Week 8 (10/18-10/20) CFB Picks and News

RJ Esq · Oct 17, 2007

Georgia's Lumpkin has knee surgery

Posted: Wednesday October 17, 2007 12:20AM; Updated: Wednesday October 17, 2007 12:20AM

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) -- Georgia tailback Kregg Lumpkin underwent surgery on his left knee Tuesday but may have one more game in his college career.
Coach Mark Richt said Lumpkin, a fifth-year senior, may be able to play in a bowl game for the 21st-ranked Bulldogs.
"It's disappointing, but he's doing pretty good," said Richt, whose team is off this week. "He's a mature kid. We saw him today with his mom and dad after surgery. It wasn't like he was happy, but he wasn't sitting there feeling sorry for himself."
Lumpkin hurt his knee in last week's victory over Vanderbilt. He underwent an arthroscopic procedure to repair a torn lateral meniscus and a sprained posterior lateral complex.
"Playing in a bowl game is probably his only shot, but in talking to him today, he would welcome that opportunity," Richt said. "He acted like if he was healthy, he wanted to finish."
Lumpkin endured an injury-plagued career. After a promising freshman year, he tore up a knee on the first day of fall practice in 2004, forcing him to take a redshirt. He returned to lead the Bulldogs in rushing last season with 798 yards and six touchdowns, but sustained another setback in this year's opener against Oklahoma State when he broke a thumb.
Lumpkin missed two games and had to wear a special pad on his hand when he returned. His carries figured to increase in the coming weeks after fellow senior Thomas Brown went down with a broken collarbone, but the latest knee injury thwarted those plans.
Redshirt freshman Knowshon Moreno has taken over at the Bulldogs' starting tailback. Lumpkin has only nine carries for 37 yards.

RJ Esq · Oct 17, 2007

Stanford TE has season-ending injury

Posted: Wednesday October 17, 2007 1:36AM; Updated: Wednesday October 17, 2007 1:36AM

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) -- Stanford tight end Jim Dray will miss the remainder of the season after tearing a ligament in his left knee.
Dray tore his anterior cruciate ligament in Saturday's loss to TCU and will need to undergo surgery.
"I'm extremely disappointed," Dray said Tuesday. "It's an unfortunate situation, but I chose to play football and know the risks. It happened, and now I will work harder to come back and be stronger."
Dray started every game for the Cardinal (2-4) this season and had nine catches for 116 yards and one touchdown.

RJ Esq · Oct 17, 2007

Wannstedt tears Achilles' tendon

Pitt's head man may coach Cincy game from press box

Posted: Wednesday October 17, 2007 3:15PM; Updated: Wednesday October 17, 2007 3:13PM

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The latest addition to Pitt's already long injury list is coach Dave Wannstedt.
Wannstedt missed practice Tuesday after tearing his left Achilles' tendon earlier in the day, requiring surgery that took place several hours after he was hurt.
The injury may prevent Wannstedt from being on the sideline Saturday for No. 23 Cincinnati's game at Pitt (2-4), which has lost its last four games. Wannstedt may coach the game from the press box.
Pitt has had a long string of injuries that began when wide receiver Derek Kinder, the team's top returning offensive player, badly injured a knee on the first day of contact work during preseason camp. Kinder is sitting out the season.
Starting quarterback Bill Stull injured a thumb in the Sept. 1 season opener and has yet to return.
Wannstedt, a former Pitt offensive linemen, coached the Chicago Bears and Miami Dolphins before being hired by Pitt in December 2004. He has a 13-16 record.

RJ Esq · Oct 17, 2007

Tonight Show's Other Look at Texas-OU:

http://<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UB0tSVgf_lI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UB0tSVgf_lI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

"Gotta love a fight song that's a showtune."

RJ Esq · Oct 17, 2007

FLORIDA VERSUS KENTUCKY: THE SECRET GAMEPLAN

Malkovich? Malkovich. Courtesy of the amazing Mr2Cents, we present Florida’s mindbending gameplan for the Kentucky game.

With that lineup, we should be favored by DAMN! points. Um, apologies–with that lineup, we should be favored by GOSH GOLLY JEEZ! points.

RJ Esq · Oct 17, 2007

So Close... So Far Away

by HornsFan Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 01:20:09 PM EDT

If this article doesn't make your blood boil, then nothing will. For if there was any lingering doubt that Texas football is not a meritocracy... there can be none now.
It gets really old ranting about this kind of stuff, and we're to the point where one can't reasonably escape understanding that one of Mack Brown's deepest flaws is some sort of stubborn pride that ultimately serves as a double-edged sword. Whereas I've no doubt his consistency and ability to stick to his principles serves him well in many of his head coaching duties, it's positively maddening that Mack refuses to part ways with the notion that veterans - because they've put in their time to the program and been a part of its past successes - cannot be replaced if they are being outplayed by those younger.
Perhaps most frustrating of all, it's such an easily correctable problem. I mean, if there's a finite list of things in which a coach can strong, and if we assume that every coach has his strengths and his weaknesses, then as a fan you just hope that your coach excels at the difficult stuff and is weak in the areas where he can more easily improve.
For Mack Brown? His most fundamental weakness appears to be one that is at or near the top of "Things A Coach Can Easily Improve." It's not as though he can't identify talent, can't convince the talent to come to Austin, or can't be a first-rate CEO of a gigantic program. He does so many different things right - things which, in the aggregate, have situated Texas permanently in the Top 25 and more often than not in the Top 10. Maddeningly, though, using younger and less experienced players properly is one thing he can't seem to bring himself to do.
<TABLE align=right><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Think of it using this rough metaphor: if winning a conference or national championship is a list of ingredients (hoarding talent, putting together the right packages for the talent, some good gameday coaching, some good luck, etc.) and we label those ingredients - each of which is necessary for your team to have a BCS Bowl year - 1 through 10 (or whatever, the list of what you need isn't so formulaic). Mack's got 8 or 9 of those ingredients year in and year out. In 2004 and 2005, Vince Young provided something extra that bumped Mack up to the championship level. But now we're back in that 8-9 range.
Well, if you're Mack Brown and you're evaluating your resume, what would stick out to you? I'd be damn pleased with my consistency. I'd be exceedingly proud that I had everything come together for a magical back-to-back Rose Bowl run. No doubt I would mostly be pleased with what I saw.
The only thing that would stick out to me is the lack of conference championships. And given how integral a part of the team and fan's goals those are, I don't think I could just contentedly look at that big picture and decide that overall things are good enough. I'd ask what things within my control I should think about changing. I'd ask what realistic element of my coaching I could easily improve.
And there's the rub. It's just hard to imagine an easier, more justifiable change within Mack Brown's grasp. Play the best on the team, at all times, no matter the age or experience. If you're doing your head coaching job properly, that won't be a problem among the veterans. Everyone will work their hardest, everyone will be bought completely into the idea of Team, and everyone will Do Their Part to ensure the team meets its goals.
As is, a starting job is not decided on the basis of smart play, boneheaded penalties, ability to run sideline to sideline, capability of disrupting plays, or, practically speaking, any other pure evaluative criteria. It's based far, far too much on seniority. Now, I'm not a fool: experience counts and, when in doubt, should be a deciding factor between two otherwise equal players. But when an overwhelming majority of the evidence suggests another player is better?
Make the change.
Make the freaking change. You're not just short-changing the players and fans, Mack. You're short-changing yourself.

Aztec4Life · Oct 17, 2007

RJ - I'm looking at the NCAAF GOY Lines right now (from Sportsbook.com).

11/23/07
Texas -6 @ Texas A&M --> Any thoughts on this line, bro? I'm tempted to pull the trigger on the Longhorns now. Big revenge game for them. I know it's a tough place to play on the road, but...do you think the Ag's will have any gas left in the tank by the end of the season (knowing that Fran will be gone)?

RJ Esq · Oct 17, 2007

Man, Aztec, I don't know. Line looks good, but you gotta go play in Kyle Field. See what happens after Nebraska.

RJ Esq · Oct 17, 2007

MIDSEASON META: THE ACC RUNDOWN
By SMQ
Posted on Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 07:35:40 PM EDT
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What we've learned about the ACC at the midway point:
Boston College is good. Maybe. If a potentially unbeaten Big East is going to take heat about its mythical championship aspirations, the same skepticism must be extended to Boston College, which has beaten only one team with fewer than three losses, and that team is Wake Forest, whose third (and fourth, and fifth, in all likelihood) defeat will be in the books soon enough. Georgia Tech looked good, briefly, until it was painfully obvious how little the Jackets' win over Notre Dame really meant and B.C.'s success against Tech was immediately replicated by Virginia and Maryland.
The Eagles' stock should have plummeted during its four-week run against Army, UMass, Bowling Green and ND, but the attrition in front of them in the polls opened up a fast rise to number three, which in all likelihood will hold if B.C. does its part against the closing meat of the schedule:

Oct. 25 at Virginia Tech
Nov. 3 Florida State
Nov. 10 at Maryland
Nov. 17 at Clemson
Nov. 24 Miami
- - -

I don't think the hat came off against UMass.
- - -

It was clear at the start of the year the Eagles had drawn the short end of the stick by drawing favorites Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and Miami from the Coastal, and that remains true within the conference perspective (division rival Wake Forest, for example, rather ridiculously gets Duke, North Carolina and Virginia from the Coastal), but for a championship aspirant, wins in those games are the minimum standard for the BCS in lieu of a more prestigious carcass to throw on the scales in December.

Nothing in Boston College's history suggests it can win all five of those games, not to mention the ACC championship game on top of it, but nothing in the current season suggests history will have the slightest bearing on any of the results at season's end. Either way, the criteria will be the same for B.C. as it's been for would-be contenders from the Big East, which is now for all intents and purposes the ACC's equal: go undefeated, and hope there are no fellow unbeatens from any of the other five power conferences in line for the second spot. If status quo holds - note: status quo will not hold - Arizona State would certainly move in front of BC with the Pac Ten pelts it would have to rack up to get to that point, and even one-loss LSU would try to launch a secession movement or something if it came to that; the only team without a loss right now that might still find itself behind Boston College if both are still blemish-free in December is Kansas, and it would be close. Well, Hawaii, too, I guess, but the Warriors aren't really part of this thought process, for obvious reasons.
Speaking of which...
Matt Ryan is not a candidate for the Trophy Which Must Not Be Named (not yet). I do this only because I trashed Colt Brennan's credentials Tuesday, and immediately afterward read on the Worldwide Leader's that Ryan had moved into the frontrunner role on the heels of Darren McFadden's lackluster game against Auburn.
I think Ryan has better credentials than Brennan, simply by virtue of playing better competition than UNLV and San Jose State if nothing else, but the Eagles' schedule hasn't been that much better. Ryan has some big games, but the only game in his first seven I'd classify as H*i*m*n-worthy is his flawless night against Georgia Tech: 30 or 44 for 435 yards, only one touchdown but no interceptions.
Otherwise, he's put up a lot of yards, but always under suspect circumstances: 408 and five touchdowns against Wake Forest came on a whopping, Hawaii-like 52 attempts and was accompanied by two interceptions, as was his 356-yard, three-touchdown game against woeful Army. Ryan is also only the nation's 37th-rated passer so far, rather distant for the nation's Most Outstanding Player™. Anyway, do the numbers against Army, Bowling Green, UMass and Notre Dame matter? I think they do not. Ryan's candidacy will have to be made against real defenses over the last month, and with Va Tech, Miami, Clemson and Florida State, he'll face some for a change. Rumors of Virginia Tech's demise are greatly exaggerated. This is not a recording. I dunno, where I come from, teams with lousy quarterbacks who get pulled for a true freshman on the road in the midst of a 41-point trouncing a week after surviving a late scare from East Carolina aren't really `contender' material. But this is the ACC, and Virginia Tech's done this possum collapse bit before - the Hokies did it last year, actually, when they struggled offensively against Cincinnati and North Carolina, were beaten down at home by Georgia Tech and then on national television again in a lame effort that brought the disgusted wrath of Kirk Herbstreit in the second half of a 17-3 loss at Boston College, two weeks before blasting streaking Clemson on Thursday night for the second in a six-game win streak to close the regular season, which Tech ended as the top-ranked team in the conference. They did it in 2004, too, losing a second game early to NC State and rolling off eight straight to win the conference before running into the undefeated Auburn buzzsaw in the Sugar Bowl.

