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!

1. Michigan State University – Lost again, therefore still on here. @ Northwestern this week, good chance for a W.
2. University of Iowa – Pretty sure I’ve ranted on this before, but Iowa is perennially overrated. People really like their coach for some reason, but I can never see it. They lost to Indiana this weekend…good job.
3. Florida International University – On here as a combo for the second week in a row, but this time with…
4. University of Miami – Woo! Da U be back for realz! If football isn’t violent enough for you, just start swinging your helmet around for extra fun.
5. University of Missouri – Lost their first game to TAMU this weekend, losing their status as the worst unbeaten team in the land.
6. University of Florida – They weren’t going to go unbeaten, so this loss to Auburn wasn’t terribly unexpected. The problem is that they just looked bad in the second half, and now all the UF fans are back to ripping into Chris Leak.
7. University [sic] of Georgia – You lost to Vanderbilt on homecoming weekend. THWG!
8. Clemson University – Probably the biggest game in the ACC this season. A loss for Clemson makes it much harder for them to win their division, and they’re about to face the steamroller that is the GT defense. Like Nick said, Clemson being 9 point favorites is absolute madness – I’d be shocked if this game isn’t decided by 4 or less points.

Hot off the presses!
A breakdown of what I do and some interesting matchups:

• The process: first, I had to go through and try and figure out the conference pecking orders. I use about three sources to try to guess at it. This is probably the most tedious part of the whole thing, but it essential if you want to be anywhere near correct.
• The selection numbers do not neccessarily tie-in to the conference standings. Though several conferences have implemented this, some do not. (For instance, before this year, the ACC did not do this, resulting in NC State going to the Car Care Bowl in Charlotte while both Boston College and Georgia Tech got sent to Boise and San Fransisco last year.) Generally, what happens isn’t nearly as bad as my example, but just be warned “Pac-10 #2” means “the first Pac-10 team not picked by the BCS” more than it means the Pac-10 runner-up.
• Also, this early in the year, things are still a crap shoot. There are several teams with 3 or 4 wins that may struggle to make 6 wins, and it’s difficult to tell until they’ve played more conference games.
• By my count, the Big Ten will be in the most trouble making its bids this year, unless Michigan State stops sucking. For now, I’ve got them going to the Motor City Bowl, but they’ve looked completely lost after that Notre Dame game and will be struggling to get to 6 wins.
• The SEC may also have problems – Kentucky or Vanderbilt will need to garner 3 more wins to fill out their allotments.
• As a Georgia Tech fan, I am somewhat scared to put us in the Orange Bowl, which is why I’ve put them in the Peach/Chick-fil-a. That said, the matchup against Alabama would be cool – another old SEC rivalry (we’re in their fight song, even).
• Assuming the SEC doesn’t continue to beat up on itself, they should put both Florida and Auburn in the BCS. The best situation will be if UF and AU don’t meet again in the SEC title game (i.e., Arkansas wins out), and UF wins the SEC title to go the Sugar. AU should remain plenty strong to garner an at-large berth, probably in the Orange. AU will probably play BC, Clemson, or GT there – the latter two being the most interesting matchups to me. (Tigers vs. Tigers, or AU tries to take revenge for 2003 and 2005. I like ’em both.)
• The ACC is a total mess right now. GT, Clemson, Wake, and BC are the top teams in the standings. The main question is: how far will the Florida schools and VPI fall? I have no idea honestly. I can’t really see Miami going to Boise, but I have no idea where else to put them.
• Though it will probably happen, for the time being I’m not putting Boise St. in the BCS. Mostly because I need another WAC team to act as an at-large in the Poinsettia Bowl.
• Yes, that’s right, SMU in a bowl. Will probably happen, or else C-USA won’t fill its bids.
• I’ve said that I’d like to attend the Birmingham Bowl or the Music City bowl this year, but they’re both turning out pretty crappy. UAB probably won’t make a bowl, so C-USA will have to send someone there. USF fails to excite me as well. And while I like cheering for Wake, USC-East vs. Wake probably isn’t very interesting.

That’s about all on the bowl predictions front. Standings will be updated every Sunday after the BCS standings for the week come out.

On another note, lemme talk about Vandy-UGA. I’ve been cheering for Vandy every since I can remember, mostly because I enjoy cheering for underdogs, and well, Vandy is almost always an underdog. Over the past few years, one of my best friends from HS is at Vandy, which gives me additional incentive to root for them. (In fact, Vandy’s stadium is the only other college stadium I’ve been to, where I witnessed GT’s overtime win in 2003.) On the other hand, as a student and fan of Georgia Tech, I loathe the so-called “University” of Georgia and just about everything it stands for.

Therefore, outside of GT beating them, nothing was sweater than watching Vandy put it to UGA last Saturday – during UGA’s homecoming, nonetheless. The most hilarious part is that the announcers and most delusional UGA fans seem to thing Matt Stafford is some sort of god, when their starter’s numbers looked mighty fine to me. I’ve watched Vandy fade so many times in the 4th quarter the past few years I thought it was over when UGA returned that interception for a TD. Vandy never gave up, though, and drove for the last second field goal that split the uprights.

Anyway, looking forward, GT plays Clemson Saturday. Don’t let Vegas’s 9 point line fool you: this is an extremely close rivalry. I’ll elaborate more on this later in the week. And make sure to read Tito’s AU-UF gameday post below.

I woke up at 6 AM on Saturday morning. When my alarm went off, I looked out the window to discover that the sun had not even thought about coming up yet. I was tempted to go back to sleep, but I thought, “No; I’m going to do this!” The “this” in question was a walk to College GameDay, ESPN’s travelling Saturday morning broadcast. This weekend, Lee, Kirk, and Chris paid a visit to Auburn. I arrived on site at 7 AM. It was about 55 degrees outside, and there were probably two hundred fans already waiting at the gates.

