fight I got a little hyped up. In no way do I condone fighting.”

“In no way do I condone fighting”? The statement “why don’t they just meet outside in the tunnel after the ball game and get it on some more” doesn’t condone fighting? My dad used to tell me how much he disliked the Miami football program. He said they were arrogant and unsportsmanlike. This Saturday, the Hurricanes and Thomas sure proved my dad right.

But enough about the fight. Ohio State rolled over Michigan State (sorry Laura) on their way to the season-ending showdown on November 18. Speaking of Michigan, the Wolverines won a close one at Penn State, where my friends in State College showed up in full force. Up 17-10, the Michigan D stopped the Lions from turning their final drive into overtime. I still think the white out is the coolest student section collaboration I’ve ever seen, with Mississippi State’s cowbells a distant second.

USC scraped by another?! Pac-10 team with a fourth-quarter touchdown drive. ESPN still won’t accept that USC is not that good, emphasizing their undefeated status. They might be undefeated going into their three-week death march on November 11, but they won’t be that way by its end. Fun/disgusting fact: USC has scored 20 or more points in their last 58 games. Louisville didn’t look their best, either, even with the return of Brian Brohm. A game-ending deflection by the Cardinals D kept their win streak and (extremely slim) national championship hopes alive.

Georgia did this weekend what USC will do at the season’s end: finally lose a close game. The Bulldogs fell to the mighty Commodores of Vanderbilt on homecoming week. I guess I was overly optimistic when I predicted that Georgia would only lose four games this year. I wonder, will they earn a W against Mississippi State this weekend? West Virginia once again waited until halftime to start scoring, taking care of Syracuse 41-17. Hawaii stomped Fresno State 68-37. Seriously, that’s a lot of points.

The first BCS standings gave me hope that Auburn still has a good shot at a national championship berth. Obviously, Ohio State or Michigan will remain at the top at the end of the season, barring any unforeseen upsets. Like I said earlier, USC will also lose. It may be in Auburn’s favor for Arkansas to win the SEC West, though this looks doubtful with Tennessee and LSU in the Razorbacks’ future. Although it would prevent the winner of West Virginia/Louisville from leapfrogging into #2, I doubt Auburn could pull off another win against Florida.

This weekend, Georgia Tech and Clemson play a possible ACC Championship preview. Clemson would need help to win the Atlantic division if they lost, but Georgia Tech should win the Coastal division even if they lose on Saturday. I guess I wouldn’t mind seeing Tennessee crush Alabama, but I’ll be watching Auburn take care of Tulane during that matchup. Hopefully the Tigers will come prepared and will take things one game at a time for the rest of the year. That course of action served them well in 2004. See you guys next Monday!