Why do you keep acting like we need offense?
- - -

So here we are, with a team in flux, without a quarterback, one of eight teams in the entire country averaging less than 300 yards a game in total offense, that struggles to beat East Carolina by ten and North Carolina by a touchdown, and wham!: overnight Clemson gets Hokied for the second year in a row - by the special teams this time, rather than `06 Tiger killer Branden Ore - heretofore competitive Duke goes down by 29, and the Hokies are well en route to another championship game. The offense still occasionally seems bottom rung (as mentioned, 112th in total yards), but the defense and special teams have already accounted for eight touchdowns in seven games. The remaining five are brutal, and Tech might be a favorite in every one: Boston College next Thursday, at Georgia Tech, Florida State, Miami, at Virginia.
Rumors of Florida State and Miami's demise are about right. The Bermuda Triangle of offense that engulfed last year's Labor Day punt fest was in the opener, too early to be dilluted by the season's most spectacular falls from grace, so this Saturday's rivalry game is the least anticipated in the series in more than 25 years. Much-anticipated coaching shakeups haven't made a cosmetic difference: Miami was humiliated in Baylor-esque fashion at Oklahoma, Florida State beaten in a scoreless second half at Wake Forest. Neither team knows who its quarterback will be week-to-week, despite an ex-all-world high school slinger on each sideline, or has the offensive line to protect him if it did. Very fast receivers drop half of what finds its way to their vicinity Scoring averages are dipping to historic lows. Both are two games back of the division lead, and even for an advocate of the "Coaching Change=Attitude Change" band wagon for both teams in the preseason, that doesn't seem all that odd anymore. The cycle has passed the old warriors by.
North Carolina is some scary shit. UNC is 2-5 but positioned to be the fastest riser in the conference, sooner rather than later. The Heels' latest win over Miami was in all likelihood a much healthier sign of overall progress than its last win over the Canes, when it upset top five UM in the midst of an otherwise miserable 2004. That win, a harbinger of nothing but coming Hurricane doom, might have singlehandedly set Carolina back two years in its search for a new direction by temporarily saving John Bunting, who continued to make the team in his image: slow and soft around the middle.
Butch Davis handled that immediate problem on his arrival by aggressive recruiting on the defensive line, and another by promoting redshirt freshman T.J. Yates at quarterback and lining up a sophomore, receiver Hakeem Nicks, as his best offensive weapon. UNC's all-purpose yardage leaders through seven games are Nicks, junior Brandon Tate, freshman Johnny White, freshman Anthony Elzy, junior Brooks Foster, freshman Ryan Houston, freshman Greg Little and sophomore Bobby Rome. Two of the starters on the offensive line are sophomores, as are the first string tight end and H-back, and Carolina's defensive depth chart against South Carolina listed freshmen and sophomore starters on the line (Marvin Austin and E.J. Wilson) at linebacker (Wesley Flagg and Quan Sturdivant) and especially in the secondary (Jermaine Strong, Deunta Williams, Charles Brown and Kendric Burney). For all that youth, UNC has played five straight games against teams with a combined 28-6 record and managed to beat one of them (Miami) while losing to three of the other four (Virginia, Virginia Tech and South Carolina) by two, seven and six points, respectively. By comparison, the rest of the schedule - Wake Forest, Maryland, NC State, Georgia Tech and Duke - is manageable, at worst; the Heels might be good enough to win four of those and push for a bowl bid, or at least play well enough to create some momentum for a much more experienced, optimistic outfit going into 2008.

Whatever happens with Butch Davis and T.J. Yates, Carolina, never forget. Never forget.
- - -

North Carolina State is worse than Duke. Tom O'Brien inherited a disaster and to date has only presiding a more disastrous disaster. The Blue Devils remain an atrocious team, particularly on defense, but at least Duke has knocked off a team from the Bowl Subdivision (Northwestern, on the road, however sketchy in the details; when you've lost 25 straight, a win is a win is a win). Besides ranking last or next-to-last in the conference in rushing offense, scoring offense, rushing defense, total defense and scoring defense, N.C. State has only managed to beat I-AA Wofford and not come very close against Boston College (17-37), Clemson (20-42), Louisville (10-29) or Florida State (10-27).

Duke might even get itself another win, with Notre Dame and North Carolina approaching at the end of November, but the Pack's last good shot at I-A victory may be this week against East Carolina, to whom it lost last year, 21-16. Four of the five conference games after the Pirates are against teams currently sitting on winning records (the fifth is against the aforementioned Tar Heels), and since the Devils and Pack don't play each other, both could be staring at an 0-8 conference record. At least one of them is used to it.
Virginia is tied for the Coastal lead; Wake Forest is one game back in the Atlantic. The Cavaliers laid what I still consider to be the season's biggest egg to date in their first game, a 20-3 disaster at Wyoming in which UVA was outgained by a mediocre Mountain West team by 352 yards (452-100), but since have somehow won six straight through indecision at quarterback, manager-inspired replays and a pressure-oriented defense that's had to overcome an offense that happens to be good at absolutely nothing - UVA is ranked 83rd or worse in all four major offensive stat categories.
But Wake Forest...do we really have to deal with this again? The Deacons are not - I repeat, the Deacons are not - a good team, having lost at home to Nebraska, for heaven's sake, and mounted a four-game win streak by an average of less than a touchdown purr. Wake's offense staggered to 213 total yards against Army, turned the ball over four times in an overtime win over Maryland, hung on to beat Duke by five and brought on recurring nightmares in the ACC front office and the Orange Bowl committee by coming from behind to beat Florida State in one of the sloppiest games on television this year.
Mathematical contention through three or four conference games is one thing, but there's only one excuse for UVA or Wake to still be in or around a true front runner position at this point in the season, and that is... It's kind of a crappy league. The ACC's signature non-conference win is probably Florida State over Alabama, which is not the worst thing you could say, but the only three teams that made it out of the non-conference season unscathed (so far) did so by beating Army, Bowling Green, Notre Dame, UMass, Samford, Notre Dame again and, finally, the respectable combo of Alabama and Colorado, in FSU's case. In that sense, maybethe Noles are still a sleeping giant. Just as long as they don't have to play Wake Forest.

counselor · Oct 17, 2007

"the Illini can hang with Michigan, I like the play and just to be safe I'm going to buy it to +15.5, wish me luck"

--jm1301, 10/15/07

:36_11_6:

RJ Esq · Oct 18, 2007

Charlie Weis Is Not Concerned About Transfers

Posted Oct 18th 2007 1:52PM by Tom Fornelli
Filed under: Notre Dame Football, NCAA FB Gossip

It seems that every week is the same for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. They lose on Saturday, and then somebody transfers on Sunday. It's as if there's some sort of Notre Dame Survivor going on where somebody gets voted off the island every week.

First it was Demetrius Jones taking off after being benched in the season opener against Georgia Tech, then it was seldom used Konrad Ruelen who decided to look for greener pastures. Last week lineman Matt Carufel lost his starting job to Eric Olsen so he decided he wanted out. He'll be signing with either Iowa or Minnesota any day now.

So all these transfers have to have Charlie Weis worried right? I mean, at this rate the Irish are going to have to play 10-man football before the season's over.

"Usually the guys that transfer got beaten out. That's why they leave," Weis said. "It would be one thing if John Carlson was transferring tomorrow. I'm going to start worrying, OK? But I really can't worry too much about guys that leave that aren't starting. I've got to worry about the guys that are playing."

I know that sounds a little cold, and some people will probably get rubbed the wrong way, but Charlie's probably right here. The man has enough to worry about with the current state of his program, it would be a waste of his time to worry about players who are no longer there.

At the same time though, I hope Charlie is trying to figure out why all these players are leaving. It can't just be the fact that they lost their starting jobs, or that they aren't getting any playing time. It has to have something to do with their relationships with Weis (e.g. They hate him). Hopefully all these transfers might help Weis realize these aren't NFL players he's dealing with. They're just kids, and I get the feeling Weis forgets that at times.

RJ Esq · Oct 18, 2007

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=904 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=15 rowSpan=5>Wk of October 18th
</TD><TD colSpan=14 rowSpan=2></TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2 rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=2>
</TD><TD rowSpan=2></TD><TD height=2></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=13 rowSpan=2>
</TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=7 rowSpan=2></TD><TD height=2></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=14></TD><TD height=14></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=36></TD><TD height=9></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=5 rowSpan=2>#1
</TD><TD colSpan=27></TD><TD height=17></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=11></TD><TD colSpan=12 rowSpan=3>#2
</TD><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=33></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=20></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=8 rowSpan=3><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Michigan St
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>140
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>120
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>16
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.0
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#1 Ohio State
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>165
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>230
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>37
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.2
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=9></TD><TD height=11></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=25></TD><TD height=5></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=9></TD><TD colSpan=15 rowSpan=3><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#2 USF
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>165
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>193
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>26
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>3.1
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Rutgers
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>111
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>238
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>22
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>3.6
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=38></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=20></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=8 rowSpan=3>The Buckeyes are the clear #1 team in the country and their defense has been dominant. My computer calls for them to beat 5-2 Mich St by 21 but I think it could be more. They do have a major test next week AT NIGHT in Happy Valley.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #1 OHIO STATE 37 Michigan St 13

</TD><TD colSpan=9></TD><TD height=12></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=25></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=9></TD><TD colSpan=15 rowSpan=2>This is the Friday night game on ESPN and Rutgers is familiar with taking on a top 3 team in a weekday game and last year upset Louisville in the same situation. My computer calls for them to win a tight one on the road and as you can tell by my projected Top 5 at the end of the year CLICK HERE, I agree.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #2 USF 27 Rutgers 24

</TD><TD rowSpan=2></TD><TD height=82></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=20></TD><TD height=30></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=36></TD><TD height=19></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=5 rowSpan=2>#4
</TD><TD colSpan=28></TD><TD height=27></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=13></TD><TD colSpan=12 rowSpan=3>#5 vs #18
</TD><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=21></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=21></TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD rowSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=7 rowSpan=3><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#4 Oklahoma
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>188
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>215
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>44
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.0
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Iowa St
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>67
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>215
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>9
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.8
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=13></TD><TD height=24></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=28></TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=11></TD><TD colSpan=15 rowSpan=3><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#18 Auburn
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>70
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>95
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>8
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.8
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#5 LSU
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>175
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>150
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>22
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>1.7
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=2 rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=27></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=19></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD rowSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=7 rowSpan=3>Last week Iowa St’s Gene Chizik had solid knowledge of all the Longhorn players and Texas having not really played a solid game all year. The result was Texas 56-3. Now a stronger team comes to Ames and is back in the national title chase needing impressive wins. This one gets ugly early.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #4 Oklahoma 51 IOWA ST 6

</TD><TD colSpan=11></TD><TD height=23></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=28></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=11></TD><TD colSpan=15 rowSpan=2>LSU is off their upset loss to Kentucky costing them their #1 spot. A dropped TD pass kept them from going up by 17 in the 4Q and they blew the lead. I have gone against Auburn each of the last 3 weeks and they have beaten me each time but with a team as talented as LSU at home I cannot call for the Tigers to lose two in a row.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #5 LSU 23 #18 Auburn 9

</TD><TD colSpan=2 rowSpan=2></TD><TD height=85></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=19></TD><TD height=41></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=36></TD><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD colSpan=5>#6
</TD><TD colSpan=27></TD><TD height=48></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=36></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=4></TD><TD colSpan=8 rowSpan=4><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Vanderbilt
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>133
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>130
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>12
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.7
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#6 South Carolina
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>152
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>235
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>29
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.5
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=24></TD><TD height=1></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=6></TD><TD colSpan=11>#7
</TD><TD colSpan=7></TD><TD height=48></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=24></TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=5></TD><TD colSpan=14 rowSpan=3><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#7 Oregon
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>245
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>263
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>38
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.4
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Washington
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>171
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>203
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>24
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.9
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=5 rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=2></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=17></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=8 rowSpan=3>South Carolina has a solid shot at the SEC East title but cannot afford any slip-ups. Vandy has a shot at bowl eligibility but needs to steal a win somewhere. SC has Tennessee and Arkansas on the road on deck but has enough of a talent edge to get the win here.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #6 SOUTH CAROLINA 27 Vanderbilt 13

</TD><TD colSpan=5></TD><TD height=48></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=24></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=5></TD><TD colSpan=14 rowSpan=3>The Ducks lost some MAJOR offensive weapons to injury last week including their #2 WR and a super RB who was averaging 6.4 ypc. Washington has upset Boise at home, led Ohio St at the half and only lost to USC by 3 but Ducks still have one of the top teams in the country even with the offensive losses.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #7 Oregon 41 WASHINGTON 24

