Who would not like to see Utah square off against Florida? What a great game that would be! Ah, but for a playoff! Allow me to be wistful…

With the season over, I thought I’d revisit some of my college football predictions and analysis and see just how accurate I happened to be.

Looking back at the bowl games, I went 18-16 in picking the winners. Not great by any means, but since a .500 record was good enough to win one of the NFL divisional races this year (and a mere two games over .500 good enough for yet another division crown), I’ll take it. I’m much happier about my record in the games I highlighted in Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups: a healthy 3-1 (the one loss came in the BCS Championship game). I picked TCU over Boise State, Oregon State over Pittsburgh, and Utah over Alabama–yes, I called Utah!

Picking the biggest upset of the bowl season isn’t nearly as surprising as it might seem to be when you consider the fact that I’ve been touting the merits of the Mountain West Conference all season. In my very first Deep Into Sports article about college football back (posted November 2), I remarked how the Mountain West may very well be the third best conference overall this year, trailing only the Southeastern Conference and the Big 12. Take a look at both the final AP and Coaches’ Polls: the Mountain West has two teams (Utah and TCU) in the Top 7 of each poll. The only other conferences so represented are the SEC (Florida and Alabama) and the Big 12 (Texas and Oklahoma). The seventh team rounding out that top tier–and the only one not from those three conferences–is USC.

(For those naysayers who want to point out that November 2nd is past mid-season, I fully acknowledge that fact. But Deep Into Sports didn’t even come into existence until October 29th, so I didn’t have a forum to spread the Mountain West gospel until that time.)

This was the first season of a four-year cycle in which the BCS will be re-evaluating which conferences should receive automatic bids. Considering who actually runs the BCS, it’s hard to believe that any of the current six so-called power conferences would relinquish their ability to score the big bowl bucks. Such a recommendation is a distinct possibility if any said re-evaluation were actually to be legit. After all, looking at this season, the Mountain West should be upped to elite status and either the ACC or Big East downgraded. But does anyone really believe that might actually happen? I seriously doubt it, though if we college football fans are to be perpetually saddled with this terrible system, we can only hope this is an honest effort.

• December 19, 2008 -- Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (2)
• December 9, 2008 -- Football Coaches Have A Sense of Humor (0)
• January 6, 2009 -- Running Up the Score (6)
• January 8, 2009 -- Fierce And Nerdy: The BCS Championship Game – Oklahoma Sooners vs. Florida Gators (0)
• December 18, 2008 -- P.K.’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (1)

I like running up the score. I believe in running up the score, in demoralizing your opponent so viciously that they trble in fear the next time they face you.

Why am I bringing this up?

Because in college football, running up the score can be a necessity.

If Texas had any chance of making a claim at the AP portion of the national title, they needed to absolutely demolish Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl Monday night. They didn’t. We did get a thrilling game which Texas won on a briliant final drive, but in seizing victory from the jaws of defeat, the Longhorns already very slim championship hopes were dashed.

USC did what they had to against Penn State, but even their effort will not be enough since Utah dominated Alabama more than the 31-17 final score shows. Coupled with their undefeated season, the Utes performance might actually be enough to sway some AP voters. But in generating excitement Texas failed. They needed to run up the score.

And as long as the BCS is in place teams will need to do so to help their rankings throughout the season.

To be fair, college football isn’t the only sport where running up the score is a wise proposition. Baseball’s perpetual possibility of coming from behind means no score is ever safe.

• January 9, 2009 -- 2008-2009 College Football Wrap-Up (0)
• December 9, 2008 -- Football Coaches Have A Sense of Humor (0)
• December 19, 2008 -- Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (2)
• November 22, 2008 -- Bowl Picture Becoming Clearer (0)
• November 2, 2008 -- Bowl Championship Series Big Craziness Shake-up (0)

• December 19, 2008 -- Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (2)
• January 9, 2009 -- 2008-2009 College Football Wrap-Up (0)
• January 6, 2009 -- Running Up the Score (6)
• December 9, 2008 -- Football Coaches Have A Sense of Humor (0)
• November 2, 2008 -- Bowl Championship Series Big Craziness Shake-up (0)

In my mind, this is easily the most intriguing matchup of the bowl season outside the national championship game itself. Don’t let those two losses for a non-BCS school fool you; TCU has a phenomenal team, sporting, among other things, the second-ranked defense in all the nation. The first of those losses came to Oklahoma, 35-10. The only other time this year the Sooners were held to 35 points was in their solitary loss to Texas. As for the second loss, the Horned Frogs were a couple of short missed field goals away from beating Utah, taking the Mountain West title and perhaps making the BCS as a one-loss non-BCS team.

