College pigskin – week 12

Undefeated #1 Oregon went down to the wire with Wisconsin. The Badgers had a 13-6 lead after three quarters, but could not close the sale.

Undefeated #6 BYU lost to Kansas, which went into the game 3-6. BYU’s ranking will plummet, and they now have to worry about making the conference championship game. Meanwhile, their main conference rival, #17 Colorado, posted a mammoth win over Utah.

The other two undefeated teams, Indiana and Army, had the week off. Neither is expected to survive next week with their undefeated status intact. Army is a 17-point underdog against Notre Dame, and Indiana is an 11-point dog against THE Ohio State University.

#10 Alabama scheduled a game against Mercer this week. I noticed last week that the bookies refused to create a line for that game. I get that. In that sort of game, Alabama wins by as many as they want to, and the bookies have no way to know how many that is. The box score for the game is wild. Alabama literally played their fourth-string QB, a freshman who went 5 for 6. (How many schools even have a fourth-string QB?) Eleven different Alabama players carried the ball, and thirteen made receptions. They even used three different guys to kick extra points, resulting in no misses. Despite playing everyone on the roster, Alabama won by 45.

#12 Georgia may be back in the hunt be in the SEC championship game after defeating #7 Tennessee. Their advantage is that their conference games are finished, with a final 6-2 record. Texas and Texas A&M are 5-1, but have to play each other, so at least one of them will have two losses. There are three other teams with two losses, so Georgia’s chances will depend on which teams they tie. They have the disadvantage if they tie Alabama or Ole Miss. They have the advantage if they tie Texas or Tennessee. They have not played A&M. There is a pretty good likelihood of a 5-way tie for second in conference play, which will require everyone to get out their computers to calculate the tiebreakers. Even in the case of that five-way tie, one or two of the two-loss teams will miss the big playoff after the championship game. On the other hand, the loser of the SEC championship game could get into the playoff with three losses!

Scoreboard:

Rankings

Computer ratings

—————————-

Kent State watch:

They lost 34-7 to drop to 0-10. They went back to a junior at QB and moved the promising freshman to RB with a pass option. Nothing worked.