</TD><TD colSpan=5 rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=60></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=17></TD><TD height=50></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=5 rowSpan=2>#8 vs #14
</TD><TD colSpan=9></TD><TD height=2></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=28></TD><TD height=46></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=36></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=8 rowSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#14 Florida
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>206
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>220
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>34
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.2
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#8 Kentucky
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>144
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>300
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>35
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.0
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=24></TD><TD height=19></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD colSpan=10 rowSpan=3>#9
</TD><TD colSpan=10 rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=35></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=16></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=5></TD><TD colSpan=8 rowSpan=5>Kentucky made another huge comeback last week and upset the #1 team in the country, their third upset of the year (Louisville, Arkansas). Florida has the situational edge as they are fresh off a bye and UK is off their huge 3 OT upset. My computer says UK will win outright and have a 44-426 yard edge. This is a tough one to call.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #14 Florida 37 #8 KENTUCKY 30

</TD><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD height=9></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=24></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=12><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Mississippi St
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>91
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>100
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>15
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>3.3
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#9 West Virginia
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>334
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>195
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>45
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.0
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=9></TD><TD height=54></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=24></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=12 rowSpan=3>Mississippi St needs two wins to get to a bowl and have knocked off enough SEC teams in the last 2 years to feel they will get those in the next 4 weeks. This is the only game the team may look at as unwinnable and put the lowest amount of preparation and effort of the last 5 weeks (a “C” game). With the rash of recent upsets West Virginia must feel it is back in the title chase, they are at home and off a bye and my computer calls for a 30 point romp with a 529-191 yard edge. Miss St is not a good come from behind team and that is where they figure to be.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #9 WEST VIRGINIA 41 Mississippi St 13
</TD><TD colSpan=9 rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=55></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=15></TD><TD height=50></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=5 rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=5 rowSpan=2>#10
</TD><TD colSpan=5></TD><TD height=35></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=26></TD><TD height=13></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=36></TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=8 rowSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#10 California
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>138
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>210
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>32
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.0
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>UCLA
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>167
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>255
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>29
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>3.4
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=24></TD><TD height=35></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=10 rowSpan=3>#13
</TD><TD colSpan=12 rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=19></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=14></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=5></TD><TD colSpan=8 rowSpan=5>Both starting QB’s are questionable and if it is a game of backup QB’s Cal would rule as UCLA’s backup is a third string walk on that has struggled. If Pat Cowan can play and he has been practicing fine, AND he stays healthy, I think UCLA can pull the upset and stay unbeaten in the Pac 10.
PHIL’S FORECAST: UCLA 28 #10 California 27

</TD><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD height=25></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=24></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD></TD><TD colSpan=12><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#13 USC
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>178
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>185
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>25
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>3.2
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Notre Dame
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>17
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>150
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>12
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.6
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=11></TD><TD height=54></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=24></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD></TD><TD colSpan=12 rowSpan=3>Notre Dame is off their upset of UCLA and stayed close to Boston College last week. USC has underachieved all year. My computer calls for USC to have a 363-167 yard edge but only win by 13 and that reflects how the Irish games have gone the last 2 weeks as they kept it much closer than the stats.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #13 Usc 24 NOTR E DAME 7

</TD><TD colSpan=11 rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=25></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=13></TD><TD height=46></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=5 rowSpan=2>#15
</TD><TD colSpan=5></TD><TD height=41></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=28></TD><TD height=7></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=36></TD><TD height=2></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=8 rowSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#15 Kansas
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>140
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>193
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>33
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.3
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Colorado
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>156
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>233
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>23
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>3.3
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=26 rowSpan=2></TD><TD height=10></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD height=44></TD></TR><TR><TD width=3>

</TD><TD width=145>

</TD><TD width=7>

</TD><TD width=2>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=270>

</TD><TD width=3>

</TD><TD width=70>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=24>

</TD><TD width=2>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=4>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=72>

</TD><TD width=4>

</TD><TD width=256>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=3>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=3>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=2>

</TD><TD width=9 height=1>

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href="../Misc%20Pages/ncaaprojectedsta.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=8,334,132,347 href="../Misc%20Pages/2007collegepower.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=8,306,100,316 href="../NCAA%20Schedules/Future%20Schedules/futureschedulesf.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,278,65,288 href="../NCAA%20Schedules/Div%20IAA%20Schedules/conferencemain.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,264,125,277 href="../NCAA%20Schedules/Div%20IAA%20Schedules/conferencemain.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=9,236,111,249 href="../NCAA%20Schedules/2007weekbyweek.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,222,119,235 href="../NCAA%20Schedules/2007weekbyweek.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,194,65,204 href="../NCAA%20Schedules/ncaaschedules.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,179,115,192 href="../NCAA%20Schedules/ncaaschedules.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,149,136,159 href="../FBS%20Info/midssn%20all%20conf/midssnallconfmai.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,135,130,145 href="../FBS%20Info/midssn%20all%20conf/midssnallconfmai.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,105,132,118 href="top25main.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,76,119,89 href="../Misc%20Pages/phil'sweeklynote.html"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=11,47,99,57 href=" http://ncsports.websitegear.com"><AREA shape=RECT alt="" coords=13,0,78,13 href="http://www.philsteele.com"></MAP><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=904 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=6></TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD rowSpan=4></TD><TD rowSpan=4>Kansas is unbeaten and a win here would put them in the top 10. Colorado has a solid defense and has already knocked off Oklahoma here at home. Kansas has faced the #118 schedule and Colorado the #11 schedule. My computer (which takes into account the strength of opponent played) calls for Colorado to have a 389-333 yard edge at home and I agree with the yards and call for another unbeaten to bite the dust.
PHIL’S FORECAST: COLORADO 31 #15 Kansas 24
</TD><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD height=10></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD>#16 vs #22
</TD><TD></TD><TD height=48></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD height=2></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD></TD><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#22 Texas Tech
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>27
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>433
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>33
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.4
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#16 Missouri
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>224
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>333
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>39
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.3
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD height=52></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3></TD><TD height=2></TD></TR><TR><TD width=157>

</TD><TD width=348>

</TD><TD width=25>

</TD><TD width=2>

</TD><TD width=345>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=26 height=1>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=904 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=6></TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=5></TD><TD rowSpan=4>Missouri has the better balanced offense and my computer shows them with 557 yards. Texas Tech is beatable on the road and already lost to Oklahoma St and besides Texas A&M have not really played any other solid team this year. Missouri played Oklahoma and beat Texas Tech in Lubbock last year holding Leachs offense to 21 points. Look for the Tigers to get a solid win at home.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #16 MISSOURI 48 #22 Texas Tech 38

</TD><TD height=60></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD>#19
</TD><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD height=48></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=5></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#19 Texas
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>210
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>310
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>46
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.0
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Baylor
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>10
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>250
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>16
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>3.2
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD></TD><TD height=28></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD height=26></TD></TR><TR><TD width=157>

</TD><TD width=2>

</TD><TD width=345>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=25>

</TD><TD width=348>

</TD><TD width=26 height=1>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=904 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=7></TD><TD height=2></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=6></TD><TD rowSpan=2>#20
</TD><TD height=1></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2 rowSpan=5></TD><TD colSpan=2 rowSpan=5>Texas FINALLY played a good game last week and may be ready for a 2nd half surge. Baylor has question marks at QB and also on defense. Texas will have the crowd edge here and Baylor had just 5 FD’s in a home game against Tex A&M earlier this year. Texas has won the last 9 meeting has won by an AVERAGE of 41 ppg!
PHIL’S FORECAST: #19 Texas 49 BAYLOR 10

</TD><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD height=50></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3></TD><TD height=5></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD></TD><TD colSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#20 Tennessee
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>128
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>260
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>28
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.2
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Alabama
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>127
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>260
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>28
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.1
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD height=54></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD></TD><TD colSpan=2 rowSpan=3>My computer shows a remarkably even game with almost identical totals in all 4 categories of rush, pass, points and turnovers. Tennessee has been impressive the last few weeks but Tide should get the win at home.
PHIL’S FORECAST: ALABAMA 31 #20 TENNESSEE 27

</TD><TD height=13></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=5></TD><TD height=53></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=2 rowSpan=2>#23
</TD><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD height=32></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD height=19></TD></TR><TR><TD width=154>

</TD><TD width=3>

</TD><TD width=342>

</TD><TD width=6>

</TD><TD width=25>

</TD><TD width=3>

</TD><TD width=345>

</TD><TD width=26 height=1>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=904 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=10></TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#23 Cincinnati
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>135
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>218
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>33
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.5
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Pittsburgh
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>111
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>203
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>16
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>3.5
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD colSpan=6></TD><TD height=38></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD rowSpan=3>#24
</TD><TD rowSpan=3></TD><TD height=16></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=8></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD rowSpan=5></TD><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=5>The Bearcats had their unbeaten season end last week and now must travel. Pitt has looked pathetic at times but this game is similar to Iowa’s upset of Illinois last week in the fact Pitt is better than their performance so far and their backs are to the wall. An upset would not surprise me.
PHIL’S FORECAST: #23 Cincinnati 27 PITTSBURGH 20

</TD><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD height=31></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=6></TD><TD height=5></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=3><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#24 Michigan
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>136
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>205
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>21
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.6
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Illinois
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>224
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>175
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>20
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>3.5
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD height=54></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=6></TD><TD height=4></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=3 rowSpan=5>Illinois was in a tough spot last week off of two big home upset wins with this huge sold out game on deck and a young team taking to the road as a favorite vs a desperate quality team. They still almost won. Michigan has been VERY impressive since that 0-2 start but do have trouble with mobile QB’s and the Illini have a pair of them. Call for another ranked team to fall in this season of upsets.
PHIL’S FORECAST : ILLINOIS 27 #24 Michigan 24

</TD><TD height=18></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=7></TD><TD height=44></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=3></TD><TD colSpan=2>#25
</TD><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD height=51></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=7></TD><TD height=5></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2 rowSpan=2></TD><TD colSpan=4 rowSpan=2><TABLE cellSpacing=2 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=12>

</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Rushing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Yds Passing
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Points
</TD><TD vAlign=top width=53>Turn Overs
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>#25 Kansas St
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>118
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>235
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>28
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.0
</TD></TR><TR><TD vAlign=top width=124 height=17>Oklahoma St
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>242
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>245
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>30
</TD><TD vAlign=center width=53>2.8
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD><TD></TD><TD height=22></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=4></TD><TD height=32></TD></TR><TR><TD width=152>

</TD><TD width=4>

</TD><TD width=2>

</TD><TD width=342>

</TD><TD width=3>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=26>

</TD><TD width=2>

</TD><TD width=345>

</TD><TD width=1>

</TD><TD width=26 height=1>

</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width=904 border=0><TBODY><TR vAlign=top><TD colSpan=2></TD><TD height=3></TD></TR><TR vAlign=top><TD></TD><TD>Oklahoma St is much better at home than on the road but dominated in Lincoln last week leading 38-0 at the HALF! The computer calls for a close game but look at the yards which have OSU with a 242-118 yard edge rushing and 487-353 overall yard edge. Call for another ranked team to fall in this season of upsets.
PHIL’S FORECAST: OKLAHOMA ST 34 #25 Kansas St 26
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

RJ Esq · Oct 18, 2007

MIDSEASON META: THE BIG 12 AT THE TURN
By SMQ
Posted on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 02:49:02 PM EDT
</I>

What we think we know about the Big 12, halfway through:
The Huskers are who we thought they were, that year they completely sucked. No matter who you are, if you are using the Internet right now (and you are), the odds are overwhelming that you grew up with Nebraska as punishing, bone-grinding overlord. In that context, Bill Callahan was supposed to save a piece of your childhood. He killed it instead, not only by losing - which Frank Solich was beginning to do a little too much of, obviously - but by losing in a way that is so wholly un-Nebraska, it feels probably about the same as it would have if Bob Devaney was replaced in the seventies by Brezhnev. At least Solich's teams had the dignity to go down fighting, the Cornhusker way, with the option and defense and who gives a damn what you think? Not Nebraska.
At the moment, this is Nebraska Football:

• 528 yards per game allowed over the last five games.
• Over 550 allowed in three of the last four, including 610 to Ball State (!) and 606 to Missouri.
• At least 40 points allowed in four of the last five. Nebraska did not allow a single 40-point game by an opponent throughout the 1980s.
• Since crushing Nevada on the ground in the opener, the Huskers have been outrushed in every game, including Ball State (200-114), with an average margin on the ground of 139 yards (250 by opponents (!) to 112 by Nebraska) over the last six.
• In the last two games, a 41-6 loss at Missouri and 45-14 home loss to Oklahoma State, Nebraska's offense has thrown more interceptions (three) as it's scored touchdowns (two).
- - -

At least someone will have a hard time letting go.
- - -
The only news to console the 1994 you that still defines your notions of the world in its perfect, natural state is that the Callahan and his watered-down NFL schtick is doomed as doomed can be, with the Huskers going back to the future with the quintessential college boss in charge of making the next hire. Not to be fatalistic, but the Huskers' last five games are against Texas A&M, Texas, Kansas, Kansas State and Colorado. Callahan has to shift his way to victory in three of those to have any kind of chance, and he'll be the underdog in all five.