As for Boise State, the Broncos are one of two undefeateds remaining and would be in a BCS bowl if it weren’t for the aforementioned–and also undefeated–Utah Utes. Boise State once again rolled through the WAC, but only played one significant non-conference opponent, Oregon. However, at #3, the Broncos are only one spot below TCU in scoring defense, and there are still a lot of players remaining from that magical Fiesta Bowl victory two years ago, so they know how to win big games.

I love this game! Anything could happen in this one, but I’m picking the Horned Frogs with their rock-solid defense and strength of schedule.

Brut Sun Bowl (El Paso, TX – December 31)
#24 Oregon State Beavers (8-4) vs. #18 Pittsburgh Panthers (9-3)

The Pitt Panthers finished second in an up-and-down but largely lackluster Big East, while Oregon State was on the cusp of winning the Pac-10 and a Rose Bowl berth before ending up on the negative side of a lopsided contest with instate arch-rival Oregon. Each team needs to make a statement. The Beavers want to prove that the fluke in their season was the Oregon game and not the season itself, particularly their shocking upset of USC. The Panthers, on the other hand, started off with an embarrassing loss to Bowling Green and narrowly missed a second one to Buffalo. Pitt started playing better, but high hopes went by the wayside.

Considering that both the Pac-10 and Big East had down years, whoever wins this game not only redeems themselves but partially redeems their conference. But I just don’t trust Big East teams this year, and Oregon State’s victory over the Trojans was very impressive. I’m taking the Beavers.

Allstate Sugar Bowl (New Orleans, LA – January 2)
#7 Utah Utes (12-0) vs. #4 Alabama Crimson Tide (12-1)

Utah survived an incredibly tough Mountain West Conference schedule unscathed, and the Utes now carry that perfect record into their second BCS bid in five seasons. Key victories include Oregon State and fellow Top 25 conference rivals TCU and BYU. Beyond their own pride, a lot is riding on the Utes in this game in terms of proving the legitimacy of non-BCS teams and the Mountain West Conference in particular.

Alabama has had an incredible year; no one expected Nick Saban to turn around the Crimson Tide’s fortunes quite so quickly. That fact that became painfully apparent in the Tide’s defeat at the hands of Florida in the SEC Championship game, costing ‘Bama a shot at the national title. The sting of that loss should make Alabama a team on a mission. The Tide’s bread-and-butter is a great ball-control run-first offense, but be on the lookout for their stellar true freshman wideout Julio Jones.

Both teams have something to prove in this game, which will be won by the offensive and defensive lines and whichever side dominates the line of scrimage. On paper, Alabama appears stronger, but Utah quarterback Brian Johnson has exhibited Tom Brady-like intangibles to lead his team to victory whenever needed. Alabama may have a stronger team, but Utah has something special going on, so I’m going out on a limb and picking the Utes.

BCS National Championship (Miami, FL – January 8)
#1 Oklahoma Sooners (12-1) vs. #2 Florida Gators (12-1)

Like the Bowl Championship Series or not (I don’t)‚ but it did result in a legitimate matchup for the national title this season. Sure, other teams (Texas, USC, even Texas Tech) have strong arguments why they should be in the BCS Championship game, but those same discussions would exist regardless of which teams were playing; that’s the problem. From an outside observers standpoint, Oklahoma vs. Florida is as legitimate a matchup as there could be.

This game has it all: champions of the top two conferences, two high-powered offenses, and the last two Heisman Trophy Winners (quarterbacks Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford). Both teams will score a lot of points; it should be very exciting. Unfortunately for Oklahoma, Sooners running back DeMarco Murray will miss the game with a hamstring injury. That shouldn’t slow down Bob Stoops’ team too much; Murray is one of two backs for Oklahoma with over 1,000 yards (the other, Chris Brown, leads the team with 1,010 yards).

This game will probably come down to one or two plays, whoever makes the least mistakes taking the crown. After two straight bowl disappointments, it’s time for the Sooners to achieve some redemption.

• January 9, 2009 -- 2008-2009 College Football Wrap-Up (0)
• December 9, 2008 -- Football Coaches Have A Sense of Humor (0)
• November 2, 2008 -- Bowl Championship Series Big Craziness Shake-up (0)
• December 18, 2008 -- P.K.’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (1)
• January 8, 2009 -- Fierce And Nerdy: The BCS Championship Game – Oklahoma Sooners vs. Florida Gators (0)

After the 2004 Texas-California BCS debacle (not to be confused with the various BCS travesties from other years), the powers-at-be determined that the final vote in the USA Today / Coaches Poll should be made public for all to mock, I mean, review.

