News comes overnight that Oklahoma State’s Perrish Cox, one of the top cornerbacks in the country, has been suspended for missing curfew.   The trashing of his coach, Mike Gundy, on Facebook is a lovely touch. Cox is an outstanding cover corner and was to shadow Ole’ Miss’ productive and underrated Shay Hodge.  

Seton Hall is in a touch scheduling spot, suffering two brutal losses in conference play to West Virgnia and Syracuse and now traipsing to Cancun for a game with Virginia Tech.  Virginia Tech’s point guard Malcolm Delaney, one of the top players in the ACC and the straw that stirs the Hokies drink, is out with an ankle injury suffered earlier this week against Longwood.   His backup is young and inexperienced.  I had wanted to play Virginia Tech, but Delaney is extremely important to his team, and I will be passing the game now.

Navy, a hard-trying underdog, seems to fit basic minor bowl strategy today, against a Missouri team that has becomed accustomed to more grandiose holiday plans than the Texas Bowl.  But there’s a surprising amount favoring Missouri today.

• Their win over Army was the only game that saw Navy outgain an opponent since October 24th.  They were outgained by Temple, Notre Dame, Delaware, and Hawaii during that stretch.
• Navy’s starting center was declared academically ineligible rather late in the game and his replacement has only been playing with the first team for a couple of days.
• Mizzou can throw the ball, and Navy gave up 452 yards passing to Notre Dame and 366 yards passing to Hawaii late in the season.   Navy’s secondary is more athletic than it used to be, but good passing attacks did some damage late in the year.
• Missouri’s Blaine Gabbert toughed out an ankle injury midseason but has 8 TD passes and 0 INT’s since his return to health.  
• Service academies always play well in Texas.  The state has a lot of kids who love football and are good, but just not athletic enough or big enough for the Big 12.  The academies scoop them up and then reward them with trips back to the Lone Star State.   But Missouri recruits Texas heavily and their Texans are thrilled to be playing in Houston as well.
• Missouri has held 11 of 12 opponents below 4.0 yards per rush and have one of the top run D’s in the land.  They haven’t faced an option attack, but their stout defensive line seems to be more equipped than most to handle their duties and the defensive ends and cornerbacks have had extra time to be schooled on stopping the option.
• These Navy seniors are 0-3 in bowl games and are motivated, but Mizzou seems surprisingly motivated as well and has practiced well.

I tend not to go against “basic minor bowl strategy” even in the face of matchup advantages.  And I understand a play on Navy today, though I’d much prefer a +7 or a +7.5 (solid 6.5 as I write this).  Will root for the Middies, as I always root for the academy kids.  But Navy’s not going to have my backing at the current line.

Nic Grigsby looks to be playing for Arizona in tonight’s Holiday Bowl despite his shoulder injury, but money has poured in on Nebraska.  At one point this game was at a pick.  Now the Huskers are as high as a 3-point pick. 

Something to consider whether looking to bet either side or total in the Holiday Bowl tonight is the massive success that Bo Pelini has had when his defense is in a bowl game.   After a decade in the NFL, Pelini entered college football as the defensive coordinator of Nebraska in 2003.  That season, Pelini’s Cornhuskers held Michigan State to 3 points.

In 2004 as Oklahoma’s co-coordinator, Pelini’s Sooners were destroyed by the scintillating USC Trojans 55-19.

From 2005-2007 Pelini-coordinated LSU defenses held their bowl opponents to 3, 14, and 24 points.  The 24 points were in LSU’s 38-24 championship win over Ohio State in which LSU had a 31-10 lead after the first drive of the second half and the Buckeyes earned some garbage time yards and points.

In 2008, Nebraska’s defense held Clemson’s high-powered offense to 210 yards in a 26-21 win over the Tigers.

Take away the explosion of points by a historically good USC team and Pelini defenses are very, very good in bowl games. 

Additionally, Nebraska’s defense has excelled in their biggest games this year.   Oklahoma and Nebraska combined for a single offensive TD against the Huskers.   At a Virginia Tech team that proved to have a decent offense, Nebraska held the Hokies to 190 yards and 9 first downs in the first 58 minutes of that game before a freakish long pass by Virginia Tech won the game. 

The Huskers figure to have a sound game plan and be ready to play tonight.   But you can’t always say the same about their offense.

The only conference championship game that is a rematch of a regular season affair is Georgia Tech vs. Clemson.  Back on a Thursday night in September, Tech burst out to a 24-0 lead, gave it all up for Clemson to go up 27-24, and then came back with a pair of field goals for the 30-27 win.   Tech was a 5-point home favorite that night and has gone from a 1-point favorite to a 1-point dog in this one.  They’re a bit banged up, but Paul Johnson, is, of course, Paul Johnson.

