Rooting for Missouri-West Virginia title game
Hoping for an explosive offensive showdown, not an Ohio State snoozer
Jamie Squire / Getty ImagesHere's hoping Missouri makes it to the title game.
SoCal up for grabs
In this oddball season, Saturday’s USC-UCLA matchup might be one of the more unusual ones in years.
Last season, the Bruins upset the Trojans and knocked them out of contention for the BCS title game. This year, the host Trojans seek retribution.
But USC’s season went from the utter disbelief of the Stanford loss at the Coliseum to the thorough whipping of Arizona State, which a tryptophan-addled nation witnessed on ESPN. The Trojans don’t deserve to be mentioned in the national championship race, but they arguably are playing the best football of anyone right now.
Meanwhile, for UCLA, this entire season has been one long manic-depressive episode. Head coach Karl Dorrell has been a dead man walking in the eyes of alumni; even athletic director Dan Guerrero issued the old “We’ll assess the program at the end of the season” edict, which sounds eerily similar to what Tom Osborne said about Bill Callahan just before showing him the door.
But UCLA is 5-3 in conference, and if it beats USC and Arizona defeats Arizona State then the Bruins go to the Rose Bowl. That will delight many among the Bruin faithful, to be sure, but it will also make it a lot more difficult to push the “delete” button on Dorrell.
USC should win. Yet after experiencing this cockeyed season, no expected outcome is safe.
Low Tide
Nick Saban might have gone from his profession’s penthouse to outhouse faster than anyone in recent memory.
He lost his last four at Alabama, but the last two really hurt. It was sort of a daily double of devastation: Losing at home to lowly regarded Louisiana-Monroe, then falling at archrival Auburn.
And the Miami Dolphins team that he helped put together before bolting is now 0-11. Nice job, Nick. Presiding over two disasters in less than 12 months.
Alabama is not in the tank, of course. The Tide is 6-6, which means it is eligible for the Piggly Wiggly Bowl. But it’s more about the progress the team made, or lack thereof.
Alabama posted gutty wins against Arkansas and Tennessee, and lost a close one to Georgia.
But after the upset bid against LSU failed at home on Nov. 3, the Tide slowly came apart. In fairness to Saban, it could be a team trying to find its identity under a first-year coach; remember, Pete Carroll was 6-6 in his first year in 2001.
Yet it could also indicate a group of players that is not responding to a celebrity coach who himself is feeling the intense pressure of living up to his $4 million per year contract.
Saban signed for eight years for a guaranteed $32 million. That means there’s plenty of time for Saban to make good, or plenty of time for Alabama fans to agonize while he makes bad.
From the shotgun
I don’t know what this says about the Charlie Weis-Ty Willingham comparison, but if Washington loses next week at undefeated Hawaii, both Weis and Willingham will end up with nine losses each.
Obviously Dennis Franchione resigned at Texas A&M so he could devote more time to the insider newsletter.
Oklahoma State lost three of its last four and finished at 6-6. Little did head coach Mike Gundy know that when he had his now infamous YouTube meltdown and declared, “Come after me!” that some might actually take him up on it.
If Les Miles goes to Michigan, does Steve Spurrier take the LSU job, thereby admitting that he can’t build a national power at South Carolina, the second time in as many jobs that he has to admit he couldn’t get it done? And does LSU even offer its head coaching position to somebody coming off a five-game losing streak, the longest of his college career?
- Kudos to Florida’s Tim Tebow for refusing to strike the Heisman pose Saturday against Florida State even though fans, teammates and even cheerleaders were urging him on. By being humble and not playing along with the Heisman hype he probably earned himself even more votes.
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Michael Ventre writes regularly for msnbc.com and is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.
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More newsChris Graythen / Getty Images Brian Johnson, who led Utah to an upset of Alabama in the 2009 Sugar Bowl, is ready for his first season as the Utes' offensive coordinator. At 25, the ex-QB will be the youngest with that job at the FBS level.
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