More huge games lead this week's most compelling story lines:
Lubbock, the Center of the College Football World: There are probably three teams realistically that control their own destiny. Two of them will be playing in this game as Texas visits unbeaten Texas Tech. (Alabama is the third team.) This is the final leg of a brutal October gauntlet of highly ranked teams Colt McCoy and UT have had to deal with. If Tech wins, the Red Raiders still have some stiff tests left on their regular season ride. My hunch is that if Tech goes undefeated and beats top-ranked UT and then OU and Oklahoma State and what could be a top-seven or -eight Mizzou in the Big 12 title game, they're jumping Penn State.
The World's Largest Revenge Game? Florida-Georgia is always a big game. This week there's even more intrigue after the way the entire Georgia team swarmed the field and danced in the end zone following UGA's first touchdown last season. A few days ago, UF coach Urban Meyer said after last year's game in Jacksonville that Georgia's end zone celebration wasn't that big of a deal. That's a bit different from what he said over the summer and what he wrote in his book: "It wasn't right. It was a bad deal. And it will forever be in the mind of Urban Meyer and in the mind of our football team. So we'll handle it. And it's going to be a big deal."
How big is the Big Ten? Third-ranked Penn State is coming off a big win at Ohio State and appears to be cruising toward an undefeated season. But will that be enough? Will Ohio State's back-to-back losses in BCS title games weigh on voters' heads as the polls shake out? I don't think PSU will get slighted in favor of a one-loss team from the Big 12 or SEC, although wait another month and I think you will really see a lot of people change their thinking on this and match up an SEC and/or Big 12 schedule vs. Penn State's.
Busting Away: There are a handful of non-BCS conference schools in the midst of great seasons, and now the style points come into play to see which has the best shot of getting a BCS bowl bid. The two most viable at this point are Utah and Boise State, although TCU and Tulsa have outside shots. Coaches know they need to do some campaigning, as Utah's Kyle Whittingham did last week.
This matchup should have plenty of fireworks. There are two big questions: Can Colt McCoy sustain his ridiculously high level of play? And are these Red Raiders really for real?
Texas has won the last five meetings, averaging 48 points a game. Tech is coming off a 63-21 thumping of Kansas on Saturday that showed off the Red Raiders' improved O-line and a salty defense that has a very underrated line. Tech's defense is third in the Big 12, and its rush defense and scoring defense are second. A subplot here is that UT's fierce pass rush, led by DE Brian Orakpo and DT Roy Miller, will be challenged to get to Graham Harrell, who has been sacked only three times all season. Defensive coordinator Will Muschamp, UT's budding coaching star, actually spent some time at the same school -- Valdosta State -- where Tech coach Mike Leach was once the offensive coordinator and happened to groom Chris Hatcher, the guy whose completion-percentage record (74.9 percent in 1994) McCoy is threatening to smash.
Another subplot will be the head-to-head matchup between two guys from this year's Freaks list, Orakpo (No. 1) vs. Texas Tech's Rylan Reed (No. 5).
And, as a fan of Leach's, I relish the thought of all the dating tips/weather forecasts/fire ant dissertations/pirate stories/Geronimo tales that will spew out while the Texas Tech coach is in the spotlight over the next 96 hours.
Either way, this game should be a lot of fun. Both offenses have really taken off in recent weeks and are led by super QBs. UF's special teams have also been great. A big key will be whether the Dawgs' young O-line can keep up its stellar work from the past three games. (QB Matthew Stafford has been sacked just once over that stretch.)
"They're doing a heck of a job," Stafford told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "I feel they're getting to that point now where they're starting to jell and just playing real sound fundamental football."
Unsettled earlier in the season, the line will have the same starters in the same positions for the third consecutive week.
Doug Lesmerises doesn't think PSU will get jumped either, and he raises a good point that bolsters the Nittany Lions' cause: "Don't forget a scheduling move that may have saved the Nittany Lions from themselves. Last year, Penn State moved Arkansas State, a Sun Belt team that's currently 4-3, off the schedule and moved Oregon State on the schedule for this year. The Beavers came to State College and were pummeled 45-14 -- and then 19 days later went out and beat USC."
This week most of the potential busters have road tests. None is probably tougher than the Utes' trip to New Mexico, led by talented RB Rodney Ferguson.
No other team in the Mountain West exemplifies smashmouth football more than the Lobos (4-5, 2-3), writes Lya Wodraska:
"The Lobos are at opposite ends of the statistical categories for offense, ranking 13th nationally out of 119 schools, averaging 222.6 rushing yards. They are just 113th in passing, averaging 117.7 yards. Defensively, the Lobos are 39th against the rush, giving up 118 yards, and 71st against the pass, giving up 214.1 yards.
"'Anytime you can run and defend the run effectively, you are going to be in the game,' Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said. 'That is their forté, running the football and playing great defense.'"
Tulsa has to go to Arkansas and deal with the Hogs' dynamic little RB Michael Smith, while Boise State goes to New Mexico State and TCU visits Vegas.
History, as Jimmie Tramel writes, isn't on Tulsa's side, since "TU has dropped 17 consecutive games, all by double-digit margins, to schools currently in BCS conferences. Average margin of defeat? How about 29 points."
