Apologies for the lack of an update last week – I was fighting a rather severe case of bronchitis. But it’s good to be back, and just in time for Crunch Time in college football. First the weekly awards:

Upset of the Week: Illinois’ 28-21 win at Ohio St. The Buckeyes had been cruising and seemed to be a lock to reach their annual showdown with Michigan undefeated and with a trip to the BCS championship on the line. Now the Ohio St – Michigan game is just for a trip to the Rose Bowl, and that opens up the BCS championship to other contenders (Oregon?, West Virginia?, Oklahoma?)

Comeback of the Week: Rice scored 16 points in the fourth quarter to come back and beat SMU, 43-42. With the win, the Owls kept their extremely slim hopes of a Conference USA title alive.

Yawner of the Week: This was a big surprise. Virginia has won five games by a margin of two or fewer points this season, an NCAA record, and were favored by a similarly slim margin over Miami. I would venture to say that no one expected them to lay a 48-0 shellacking on the Hurricanes in Miami’s final home game ever at the Orange Bowl, but that is exactly what they did. The Cavaliers have two week’s to prepare for their winner-take-all battle with Virginia Tech.

Game of the Week: There were several good candidates for this award. I’m going with Arizona St’s 24-20 win over UCLA. With the loss, UCLA was essentially eliminated from the Pac-10 race; Oregon is free and clear to punch it’s own ticket to the BCS. With the win, Arizona St kept alive its very real quest for a BCS at-large bid.

BCS Watch: There are 14 teams left who control their destiny for one of the six automatic bids to the BCS, and now that we are down to Crunch Time, there are eight identifiable Crunch Games that will determine these six spots. In chronological order, those games are:

November 17: Ohio St vs. Michigan. Winner wins the Big 10 and goes to the Rose Bowl.

November 17: Boston Coll vs. Clemson. Winner wins a trip to the ACC championship game.

November 24: Connecticut vs. West Virginia. Winner most likely wins the Big East and goes to the BCS. Connecticut still has to play Syracuse however, while West Virginia still has to play Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. If UConn and WVU both lose one of their remaining games, it opens the door for Pittsburgh or Cincinnati to sneak into the BCS.

November 24: Virginia Tech vs. Virginia. Winner wins a trip to the ACC championship game.

November 24: Missouri vs. Kansas. Winner wins a trip to the Big-12 championship game.

December 1: ACC championship: Boston College – Clemson winner versus Virginia Tech – Virginia winner.

December 1: Big-12 championship: Missouri – Kansas winner versus (most likely) Oklahoma. OU just needs to win one of its remaining two games against Texas Tech and Oklahoma St to get to the Big-12 championship game.

December 1: SEC championship: LSU versus (most likely) Tennessee. LSU has already clinched its trip to the championship, but Tennessee still has to win both of their remaining games against Vanderbilt and Kentucky. If the Volunteers stumble, it opens the door for any one of a number of potential challengers: Georgia, Kentucky, or Florida.

WAC Watch: Hawaii is currently 16^th in the BCS (Harris #11, ESPN #12, Computer #26), while Boise St is 18^th in the BCS (Harris #15, ESPN #15, Computer #25). It’s still very questionable as to whether either team can jump to the necessary #12 ranking to garner a trip to the Sugar Bowl. The good news for these teams, however, is that the computer average for the winner of the Boise St – Hawaii game on November 23 is likely to jump several spots, and that might just give that team the necessary lift to get to New Orleans. One other caveat: both Hawaii and Boise St will be rooting hard for Michigan to beat Ohio St this weekend – if the Wolverines prevail then the Boise – Hawaii winner only has to finish ahead of Michigan in the top-16 of the BCS to get to the Sugar Bowl.