GameDay was interesting. Some drunk frat guys in front of me made the wait until airtime a lot more interesting. One of them named Forest convinced the crowd around us to sit down so he could take a nap. Now that I think about it, I’m pretty crazy for sitting on damp grass near the baseball stadium at 8 AM on a Saturday morning, all for the slim chance of getting on national television. Even worse, my third row spot behind the GameDay desk was too far back for me to get on TV.

After Herbstreit and Corso picked the Gators, GameDay ended and I walked to my grandparents’ motor home. One of their friends, an older Auburn fan, had dressed up in a Florida State jacket and straw hat. I must say, he did a pretty good job of looking like Bobby Bowden. For most of the morning, he sat on top of a nearby motor home and did the tomahawk chop at Gator fans passing by on the road. It’s pretty funny how crazy old football fans are. That guy makes me wonder what I’ll be like at his age.

Seriously, Bowden looks like one of the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park or The Land Before Time.

Next up, I walked all the way across campus to hang out with a girl I met in Vermont this summer. She goes to the University of Florida and was up for the weekend to see the game. We went to the university bookstore and watched Georgia lose to Vanderbilt. It was funny to watch both Auburn and Florida fans cheer when Vandy’s final field goal went straight through the uprights. Heather and I parted ways around 3 PM, when I walked over to the student gates to claim my spot in line. I had been awake for nine hours, and four were left until kickoff.

In spite of (or perhaps because of) our embarrassing loss to Arkansas last weekend, the Auburn student section was out in full force this Saturday. You could definitely feel a nervous but hopeful vibe among the crowd during the three hours we spent in the stands before the game started. The energy continued to build until the pre-kickoff video, which brings the excitement like nothing else. By this point, the sun was setting, and the sky was turning orange and blue. It was definitely an omen in our favor.

The first quarter was rather ho-hum. Both teams drove the length of the field only to kick field goals, an accomplishment for previously 0-of-4 Florida kicker Chris Hetland. Considering Florida’s prowess at scoring touchdowns, Auburn’s defense had seemingly “plugged the Leak” of the Gator offense. However, the D didn’t hold that long. Early in the second quarter, Chris Leak hit Dallas Baker in double coverage for a fifteen-yard touchdown. In retaliation, some students in the end zone tossed the extra point ball up the stands and out of the stadium.

After another unproductive set of downs for Auburn, Florida’s offense scored a safety for the Tigers by committing holding in their own end zone. The momentum shifted towards Auburn, now down only 5-1o. John Vaughn tacked on three more to make it 8-10. Three plays and one questionable personal foul later, Tim Tebow jogged untouched into the Auburn end zone, increasing the Gators lead to 17-8. Another Vaughn field goal sent the teams to the locker room at 17-11. Sentiments in the stands were still nervously hopeful.

That’s the hard hat I got at GameDay. It’s legitimate and everything; I’m gonna work on the new student union sometime this week.

During halftime, Auburn’s swim teams were commemorated for winning everything ever (or four straight NCAA titles, whichever is more impressive). Next, Auburn mascot Aubie the Tiger performed the opening guitar solo from Van Halen’s “You Really Got Me Now”. Sure, the guitar was made out of foam, but I still think it was pretty awesome. The accompanying fireworks helped, but I think the reason this show ruled so much was the relative lack of noise from the band. Those guys know how to kill a good time.

When the defense came out of the tunnel for the second half, the crowd brought the noise all up ons Chris Leak, who had to call a timeout so that he could hear himself think. Auburn’s D-line made two huge tackles behind the line of scrimmage to force Florida into a punt formation. The student section erupted into chants of “block that kick, block that kick…” Lo and behold, a bad snap forced Florida punter Eric Wilbur to kick the football into the chest of Auburn defenders. Tre’ Smith, of all players, picked up the ball and did a forward flip into the end zone. Could God be any more of an Auburn fan, I asked myself?

Four drives later, God said, “Yes.” The Gators were nearing the Auburn red zone. A field goal would put them up 20-18, so they were almost guaranteed to take the lead. Desperately, I prayed for a turnover. On the next play, Tray Blackmon got so pumped up that he forced a fumble. After a six minute Auburn drive, John Vaughn came out to miss a 46 yard field goal attempt. Visions of the 2005 LSU game, which Vaughn to some extent lost for the Tigers, started appearing before my eyes.

This looked to be the final standoff of the game. Florida had squandered its three timeouts, one on a challenge of the Blackmon forced fumble. They had 2:58 remaining to drive the length of the field and kick a game-winning field goal. I was not sure that Auburn’s defense could pull off the last stop needed to seal the victory. Then, Chris Leak threw an interception directly into the hands of Auburn defender Eric Brock. It was as if God himself had directed the arm-cannon of Leak towards Brock’s chest. The Auburn faithful went crazy go nuts.

After three predictable runs by Brad Lester, John Vaughn redeemed himself by kicking a forty yarder to put Auburn up 21-17. Florida regained the ball with 27 seconds to go. After three incomplete passes, Leak hit Dallas Baker, who lateraled to Jarred Fayson, who fumbled to Auburn defender Patrick Lee, who ran twenty-five yards and dove into the end zone as time expired. The scoreboard read “Auburn 27, Florida 17”. If anyone was wondering what I did with the paper bag, let me tell you that its ripped-up remains were left in Jordan-Hare Stadium.

After visiting Toomer’s Corner, I walked home, showered, and went to sleep. I woke up this morning at 11 AM, the euphoric sensation of victory still swimming around in my head. I suppose you could call it a “hangover of triumph”. I sure would. War Eagle!

Auburn won! War Eagle! More tomorrow!