College football being college football, public scrutiny hasn’t prevented certain coaches’ ballots from ranging in rationality from the merely laughable to the sublimely ludicrous. Check out this article in the LA Times detailing the best (in terms of humor) and worst (in terms of plausibility) from the 2008 edition of inexplicable coaching logic.

Some of the ballots sampled here aren’t completely ridiculous–for example, I’ll give Texas Tech’s Mike Leach voting his squad #2 in a last-ditch effort to salvage a BCS Championship Game rematch versus Oklahoma.  The Red Raiders’ only loss was to the Sooners, and they did beat Texas.  But some of the others… really?

My favorite has to be Missouri’s Gary Pinkel awarding Georgia Tech of the woeful ACC a #9 ranking ahead of both remaining undefeateds, Utah (#15) and Boise State (#16), two teams which have both proven in recent years that non-Big 6 conference schools can win in BCS games.  Bad enough even ignoring that fact that Georgia Tech didn’t even play their way into the ACC title game.

What did these guys vote when they didn’t have to display their ballots for the world to see?

• December 19, 2008 -- Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (2)
• January 9, 2009 -- 2008-2009 College Football Wrap-Up (0)
• January 6, 2009 -- Running Up the Score (6)
• November 22, 2008 -- Bowl Picture Becoming Clearer (0)
• November 2, 2008 -- Bowl Championship Series Big Craziness Shake-up (0)

NFL: Last week, I looked at the parity now existing in the National Football League.  Of course, as even as teams are, the playoffs will still only hold twelve teams.  The postseason picture grew a little clearer this past weekend.  In the AFC, one favorite coming into the season, the Chargers, dropped completely out of contention, another, the Patriots, slipped to a game out of a playoff spot, and a third, the Colts rose into one.  Denver showed a strong resurgence and Pittsburgh reiterated that they are the one team capable of challenging the Titans.  The NFC picture is as murky as ever, with eleven teams still in contention.  The Giants and Cardinals are pretty secure, but the South has replaced the East as the division to beat.

NCAA Football: The BCS is as big a mess as ever, with Oklahoma passing Texas for the second spot despite having lost to the Longhorns.  We could be looking at four undefeated teams going into bowl season, two of which will be playing in BCS bowls but not against each other (Alabama and Utah) and a third (Boise State) which is at least receiving consideration, although few expect a second non-”big six” conference team to win an at-large bid.  So much for every week being a playoff, as the BCS supporters posit as a rationale for their irrational system.

NHL: Looking back over the first few weeks of this site, I realized I have yet to post on hockey.  I don’t have a good reason why not–I enjoy the puck immensely.  A quarter season has passed already.  Last year’s Stanley Cup Finalists are both playing strong, although Detroit has been eclipsed by the absolutely stellar play of the San Jose Sharks and Pittsburgh overshadowed by the New York Rangers and by the Boston Bruins’ return to prominence.  This week features a major show down between the Rangers and Penguins. The Rangers are definitely a good team, but considering that New York has played two more games than anyone else in the league, three more than any other team in its own division, and four more than Pittsburgh, it’s time to see if they truly are that much better than the rest of the conference or if their high point total is an additional games played advantage.

NBA: Lakers. Celtics. ‘Nuff said (with an apologetic nod to LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers). Finals rematch, anyone?

NCAA Basketball: So far, North Carolina has justified its unanimous pre-season #1 ranking, dominating even with National Player of the Year Tyler Hansbrough having played minimal minutes to date due to injury.  Meanwhile, the Big East set a record this week with eight teams being ranked in the AP Poll.  That’s half of the sixteen team league and just under a third of the ranked teams.  Wow.  

A most wonderful time of the year, indeed!

• December 19, 2008 -- Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (2)
• December 14, 2008 -- Playoff Picture Still Murky (0)
• January 12, 2009 -- Divisional Round Dish (0)
• December 9, 2008 -- Football Coaches Have A Sense of Humor (0)
• November 25, 2008 -- EnEfElquality (0)

All three AP-poll ranked ACC teams lost today.  At least the most overrated conference in college football can take solace in the fact that one of the two Coach’s Poll ranked teams, Boston College, did win.  Can’t wait to see how the ACC is treated when the new rankings are released tomorrow.

Congratulations to Utah for becoming the latest BCS Buster and to Penn State for clinching a berth in the Rose Bowl.  Of course, Utah’s feast is Boise State’s famine.  Despite the Broncos remaining perfect on the season, they are now on the outside looking in due to the inequities of the BCS system, with a woeful ACC team destined to grab a spot rightfully theirs.

