Playoffs?! Are you kidding me?

We're still a long way from getting a system in college football that makes sense, but for now we can at least join the discussion about playoffs and whatnot.

The Chief Justice wanted to pose this question to the group: "What teams, if you were the college football czar, would you chose to make up a field of 8 play-off teams? Your choices are: Florida, Oklahoma, Ball State, Texas, Utah, Alabama, Texas Tech, Boise State, Penn State, Southern Cal, Brigham Young, Texas Christian, Cincinnati, Ohio State & Tulsa. In other words, teams with either 10 wins or 2 or fewer losses."

After some careful deliberation and consideration, I divided the above teams into two categories: "IN" and "OUT."

2008-09 Playoff Scenario

IN:

#1 Oklahoma (Big 12 champ)
#2 Florida (SEC champ)
#5 Southern Cal (Pac 10 champ)
#8 Penn State (Big 10 champ – tiebreaker over OSU)
#12 Cincinnati (Big East)
#19 Virginia Tech (Technically 9-4, but still the ACC champ)
#3 Texas (at-large bid)
#4 Alabama (at-large bid)

OUT:

#6 Utah – Not in a BCS conference and Texas and Alabama played much tougher schedules. The Utes, on the other hand, nearly lost to Michigan. Get Weber St. out of your schedule, line up another BCS school and try again next year.

#7 Texas Tech - I’d rather go Guns Up than throw in Cinci or VT, but I have to give precedence to BCS conference winners. As the college football czar, you need to maintain some kind of order. That’s the problem when you have three great teams in the same conference and division.

#9 Boise St. – Same as Utah, when you’re in a non-BCS conference you need to schedule better opponents for your non-conference games. You’re already beating up on Idaho, Utah St. and New Mexico St.; there’s no need to play Idaho St. (FCS). And scheduling other non-BCS teams doesn’t help either.

#10 Ohio St. – Didn’t win their conference outright and Texas and Alabama clearly had better seasons.

#11 TCU – Didn’t even win their non-BCS conference. Again, if you want to be considered for national contention, stop playing FCS schools and the worst team in C-USA.

#16 BYU – First, win your conference. Second, get a tougher non-conference schedule. It’s too bad their victories over Washington and UCLA were unimpressive this year, so get N. Iowa out of there and go after someone else to make sure you can get a noticeable win over a BCS opponent.

#22 Ball St. – Even if they did win their conference, they’ve got to do better than Northeastern (2-10 AND an FCS school) in their non-conference schedule. Navy’s ok for an independent, but drop W. Kentucky and schedule better BCS schools than Indiana.

NR Tulsa – This one’s easy. Didn’t win their conference, three losses, didn’t play a ranked team all year and scheduled an FCS school and other shaky non-BCS schools. Oh yeah, and they’re not even ranked.

Now, what about the rest of you? Who are your eight playoff teams for this year's post-season?

Week 16: Would Toward That it Were

It's a shame CBS has the rights to the SEC match-ups. Rather than ESPN's Kirk Herbstreit and Brent Musberger (though I could do without Musberger at times) covering #1 Alabama vs. #4 Florida in prime time, we get the SEC championship in the middle of the afternoon and the one-sided Big 12 championship for the evening game. Kind of anti-climatic.

Of course we all knew which was going to be the better game. The SEC championship was everything people hoped it would be: tough defenses, hard hitting, Alabama's power running game vs. Florida's high-octane option attack. And Tebow ultimately wills his team to victory.

Then there was the Oklahoma/Missouri snooze-fest. The third time we've seen this match-up in a year and we all knew the beat-down was coming. Granted, Missouri kept things slightly interesting through the first 30% of the game or so. But it got really ugly really fast in the second quarter and it was over by half-time. And ESPN, "The number one leader in sports," has their number one broadcasting guy, Kirk Herbstreit, just filling air time for most of the evening. At least ESPN is taking back some of the bowl games from FOX in 2010.