RANDOM STUFF
• I'm on the East Coast this week for some TV responsibilities up in Bristol later this week and watched the Houston-Marshall game from a bar in NYC with a buddy. The game involved staffs with two of the coaches I really stay connected to. (Marshall's Mark Snyder was really the first source I developed when I got into the business after meeting him down in Blacksburg years back while we were there visiting the Va. Tech staff one spring.) I've always tried to keep close tabs on the Thundering Herd, and I've winced a few times in recent weeks with some of their results. While I was happy for him after his team beat a solid Houston team on national TV, the game really left me shaking my head after seeing Houston's terrific freshman receiver Patrick Edwards sustain a gruesome leg injury after he ran out of the end zone trying to track down a long pass from Blake Joseph. Edwards crashed into a band equipment cart that was ridiculously close to the field, just beyond the out-of-bounds line.
Cougars coach Kevin Sumlin said that while he had "his opinions" on the subject, he would offer no comment on such a dangerous situation. University of Houston athletics director Dave Maggard said he will pursue the subject with Marshall officials, according to the Houston Chronicle:
"It was duly noted, and I think we'll save the conversation for another day," Maggard said. "I don't think there is any question that it is a problem. We all noticed it, and we want to find out why something like that would occur. It was a serious injury, no question about it."
I wonder how many lawyers have dialed up the Edwards family since Tuesday night.
• I've written a bunch over the last two years about the success of Texas-bred QBs. Today, Chuck Carlton goes into detail about the subject with some good analysis:
"This season, 21 of the 119 starting quarterbacks in the NCAA Bowl Division have Texas ties. So do six of the top nine QBs ranked nationally in total offense."
Here's a thought: It is not out of the realm of possibility that of the 10 BCS bowls slots, you could have teams led by Texas-bred QBs in half of them:
Two via the Big 12: Take your pick from Texas (Colt McCoy), Texas Tech (Graham Harrell), Mizzou (Chase Daniel), Kansas (Todd Reesing); one from an MWC school -- Utah (Brian Johnson) or TCU (Andy Dalton) -- one from an SEC school -- Georgia (Matthew Stafford) -- and one from an ACC school -- FSU (Christian Ponder).
• What went so wrong with Ty Willingham? Bud Withers thinks it has a lot to do with the fact that the coach appealed more to recruits' parents than the recruits themselves:
"How did he get to a Rose Bowl with the Cardinal in 1999 and recruit NFL-bound players like Troy Walters, Willie Howard, Tank Williams and Kwame Harris? With less-stringent admission standards at Notre Dame and Washington, where was the commensurate talent haul at those two schools? Part of it, no doubt, was the nature of the Pac-10 then. Stanford caught the Pac-10 at a time before USC had Pete Carroll, and the league was relatively down. My theory on why Willingham later struggled as a recruiter: He appealed to parents more than he did their kids.
"When a coach sits down in a prospect's living room, he's usually dialing into two channels. Parents want to know about the business school, the academic-support system and things like whether athletes will live in the dorms for two years. Kids want to know how soon they might start. Ever button-down, meticulous and proper, Willingham struck parents as a good choice. But my guess with recruits is, most of them have to see the boyish, good-times side of a coach. Somehow, they need to envision him as a guy who, 25 years ago, could have pulled off a senior prank in high school as they might."
It is an interesting point, and I think it makes some sense. I also think it should be pointed out that many times coaches who are "great" recruiters are considered that because they have surrounded themselves with strong assistants who can both evaluate and pound the proverbial pavement. I wonder if the staffs he has had in the last five or six years had the energy to be as aggressive as other programs.
• UCLA is developing quite a recruiting presence in Hawaii, writes Ferd Lewis.
"Yesterday, the commitments of two Punahou School players, running back Dalton Hilliard and wide receiver Robert Toma, were announced by the Pacific Islands Athletic Alliance. Earlier, Kapolei High offensive lineman Stan Hasiak IV, committed to the Bruins. Quite a week's haul, especially since that's roughly as many as UCLA has gotten from here in the past decade. Now, having Punahou alum Norm Chow as the offensive coordinator undoubtedly accounts for a lot of the interest. But it also isn't hard to surmise that the Bruins have their eyes on the state's top prospect, Punahou linebacker Manti Te'o."
• Wyoming folks are still fuming over a few hits on QB Karsten Sween in the TCU game, reports Austin Ward:
"I think it's absolutely a dirty hit, and a safety tried to do it earlier in the game on a (zone) read play where I slid," Sween said. "He tried to hit my head and missed, and then later on, I timed my slide up off the cornerback and I didn't see the linebacker. (Robert Henson) was just going to take me out of the game, leads with his head. Misses me with his head but hits me with his shoulder pad and ricochets my head off the ground, and they're up by what, four touchdowns and I'm sliding. It's not the NFL and he has to touch me. I'm sliding, I'm down and he was clearly going for the knockout shot."
• Al Groh sure seems to do pretty well in what has become a familiar underdog role. When oddsmakers listed Miami as an early one-point favorite this week, it marked the 11th straight game dating to the 2007 season in which Virginia had been the underdog against Division I-A opposition, writes Doug Doughty:
"The Cavaliers have won eight games as an underdog over the past two seasons but may not have that opportunity this week. By Tuesday, early action shifted the line, making the Cavaliers two-point favorites."