Battle of winning losers. You know, it feels like Kansas is pretty good - qualifying for a bowl in early October with an average margin of victory of six touchdowns is a sure way to foster optimism. And KU is not entirely untested: the Jayhawks won at Kansas State a week after the Wildcats buried Texas in Austin. Even if the status quo holds, it won't rise to the level of a bloody struggle for control of the expansion of slavery into Western territories, but Kansas' Thanksgiving weekend "Border War" finale with Missouri in Kansas City would be the most significant collision of the two states 150 years.
This is a completely different status quo than the one that's ruled the league since 2002, the first year of Nebraska's freefall, which holds the Big 12 North is a mire of mediocrity, kindling to stoke the fire of BCS ambitions for the winner of the Texas-Oklahoma struggle in the South. Colorado won the division in 2004 with a 4-4 record and lost to Oklahoma as a 22-point underdog in the championship; CU was 5-3 and a 26-point underdog to Texas in 2005, and was wiped out by 67 points. Trading on its name as much as anything it had accomplished on the field, Nebraska was only a three-point underdog last year, but still faithfully delivered the North's fourth championship loss in five years. Including those games, from 2004-06, the North was 43-14 against the South; even Baylor, 3-0 against the North last year, managed to go 4-5 in interdivision games in that span.
If there's a new paradigm at work this year, the sea change occurred in a couple of hours back on Sept. 29, when Oklahoma and Texas fell within a matter of hours to Colorado and Kansas State, neither loss dismissable as a fluke, and the North will be trading those victories as currency in the public mind for the rest of the year. Kansas' subsequent win at KSU was meaningful because of the Wildcats' triumph in Austin; KU had its necessary statement game after a month of mercilessly pulling the legs off helpless MAC teams that just wanted to escape with a check. K-State rebounded by bouncing Colorado last week, a suddenly significant game that three weeks earlier would have been a complete afterthought between also-rans. That win keeps the Wildcats in the conference discussion, but didn't eliminate the Buffaloes, who fell into a three-way tie behind Kansas at 2-1 in the league. The third leg is Missouri, which earned about as much respect for leading all the way into the fourth quarter at Oklahoma as it had for starting 6-0. So far this year, the North is 4-4 against interdivision games, three of the losses by its obvious bottom-dwellers, Nebraska and Iowa State.
So Saturday's game between Colorado and Kansas will be another litmus for Kansas' cupcake-inflated poll position and the ostensibly rebuilding Buffs' chances to hang in the crowded race, and even if the evidence of the division's complete rehabilitation is incomplete, November will be interesting again for the first time in years: Missouri plays all three fellow challengers, plus Texas A&M, closing with the Jayhawks in a potential winner-take-all. For the sake of the division, just for the chance to send a team to the championship game that doesn't feel like a sacrificial lamb, the more meaningful that game, the better.
Michael Crabtree Report. Three of the country's top five receivers are on Big 12 offenses, two of them on one team, and two thirds of the league is averaging at least 260 yards per game through the air, making the once stodgy, crusty, dusty, option-dominated heartland league the most pass happy conference in the country. Actually, no conference is pass wackier, including the always wacky WAC:
<TABLE cellSpacing=3 cellPadding=3><CAPTION align=top>Team-by-Team Passing Averages</CAPTION><TBODY><TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: #a44a4a"><TD align=middle></TD><TD align=middle>Passes/Gm.</TD><TD align=middle>Yds./Game</TD><TD align=middle>Pass O Rank</TD></TR><TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: #eaeaea"><TD align=middle>Big 12</TD><TD align=middle>37.9</TD><TD align=middle>279.8</TD><TD align=middle>37.5</TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>WAC</TD><TD align=middle>36.0</TD><TD align=middle>254.0</TD><TD align=middle>56.2</TD></TR><TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: #eaeaea"><TD align=middle>Pac Ten</TD><TD align=middle>35.9</TD><TD align=middle>245.3</TD><TD align=middle>48.5</TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>C-USA</TD><TD align=middle>34.2</TD><TD align=middle>243.9</TD><TD align=middle>55.1</TD></TR><TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: #eaeaea"><TD align=middle>Big East</TD><TD align=middle>30.8</TD><TD align=middle>247.9</TD><TD align=middle>56.6</TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>Big Ten</TD><TD align=middle>33.4</TD><TD align=middle>234.2</TD><TD align=middle>57.6</TD></TR><TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: #eaeaea"><TD align=middle>MWC</TD><TD align=middle>32.7</TD><TD align=middle>229.5</TD><TD align=middle>61.1</TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>MAC</TD><TD align=middle>33.4</TD><TD align=middle>219.2</TD><TD align=middle>62.5</TD></TR><TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: #eaeaea"><TD align=middle>Sun Belt</TD><TD align=middle>34.2</TD><TD align=middle>217.7</TD><TD align=middle>67.0</TD></TR><TR><TD align=middle>ACC</TD><TD align=middle>31.4</TD><TD align=middle>216.6</TD><TD align=middle>70.4</TD></TR><TR><TR style="BACKGROUND: #eaeaea"><TD align=middle>SEC</TD><TD align=middle>30.5</TD><TD align=middle>209.6</TD><TD align=middle>73.6</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

Peaking kind of early, aren't we? I mean, this must be the peak, right? Right?!
- - -
The only teams running for more yards than they're passing are Oklahoma State and Texas A&M, which is really something of a surprise when you consider that ten of the conference's twelve teams (all but Baylor and Iowa State) have winning records and on the whole dominated out-of-conference filler. This might better be called the "run up the score" league. Like everything else, I credit Mike Leach.

Speaking of which, redshirt freshman Michael Crabtree's updated pace for the season, assuming a bowl game (the Raiders are already eligible): 145 catches, 2,310 yards, 32 touchdowns. All would be Division I-A records. Show me. Show me now. Between them, there is an upstart title contender in Missouri or Texas Tech, both of which begin crucial months this weekend in Columbia. It's mathematically possible for the loser to forge ahead with championship ambitions intact, but practically, with Missouri facing Colorado, A&M and the two Kansas schools to close the year and Tech closing up with Colorado, Texas and Oklahoma among its last four, the chances of making a splash in the polls, staying alive for the rare New Year's Day game or making a H*i*m*n push for either prolific quarterback hinge on beating another contender not preparing to fire its lame duck coach. With Nebraska biting the dust, Missouri is still trading on its opening two-point win against Illinois, which, if last week was any indication, won't be worth much in another few weeks. Both teams need an upgrade.

RJ Esq · Oct 18, 2007

Mike Hart's Mother Isn't Sure He's Playing This Week

Posted Oct 18th 2007 2:21PM by Tom Fornelli
Filed under: Michigan Football, Big 10, NCAA FB Gossip, NCAA FB Injuries

When Mike Hart had to leave Michigan's game against Purdue last week, it was a scary moment for the Wolverines. If it wasn't for Mike Hart this season, who knows what the Wolverines record would be at this point. The man essentially carried the team while Chad Henne was hurt.

So when Hart sprained his ankle last weekend, it quickly became the talk of Ann Arbor. His teammates say he's going to play on Saturday against Illinois. His coach, Lloyd Carr, isn't as sure on Hart's prognosis.

At times like these, there's only one person you can ask: The player's mother.

"No one will know until Saturday," Rory Rushlow said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "I just left Ann Arbor yesterday, and he says he's fine and if he's even 80 percent healthy he'll play.

"Hopefully, he'll play. But he if doesn't, I'm sure he'll play the next game against Minnesota."

Well she wasn't much help, was she?

If I had to choose, I'd say Hart does play on Saturday. A sprained ankle is painful, but Hart didn't seem to be in much pain on the sidelines during the second half of the Purdue game. Besides that, Hart is just a tough kid who I don't think will have any trouble playing through the pain.

And given Michigan's history of having trouble stopping spread offenses like the one Illinois employs, the Wolverines are probably going to give up a few points and they'll need all the offensive output they can get from their Heisman candidate.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

Added:

Texas -24 (-120)

Added another $500. This is the best bet on the board for me so I'm doubling up and have a dime on it now.

Still looking at maybe adding another unit on OU.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

This just breaks my little heart

Mizzourah RB Tony Temple out for the Texas Tech game.

And I don't mean "out of the house" or "out of the office." I mean, The Sporting News says that he will not be suited up to play in Saturday's game.

That's got to hurt the Tigers.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

Jenn Sterger has nice tits.

View attachment 9436

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

MIDSEASON META: THE BIG EAST AT THE TURN
By SMQ
Posted on Thu Oct 18, 2007 at 06:14:18 PM EDT
</I>

They're alive! They're alive! All the South Florida business has conveniently obscured the fact that, tucked among a four-way logjam for second place, West Virginia and Louisville remain very much alive for the conference championship despite high profile losses. The Cardinals may be in a better position, in fact, overlooking the fact they still have no defense: unlike West Virginia, which needs to win out and get two losses from South Florida, Louisville controls its own destiny - if the Cards find their rhythm, perhaps beginning with last week's largely ignored upset at Cincinnati, the three-game closing run against West Virginia, USF and Rutgers is at least as much an opportunity for redemption as it is a hellish three-week march of humiliation. Though it could still be that, too.

Go to sleep on Brohm, pay the consequences.
- - -

Both the preseason favorites should be kept in mind, because they weren't frontrunners for nothing: Brian Brohm is still the most polished passer in the country (you want to try throwing for 395 a game with 23 touchdowns to four interceptions in comeback mode against maxed-out secondaries week after week?) and Pat White and Steve Slaton, to ignore WVU's myriad other weapons, are still as dangerous a twosome as currently exists anywhere. West Virginia is vastly more believable in this role than UL, of course, because its defense is not a 100th-ranked disaster in need of being bailed out on a near-weekly basis, but don't let the Cardinals' misadventures obscure the fact that, with Brohm in the lineup, they are in every game and a legitimate threat to win against anyone in this conference. Not a favorite, but a threat.

UConn: friend or fraud? In six tries, the Huskies have played two solid games to date, and two bad ones. In the former category falls a 30-point win over Pittsburgh and a 34-point drumming of Akron, treating both like the patsies they are. In the `bad' category is a sketchy, official-aided win over Temple and a one-point loss at Virginia last week in which UConn failed to win the turnover margin for the first time.
If there's any one factor that casts doubt on the Huskies' merit, aside from the limp schedule up to last week's game with UVA (which may later fall into the `limp' category, depending on what happens the rest of the season with the 6-1 Cavs), it's that turnover margin. They're playing good enough defense, per the usual for UConn, albeit against such atrocious offensive outfits as Duke, Maine, Temple and Pittsburgh, but the Huskies are also third nationally in turnover margin, having picked off 13 passes and recovered three fumbles in the 5-0 start. Once that dried up against Virginia, though, the offense wasn't able to produce enough on its own to extend the win streak.
I think the answer is what you suspected: until it beats someone of some consequence, which it has yet to do since joining this conference (2-11 against winning Big East teams entering conference play in its fourth season), UConn is still just UConn. South Florida makes its move. Itn all likelihood the Bulls already have their two big wins of the season, over West Virginia and Auburn, but USF's mythical championship ambitions - that is, assuming it has any - now hinge on consistency through the string of Big East "trap" games it faces over the next month: four of the next five games are against Rutgers, UConn, Cincinnati and Louisville, combined record 19-7, beginning with the Scarlet Knights tonight on the same field that hosted Louisville's championship-killing second half meltdown on a Thursday last November. South Florida was 1-3 against that quartet last year, handling UConn but enduring sound beatings at Cincy and Louisville and a close home loss to Rutgers. The Huskies are the only one of the group that might be at a consequential disadvantage in terms of talent; Louisville and possibly Rutgers, based on Brian Brohm and Ray Rice alone, are certainly as equipped physically as the Bulls. Running the table in this case will be an exercise in preparation, execution and, as always, some luck - "bigger stronger faster," if it applies in the Bulls' favor at all, will not carry them through this thicket.

Jim Leavitt distracts the defense with his turn as that little thing from Jurassic Park. Good for a first down per game, actually.
- - -

Tonight is the toughest game of that stretch on paper, if for no other reason than it's on the road, but mainly because I still think Rutgers is the most balanced team in the Big East, able to pound the ball with Rice, protect Mike Teel (only four sacks allowed in six games, continuing the precedent the line set by allowing the fewest sacks in the nation last year) and counter with big plays to Kenny Britt and Tiquan Underwood while getting after the quarterback itself defensively. Teel is no longer the within-the-offense caretaker he was asked to be last year - through the first half of the year, he's thrown for 300 yards four times, and Underwood and Britt are first and second in the conference by a mile in receiving yards per game and yards per catch. This is not limited to Buffalo and Norfolk State: as mentioned, Teel has lit up every secondary he's faced this year, and Underwood and Britt combined for 22 catches for 346 yards in the toughst games to date, Maryland and Cincinnati. With the attention any defense still has to pay to Rice up front, this is precisely the lethal downfield threat West Virginia lacked.when it fell short against the Bulls two weeks ago.