On a different note, I think after Saturday's performances the Heisman race is down to Sam Bradford and Tim Tebow. Sam will likely get the nod given his ridiculous stats and Timmy's numbers aren't as freakish as last year. But we'll see.

Final Standings:

This Week	W	L	(Overall)	GB
A True Blue Husker	11	3	(223-97)	0
The Rev	12	2	(216-104)	7
Chief Justice	10	4	(213-107)	10
Dr. L	9	5	(213-107)	10
Kenny Pickett	12	2	(211-109)	12
The Guvna	8	6	(211-109)	12
O-knee-der	9	5	(209-111)	14

2008-09 College Football Bowl Schedule
EagleBank Wake Forest vs. Navy
New Mexico Colorado State vs. Fresno State
magicJack St. Petersburg Memphis vs. South Florida
Pioneer Las Vegas BYU vs. Arizona
R+L Carriers New Orleans Southern Miss vs. Troy
San Diego County Credit Union Poinsettia Boise State vs. TCU
Sheraton Hawaii Hawaii vs. Notre Dame
Motor City Florida Atlantic vs. Central Michigan
Meineke Car Care West Virginia vs. North Carolina
Champs Sports Wisconsin vs. Florida State
Emerald Miami (Fla.) vs. California
Independence Northern Illinois vs. Louisiana Tech
Papajohns.com NC State vs. Rutgers
Valero Alamo Missouri vs. Northwestern
Roady's Humanitarian Maryland vs. Nevada
Texas Rice vs. Western Michigan
Pacific Life Holiday Oklahoma State vs. Oregon
Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Houston vs. Air Force
Brut Sun Oregon State vs. Pittsburgh
Gaylord Hotels Music City Boston College vs. Vanderbilt
Insight Kansas vs. Minnesota
Chick-fil-A LSU vs. Georgia Tech
Outback South Carolina vs. Iowa
Capital One Georgia vs. Michigan State
Konica Minolta Gator Clemson vs. Nebraska
Rose Bowl Game Presented by Citi Penn State vs. USC
FedEx Orange Cincinnati vs. Virginia Tech
AT&T Cotton Ole Miss vs. Texas Tech
AutoZone Liberty Kentucky vs. East Carolina
Allstate Sugar Utah vs. Alabama
International Buffalo vs. Connecticut
Tostitos Fiesta Ohio State vs. Texas
GMAC Tulsa vs. Ball State
FedEx BCS National Championship Game Florida vs. Oklahoma

Week 15: BCS Bedlam

No Wolverines to frustrate me this week, just my own mediocre picks. Can't get the close ones to fall my way.

However, we're all still stuck with the monstrosity that is the BCS. Now while I agree that we need a new system (perhaps some form of playoff) in college football, but I don't think this year will produce enough controversy to bring about much change.

The Texas/Oklahoma debate seems to be drawing the most attention at this point, but I blame the Big 12 conference more than the BCS in this instance. If only they used the BCS standings to eliminate the lowest ranked team in the three-way tie and decide the other two by head-to-head like other conferences, then the situation might seem less arbitrary.

Instead, the BCS apologists can say, "Texas safety, Blake Gideon, should have caught that ball that slipped through his arms near the end of the Texas Tech game."

We get real controversy if Texas wins out in the Big 12, Florida takes care of business against Ole Miss, USC doesn't stumble in Corvalis (again) and Penn St. runs the table in a struggling Big 10 conference. Now that would be an interesting scenario for the BCS to sort out, especially with Utah, Boise St. and possibly Ball St. all going undefeated.

And that's the problem with the BCS, it's set up to work only if there are two undefeated teams from BCS conferences. Any other scenario and there's going to be controversy. The system expects you to have a perfect season in order to have a legitimate case for the national championship. But if more than two teams are able to do what's expected of them by the BCS, the system can't handle it. So the best thing the commissioners can do is hope that enough teams lose.

There's nothing "pure" about a bunch of rich guys sitting back, getting richer, and playing the odds with the greatest collegiate sport in the country.

Ok, so I'm not going to talk about playoffs (playoffs?!). But the BCS system as it is could still be much better than its current state and at least reduce the annual controversy.

