Today's Picks

From this point on I will first pick the games involving the top teams before choosing a few others that stand out.
Texas A&M +13.5 at Bama: Making Zach Mettenberger look good last week does not bode well for a Tide defense living off past glory.  Johnny Manziel will give that D its toughest test of the season, while the A&M DE Damontre Moore will make Bama QB A.J. McCarron cry in a different way this week by adding to his NCAA-leading (in a 3-way tie) 11.5 sack total.
Cal +28.5 hosting Oregon: When focusing on remaining schedules for BCS contenders year-in-and-year-out the pundits over anaylize the obvious match-ups against opponents with good records and under analyze games agaisnt game lesser lights.  Sitting at 3-7 overall and 2-5 in conference the Cal Bears stink.  But they were not very good two years ago when they lost to then no. 1 Oregon 15-13 in a game in which they missed a chippy FG.  The Bears are 3-1 versus Oregon at home the past few years and may be playing for coach Jeff Tedford's job.  And for those who love trap games the Ducks played USC last week and Stanford and Oregon State the next two weeks.  Oregon wins, but does not cover.
TCU +7 hosting KSU: The Horned Frogs make it three straight underdog picks for me this week and they are obviously the one with the best chance of winning outright.  TCU coach Gary Patterson pisses off the rest of his fellow KSU alumni by upsetting the Wildcats by forcing KSU to pass.  Yeah you heard me.  They hope to make the Heisman favorite QB beat them through the air.  But as great a college player Collin Klein is, he is not 100% after last week's concussion and is not a great passer.  In his last two road games against teams that try to play D--and yes I am calling you out West Virginia--Klein threw for 187y and 0 TDs against ISU and 149y with 0 passing TDs against OU.  Yes he managed both of those wins brilliantly but the Cats O is not built on throwing the ball and lot.  Against TCU's top-ranked rush defense they may have to do something they are not comfortable.
Notre Dame -19 at BC: Okay wait a second.  The only team from the BCS top four that I picked to cover was my Irish.  But they will romp tonight over an out-manned but game Eagles squad.
Louisville -1.5 at Syracuse: Look, Louisville is certainly vulnerable as they are not used to being undefeated in November.   But the spread is ridiculous.
I also like Northwestern +10, Clemson -31, Auburn +15, Penn State +8, ASU +11, Washington +1, New Mexico +2, UCLA -15, TT -25.5, Louisiana-Lafayette +27.

The MAC does not have a football team in the chase for the BCS Title game.  Nor does it have a past champion and I am willing to bet that they never will taste national title game happiness.  And so MAC football teams play for love of game, pride and the conference championship with some secondary bowl spots mixed in.  And they do all of that very well.
Once again the MAC is providing very entertaining football for those lucky enough to tune every in midweek--and I do thank ESPN for that--as six squads, three in each division have at least 7 wins on the season and four in conference.  The league is so stout that Ohio, who opened the season 7-0 including a win at Penn State, now sits at 8-2, 4-2 after last night's loss to red hot Bowling Green.  They were eliminated from the MAC championship race just a few weeks after being ranked.  The Falcons, who are 7-3, 5-1 and one spot ahead of Ohio in the East race have control of their own destiny as they host first place Kent State this Saturday at noon.  If the Falcons win then they just have to beat Buffalo in the final game to wrap up the division.  If the Golden Flashes (8-1, 5-0) win, and they have won seven straight themselves including handing Rutgers their first loss of the season, then the East is theirs.  This game is a match-up of Bowling Green's great defense, ninth in the nation in points allowed at 15.1, versus a rush offense featuring two stud RBs on pace for 1,000y seasons in fleet junior back Dri Archer (97/892y, 10 TDs) and power back Trayvion Durham (190/897y, 11 TDs).  At 260, the soph Durham weighs about 100 lbs more than teammate Archer and they make a great big/little combo for Kent State.
The MAC West Division also has a showdown coming, next Wednesday the 14th, as second place Toledo travels to first place Northern Illinois.  The Huskies are 9-1, 6-0 and have won every game since an opening 18-17 loss to Iowa.  The defending Mid-American champs have scored at least 30 pts in every game since that loss behind dual-threat QB Jordan Lynch, who has thrown for 2,175y and 19 TDs and rushed for 1,342y and 16 more TDs.  Toledo, who has beaten Cincinnati and lost to Arizona in OT, will pose a big threat.  Their offense features RB David Fluellen, the nation's leader in rushing yardage at 1,381y.  Second place?  Lynch.  Toledo will be looking to avenge the 63-60 loss to Northern that cost them the West title last year.  It should be compelling TV once again this year.