The problem: Rutgers lost both of those games, in part because Teel rediscovered his love of the interception (he threw one pick against Maryland and three killers against Cincinnati, to no touchdowns in the latter despite 334 yards) and in part because the defense had two of its worst games of the brief post-turnaround era. Neither Maryland nor Cincinnati has anyone as potentially dangerous as Grothe on its offense, but both rode balanced attacks to 400-yard games. The Knights had no answer for Maryland's running game, in particular, sparked by a career game from Keon Lattimore. Mike Ford and Benjamin Williams aren't stars, but if Lattimore and Cincinnati's multi-pronged assault of mediocrity can outperform Rice in consecutive weeks, then certainly Ford and Williams - not to mention Grothe, USF's leading rusher, again - can do it tonight. How likely is that? Less likely, I imagine, than a repeat of Louisville's visit to Piscataway last year, when Brohm visibly regressed from confident all-American to frustrated, confused guesser against the Knights' zone blitz in the second half, during which his team was completely shut out. Grothe is not Brohm: he can run, and has the last two weeks, going over 100 against both Florida Atlantic and UCF, but as a passer he's erratic, relying largely on his ability to break contain and buy time for his receivers to come open downfield. His line against West Virginia, minus the long second quarter touchdown that was explicitly the result of an inexcusably blown WVU coverage: 10-19, 80 yards, 1 INT. He was much better against Auburn and North Carolina, but it's still not clear which Grothe we'll get one game to the next. If Rutgers can keep him in the pocket and avoid the turnovers that have fuelled USF in its big wins so far, this seems like the Knights' game to lose. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Rutgers 29</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>South Florida 24</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

FLORIDA VERSUS KENTUCKY: A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

Brooks: winless against Florida. For now.
Florida plays Kentucky in Commonwealth Stadium this Saturday in a game that those paid to actually write about the game without profanities refer to as a “game that matters.” Mattering or not, Florida versus Kentucky has always been a movable feast of a game, albeit sometimes a morbidly fascinating one–like a good bear-baiting match or bullfight, even the blowouts have had their points of interest along the way to the predictable finish.
Therefore, we begin our own sentimental jersey with the team that has been, in our lifetime at least, the most charismatic of SEC doormats, Kentucky. We have to do this now because, after 20 straight victories, the Wildcats stand as good a chance of snapping the streak as they ever have, so we must look back on the ashes while we can.
1993: “Doering’s got a touchdown!” An announcer who has a simple factual statement as his standard, go-to memory call is a less than charismatic announcer, but that’s Florida’s own Mick Hubert, a sapling next to the Redwood of Larry Munson. If he were a writer, he’d have to cite an industrial manual as his finest work; if he were a musician, he would have written the Empire Carpet song.
Hubert’s extremely factual call comes from a game where the Fun ‘n Gun misfired in cataclysmic fashion: Terry Dean the INT Machine and Danny Wuerffel threw a combined seven interceptions against Kentucky, giving the ‘Cats short field, freebie scores, and all the rope they needed to tie up Florida in a 20-17 game on the road.
Wuerffel was young at the time, as in the kind of young where he showed up to the game and people remarked about that cute middle school fan who came in full pads with his own unpronounceable name on the back and wanted to go play on the field with the big boys. He also threw like a middle schooler hefting a full-sized ball for the first time: hefting it from his shoulder from his hips, driving up through the legs and shotputting it into the field of play awkwardly. Somehow, improbably, the ball always seemed to end up where it should…in the arms of Chris Doering, for example, with seven seconds left on the clock to stab Kentucky dead, 24-20.
This was the one moment of tension in a tale of slaughter and spiteful smiting otherwise known as…
The Curry Years: Blood on the Highway, ‘90-’96. When watching Mad Max, the camera shoots right from the front of the trucks, so that when Max, for example, steps on the gas pedal and crushes a mohawked, shotgun-wielding punk with the full bulk and force of an 18-wheeler, you fully understand just how much unadulterated vengeance flows through the man’s veins.
<EMBED src=""http://www.youtube.com/v/H6Vw402IaII width=425 height=350 type=application/x-shockwave-flash wmode="transparent"></EMBED>
The camera angles were extreme and unforgiving during the Bill Curry era, as well. Curry let Spurrier go when he cleared out Pepper Rodgers’ staff out and tossed the budding young genius-baby out with the bathwater. Failing to recognize the obvious radiant halo of football god-dom around him, Curry set the stage for a seven year vengeance play coordinated by the hands of the most vengeful playcaller this side of Genghis Khan.
The ‘93 game was an outlier compared to the rest of Bill Curry’s extremely long and painful lesson in exactly why he should not have tossed Spurrier to the wind at Tech: promising his coaching staff he would “never call the dogs off” against Curry, Spurrier won every game he coached against Curry by an average score of 46-13, including a pair of epic 65-0 and 73-7 games that still burn in our memory as the biggest asswhippings we’ve seen. Toddlers getting pistol-whipped by crack dealers had a fairer fight on their hands than those teams.
The Hal Mumme years: Combover Genius, ‘97–’01.
Perhaps the most fun we’ve ever had during this series as a Florida fan came during the Hal Mumme years, when Steve Spurrier not only faced a coach he hated in Mumme, but one who went leagues out of his way to piss in Spurrier’s oatmeal at every chance. We’re guessing Spurrier hated Mumme to begin with, since he came into Kentucky a self-proclaimed offensive genius, and lord knows a diva hates to share the spotlight.
And Kentucky would ring up points with Mumme’s “Air Raid” offense against Florida, sometimes even getting flush with greed and attempting numerous onside kicks against Florida in 1997 to ensure a good, vitamin-rich hatred sprang up between the two coaches. Spurrier’s explanation for the multiple onsides?
”If I had a defense like Hal Mumme has, I’d be trying them on every kickoff.”
The world also owes Mumme for introducing Kentucky to three things:
1. Tim Couch, NFL Draft Pick Queen. Cleveland, you’re welcome!
2. Jared Lorenzen. You know the world is a better place thanks to Mumme’s willingness to play a 400 pound quarterback who ate his playbook accidentally several times a week.
3. Offensive assistant Mike Leach coached the best offenses Kentucky ever had before adding the innovation of “downfield passing” to the mix and leaving UK for Oklahoma and eventually his home port of Lubbock. So pirates of the world, ye owe Mumme for bringing up such a legendary buccaneer when he was but a mere pip of a lad.
4. A slew of NCAA violations leading to his departure on–surprise!–signing day in 2001.
Mumme is now fighting terrorists one by one and coaching the New Mexico State Aggies. He still denies the existence of the forward pass and his bald spot.
Guy Morriss, Hans Moleman of Coaching, ‘01-02. You know what we remember about Guy Morriss? Him getting punched in the balls. Congratulations, you’re a head coach now? SANCTIONED! Punch in the balls. Hey, you think you’re going to beat Florida with the game tied 34-34 in the 4th? KEIWAN RATLIFF’D! Punch in the balls. Morriss’ teams played with a rigor and toughness unseen in Mumme’s teams and played for exactly 59 hard minutes. That other one minute? Punched them in the balls every time. Ratliff applied fist to balls in the waning minutes of a tight game with a 96 yard TD interception and an intercepted two point conversion to doom the Wildcats in ‘02.
Kentucky still went 7-5 once under Morriss, halcyon times by any definition for a Kentucky team pre-2007. And for their hard work, they received what might the gridiron equivalent of an asteroid, traveling for millions of years through the vacuum of space unimpeded and content, suddenly crashing into your unsuspecting testes: the post-gatorade celebration Hail Mary against LSU.
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BLUEGRASS MIRACL’D! Again, Guy Morriss collapses in pain on the sideline. We can’t blame him for leaving for Baylor in 2003. At least Bears losses aren’t even close. There’s a comfort in certain defeat, you know.
Rich Brooks, pre-awesomeness, ‘03–’05. And this brings us to the suddenly good Kentucky of the present, which only had to go through three straight years of suck-all to get here. In his first year at Kentucky, Rich Brooks nearly had a prestigious scalp on his wall when Kentucky held a 21-3 lead in the fourth quarter in Lexington over [NAME REDACTED]’s suddenly inept Florida team.
They blew this lead in a hailstorm of human error and spastic execution by Florida, yet no error stood taller than that of Jared Lorenzen. Used to doing everything himself (and perhaps distracted by a food vendor jiggling a tray of hot dogs alluringly in the stands,) Lorenzen, asked to pass with a 21-16 lead in the wee remnants of the fourth, wore Channing Crowder for a full four seconds or so before thinking “MMM HOT DOG SHIT MUST THROW!” and tossing a wild, almost sidearm pass to Johnny Lamar for a completion.
Johnny Lamar played for Florida. Florida scored, and Rich Brooks thought the whole thing was bullshit. He still thinks its bullshit that he, like the bullshit coaches before him, haven’t won a game against Florida. He has every chance to correct that on Saturday, something we totally think is most definitely not bullshit. Really.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

MIDSEASON META: THE PAC TEN AT THE TURN
By SMQ
Posted on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 10:27:59 AM EDT
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The Fall of Troy, Continued: Three Pac Ten teams are ranked ahead of USC in at least two the mainstream polls this week, including the BCS, which - as I hinted at last week - I think suggests a major sea change underway in the conference and national pecking order. The last time any Pac Ten team was ranked ahead of USC was late 2002, just before #3 Washington State lost in overtime to Washington on the same day the seventh-ranked, on-the-rise Trojans blasted UCLA 52-21, and it's been however many dozens of consecutive weeks before the last two since any other conference team has been considered anywhere near SC's class by the voters. Cal came close in 2004, but moved no higher than fourth in a season SoCal was a coast-to-coast number one. Before this year, during a four-year span in which USC never left the top ten, the rest of the conference spent a total of seven weeks there, five by Washington State in 2003 and three by UCLA in 2005. Neither entered the top five at any point nor finished in the top ten. So the fact that Arizona State, Oregon and Cal are apparently intent on injecting some juice into the first real, to-the-wire conference championship race the Pac Ten has had in a good five years is invigorating. Don't forget UCLA, either, which remains tied with ASU and ahead of USC, Cal and Oregon with a 3-0 league record, out-of-conference slips and diminished caché notwithstanding. Over the next six weeks, that adds up to the following schedule:

Ignore the jerseys. Remember the nightmare combination of talent. We'll be coming back to it.
- - -

Oct. 20: Cal at UCLA
Oct. 27: Cal at Arizona State
Oct. 27: Southern Cal at Oregon
Nov. 3: Arizona State at Oregon
Nov. 10: Southern Cal at Cal
Nov. 10: Arizona State at UCLA
Nov. 22 Arizona State at Southern Cal
Nov. 24: Oregon at UCLA
Dec. 1: UCLA at Southern Cal
- - -

If the Bruins are worthy of their record - and Phil Steele thinks UCLA will upset Cal Saturday - then that's nine games in six weeks with possibly direct impact on the conference championship, five of them involving teams currently ranked in the top fifteen. I suspect any conference would take that right now.
The simplest number.: Way, way back in June, I made the following note about Oregon State:

Oregon State is 14-2 the last two years when it falls on the right side of the turnover fence, or even just straddles it, and 1-8 when it doesn't. Extrapolating strictly from personnel, one of the responsible factors in last season's rise - vastly improved pass rush - figures to be a force in OSU's favor again. The other, competent quarterbacking, is an unanswerable void.
- - -

The Beavers actually managed to win their opener against Utah, which could not move the ball a foot after starting quarterback Brian Johnson went down, despite a minus-two turnover margin. In OSU's three losses since? It's minus-eleven: -5 at Cincinnati, -4 at Arizona State, -2 against UCLA. Average margin of defeat: 23 points. The pass rush remained hellacious, getting to quarterbacks 10 times in those three games, but the "unanswerable void" was worse than that title could suggest, lobbing up a stunning 13 picks. At 2-3 (one of the wins was over Idaho State), Oregon State had the worst turnover margin in the country.
Oddsmakers who recognized that OSU also outgained both Cincinnati and Arizona State by significant margins in the process of losing by grisly finals might have made some money last week: the Beavers were outgained by 139 yards in nearly their worst offensive game of the season at Cal, yet won with a plus-two turnover margin, finally echoing the takeaway-based success that served them so well in the tightwire run to ten wins last year. Last week's upset was very reminiscent of OSU's win over #2 USC in '06, which sparked five wins in the final six. This team can only hit that plateau if it wins out through a bowl game, which is probably not reasonable with USC and Oregon ahead on the road, but if it only hangs on to the ball, it should be favored to reach eight.