If the currect system is supposed to act like a playoff in the regular season, then it needs to provide a better gauntlet in which teams can prove themselves. I say the BCS should have at least two more ground rules to encourage every FBS team to play a somewhat difficult schedule. That way calculating strength of schedules is a little less theoretical and subjective.

First: Any FBS school who schedules an FCS school is automatically disqualified from national championship consideration. If "Every week can change the season" then make "every week" count. Eliminate the Div 1-AA "pre-season" and "bye weeks" from FBS competition. And if you really want to inflate your schedule with cream puffs, there are plenty of teams in non-BCS conferences to pick on. The bottom line, no one wants a national champion who played an easy non-conference schedule. At least this way gives potential BCS busters more opportunities for quality wins in their schedule (and weeds out pretenders).

Which brings me to the second rule: In order for non-BCS schools to be considered for a BCS bowl, they need to schedule and beat at least three BCS teams during the regular season. If teams like Hawaii had to actually prove themselves before going to a BCS bowl, they might be spared the national humiliation of getting spanked by teams like Georgia who actually deserve to be there. And hey, it's possible that a non-BCS team could get three or four quality wins against top BCS teams, run the table and go to a national championship.

East Carolina didn't quite finish the way they wanted, but you have to take your hat off to them for scheduling four BCS teams in their non-conference schedule. Early in the season, it was certainly possible for the Pirates to have that perfect season and imagine if West Virginia and Virginia Tech had both won the Big East and ACC titles?!

That's it, just two simple rules would make college football much better than it is. I'd like to see what the sports writers on their playoff soap boxes would say to that.

Standings:

This Week	W	L	(Overall)	GB
A True Blue Husker	18	6	(212-94)	0
Dr. L	17	7	(204-102)	8
The Rev	17	7	(204-102)	8
Chief Justice	18	6	(203-103)	9
The Guvna	16	8	(203-103)	9
O-knee-der	18	6	(200-106)	12
Kenny Pickett	15	9	(199-107)	13

Schedule:

Wednesday, December 3
7:00 PM ET Middle Tenn. St. at Louisiana-Lafayette

Thursday, December 4
7:30 PM ET Louisville at Rutgers

Friday, December 5
8:00 PM ET #12 Ball St. vs. Buffalo*

Saturday, December 6
12:00 PM ET #23 Pittsburgh at Connecticut
12:00 PM ET E. Carolina at Tulsa
12:00 PM ET Navy vs. Army*
1:00 PM ET #17 Boston College vs. #25 Virginia Tech*
4:00 PM ET #1 Alabama vs. #4 Florida*
4:30 PM ET #5 USC at UCLA
7:00 PM ET Arkansas St. at Troy
8:00 PM ET #20 Missouri vs. #2 Oklahoma*
8:00 PM ET Arizona St. at Arizona
8:00 PM ET S. Florida at W. Virginia
11:30 PM ET #13 Cincinnati at Hawaii

*game played at a neutral location

Week 14: There's Always Next Year?

Who forgot to throw out last week's script for how not to start a game?! You'd think the offense and special teams (i.e. Martavious Odoms) would be able to correct at least one of the early blunders from last week's game. But no.

Well, there's actually not much to say after that one. Just more of the same things we've seen all season. Let's just hope Tate Forcier and Shavodrick Beaver can bring some life to this program in January.

Standings:

This Week	W	L	(Overall)	GB
A True Blue Husker	16	8	(194-88)	0
Dr. L	15	9	(187-95)	7
The Guvna	15	9	(187-95)	7
The Rev	14	10	(187-95)	7
Chief Justice	16	8	(185-97)	9
Kenny Pickett	13	11	(184-98)	10
O-knee-der	13	11	(182-100)	12

Schedule:

Tuesday, November 25
7:00 PM ET Western Michigan at #15 Ball State
7:00 PM ET Navy at Northern Illinois