It speaks volumes about the ACC that their two divisional championship teams were each beaten decisively by middling SEC teams last Saturday.  Another metric is the fan interest, or lack thereof, in the ACC Championship game.   Online ticket brokers can get you into Raymond James Stadium for $19 vs. a “get in” price of $362 for the SEC’s showdown in Atlanta.

Texas is using their defensive lapses in College Station as a springboard into Saturday’s Big 12 Championship Game.  Texas A&M’s 39 point, 539 yard explosion against Texas is obviously worrisome to Longhorn partisans.  But prior to that game the Longhorns had allowed more than 20 points, and over 310 yards in a game just once each.  Chalk it up to Aggie lightning in a bottle? 

If you’re interested in how those stats compare with the potential SEC opponents of the Longhorns, let’s take a look. High opponent production allowed by Florida was 20 points and 357 yards by Arkansas.   Alabama’s high allowances have been 24 points by Virginia Tech and 341 yards by Tennessee. 

Nick Saban is 13-1 straight up in the SEC against an opponent he lost to the year before. Of course, with Urban Meyer’s 95-17 career coaching record, and Saban’s 79-24 record at LSU and Alabama, it’s not like these guys have lost too many games of any type.    Florida may facing some distractions with defensive coordinator Charlie Strong having the Louisville job in the bag and superstar Carlos Dunbar being suspended for his drunken driving arrest.  In addition to Strong having the Louisville job wrapped up, Dennis Franchione (ex New Mexico, TCU, Alabama) appears to be in very good shape for the UNLV job.   Can you say “retread”?

Can’t blame the Trojans for their TD bomb in the games closing seconds, as the Bruins brought it on themselves by calling timeouts, but USC sure was doing a lot of woofing about their 28-7 win over UCLA considering that the Trojans had the same amount of first downs and 14 more total yards than the Bruins.   A 4-1 turnover differential told the tale in that one. If you knew that there would be a 485-289 yardage edge for Toledo, how much would you have bet on them at +7.5 against Bowling Green?  Good thing you didn’t know, as the final score was Bowling Green 38-24 due to a 5-1 edge in turnovers. (That is only mentioned due to Bowling Green being 7-5 and bowl eligible.)

Get ready for a lot of justifiable howling from ACC teams who fall down the bowl ladder as a result of the Gator Bowl choosing mediocre Florida State to celebrate Bobby Bowden.  The folks in Jacksonville figure this will attract attention and, as always, the bowls are all about filling hotel rooms and restaurants in the host city.  This is the second straight year that the once-proud Gator Bowl will have a 6-6 team for reasons of commerce, as Clemson brought a lot of people to Jacksonville to celebrate New Year’s last season.

Good luck as we (unbelievably) wrap up the college regular season.

When a guy who enters the game 10-25-3 against the spread in conference play over his career at a school, you really shouldn’t be surprised by poor decisionmaking.  But it was truly inexplicably stupid game management by Les Miles and LSU.  Just stunning.   Miles, with his head-scratching game management, has dodged a lot of raindrops over the years, but his longtime cavalier attitude to game strategy bit him deeply on Saturday.  Understandably, he’s taking a lot of heat in Baton Rouge. Ironically, he’s taking the most heat for a decision that was a pointspread cover, he now has 11 SEC covers in nearly five full seasons in the league.

Stanford’s winning streak came to an end at the hands of rival Cal, 34-28.  The Golden Bears outgained the Cardinal 484-345. Those of us who suffer from the corporate battle between DirectTV and Versus couldn’t watch what was one of the only attractive games of the weekend.  This weekend isn’t a whole lot better, with only game between Top 25 teams being the battle for Beehive State supremacy between Utah and BYU, which is attractive, but hardly worthy of top billing. 

Gambling is a terrible thing, according to the NCAA.  It becomes decidedly less terrible when a casino is ready to buy advertising, like the casino signage visible in the exciting Oregon/Arizona game.   I was pretty lucky with both Arizona +6 and Connecticut +6 to +6.5.  Though both underdogs played evenly, they each could have lost by 7 in overtime. UConn was fortunate to win at Notre Dame in double overtime, as Randy Edsall, a top-notch coach, exercised Miles-like clock management at the close of regulation, settling for a 47-yard field goal attempt, which narrowly missed, when he could have used his timeouts to get closer.     Perhaps the Husky mentor was spooked by the phantom “holding” calls that the officials were using to keep his club out of the end zone and feared more flags taking his club out of field goal range.