Darrell Royal RIP

Those of you my age and older will remember when Darrell Royal was still active and considered a living legend while patrolling the Texas sideline.  Royal had lifted the football program at Texas from stately and tired when he took over in 1957 to the preeminent sports program in the state by the time he left after the 1976 season.  Royal's squads won or shared 11 Southwest Conference titles and he was the winningest coach in college football for that 20-year period.  His 1962 and 1969 teams won outright national championships and in 1970 they captured the UPI title.
Having been born in 1964 I really do not remember watching the famous 1969 Arkansas game or any other of the great moments of the 1960s.  The Royal I remember from the early to mid 70s seemed older than he was (he retired from coaching at age 52) as he carried the weight of a program that was as much a big business as a football team.  Royal's teams were not integrated until 1970 and that fact was used by coaches like Oklahoma's Barry Switzer on the recruiting trail.  Other recruits were bought away from the Longhorns and Royal struggled to maintain his level of excellence in a new world.  Yes the switch to the Wishbone helped but by the early 70s other programs had similar offenses with similar amounts of talent. Finally, after a 5-5-1 season in 1976, Royal was secure enough in his legacy and fed up enough with the b.s. of coaching to leave the sideline despite having a boatload of talent in place for a near national title run by his successor Fred Akers the following season.
Although a star DB/QB (his 18 career INTs is still a Sooner record and he led OU to an 11-0 record in 1949) at Oklahoma, Royal became the face of a Longhorn program that replaced his alma mater as the kings of the southwest.  He should be remembered for being an exceptional coach who did his best to win the right way.

Ivy League Update

Venerable Franklin Field will once again host an important football game as Penn hosts Harvard this Saturday with first place on the line.  Although Harvard has had the better season, sitting at 7-1 to Penn's 4-4, the two teams are tied atop the Ivy at 4-1 with the season ending 11/17.  And so the winner of this game can celebrate the assurance of at least a tie for the title.
Who will win?  I would not bet against coach Tim Murphy's Crimson.  Senior QB Colton Chapple leads the way, having thrown for 2,184y and rushed for 436y.  He has thrown 21 TDs, with only 4 INTs, and has rushed in 7 more.
While Harvard has won in more spectacular fashion--like last week's 69-0 humbling of Columbia--Penn gets the job done in ways that test the hearts of coaches and fans.  The Quakers rallied last week with two 4th Q TDs to beat Princeton, the first on a 15y INT return by DE C.J. Mooney and the winner on a 3y keeper by QB Billy Ragone.  For Saturday--and the game airs at noon Eastern on NBC Sports--I expect Harvard to win but they will have to withstand the inevitable Quaker rally.

What We Learned Saturday

Once again, Saturday was an excellent day of football and to be honest not enough was said about it.  One of the many hurdles facing college football is that Sunday belongs to the pros.  And so a great day of action, from Missouri's near upset of Florida at noon to San Diego State's win on the blue field over Boise that kept me up until the wee hours of the morning, was largely pushed to the back burner once coverage of the NFL began.  I bet if you asked 100 random college football fans if they even knew Boise State lost less than half would truthfully say yes.  Another problem is that we now focus a huge percentage of cfb coverage on the race to the two spots in the BCS championship game and with all of the top four undefeated squads playing meaningful games there was not room on the coverage plate for great and meaningful games like, say, Nebraska versus Michigan State.
But let's not focus on problems.  The sport is too wonderful for that.  It was fascinating to watch the Alabama win over LSU and Oregon's win over USC at roughly the same time in that the two games were stunningly different.  One game featured defense versus defense, the other offense versus offense.  Not surprisingly the D game was the one that went down to the wire with the better offense pulling out the late win.  While both Alabama and Oregon stamped themselves as favorites for the title game--even with Oregon still third in the current BCS--they both displayed vulnerabilities.  Of course you may need LSU's front seven to hang with Bama and USC's wideouts to hang with the Ducks, but they both can be beaten.
Ditto Kansas State and Notre Dame.  The biggest problem facing these two squads is that being in the BCS race in November is new territory for the players.  Heck neither was considered top ten material in August.  Look at KSU's next game, this Saturday against TCU.  The Wildcats and Horned Frogs are not that far apart in terms of talent, especially with the game being played at TCU and with some question over the health of KSU QB Collin Klein.  The biggest equalizer for the home team is that all of the pressure is on the visitors.  All of it, and for a program that has never played in a national championship game, that pressure is immense.  We have seen plenty of teams lose in similar circumstances, like Oklahoma State lose to Iowa State last November, and coach Bill Snyder needs no reminder than his own 1998 squad that lost on the last day of the season to tumble from a possible BCS title game berth.  Both Notre Dame and Kansas State must prove that they can stay focused and continue to bring a top effort for the remainder of the season.
Meanwhile there are plenty of key games that have little effect on the BCS standings.  I'll break down the conferences during the week.

Great Day

How can you not love college football?  Awesome games, gutty performanes, teams rallying late and other teams taking care of business.  Hopefully Collin Klein is not hurt too bad.  Right now I am watching a huge Mountain West game as Boise attempts to rally from eight down.  They just scored but failed on 2-pt conversion.  The Aztecs, however, are controlling the clock. The day is not over yet.

Today's Picks

Let's get to it:
Louisville -16 hosting Temple
Clemson -12.5 at Duke
Stanford -28 at Colorado
Alabama -9 at LSU
Florida -17 hosting Mo
Michigan State +1.5 hosting Nebraska
Ohio State -27.5 hosting Illinois
Cincy -4.5 hosting Syracuse
Utah -11.5 hosting WSU
Michigan -11.5 at Minny
Oklahoma State +9 at KSU
Texas Tech -7 hosting Texas
Mississippi State +7 hosting A&M
ISU +12 hosting OU
USC +8 hosting Oregon
Good luck