Thursday, November 27
8:00 PM ET Texas A&M at #2 Texas

Friday, November 28
12:00 PM ET West Virginia at #25 Pittsburgh
12:30 PM ET Mississippi State at Mississippi
2:30 PM ET LSU at Arkansas
3:30 PM ET Colorado at Nebraska
6:00 PM ET Fresno State at #9 Boise State

Saturday, November 29
TBA #4 Florida at #20 Florida State
12:00 PM ET #22 Georgia Tech at #11 Georgia
12:00 PM ET Syracuse at #16 Cincinnati
TBA Maryland at #21 Boston College
TBA North Carolina at Duke
TBA Miami (FL) at North Carolina State
12:00 PM ET South Carolina at Clemson
TBA Virginia at Virginia Tech
12:30 PM ET Kansas vs. #13 Missouri*
TBA #3 Oklahoma at #12 Oklahoma State
TBA Baylor at #7 Texas Tech
3:30 PM ET Auburn at No. 1 Alabama
6:30 PM ET Kentucky at Tennessee
7:00 PM ET #23 Oregon at #17 Oregon State
7:00 PM ET Vanderbilt at Wake Forest
8:00 PM ET Notre Dame at #5 USC

Week 13: That's more like it

Well, when you start your first offensive drive at the opponent's 8-yard line and get nothing, you know you're in for a long afternoon. However, the first drive was actually the low point of the first half for Michigan's offense. They came back with a 66-yard touchdown drive a little later and mounted another 53-yard drive that technically didn't score, but the defense and special teams finished it off by forcing a quick 3-and-out and blocked a punt for the touchdown. Not too shabby after failing on the early scoring chance, muffing a punt and giving up a touchdown run on 3rd and 18.

Then the typical, second-half offense took the field after the break. They didn't have a single 3-and-punt drive in the first half, but their first four drives in the second half did just that. Again, the Michigan offense disappears in the third quarter: only 28 yards in five possessions and 16 of those yards came on the last drive of the quarter. And then more incompetence kept them from getting the job done in the fourth. Sheridan threw 8/29 (not even 33%!) for 61 yards including eight straight incompletions to finish the game, Threet came in and nullified great starting field position with another interception in the end-zone and where the heck was Feagan?!

Overall, the defense actually played fairly well. They forced a couple turnovers and kept NU under 100 yards rushing and just under 200 yards passing. If only they could stop someone on 3rd and long. The 3-man front is just bad news for Michigan. The D-line is one of the only strengths on this entire team right now; keep four at the line and go after them! But no, they go to a 3-man front on 3rd and 18 and give up a 21-yard touchdown run. They do it again when it's 3rd and goal from the 17 and give up a TD pass. And I have no idea what that 53-yard pitch and catch in the third quarter was all about. Before that, NU could only capitalize on Michigan's special teams errors. But mistakes all across the board are what did Michigan in this week.

Standings:

This Week	W	L	(Overall)
A True Blue Husker	14	8	(178-80)
The Rev	16	6	(173-85)
Dr. L	13	9	(172-86)
The Guvna	14	8	(172-86)
Kenny Pickett	15	7	(171-87)
Chief Justice	14	8	(169-89)
O-knee-der	15	7	(169-89)

Schedule:

Wednesday, November 19
7:00 PM ET #17 Ball St. at C. Michigan

Thursday, November 20
7:30 PM ET #23 Miami (FL) at Georgia Tech

Saturday, November 22
12:00 PM ET Michigan at #10 Ohio St.
12:00 PM ET N. C. State at #22 North Carolina
12:00 PM ET W. Virginia at Louisville
12:00 PM ET Clemson at Virginia
12:00 PM ET Indiana at Purdue
12:30 PM ET Tennessee at Vanderbilt
2:30 PM ET Syracuse at Notre Dame
2:30 PM ET Arkansas at Mississippi St.
3:30 PM ET #15 Michigan St. at #8 Penn St.
3:30 PM ET Air Force at #16 TCU
3:30 PM ET Mississippi at #18 LSU
3:30 PM ET Stanford at California
3:30 PM ET Illinois at Northwestern
3:30 PM ET Boston College at Wake Forest
5:30 PM ET Duke at Virginia Tech
6:00 PM ET #14 Brigham Young at #7 Utah
7:00 PM ET #20 Pittsburgh at #19 Cincinnati
7:00 PM ET #21 Oregon St. at Arizona
7:00 PM ET Iowa at Minnesota
7:45 PM ET Florida St. at #25 Maryland
8:00 PM ET #2 Texas Tech at #5 Oklahoma

Sunday, November 23
8:00 PM ET Connecticut at S. Florida

Week 12: Where'd He Come From?

