College Football Thoughts: BCS Predictions, Heisman Talk, and Week 10 Rumblings

I woke up this morning around 10:30 after a long night of doing some…err…college football research. I flipped on “College Game Day” and was pleasantly surprised to see the guys outside of Rice-Eccles Stadium in anticipation of the TCU-Utah game today. Then I found out Kirk Herbstreit was flying over to announce the Stanford-Arizona game.

Now by no means do I mean disrespect to either Pac-10 school, but it’s a shame ESPN couldn’t broadcast a game between the Nos. 3 and 5 teams in the country. Unfortunately the Mountain West Conference is the only conference with no TV deals with ESPN.

It will be interesting to see if anything changes between ESPN and the Mountain West once Boise State joins the conference. Wouldn’t that be something if Boise State joined a new conference for better competition and ended up with far fewer nationally-televised games?

Just a quick comment on Thursday night: I don’t think people understand how much goes into Georgia Tech’s offense. A friend of mine said offenses work as long as you have great athletes in position to make plays. Thursday’s game showed us otherwise.

With Josh Nesbitt out, Tech brought in Tevin Washington at quarterback. Timing is key in the option attack, and when you lose guys like Jonathon Dwyer to the NFL and Nesbitt to injury, bringing in new athletes doesn’t always translate into success.

I’m picking Virginia Tech to win the ACC. They should be more fresh than the other 11 teams, seeing as how Virginia Tech’s offense slept-walked through the first couple weeks.

The Big Ten looks like it may just end in an 11-team tie. Michigan State handled their business and figures to go undefeated the rest of the way, but lost to Iowa. Wisconsin owns precious wins over Ohio State and Iowa, but lost to Michigan State.

The Big Ten should come down to Ohio State vs. Iowa next week, although whoever wins that game probably won’t win the title outright. My prediction: OSU wins next week, and MSU becomes the only one-loss team that has no losses against OSU or Wisconsin. Gosh, wouldn’t a championship game be nice for these kinds of deals?

I watched Michigan and Illinois play a thrilling, triple-overtime game. I would bet when these two teams meet on the hardwood, they’re hard-pressed to match this point total. Penn State is having a down year, but that won’t bum out Happy Valley tonight as Joe Paterno won his 400^th game today against Northwestern.

We saw a couple up-and-coming programs take a step back today. Baylor couldn’t get rolling against Oklahoma State, and North Carolina State needed someone other than Russell Wilson to step up on offense. I think Wilson and Robert Griffin III are a couple of QBs with the skills to put up Heisman-quality numbers with more talent around them.

Speaking of Heisman candidates, I think it will be pretty hard for voters to pick against Auburn’s Cameron Newton if Auburn wins out. The guy’s responsible for 35 touchdowns so far, and can you think of any player that means more to their team? Plus the smile alone is worth some serious hardware.

Best game that nobody watched: Kansas-Colorado. In possibly the final installment of this rivalry, most people turned off the game after seeing Colorado take a 45-17 lead in the fourth. Well, Kansas scored 35 unanswered and won the game in regulation, 52-45. It’s part of what makes college football great, and what can get some coaches into the unemployment office.

I watched TCU and Utah play in a game that broke records for taking the energy out of a stadium the quickest. There are many ways to decipher this game. Let’s just say TCU is a darn good football team and deserves a shot at the national title.

Too bad Utah is leaving for the Pac-10. It would really something to see a yearly battle between Utah, TCU and Boise State. We would end up with one legit BCS buster with a solid strength of schedule.

I’ll say it once again: Oregon has another gear nobody has been able to match so far in 2010. LaMichael James is the future running back of spread offenses in college football. I wonder how effective he would be at the next level. He gets a lot of the headlines and highlights for Oregon, but is one of many great players on offense and defense. From a depth and talent standpoint, Oregon look like 2009’s Alabama squad.

Speaking of Alabama, I don’t think losing to LSU is that big of an upset. LSU is an elite program, with an elite and/or extremely lucky coach. You also can’t underestimate the impact of Death Valley.

As I write this, I can’t help but agree with a comment made by Kirk Herbstreit. He said, “Andrew Luck is the closest thing to Peyton Manning in college football.” The guy reads defenses before the snap like an open book. He has an absolutely gorgeous throwing motion. I imagine he will soon be making a lucky NFL team’s fans very happy.

So folks, those are my thoughts on Saturday’s action. Please leave comments if you agree, disagree or wish I had better covered other teams or stories from Week 10.