Those who have correctly determined all season that Iowa, though a solid, well-coached team, isn’t as good as their record, have had horrific luck fading the Hawkeyes.  For most bettors it was the same on Saturday.   Iowa gained only 171 yards in 60 snaps, less than 3 yards per play, yet covered for most in a 12-0 win.  Extraordinarily patient Minnesota bettors were rewarded, however, as the Gophers were available at +12 for the push in the half hour before game time, and a few Gopher bettors may have scrounged out a pointspread win in the 5 minutes or so before game time.  Minnesota outgained Iowa 201-161 and I hope you didn’t watch it.

9 days after waxing South Florida, looked as bad at Syracuse on Saturday.   Outmanned Syracuse, down 10 starters including best offensive player (by far) Mike Williams and best defensive player (by far) Art Jones, absolutely smashed the Scarlet Knights, outgaining RU 423-130 in the 31-13 Syracuse victory.  Just last week Rutgers drilled South Florida 31-0 on yardage of 354-159.  All of this happening within a 9 day span proves definitively that Syracuse is 49 points and 488 yards better than South Florida, who, ummmm, beat Syracuse 34-20 on October 3rd.

Actually, believe it or not, the above paragraph actually has a point to it.  Bowl season is coming, and when trying to assess the strengths and weaknesses of teams from different conferences it is very tempting to look at how teams did against common opponents, or how they did against fellow bowlers.  And there’s some value in the process of doing that.  But you really don’t want to put too much stock in that form of analysis.

If the number looks short for Arizona at Arizona State this weekend be aware that Arizona running back Nic Grigsby is out due to injury and the Wildcats are thin at that position if backup Kaola Antolin is also limited.  Two difficult losses in a row for Mike Stoops’ crew but they should be able to get up for their rival, shouldn’t they?   Arizona State lost only 23-13 at UCLA despite a 6-0 turnover disadvantage.  Other than the TO’s it was a pretty evenly played game.   UCLA takes on USC Saturday night at 7PM local, 10PM Eastern Time.  Shouldn’t there be a law that that rivalry is played only in the sunshine? 

Sad to see the stories of the flack that the Weis family takes at Notre Dame and the Hawkins family takes at Colorado.  I understand a lot of people attach a lot of their emotional happiness to the performance of their college football team but do the families really deserve to be roped in?

North Texas has outgained their last two opponents, Florida International (by 255) and Army (by 160), by a combined 415 yards, yet lost both games.  The Mean Green have now outgained 5 opponents in losses, sporting a (-15) 13 to 28 turnover deficit on the season.   The once mighty Georgia Bulldogs would dream of such turnover numbers.  They have turned the ball over 28 times yet only forced 8 turnovers themselves.  Amazingly, UGA has recovered exactly one opponent fumble this season. 

Every Week is Like A Playoff? Are you excited about this Saturday’s college football?   What’s to be excited about?   See all those big pointspreads set by Vegas and online sportsbooks?  Lots of hefty lines as there is not a single game between teams ranked in the Coaches poll or the AP poll this week.  Not a single Top 25 vs. Top 25 matchup according to the two major polls?  What kind of weekend is this?  So much for the argument that college football doesn’t need a playoff because every week is like a playoff.  And good luck finding drama in the top three teams playing pinatas at home. Alabama will not have a line against 1-AA Chattanooga,  Florida is 44-point chalk against Sun Belt weakling Florida International, and Texas is laying 28 into reeling Kansas.

Winding Down: Already?  It seemed odd to start working on the college football card Sunday afternoon and see Ohio State/Michigan staring back on the schedule.  While it’s a rivalry game, you got to wonder where UM’s head is at right now.  Rich Rodriguez is the controversial figure, but he’s an offensive guy and implenting more his system, the Wolverine offense has really improved this season.  The problem is a defense that’s the worst in the Big Ten.  In conference play they allow 6.2 yards per play and 444 yards per game, stunning numbers as you know that Michigan’s defensive personnel has got to be better than that.  Assuming Rich Rod survives, defensive coordinator Greg Robinson is likely to fall on his sword.  You have to wonder what Rodriguez saw in Robinson when he made the hire.  He must have forgotten that in 2006 and 2007 his Mountaineers scored 41 and 55 points against Syracuse in the last two meetings between the two as head coaches. 

Fort Worth Futility: TCU fans should be rightly proud of their Horned Frogs and speculation that they are the best team in the country is not unfounded.   55-28 over Utah doesn’t tell the true story of the domination, which was 549-284 in yards and 32-11 in first downs against a team that had won 21 of their previous 22 games.   But TCU did suffer a blow on Saturday night when Texas A&M got their heads handed to them by Oklahoma to the tune of 640-228 in yards and 32-13 in first downs in addition to the 65-10 final score.   TCU needs those same Aggies to miraculously knock off the Longhorns.  Anyone see that happening?