Who in the world was wearing that number eight jersey for Michigan on Saturday?! That was not the same kid we've seen against Utah, Notre Dame, Toledo and Penn St. This guy had confidence, he could run (without fumbling), he could throw (without getting picked off) and he was able to get it done on the road against a decent conference opponent. And my goodness, where has Rich been hiding this Feagan kid; he was outstanding!

Well, they may have waited until their tenth game of the season, but Rich's New Boys* finally looked like they were playing Michigan football. Although Sheridan's turnaround was a big factor, it started with the Michigan defense stepping up. They finally started covering receivers, they were getting off blocks, making plays, Morgan Trent started showing up again and they were TACKLING! They made the Minnesota offense look like the Michigan offense from the rest of the year: five straight 3-and-outs (six total in the first half) and only gave up one first down before halftime! I'll admit, those longer second-half drives had me worried. But the Wolverines protected the end-zone, only gave up a total of 188 yards, forced a turnover (should have actually been two) and committed one 5-yard penalty.

The offense still has a ways to come (still having latent fumbling issues and we need better red zone production), but this week was by far their best outing. Except for when he broke loose for 40 yards, the Gophers seemed to have Minor pretty limited. But Rich got it done with other personnel. He got Feagan in there, McGuffie and Shaw came up big, the swing passes to Odoms started to work and he finally got Matthews more involved. Together they racked up 435 yards, kept the 3-and-out down to three times, committed only one 5-yard penalty and turned the ball over just once (though against a better offense, that could have made a much bigger difference in the game).

While this was the most fun I've had watching Michigan football all season, I still have to wonder if this dominant performance was more the result of the Gophers playing poorly rather than the Wolverines playing well. I guess we'll see how they respond next week at home against Northwestern.

*as opposed to Newell's Old Boys. If you're still scratching your head, don't worry; Grant's probably the only one who will get this reference.

Standings:

This Week	W	L	(Overall)
A True Blue Husker	19	5	(164-72)
Dr. L	16	8	(159-77)
The Guvna	17	7	(158-78)
The Rev	18	6	(157-79)
Kenny Pickett	14	10	(156-80)
Chief Justice	16	8	(155-81)
O-knee-der	14	10	(154-82)

Schedule:

Thursday, November 13
7:30 PM ET Virginia Tech at Miami (FL)

Friday, November 14
8:00 PM ET #22 Cincinnati at Louisville

Saturday, November 15
12:00 PM ET #11 Ohio State at Illinois
12:00 PM ET Rutgers at South Florida
12:00 PM ET Northwestern at Michigan
12:00 PM ET Duke at Clemson
12:00 PM ET Notre Dame at Navy
12:30 PM ET #10 Georgia at Auburn
2:00 PM ET Toledo at Western Michigan
2:30 PM ET Nebraska at Kansas State
3:30 PM ET #25 South Carolina at #4 Florida
3:30 PM ET #16 North Carolina at Maryland
3:30 PM ET #17 Brigham Young at Air Force
3:30 PM ET #24 Wake Forest at North Carolina State
3:30 PM ET California at Oregon State
3:30 PM ET Minnesota at Wisconsin
6:30 PM ET Arizona at Oregon
7:00 PM ET #6 USC at Stanford
8:00 PM ET #13 Oklahoma State at Colorado
8:00 PM ET Boston College at #19 Florida State
8:00 PM ET #23 Tulsa at Houston
8:00 PM ET Vanderbilt at Kentucky