How's that spread working out, Willie?
- - -

Men of their word, team of its talent. Arizona threw fewer passes for fewer yards in 2006 than any team in the conference except Stanford, andfor fewer yards per attempt and per completion than even the Cardinal, contributing dramatically to the heat of Mike Stoops' seat this offseason and the subsequent luring of Cap'n Leach protege/first mate Sonny Dykes from Texas Tech with the promise of jazzing up the moribund offense with the spread. It's nothing like what Dykes' old mates are doing back in Lubbock, but, true to their word, the Wildcats have already launched 313 passes, more than any other team in the conference, against a league-low 181 runs, and sit just three yards back of Washington State for the lead in passing yards per game (296, about 120 yards better than `06 with hardly any loss in the already pathetic running game). The offense only topped 250 yards through the air once in `06, a mark it's already hit four times this year. This has helped the record, currently 2-5 and 1-3 in-conference, not one bit.

The Wildcats are currently scoring more than they did last year, by nearly a full ten points per game, but are also giving up better than a touchdown more than in `06. This is due at least as much to turnovers as defensive regression, as the defense's numbers are consistent with last year's. But it's also the result of a faster pace and longer games (due to the offense and the clock changes), and Willie Tuitama proving that more passing is not better passing: through seven games, he's doubled his sophomore touchdown total, but he's also thrown more interceptions (7) than he did all of last year (6) - though, to be fair, he only played seven full games in `06 because of injury, so the jump in picks is less dramatic. If the last two games are any indication, though, it's still a long season ahead: Tuitama has had big days against Northern Arizona, New Mexico and the 117th-ranked pass efficiency defense of Washington State, tossing up 13 touchdowns to just two interceptions and averaging 358 yards in those games; against the feistier Ds of Cal, Oregon State and USC, though, the yards drop by about 100 yards, to 255 (this despite a 309-yard game in the loss to Cal, via Tuitama's barely believable 61 attempts), and the TD:INT falls to 1:5. The record, more importantly, falls to 0-3, meaning the end of a nearly decade-long bowl drought will come only if the `Cats can win their next two (against beatable Stanford and Washington) and then upset either UCLA, Oregon or Arizona State in November.
Losing four straight will do that to ya: Jake Locker doesn't deserve too much heat, considering the schedule and the fact that he's like, halfway into his redshirt freshman season, but the early hype from Washington's 2-0 start has collapsed quickly as it becomes more clear every week that Locker doesn't have the passing game down yet. Again, we're talking Ohio State, at UCLA, USC, at Arizona State in consecutive weeks, as brutal a stretch as any team will see this or any year, but Locker's completion percentage has dipped below 50 percent, his interceptions have risen (seven in the last four, to six touchdowns - four in the loss to UCLA alone) as his rushing numbers drop (50 and 48 yards on a load of carries the last two weeks after hitting at least 80 in each of his first four) and he's currently the lowest-rated passer in the conference. The kid has plenty of time and talent to improve - and a new coaching staff, in all likelihood - but the early hyperbole has been dramatically grounded when the opposing defense isn't Syracuse. On the other hand... The chip-on-his-shoulder quarterback who has not slowed down: Dennis Dixon. The most overlooked candidate for the Trophy Which Shall Not Be Named threw two picks in an otherwise brilliant performance in the last-second loss to Cal and has been virtually perfect in every other case: 14 touchdowns, zero interceptions, the fourth-highest completion percentage and third-highest passer rating in the country as the leader of its most versatile, killer offense, one that is incredibly averaging 266 yards per game rushing and passing right now. The offense of nightmares. Averge margin of victory in five wins: 28.8 points, against teams with a combined record of 16-16. If Cameron Colvin holds on to that ball at the goal line, his team is sitting at number one right now (sitting ducks, of course, the way this season works, but still). Cal has to lose again, but Oregon is my narrow favorite to win the conference until I'm proven spectacularly wrong, again.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

Can UW Hang with Oregon?

Posted Oct 19th 2007 8:39AM by Sean Hawkins
Filed under: Oregon Football, Washington Football, Pac 10

At first glance, one might think that Oregon visiting Washington tomorrow could be a big-time offensive shootout with the athletic QB duo of Dennis Dixon and Jake Locker. Everyone knows about Dixon's fine season, and if Oregon keeps winning while Dixon racks up the numbers, he'll continue to rise on the Heisman lists. And Locker gets a lot of hype for being the dual-threat QB with rushing skills of quickness and power that are rarely seen at his position.

But never let the facts get in the way of a story is the best way to put it. Right now, UW is last in the Pac-10 in total offense. That's right, 10th out of 10 teams in total offense. What happened? Where is the offense that carved up Syracuse in the first game of the year in a 42-12 blowout, and had their way with Boise State for at least half of the second game of the year? The Huskies average only 325 yards per game on offense, which is 31 yards less per game than 9th-place Stanford.

The biggest problem with UW's offense right now is the lack of help for the young QB. Louis Rankin was fabulous back in week one, and it seemed like a lead-pipe cinch that he would be the first 1,000 yard running back for UW since Rashaan Shehee in 1995. But Rankin has totaled only 395 rushing yards through six games, not a terrible total but certainly not what you'd want out of your feature back. Then factor in that out of those 395 yards, 147 of them came against Syracuse in the first game, you start to see the full picture. The good news for UW is that Rankin did contribute more last week vs. ASU, getting 80 yards rushing in by far his best game since the opener. But it still wasn't nearly enough as UW was crushed in Tempe.

I guess part of the problem as well for UW's total offense numbers is when you consider the competition, it's not that surprising. Ohio State's defense has been one of the best in the country in 2007, and UW just couldn't get it done against a talented, physical group like that. The Huskies did score 24 points against USC in an ugly game, but looks can be deceiving. They were badly outgained in that game, and Jake Locker threw for only 80 yards in four quarters against the top defense in the Pac-10. Factor in the second-half collapses on both sides of the ball, and you have a struggling team hungry for a win, mired in a four-game losing streak.

Oregon comes in white-hot after dismantling WSU in such an overwhelming fashion that you have to wonder how much Oregon could have scored if they didn't let up in the second half. It was 40-0 at the half and 47-7 early in the third before Bellotti cleared the bench, mainly out of respect for Bill Doba. Besides, it's never a good idea to embarrass a league foe, no matter who it is. Oregon's got the top offense in the Pac-10, number one in scoring offense, rushing offense and total offense. They average an astounding 532 yards per game, which is over 200 yards more per game than UW.

But the disturbing thing for the Ducks this week is that their health is really starting to be a concern. Some skill-position guys were already beat up going into last week, and then RB Jeremiah Johnson went down with a knee injury, and senior WR Cameron Colvin also went out with a broken ankle. RB Jonathan Stewart is going to get more touches than normal without Johnson, and while on the surface that doesn't seem like a bad idea, keep in mind that injuries have hampered Stewart over the first couple of years. Finding another back to help keep Stewart fresh is going to be vital as the season wears on.

So, on paper this looks like a complete mismatch. But you have to wonder if the oddsmakers might know something that we don't, as Oregon is only an 11.5-point favorite. While that's a solid number, especially on the road, it's clear that some are predicting a relatively close game in what figures to be a wet and windy late afternoon in Seattle. But one thing is clear - UW needs a win in the biggest way right now. A loss here would be their fifth in a row, and would force them to win five of their last six games to become bowl-eligible. It's circle-the-wagons time in Seattle.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

THEY ALL FALL DOWN
By SMQ
Posted on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 06:42:43 AM EDT
</I>

Or they're chopped, as it were.
It doesn't diminish the chances of the BCS being seized by chaos, but the season does get that much less interesting for Cinderella sympathists and well-wishers (and satirists, if they recognize setbacks), whose last feel-good hopes rest solely with Kansas. But when it wasn't attempting to fumble the game away, there was nothing misleading about Rutgers' win: the Knights adjusted at the half to keep Matt Grothe in the pocket, from whence he demonstrated a consistent inability to make plays (or even try, really, as his habitual attempts at escape continued long after it was clear Rutgers was committed to erecting a virtual cage around his scrambling lanes), and pounded Ray Rice in that old-school, straight-ahead workhorse fashion you don't see much anymore.
In the bigger picture, it's just another reminder among so many this season: you are not your ranking. I thought it was a little bit ironic that Rutgers students started the "O-ver-RA-ted!" chant as the Knights ran the clock out, because it was clear that USF was rated exactly right for what it had accomplished over the first six games. South Florida was a team with two impressive wins over Auburn and West Virginia and no losses; now it's a team with with two impressive wins over Auburn and West Virginia and a loss at Rutgers. It's the same team, and the fleeting assessment/sentiment that named the Bulls the "second-best" team in the country wasn't wrong as some kind of catchall judgment. It was just a snapshot. I write this as a person who a) is not comfortable with South Florida's success, b) defended the Bulls right to compete for a mythical championship and ranked them second in the nation this week and c) picked USF to lose tonight. I also think there was widespread, quasi-secret acknowledgment that, no, when it was finished, South Florida wouldn't be the number two team by whatever method it's defined, not really, not with the same set of players that lost four times last year in the most successful season in school history, playing now through a series of land mines that had managed to down more promising contenders before them.

It all slips away.
- - -
That didn't stop USF from achieving that high, though, which is an acknowledgement the voters were paying attention, at least, and were open to the blasphemy (and potential commercial disaster) of a South Florida championship if it took care of its business. It didn't, and so traditionalists can breathe easier dropping the upstarts back in their place. But at least the Bulls have the snapshot, and when they work their way into this position again, it never hurts to have a few of those to show.
- - -

Unless you live in a certain area of the country or were specifically seeking it out, you were probably less aware tonight of the latest setback to one of the would-be Cinderellas of the summer, TCU, which turned the ball over four times and fell to 4-4 in a home loss to Utah. The Frogs were favorites in the preseason "BCS Buster" circuit, but have lost their best player under bizarre circumstances, failed to establish the usual running game and suffered highly erratic play from quarterback Andy Dalton - the redshirt freshman was brutal against the Utes, completing just 20 of 45 with four picks and no touchdowns. TCU is 1-3 now in the Mountain West, more losses in half a season than it suffered in its first two full seasons in the conference and three games out of the current lead, and if winless Colorado State wins Saturday at UNLV, the Frogs will find themselves in a tie for last place.

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RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

From thewizardofodds.blogspot.com:

Sooner Nation Has a Message for LSU Fans

Some Oklahoma fans tried to sneak this giant sign into last Saturday's GameDay telecast before the Missouri-Oklahoma game in Norman. Reader David, who sent us the image, writes that "GameDay security forced them away, so they paraded it around campus all day and night."

To give you an idea of the size of the sign, it is being paraded down a two-lane road with parking spaces on either side.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

ASU’s Torain out for season

Dan Zeiger, Tribune

Running back Ryan Torain is out for the season with a Lisfranc sprain of his left foot, dealing a heavy blow to his NFL draft stock and leaving Arizona State without perhaps its best offensive player.

Coach Dennis Erickson on Wednesday described the injury — sometimes referred to as a “fracture” — as a damaged mid-foot ligament that stabilizes the big toe. Torain, who was hurt during the second quarter against Washington last week, will have surgery on Friday.

“He’s given so much to this program and this team,” Erickson said. “Things like this happen. That’s part of the game of football. It’s unfortunate for our team, but it’s unfortunate for Ryan, more than anyone.”

Torain, a junior-college transfer, rushed for 1,882 yards and 12 touchdowns on 333 carries in his 19-game ASU career. Mel Kiper, ESPN NFL draft guru, lists him as the No. 2 senior running back in the nation.

The 6-foot-1, 213-pounder was at practice on Wednesday, in crutches. He was not available for comment.

“Everything is hard to replace when you lose a guy like Ryan,” quarterback Rudy Carpenter said. “We lose Ryan, but we’re fortunate to have two guys behind him who could probably start anywhere in the country. Other guys have to start stepping up, including myself. We’ll see who’s up to the challenge.”

Junior Keegan Herring and sophomore Dimitri Nance will get the majority of carries for the 12th-ranked Sun Devils (7-0), who are off this week before hosting No. 10 California on Oct. 27. Sophomore Jarrell Woods, who has not played this year due in part to an ankle injury, should return soon.

