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Championship Weekend Recap
December 4, 2006 | By Benjamin Miraski
From the Editor: With sports guru and FanIQ blog editor, Critical Fanatic on vacation in Paris, I was called in to assist. That might be why it has been a little light around here lately. This article originally appeared as three pieces on the FanIQ blog.
One piece of the BCS picture came into focus. One piece got a little more interesting.
Wake Forest 9 Georgia Tech 6 The guy at halftime won $60,000 and had a better performance than Reggie Ball in the entire game. It amazes me that he has been there four years and Georgia Tech has never recruited a better signal caller. It is so bad that the Jackets used pass interference penalties as the majority of their offense.
Wake didn't do much better but did enough. Kickers decided it (almost like the World Cup final, only I think Italy and France might have scored more if they played this kind of football.) Ummm, can anyone believe that Wake Forest will be playing in the Orange Bowl? That's still a BCS game right?
Louisville 48 Connecticut 17 This game was never close, except when Connecticut scored a touchdown early that was reversed on replay. Brian Brohm threw for 340 yards and 4 touchdowns, two to junior Harry Douglas, including a 67 yarder. The Louisville players are now the biggest West Virginia fans out there. A win by the Mountaineers will send Louisville to the BCS.
And the update from last night, which I forgot earlier:
Houston 34 Southern Mississippi 20 Kevin Kolb had 258 yards and three touchdowns (2 pass, 1 run), as the Cougars won the C-USA crown. Only 6% of the fans and experts at the beginning of the year thought that the title would go to the Cougars, so this was a mild upset over the course of the season. (By the way, I predicted 35-28... so close). Houston will be heading to the Liberty Bowl thanks to their victory.
USC better find those roses from a couple weeks ago. They are going to need them again...
UCLA 13 USC 9 Well, doesn't this make things interesting? We know one thing now -- USC will not be in the National Championship game. UCLA definitely stepped up in this one and played the Trojans hard every second of the game. If they would have just played that way in the last few minutes of the Notre Dame game, think about the season they would have had (8-4, 3rd place in Pac-10, anyone?). This secures USC in the Rose Bowl playing a yet unknown opponent. Michigan and LSU are the most likely suspects.
By the way, the hit on Cowan in the 4th quarter may be the second best hit I have seen all year in college football.
Cal 26 Stanford 17 I didn't really expect anything different, but I thought I would include it. Cal was supposed to be the team that would unseat USC as the leader in the PAC-10 this year. Something went terribly wrong with that plan along the way. Holiday Bowl, here we come.
Navy 26 Army 14 No offense to anyone, but this is the greatest rivalry game in sports. If you think it is hard to get a ticket for Ohio State - Michigan, try getting one to Army - Navy. Navy retains the Commander-in-Chief's Trophy (they had to steal it from Notre Dame). The seniors for the Midshipmen never lost to Army or Air Force in their four years, a first in the history of the service academy football tradition
Well, Michigan and Florida fans are going to be sweating all day tomorrow... More on that game in a bit, but first the other games of interest.
Oklahoma 21 Nebraska 7 A little over a minute left here, but this is all but over. The football gods must have played with Oklahoma enough at the beginning of the season. They turned their disfavor on USC to end the year. Oklahoma, left for dead in all races, comes back to win the Big XII title. Talk about something no one thought would be happening when they were 3-2.
They win the "Boise State Challenge" Cup and will head to the desert and the Fiesta Bowl. This is a huge reward for the Sooners after a tough season, and that they beat their long standing rival Nebraska to do it must make it all the sweeter. (Predicted score? 24-13... Let's not talk about how off I was on the SEC championship final tally.)
West Virginia 41 Rutgers 39 I have a feeling Jarrett Brown is going to be the honorary governor of the state of Kentucky on Monday. The freshman stepped in for an injured Pat White and led (and I mean led, this kid was good) West Virginia to victory over the surprising Scarlet Knights of Rutgers. Louisville will therefore be the representative from the Big East in the BCS because of their win earlier today. It took 3 OTs and a missed 2 pt. conversion but this was a game worth watching til the end. Who said the Big East isn't exciting? Oh right, ACC fans *snicker*
Troy 26 Florida International 13 The Panthers of FIU fail to get a win this year, and they had the brawl in Miami. Maybe next year they should schedule Duke. The loss by FIU gives Troy the SunBelt championship and a trip to New Orleans to face Rice.
Florida 38 Arkansas 28 And the big one... At halftime, this looked like a decent defensive game. Apparently the coaches pulled out all those extra pages that they hide in their back pocket for the second 30. Double passes, reverses turning into passes. Does it ever stop?
Arkansas had three players throw touchdown passes but it wasn't enough. Now the Gators have to hope they did enough to change the minds of the voters. According to the math I did earlier, they will probably need 7 voters in the coaches poll to change their support from the Wolverines. I didn't do the math on the Harris poll, because honestly, there are too many voters, and it will be too difficult to exclude the possibility of a rogue voter.
Guess we will all be watching the Bowl Selection show tomorrow...
Ben Miraski writes for MRISports.com and is a featured blogger on FanIQ. Readers can contact Ben at bmiraski@mrisports.com
Posted December 4, 2006 5:30 PM
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