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BGonline.org Forums
OT -- Bowl Games Critique to Date
Posted By: Bill Riles
Date: Saturday, 2 January 2010, at 6:17 p.m.
Best games to watch: Idaho vs. Bowling Green; Northwestern vs. Auburn
Conference comments:
Biggest kudos to Mountain West at 4-0 including BYU smacking Oregon St. and Utah crushing California.
Biggest loser conferences have to be the Pac-10 and the Big East -- take your pick as to who is worse. Pac-10 is 2-5 with all their top teams getting spanked -- Ohio State over Oregon, BYU spanking Oregon State, Utah spanking California, Nebraska absolutely destroying Arizona, and Oklahoma over Stanford. Only UCLA and USC won -- UCLA over Temple (aren't they Divison II?) and USC over a weak ACC Boston College team. Big East is 2-2 but were those losses big -- Cincinnati shellacked by Florida and West Virginia spanked by a very poor Florida State team.
SEC has a bit of a poorer than expected showing at 3-3 and they were very lucky that Auburn got by Northwestern. If Mississippi and Alabama don't perform it will have to be a hugely disappointing bowl season for the SEC.
Big 10 and Big 12 are showing much better than most thought. Big 10 has huge wins with Ohio State over Oregon, Penn St. over LSU, and Wisconsin over Miami. Northwestern narrowly lost to Auburn despite, IMHO, grossly outplaying the SEC squad. Big 12 has a couple of nice wins over the Pac 10 with Oklahoma beating Stanford and Nebraska destoying/embarrassing Arizona -- perhaps the Nebraska/Texas game wasn't as big a poor performance by Texas as many thought.
BCS thoughts:
The BCS rankings and pairings are once again suspect, at best. Cincinnati was grossly overmatched by Florida -- and, to think, if Texas had missed the field goal against Nebraska, Cincinnati would have been in the National Championship game. I wasn't terribly surprised -- Cincinnati had given up 40-50 points to a number of teams so I didn't think Florida would be any exception, plus Florida defense is much stronger than all other Cincinnati opponents.
Much better game would have been TCU-Florida, but the BCS conferences wanted to save face by having Boise State and TCU play each other so neither could gain prestige by beating a major conference BCS team.
Alabama vs Texas should be a great game. Nebraska and Florida bowl performances show that both the SEC and Big 12 conference championship wins were huge for Alabama and Texas. Poor bowl performances of A&M and Auburn show what weak teams can do against the best in the annual state rivalry games. A&M (who thinks the season is one game long -- against Texas) played great against Texas and stunk up the bowl game against Georgia. Auburn played great against Alabama but almost lost (and should have lost) as a heavy favorite against Northwestern.
Predictions the rest of the way: I look for TCU to beat Boise State (two great offenses but only one great defense); Iowa to beat Georgia Tech (great defense shuts down the option game); and Texas to beat Alabama (passing game beats running game against two great defenses).
Final rankings should be, IMHO: Texas, TCU, Alabama, Florida, Ohio State.
If my BCS predictions are right the Mountain West, Big 10, and Big 12 will be huge winners overall. The Pac-10 and Big East will be the huge losers. SEC will be grossly disappointing (and disappointed). ACC a mixed bag -- who cares? -- some good wins by Virginia Tech and Florida State, some big losses by Georgia Tech, Miami, and Boston College.
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