“We’ll continue to do what we do,” Erickson said. “That’s why you have 105 scholarships. Our guys will play through it.”

Since the start of last season, Herring has been considered the shiftiness to Torain’s between-the-tackles physicality. He is 101 yards away from becoming the 16th player in school history with 2,000 yards rushing in a career.

Herring has five 100-yard games for the Sun Devils. Against San Diego State on Sept. 15, he rushed for 161 as Torain sat out with an ankle injury, and last week, he had 119, including a career-long 76-yard run for a touchdown.

After rushing for 870 yards in 2005, Herring was expected to enjoy a long run as a starter. Then, Torain emerged.

“You don’t want to take the place of someone who got hurt by playing good, hard-nosed football,” said Herring, who on Wednesday wrote Torain’s number, 26, on the athletic tape covering his cleats. “I would rather have gotten it after battling him to find out who was better.

“But this is the way it is, and Dimitri and I have to step it up.”

Nance, who at 204 pounds is about 20 pounds heavier than Herring, played as a true freshman last year and is averaging 5.2 yards on 37 attempts in 2007. He had a 58-yard touchdown run (a career long) last week.

“I don’t think it’s going to be a lot of pressure,” Nance said. “We have to fill some big shoes, but we just have to do what we were brought here for.”

As for Torain, about six months of rehabilitation awaits, but Erickson said that “we won’t know for sure until after the surgery.” He will likely be unable to participate in NFL scouting functions during the spring.

Two Sun Devil players have suffered Lisfranc injuries in recent years.

Cornerback R.J. Oliver was hurt at Camp Tontozona and missed the entire 2004 season. After being granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA, he returned to play the next year but was never at full strength.

Offensive lineman Grayling Love was injured midway through 2005. He signed a free-agent deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers and was a late cut in training camp a year ago.

For a running back, whose front foot is vital to shifting and acceleration, a Lisfranc injury can be extremely difficult to come back from. And that is the uncertainty that Torain — a first- or second-round draft choice when healthy — now faces in his football future.

“The bottom line is that seeing Ryan get injured after seven games of his senior year is very tough,” Erickson said. “His future is involved in this, and he will play again after this level.”

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

Ducks' Jones suspended indefinitely

No. 7 Oregon's thin receiving corps gets even thinner

Posted: Friday October 19, 2007 3:12PM; Updated: Friday October 19, 2007 3:12PM

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- The seventh-ranked Oregon Ducks have suspended sophomore receiver Derrick Jones indefinitely for violation of team rules.
The suspension means the Ducks' thin receiving corps just got thinner. Already out for the season was Brian Paysinger, who had knee surgery, and Cameron Colvin, who broke his ankle in Oregon's victory over Washington State last weekend.
True freshman Aaron Pflugrad, whose father is receivers coach Robin Pflugrad, will likely start when the Ducks visit Washington on Saturday. It will be his first college start.
Coming in after Colvin got hurt against the Cougars, Pflugrad caught a 22-yard touchdown pass from Dennis Dixon for his first touchdown.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

Added:

Washington +13 (-103)

Hoping that the West Coast Baby Rhino and home dog can overcome Oregon's O and play tight like they did against USC. I think they can, especially with Oregon's injuries.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

Beck Cleared to Play @ ECU

Somehow…we kinda thought that this was going to happen.

RJ Esq · Oct 19, 2007

FRIDAY QUARTERBACK
By SMQ
Posted on Fri Oct 19, 2007 at 07:04:04 PM EDT
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Pleasantries dispensed today for lateness, but recognize this: top to bottom, this looks like the best slate of games we’ve had yet this season – about a dozen obviously significant games on tap. Stop by for the weekly national open thread around ten-ish, Central time, and stay for the party. It’s BYOB, unfortunately, but you can’t beat the conversation.
Onwards... Finally, We’ll Learn About...
- - -
No matter what it does to redeem itself against Penn State and Purdue, Michigan’s defense will never get around the spread option criticism until it stops an athletic, versatile quarterback running out of the shotgun, and they don’t come much more athletic than Juice Williams. The Wolverines’ confidence over the rest of the season and Big Ten championship ambitions rest on putting the brakes on Illinois’ running game.

I know this may not seem fair, but we're gonna need you to do that again, please.
- - -
Most to Gain
- - -
Unfathomable as it is to the hardwired circuits that know Kentucky exclusively as cuddly, no defense-playing walkovers, the Wildcats have to be considered an elite, mythical championship level team virtually overnight if they manage to knock off LSU and Florida in consecutive weeks. Besides moving into prime position to win the SEC East – UK would still require help in getting South Carolina out of the top spot – I think the Tigers and Gators are playing as well as any two teams in the country at the moment, and there will be no denying any team that wrecks both of those pedestals in my mind. Kentucky has the very rare shot Saturday to take that step on the national stage.

UCLA can also take a major step in the Pac Ten: the Bruins are the odd team out in the polls, but currently reside in a first place tie at 3-0 in league play. A win over frontrunner Cal will make the Bruins instant contenders. Well, they’re already contenders, but everyone will recognize it. That’s not important in every sport, but in this one, for obvious reasons, it means everything.
Most to Lose
- - -
Ohio State can make quick work of Michigan State and lay low another week as the carnage goes on below it, or can be a victim – we’re all aware of the inexplicable MSU upset, which has bitten a top-ranked OSU team before (the awesome ‘98 Bucks that probably still should have played Tennessee for the mythical championship over Florida State). Nothing could look so championship-like, in the context of the anarchy that’s defined every turn of this season, than another smooth, businesslike pummeling.
...AND ALL THE CHILDREN LEARNED TO MULTIPLY BY SEVEN...
In the miserable realm of blowouts and other morbid curiosities.
- - -
Inevitable Massacre of the Week
Texas needs wins however it can get them, and it’s getting them in grisly fashion these days: a 56-3 beating of Iowa State last week in Ames, and Saturday the annual rout of the poor Baptists of Baylor in Waco (at least the Bears are working hard toward progress under Blyzzle Szyzzle, whose own fans are optimistic the chosen one of their five possible quarterbacks “may be ready for Big 12 play in about two more years.“) And still the carnage of that scene may not match that destined to horrify Ames, Iowa, which endured one humiliating beatdown at the hands of one of the most talented teams in the nation last week and immediately welcomes another frontrunner to town seven days later. ISU should go ahead and concede to Oklahoma and save the innocent bystanders of the city the inconvenience of picking Cyclone bits from their meticulously groomed hair and clothes. Again. Walk of Shame
Two major programs take midseason breaks to feast on the presumably weak, like stopping for desert in the middle of an eight-course meal. Join in heaping shame on the behemoths shilling for easy victory and wealth against the proud but relatively hapless tackling dummies of the Championship Subdivision. Is football not a heroic endeavor of aspiration and overcoming? If they receive the benefit of an extra payday, a manufactured excuse to sell tens of thousands of extra tickets and take an automatic step up the ladder to bowl eligibility, these capable teams must also be singled out, brought before the people and humbled for their acquiescence to the most shameless bullying this week:
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Minnesota vs. North Dakota State</TD><TD>

BYU vs. Eastern Washington</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
May the opposing kicker’s guarantees of victory haunt you the rest of your days. <STRIKE>Buffalo</STRIKE> Florida International Line Watch
Buffalo seeks its school record third straight win Saturday at Syracuse, and though the Bulls are 3.5-point underdogs in the Carrier Dome, the end of their long underdog was successfully vanquished last week, thus ending the logic behind the “Buffalo Line Watch.” It’s been an amazing run, y’all. Except for all those games you were supposed to lose, and then did lose. That probably was not as good from your perspective. Hey, but now your coach is going back to Nebraska! That’s exciting, huh? Keep in touch! BFF!

You'll always be my dawgs, Bulls.
- - -
*Sigh*

Into Buffalo’s immortal galoshes of futility stumbles Florida International, loser of 18 straight games and a 13.5-point underdog Saturday at UL-Monroe. “Friday Quarterback” looks forward to a long, fruitless relationship in which FIU loses week after week, preferably in ways so painful/hilarious as to strike the reader as barely even believable, such as the Panthers’ seven-OT loss to North Texas last year, in which two kickers combined to miss eight field goals in overtime. Panthers: don’t let me down!
Lame Game of the Week
The worst, Jerry.
- - -
You can say this for SMU and Tulane: they’ve come close to winning a couple times in the last few weeks, falling just short in heartbreakers against UTEP, Army and UAB, among others. But Tulane has only beaten I-AA Southeastern Louisiana, and SMU only 1-5 North Texas, and that leaves both struggling to stay out of last place in the C-USA West. When the nation’s 118th-ranked pass efficiency offense (Tulane’s) meets its 116th-ranked pass defense (SMU’s), sparks are certain to flay. Or something is certain to fly.
WE CAN REBUILD. WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY.
Bouncing back.
- - -
• Cincinnati: Whatever the perceived demerits or illusions of Cincinnati’s 6-0 start after its loss to Louisville, the Bearcats’ problems pale next to Pittsburgh’s – Pitt can’t keep its own coach healthy.
• Wisconsin: Things will still not be good for the Badgers, either way, but a loss to sinking NIU after two losses and six consecutive lackluster games is a whole different kind of bad.
• Clemson: A week off gave the Tigers plenty of time to stew in the rout Virginia Tech administered two weeks ago, and to lust for the soft, supple defense of Central Michigan.
• Minnesota: When a I-AA kicker guarantees his team will upset a defending bowl participant from the Big Ten, and that statement is not met with immediate, roaring laughter, the situation is dire. Not dire enough yet, though, to pick the Gophers to lose to North Dakota State. Not yet.
Upwards...
GAME OF THE CENTURY OF THE WEEK!
Auburn at LSU
- - -
What’s at Stake: LSU has plenty of mythical championship life left, its path back up the ladder partially cleared already by Rutgers’ win Thursday night, but those chips will fall where they may, and they will fall in a pattern pointing the Cotton Bowl if the Tigers/L don’t take control of their own division here. Auburn has no such national ambitions, but the Tigers/A are right in the mix where the West is concerned: winner is in the division lead, by itself if Alabama loses to Tennessee.
Besides that, Auburn and LSU is more often than not a classic: the last three games have been decided by one, three (in overtime) and four points, not even going as far back to the Earthquake Game, and the winner’s gone on to the SEC title game five of seven years this decade.
Auburn Wants: I thought Auburn executed the perfect plan to beat Florida in a hostile environment last month, and has to fight the same kind of patient, clock-grinding fight to succeed against a more experienced defense Saturday. The Tigers hung onto the ball for 33 minutes in that game by virtue of short passing and strong, unspectacular running, and most importantly, held UF to a meager 55 offensive snaps. It wasn’t that Auburn’s defense was great against Tebow – six of Florida’s ten drives covered at least 50 yards or ended in points – it’s just that he didn’t have the ball enough to do damage. The running game is crucial to keeping LSU’s front seven off of skittish Brandon Cox in obvious passing downs, but it will serve mainly to set up play-action and open up the same kind of safe throws that kept the sticks moving in the Swamp. Defensively, the shine is off Matt Flynn, who has yielded to the running game in clutch situations the last two weeks and has done very little damage as a passer in four SEC games: including Mississippi State, he’s averaging 118 yards on 4.7 per attempt, with a 5:4 TD:INT ratio, good for tenth of eleven qualifying players in the conference pass efficiency rating (South Carolina’s rotating quarterbacks are short of the required attempts). A lot of Flynn’s problems against Kentucky and elsewhere have been more his receivers’ fault than his own, but if AU can build the kind of lead it did at Florida, or just stop the run game in general, he hasn’t demonstrated much game-winning ability of his own initiative.