BCS Pie-in-the-sky Predictions: Stewart Mandel (Sports Illustrated College Football Analyst) made an interesting observation recently. The Texas Longhorns are playing well of late and have climbed to #13 in the BCS (at-large teams must be #14 or higher). If the Longhorns win out they could be an attractive candidate to a bowl selection committee, even though their might be two other Big-12 teams ahead of them in the BCS rankings, because of their recent winning streak and their high traveling fan base. With that possibility in mind, I’m going with the following:

Rose Bowl: Ohio St vs. Arizona St

Fiesta Bowl: Oklahoma vs. West Virginia

Sugar Bowl: Georgia vs. Hawaii

Orange Bowl: Boston College vs. Texas

Championship: LSU vs. Oregon

And now, the rankings:

Rank	Team		Wins	Losses	Value	STR	Last Week	AP
1	LSU		9	1	6.306	8	1	1
2	Oregon		8	1	6.189	6	2	2
3	Kansas		10	0	5.599	90	4	4
4	Arizona St		9	1	5.376	41	5	9
5	Missouri		9	1	5.140	55	8	6
6	Ohio St		10	1	5.133	62	3	7
7	Oklahoma		9	1	4.875	68	6	3
8	West Virginia		8	1	4.815	64	10	5
9	Georgia		8	2	4.493	16	11	8
10	Virginia Tech		8	2	4.302	35	12	10
11	Florida		7	3	4.248	1	15	14
12	Texas		9	2	4.008	57	16	12
13	Virginia		9	2	3.960	54	14	16
14	Connecticut		8	2	3.840	52	9	25
15	Clemson		8	2	3.810	53	22	15
16	Cincinnati		8	2	3.764	50	25	21
17	Hawaii		9	0	3.682	121	19	13
18	Boston Coll		8	2	3.677	63	7	18
19	Boise St		9	1	3.549	113	13	17
20	Illinois		8	3	3.548	23	27	20
21	South Florida		7	3	3.300	19	20	29
22	Tennessee		7	3	3.288	13	23	19
23	Penn St		8	3	3.244	37	18	26
24	Wisconsin		8	3	3.185	40	32	24
25	USC		8	2	3.172	81	30	11
26	Kentucky		7	3	3.074	29		22
27	BYU		7	2	2.846	86		28
28	Michigan		8	3	2.841	49	17	23
29	UCF		7	3	2.379	67
30	Auburn		7	4	2.237	44	24	27
31	Alabama		6	4	2.182	9	21	34
32	California		6	4	2.147	11		30
33	Mississippi St		6	4	2.067	15		31
34	Air Force		8	3	1.981	102		33
35	Troy		7	3	1.893	88
36	Tulsa		7	3	1.878	92
37	Florida St		6	4	1.864	25
38	Oregon St		6	4	1.794	31
39	Purdue		7	4	1.740	60
40	New Mexico		7	3	1.710	96
41	Wake Forest		6	4	1.702	33
42	Utah		7	3	1.598	99
43	Rutgers		6	4	1.583	45
44	South Carolina		6	5	1.403	12
45	Georgia Tech		6	4	1.338	61
46	Texas A&M		6	5	1.277	17
47	Oklahoma St		5	5	1.106	7
48	Michigan St		6	5	1.063	30
49	Texas Tech		7	4	1.057	95
50	Fresno St		6	4	1.032	78
51	Arkansas		6	4	0.963	76		32
52	NC St		5	5	0.778	14
53	Nebraska		5	6	0.699	5
54	Cent Michigan		6	4	0.671	84
55	Maryland		5	5	0.656	24
56	Louisville		5	5	0.588	26
57	East Carolina		6	5	0.519	66
58	Indiana		6	5	0.429	71
59	Iowa		6	5	0.429	73
60	Houston		6	4	0.356	108
61	Colorado		5	6	0.343	10
62	Wyoming		5	5	0.342	42
63	Vanderbilt		5	5	0.329	43
64	Bowling Green		6	4	0.326	107
65	UCLA		5	5	0.219	46
66	Northwestern		6	5	0.168	80
67	Kansas St		5	5	0.116	58
68	Navy		6	4	-0.002	115
69	TCU		5	5	-0.021	69
70	West Kentucky		6	4	-0.093	119
71	Ball St		5	5	-0.152	75
72	Miami FL		5	5	-0.153	74
73	Florida Atlantic		5	4	-0.265	110
74	Pittsburgh		4	5	-0.489	51
75	Nevada		5	4	-0.523	118
76	Washington St		4	6	-0.630	21
77	San Diego St		4	5	-0.756	70
78	Southern Miss		5	5	-0.794	106
79	Miami OH		5	5	-0.836	105
80	Toledo		5	5	-0.891	111
81	Arizona		4	6	-1.074	56
82	Middle Tenn St		5	6	-1.109	93
83	Memphis		5	5	-1.157	117
84	Washington		3	7	-1.291	4
85	Louisiana Tech		4	6	-1.458	77
86	Akron		4	6	-1.485	79
87	Ohio		5	6	-1.551	116
88	San Jose St		4	6	-1.590	85
89	Buffalo		4	6	-1.757	97
90	Stanford		3	7	-1.799	22
91	LA Monroe		4	6	-1.831	98
92	Arkansas St		4	6	-1.843	100
93	North Carolina		3	7	-1.864	20
94	UTEP		4	6	-1.871	109
95	Mississippi		3	7	-1.875	18
96	New Mexico St		4	7	-2.069	94
97	Iowa St		3	8	-2.398	34
98	Baylor		3	8	-2.474	36
99	Army		3	7	-2.528	72
100	Temple		3	7	-2.687	82
101	W Michigan		3	7	-2.730	83
102	Kent St		3	7	-2.827	89
103	Tulane		3	7	-3.032	103
104	Rice		3	7	-3.219	114
105	Syracuse		2	8	-3.257	32
106	East Michigan		3	8	-3.326	104
107	UNLV		2	8	-3.508	47
108	Marshall		2	8	-3.517	48
109	UAB		2	8	-3.667	65
110	LA Lafayette		2	8	-3.994	87
111	Duke		1	9	-4.088	2
112	Notre Dame		1	9	-4.112	3
113	Northern Illinois		2	8	-4.574	120
114	Others-Normal		1.18539	8.956277	-4.639	59
115	Colorado St		1	9	-4.729	39
116	Minnesota		1	10	-4.776	28
117	North Texas		1	8	-5.065	91
118	Idaho		1	9	-5.306	101
119	SMU		1	9	-5.455	112
120	Utah St		0	10	-6.076	27
121	Florida Intl		0	9	-6.122	38