• December 9, 2008 -- Football Coaches Have A Sense of Humor (0)
• December 19, 2008 -- Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (2)
• November 2, 2008 -- Bowl Championship Series Big Craziness Shake-up (0)
• January 9, 2009 -- 2008-2009 College Football Wrap-Up (0)
• January 6, 2009 -- Running Up the Score (6)

Then came the addition of Thursday.  Then Friday.  Now Wednesday, and even Tuesday.  Tuesday?

Don’t get me wrong, I like having more football games on more days.  It’s just tough to get my head around football being an everyday of the week sport like baseball, hockey and basketball.  But it now is.

Not that most of these games will show up on anybody’s radar, since besides the ESPN Thursday night games and a handful of the Friday games, they rarely feature marquee match-ups, or even a single marquee team.  Looking at several weeks of this year’s NCAA schedule, Top 25 appearances on Tuesday and Wednesday games are scarce.  So far the only ranked teams to do so are current #9 Boise State and current #16 Ball State.  But since Ball State received its first Top 25 ranking on October 8 of this year (congratulations, Cardinals, well-deserved!), that leaves Boise State as the only team playing on the traditional “off days” which has received recent national attention–ah, that incredible Fiesta Bowl!

Speaking of non-Saturday games, this week’s Thursday night Mountain West match-up of #11 TCU visiting #10 Utah promises to be one of the best games of the weekend (definitely better than the other Thursday game pitting two of the pathetic ACC’s teams against each other).  As I’ve said previously, this year has marked the ascendency of the Mountain West as a top conference, easily the best of the non-BCS leagues and probably better than several of those, too.  Can’t wait for this game!

• December 19, 2008 -- Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (2)
• November 2, 2008 -- Bowl Championship Series Big Craziness Shake-up (0)
• January 9, 2009 -- 2008-2009 College Football Wrap-Up (0)
• December 9, 2008 -- Football Coaches Have A Sense of Humor (0)
• November 22, 2008 -- Bowl Picture Becoming Clearer (0)

But when it comes to selection time, will all of the BCS Bowl teams be so deserving?  After all, there is good reason for Penn State to have been passed over in the most recent polls.  No disrespect to the Nittany Lions, but the Big Ten is not a strong conference this year.  USC faces the same dilemna inside the Pac-10 (although recent history as a dominant program on a national scale compensates somewhat for conference weakness in USC’s case).  The Big East is even worse, and the Atlantic Coast Conference is a complete joke this year.

That leaves the Big Twelve and the Southeastern Conference as the only BCS conferences (and, hence, the only supposed “power” conferences) that have really earned their stripes this year instead of resting on their past laurels.  Truth be told, the Mountain West may very well be the third best conference this season based on the strength of currently undefeated Utah and one-loss TCU and BYU (and TCU’s solitary defeat came to then fourth-ranked Oklahoma, hardly something of which to be ashamed).  

Perhaps this will be the season that the Bowl Championship Series finally is embarassed enough to prompt real change.  There are currently six teams in the Bowl Subdivision with undefeated records; only three of those (Alabama, Texas Tech and Penn State) are from BCS conferences.  If these teams can hold on, so much for the regular season being a week-by-week playoff, as the BCS bigwigs like to claim.

Furthermore, in the all important Top 12 of the BCS rankings, three schools (the Mountain West’s Utah and TCU and the WAC’s Boise State) are currently from non-BCS conferences.  Due to the built-in inequities of the BCS system, at least one of those teams and most likely two, will be shut-out of the big dance.  And as Boise State taught us in the Fiesta Bowl a couple years ago, these non-BCS conference schools can be very deserving of one of those big bowl bids.

Potential for egg on the face of the BCS?

Unfortunately, the BCS will still in place even if the final rankings this year are a complete debacle.  I dream of a playoff, but at this point I would settle for a system equivalent to that of English soccer in which successful lower-level teams are promoted to the Premier League and less deserving teams demoted.  The Mountain West has more than proven themselves worthy of such a promotion this year.  As for demotion… well, there are several options.

• December 19, 2008 -- Nate’s Most Intriguing Bowl Matchups (2)
• December 9, 2008 -- Football Coaches Have A Sense of Humor (0)
• January 9, 2009 -- 2008-2009 College Football Wrap-Up (0)
• November 22, 2008 -- Bowl Picture Becoming Clearer (0)
• January 6, 2009 -- Running Up the Score (6)