Does LSU do enough Perrilloux? Discuss.
- - -
LSU Wants: The plan here is the same: run, control the clock and play defense. This is why Auburn-LSU games are always winding up with scores like 7-3 and 10-9: both teams are determined to limit mistakes against very good defenses. Auburn has one of the few Ds fast enough to run with LSU in general, but it has always tended to smaller, quicker players in the front seven who may be susceptible to an exhausting power running game – it’s always made more sense to run at Quentin Groves with big bodies if it’s an option than trying to block him on a pass rush. Because of its size, LSU’s offensive matches up better with Auburn’s defense than vice versa, and its receivers are more likely than Auburn’s to make cheating safeties pay downfield. As long as they can hold on to the ball.
The Pick: It seems pretty clear the team that establishes the running game, builds a small lead and controls the clock will win in lieu of egregious turnovers – that’s not a given, but it is the way the game’s played out for most of the decade. Where Auburn is still searching for its workhorse, LSU has plugged in any number of guys behind its offensive line and had success with all of them; the fourth down failure at Kentucky was an anomaly for a team averaging 232 on the ground per game. Take out the numbers against Middle Tennessee and Tulane, and the average actually rises: 259 per game rushing in four SEC games and against veritable brick wall Virginia Tech. LSU is better suited to pounding out first downs, and I don’t trust Brandon Cox to make the same throws here he did against a much younger Florida secondary three weeks ago. If Auburn’s not leading or within immediate striking distance most of the game, he won’t have time. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>LSU 20</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Auburn 15</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

5-3 ATS, 4-2 AS A DD HOME DOG, IT'S SMQ'S DOUBLE BARRELL GOLDEN ROCK SOLID BARKING DOG OF THE WEEK!!
If it were completely logical, it wouldn't be an upset.
- - -
The Game: Iowa at Purdue
The Line: Purdue by 7
Conventional Wisdom: Iowa struggled dramatically on defense to stop Anthony Morelli and ranks 115th in scoring offense – good luck slowing down or keeping up with Curtis Painter.
The Pick: It was a very different kind of offense, but I was impressed with Iowa’s defense against Illinois, and the Hawkeyes showed a recommitment to the run that enabled their blowout win over the Boilers last year in Iowa City – Iowa almost broke 300 on the ground in that game, led by 155 from Damian Sims, and Purdue’s defense has been typically generous: 172 yards rushing to Toledo, 232 to Minnesota, 181 to Ohio State, 189 to Michigan. The last two, of course, are winning teams, a classification that’s now handed the Boilermakers 14 straight losses since they beat Akron (7-6) at year’s end to open 2005; Purdue has lost 22 of its last 25 games against winning teams, usually losing its otherwise prolific offense in the mix, and though Iowa isn’t there yet, last week convinced me to an extent the Hawkeyes had turned its misery around enough to warrant the benefit of the doubt against a fellow conference also-ran. If Iowa still has it, Purdue does not seem to play well with ‘physical.’ <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Iowa 24</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Purdue 17</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Florida at Kentucky
- - -
If transitive property meant anything, you’d have to pick Kentucky here – they beat the team that beat Florida!! – but thankfully it doesn’t, and my skepticism about Kentucky’s 99th-ranked run defense is better than idle blasphemy against the order of the universe as it applies to football. Truth be told, I’m still pretty crazy about Florida, as it nearly survived the best shots of both Auburn and LSU in spite of its youth on defense, was in position to win in Baton Rouge with one fourth down stop or ball that doesn’t bounce off a receiver’s facemask, “employs” the most valuable player in the country at quarterback/power running back/holistic healer and can still unleash the most lethal array of offensive weaponry in the conference. It’s not possible to dismiss Andre Woodson, especially against a secondary this young, but if Florida can do what LSU couldn’t with the lead last week – take away the running game and close down all segments of the playbook not incorporating fairly desperate long-yardage passes, I think Tebow’s versatility carries the day. Florida needs to strike the kind of balance here we saw against Tennessee. That version of the offense was outrageous. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Florida 36</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Kentucky 27</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Tennessee at Alabama
- - -
I’m not ashamed to say I left Tennessee for dead a few weeks ago, before it put together a pair of flawless, balanced games against Georgia and Mississippi State, the first time in ages the Vols have looked like the consistent power running team they were for so many years. This is not good news for Bama, which is allowing 400 yards per game over its last five, during which its record is 3-2 with close, late wins against Arkansas and Ole Miss. Erik Ainge has not had a great track record on the road (with the exception of Georgia, where he’s 2-0), but Tennessee has smashed through two straight games with ease on offense and looks like it’s found the identity on that side the Tide hasn’t yet grasped. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Tennessee 27</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Alabama 19</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Texas Tech at Missouri
- - -
There are a lot of numbers to review with these two offenses, all of which boggle the mind, none of which should go into a hole against either of these defenses. Last week was the most serious challenge to date for both teams, and though Tech came away from its game with Texas A&M far more successfully than Missouri did from its visit to Oklahoma, a couple indicators emerged that I think are in the Tigers’ favor: a) Missouri can win games without Chase Daniel scampering for a ton of yards. Daniel picked the Sooners apart despite being hemmed in for -1 rushing – Mizzou lost because of turnovers, not an ineffective offense. And b) Tech can be run on. It was bizarre that A&M opened the game with a punishing, all-run drive for a touchdown, only to take Stephen McGee’s suspect arm for a test run until it was too late. The Aggies would up with 233 on the ground, anyway, opening the imagination for what it might look like when an offense with a little balance – like Missouri’s, or Oklahoma State’s last month – gets its shot. It’s going to look like a basketball score, is what it’s going to look like. Winner remains a frontrunner for its division. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Missouri 45</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Texas Tech 38</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Michigan State at Ohio State
- - -
It took Javon Ringer being overlooked despite brilliant performances in a pair of tough losses – he ran for 145 on just ten carries against Wisconsin and 185 on 12 carries against Northwestern – for MSU to settle down and feed it to him on a consistent basis, and he delivered 203 yards on 29 carries in a rout of Indiana last week. His gaudiest averages are going to plummet in Columbus, in all likelihood, but Ringer will be the most serious threat to change a game that OSU has faced. Ohio State’s offense might have to respond to points from an opposing offense for a change, a notion to which the Spartan defense (37 points to Wisconsin? 48 to Northwestern?) is a little too agreeable. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Ohio State 26</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Michigan State 20</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Kansas at Colorado
- - -
Colorado was disappointing off a three-game win streak last week in its sloppiness with the ball, and remains stuck way down at 114th in turnover margin. But the Buffaloes do seem to have found some offensive rhythm they’ve lacked for years, guiding them to an average of 469 yards over the last four games, including 381 in the win over Oklahoma and 411 in the loss last week at Kansas State. The Jayhawks, meanwhile, remain a mystery, impressive almost to a fault against the worst possible competition but convincing winners in one crucial game, on the same field, against the same KSU team that beat CU by four touchdowns last week. Again, though, the turnovers make that loss sound worse than it was. While we’re left to wonder about Kansas, we can guess the altitude in Boulder played some effect in Oklahoma’s flatlander flop in the mountains last month. I don’t know how much of an advantage, but given the much murkier slate on Kansas right now, every little thing seems crucial. If Kansas can take another game like this, it has to be the firm frontrunner in the North. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Colorado 31</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Kansas 26</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
California at UCLA
- - -
The Pac Ten’s current victory lap around the top fifteen in the polls includes four teams that are, individually, specifically not UCLA, but the Bruins are 3-0 in the conference, in a tie with Arizona State for the lead where USC, Oregon and Cal are all technically in chase mode. It may be too early for that kind of talk, but the point is this: don’t dismiss the Bruins out of hand. L.A. does a couple critical things well: it’s reasonably tough against the run (10th nationally) and puts a lot of pressure on opposing quarterbacks (11th in sacks, at least three in five out of six games), a couple bad omens if Cal is forced to go Kevin “Ramblin’ Wreck” Riley again in place of Nate Longshore. I have enough confidence in the Bears’ ability to establish Justin Forsett on the ground and DeSean Jackson in multiple ways, and enough of a lack of confidence in UCLA’s own ailing quarterback situation, to still think Cal has too much of an advantage. UCLA can make things tough in the Rose Bowl, though, and would be disappointing if it didn’t. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>California 33</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>UCLA 28</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Michigan at Illinois
- - -
The Wolverines need this game, if only to have some positive indicator agaist the ongoing bugaboo of athletic quarterbacks, particularly when paired with spread offenses. The difference in Illinois and Appalachian State and Oregon is the Juice Williams does not bring the passing threat that Dennis Dixon or even Armanti Edwards did in those game – the Illini are far more one-dimensional and, as Iowa emphatically proved last week, not very good at adjusting to take advantage of defenses that commit to taking away that dimension. Eddie McGee may be good for a ball thrown over the safeties’ head, but for all intents and purposes, if you stop the option, you stop Illinois. Michigan still has to show it can play disciplined defense and hold contain, where it’s regularly struggled, but it’s a better defense now than it was then. I would say “if you stop Mike Hart, you stop Michigan,” but there’s not really any precedent for that. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Michigan 24</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Illinois 16</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

No go, no pick. Michigan's only a favorite with a serviceable Señor Hart.
- - -
(NOTE: This is assuming Mike Hart plays, which was the word earlier this week. Now, not so much. And I can't be held responsible for anything I say about Michigan if Mike Hart's not on the field.)

Miami at Florida State
- - -
I think this will be depressing for anyone who is not an amnesiac – it will be the first time neither team is ranked going into this game since the early eighties, and most of the country won’t even see it. At least the last few years, as both began to obviously decline, the teams played to open the season, when there was still high optimism for the talent everyone was so certain still ruled day in spite of it all. This...this is just not right. The quarterbacks are still terrible and unsettled, the vaunted coaching changes have accomplished squat, the respective running games range from ‘inconsistent’ to ‘nonexistent.’ The best we can hope for is a game that looks hard-hitting and intense, which last year’s did before it became clear that both teams were just really inept on offense. This year, those offenses are 93rd and 95th, respectively, so another defensive slog is a given; since FSU has been slightly better on defense, I’ll ride with the ‘Noles. But no one is really winning here. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Florida State 13</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Miami 12</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Louisville at Connecticut
- - -
UConn is the most deceptive 6-1 team in the country – it’s best game is probably the one-point loss at Virginia last week, the first game it’s played against a team with a pulse of any kind. After its win over Cincinnati last week, Louisville has more than that, if there’s any pride there. The Cards are still in good position to compete for the Big East title and Brian Brohm is still the best passer in the country, when he’s not scrambling to make up for the big plays yielded by the defense. Never say never – ahem, Syracuse – but UConn’s not likely to do so much of that. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Louisville 38</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Connecticut 24</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Penn State at Indiana
- - -
The Nittany Lions have turned in two completely improbable performances in a row, dominating Iowa and, even less likely, Wisconsin. Indiana presents a very different challenge on offense with Kellen Lewis running and passing from the shotgun rather than the conventional sets that seem to play right into the Lions’ hands defensively, but PSU has lined up and run right over the Hawkeyes and Badgers, and the Hoosiers are no special challenge there. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Penn State 31</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Indiana 20</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Kansas State at Oklahoma State
- - -
OSU tends to be a streaky team: it got on a bad streak out of the gate against Georgia and wound up collapsing in an embarrassing loss at Troy. It’s on a much better run since ripping up Texas Tech’s defense, though, and remains a versatile, dangerous offense with the whole field open for attack. Kansas State’s been up and down, but not particularly impressive on defense. Toss up goes to OSU’s athletes on offense, and its much better track record under Miles/Gundy at home. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Oklahoma State 36</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Kansas State 32</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Virginia at Maryland
- - -
Like Florida State-Miami, this is just a typical ACC game these days: terrible offenses, mediocre defenses, teams without much identity, consistency or any kind of hook. Maryland did run the ball down Rutgers’ throat on the road, which is significant, whereas Virginia has dwelled frighteningly in a 50-yard window between 324 and 374 yards in every game since the opener. I like the Terps at home, if for no other reason than my inability to process at team as unappetizing as Virginia at 7-1. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Maryland 23</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Virginia 18</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Texas A&M at Nebraska
- - -
The line (Nebraska -2.5) is too small for me to include it as my “Upset of the Week,” but how Nebraska could be a favorite over anyone right now, however disorganized, however battered, embarrassed, lame duck or demoralized, is mind-boggingly incredible. Texas A&M does still have a running game: it used it two weeks ago to come from behind to beat the Oklahoma State team that humiliated Nebraska’s defense for the umpteenth time last week and to ram its opening possession down Texas Tech’s throat last week before abandoning for an ill-fated reliance on Stephen McGee’s arm. But the only thing ill-fated about Nebraska’s status as a favorite in this game is the fool’s relationship with his money. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Texas A&M 34</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Nebraska 17</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Southern Cal at Notre Dame
- - -
Included out of tradition. I am substantially down on the Trojans, but Notre Dame...Notre Dame is...yeah. I acknowledge the possibility of some inspired possessions from the Irish, but if USC has any ambition of continuing forward as USC, it will leave spread-eagle Irish imprints in every inch of the wild swamp grass Notre Dame has inevitably grown out for this game. Complete annihilation is the only way to make this win meaningful. <TABLE><TBODY><TR><TD>

</TD><TD>Southern Cal 38</TD><TD>•</TD><TD>Notre Dame 7</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>

RJ Esq · Oct 20, 2007

Adding:

UNM -8 (-110)

I also have a bid in on Auburn +10.

RJ Esq · Oct 20, 2007

Adding:

Auburn +10 (+104)

Too many points for an SEC West rivalry game, even for LSU. Despite the bad start, Auburn IMO is a top 10 team and has a shot at winning SU.

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