Published September 26, 2010 - 10:39am
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Week 4 was a good week of college football. It didn’t really turn out to be too much of a “shake-up” week, but some important results nonetheless. Let’s get to ‘em.
Starting with my arch-nemesis Boise State… with a decent victory over Oregon State, Boise has essentially secured a BCS game at the end of the season. I continue to believe they will not be playing in the national championship unless teams like Ohio State and Alabama lose a couple times. Let’s hope somebody (other than TCU) pounds Boise in a BCS game.
The Big East continues to be a terrible conference in 2010. They lost all four of their “statement” games this week: Pitt lost to Miami, Rutgers lost to UNC, West Virginia lost to LSU, and Cincinnati lost to Oklahoma (barely) which brings me to the Big 12.
Absolutely a down year in the Big 12. Oklahoma barely scraped by a very mediocre Cincinnati team 31-29, and Texas got beat handily by UCLA.
Notre Dame got pounded by Stanford, who looks to be a legitimate football team. I still contend that Notre Dame is the worst job in sports – insane expectations that are impossible to live up to due to structural disadvantages (such as high academic standards). The Pac-10 will get College Gameday next week featuring the Stanford / Oregon matchup of unbeaten teams. The game is on ABC at 8pm. A good opportunity to watch some decent Pac-10 play if interested.
Even with a couple of nice teams in the Pac-10, college football this year is dominated by the Big Ten and the SEC. Let’s look at the Big Ten first. Ohio State is showing they are the real deal, putting up 73 points against an inferior Eastern Michigan squad. Wisconsin put up 70 against Austin Peay. Every ranked Big Ten team won this weekend.
The SEC had two huge inter-conference matchups this week with Alabama vs Arkansas and Auburn vs South Carolina. The two Alabama teams prevailed. Despite losing, South Carolina & Arkansas played tough games, and definitely showed that they can compete. Nationally, the SEC has five teams that could compete against almost anyone: Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, South Carolina and Florida. Put those five against the top five Big Ten teams and I like the SEC’s chances big time. As teams like Arkansas, Auburn, and South Carolina look good, Georgia and Tennessee are dropping. LSU is undefeated still but I just don’t think they end the season in contention for much of anything.
2010 is going to finish with the Big Ten versus the SEC. While four weeks in, it looks like Alabama and Ohio State are on a collision course, I’m sure there are a lot of Auburn fans that would tell you to hold off and not count them out. Ohio State has a much easier road than Alabama who has to play Auburn at the end of the regular season plus play the SEC East winner (Florida or South Carolina probably). Big Ten does not play a conference championship.
Undoubtedly, there are plenty more surprises to be seen over the next couple months, so all of the above is irrelevant. And that’s why they play the game…