Most overrated team: USC (8-2, AP#11, Hack#25) That loss to Stanford is hanging like an albatross around the Trojans’ collective neck. USC can mitigate that albatross with a win at Arizona St on Thanksgiving Day, and with that win they could make a strong argument to the Rose Bowl to select them as an at-large team if Oregon makes it to the National Championship.

Most underrated team: Connecticut (8-2, AP#25, Hack#14) Pundits are falling all over themselves to say “I told you so” after the Huskies lost to Cincinnati. But both of UConn’s losses have been on the road against teams that are currently 8-2, and UConn is still challenging for the Big East title. Dropping them almost entirely out of the top 25 was too much punishment, in my opinion.

Interesting games next week:

(6) Ohio St vs. (28) Michigan [for a berth in the Rose Bowl]

(18) Boston Coll vs. (15) Clemson [for a berth in the ACC championship]

(8) West Virginia vs. (16) Cincinnati [WVU needs to be careful to avoid the trap that UConn fell into last week]

(26) Kentucky vs. (9) Georgia [Winner clings to slim title hopes in SEC]

(7) Oklahoma vs. (49) Texas Tech [OU can clinch a berth in Big-12 championship]

(17) Hawaii vs. (75) Nevada [Final test for UH before they take on Boise St]

(2) Oregon vs. (81) Arizona [Ducks continue run for the national title game]

(32) California vs. (84) Washington [Cal tries to insure themselves a bowl bid by getting a seventh win]