Automatic Non-Qualifiers: The other club attempting to crash the BCS had an odd win, as Boise crushed Idaho 63-25.  Or did they crush Idaho?  Yardage was actually in favor of Idaho 514-458, but the Vandals were unable to overcome a 7-0 turnover disadvantage.  Fortunately for the Broncos most voters don’t look into boxscores.  Unfortunately for Boise State despite Idaho’s improving fortunes, BSU’s strenght of schedule gets weaker with each game they play.

East Carolina scored 4th quarter TD’s on two interception returns and a fumble return to turn a 23-17 tight one into a 44-17 rout at Tulsa, and the 4-1 turnover disadvantage Tulsa suffered was meaningful.  But ECU also outgained the Golden Hurricane 517-266, including 242-30 on the ground, so the result was pretty legit.

Bad Team Blues: College football is hard when you win, and even harder when you lose.  It’s simply an enormous commitment for the players and they get just a few weeks off after the season and a few weeks between spring practice and “voluntary” offseason workouts as a respite.   And, of course, if they’re not killing it in the weight room during those times they hear about it from their coaches. 

That’s why it’s tough when you see struggling teams like North Texas and Syracuse lose games as they lost them Saturday.  Poor North Texas led by 14 at the half but lost when Florida International scored a TD on an interception return, and set up two others on a blocked punt and a UNT fumble to steal the win 35-28.   3.5-point road dog North Texas failed to cover despite a 513-258 yardage edge.  Syracuse’s D played a great game but their offense continued to be a turnover machine and the Orangemen lost to Louisville on a late TD despite holding the Cardinals to 152 yards of offense.   Both of these teams are playing better than their final scores indicate. Doug Marrone’s clean up this season will bear fruit in the future and if North Texas gives Todd Dodge another year, they’ll reap the benefits of the foundation that he’s laid.

USC=Unusually Stinky Cesspool: Something’s rotten in the house of Troy. Stanford only led USC by 7 entering the 4th quarter before a 4-touchdown final stanza turned it into a 55-21 runaway.  And yes, turnovers were a factor.   But when you brutalize your opponent to the tune of 325-138 in the running game, it is no fluke at all.   One interesting decision by Coach Harbaugh was going for 2 when up 48-21.  No chart suggests that, and that effort to get to the round number of 50 is something the Trojans will remember when they have better teams in the next couple of years.  That’s assuming they have better teams, of course. Stanford senior Richard Sherman said of the Trojans, “They don’t play as hard.  They don’t run as hard.” 

It’s hard for people to get their arms around how far USC has fallen so quickly.   When I went against USC on my late phone service three weeks ago with Oregon and last Saturday with Stanford I received impassioned pleas telling me how wrong I was in my analysis both times.  USC failed to cover those two games by a combined 74.5 points.  The Trojans are 2-8 against the spread, and have pointspread failures this season of 23, 24.5, 15, 30, and 44.5. 

The Only Excitement is from the Refs: Can you recall the SEC being this boring?   Other than the two conference champs it’s just a sea of mediocrity, as even the third best team (LSU) is pretty dull.   You could make a case that Ole’ Miss and Tennessee are at least borderline compelling and they met on Saturday.  Tennessee didn’t react well to the loss of three freshman (armed robbery) and lost to Ole’ Miss by a count of 42-17 (yardage of 492-275), despite not committing a turnover, allowing only a single sack, and having only two penalties enforced against them.  That tells you how sharp the Rebels were.  Ole’ Miss players spoke of being motivated by the presence of their former coach Ed Orgeron, the Tennessee assistant who is apparently hated by most of his former players.   Where was Dexter McCluster earlier this season?  The Rebel blazer had his number called for only 38 carries for 164 yards in his first 6 games.  But the curious lack of use went out the window in his last 3 contests, and McCluster has totaled 69 carries for 591 yards in that trio of SEC affairs.  He didn’t in Ole’ Miss’ titanic matchup with 1-AA Northern Arizona.

If winning at sports betting is something that you’d like to be able to do, some valuable complimentary reports are just a click away.

Hope something in here helps you out.   Good luck this weekend. 

Thad Lewis of Duke has been an underappreciated player for a few years now.  And NFL types are interested in the senior QB.   But for all his fine work over the past four years, he’s also really capable of a clunker or two.   Last week UNC’s speedy defense held him to 16 of 33 for 113 yards, right around 3.5 yards per pass attempt, which is terrible.   Back in September against a less athletic opponent in Army, Lewis was 5 for 16 for 60 yards before being benched.   But Lewis gets very little support from his teammates.  Duke has been held under 100 yards by every 1-A opponent they’ve faced, and against 1-A opposition Duke rushes for a putrid 1.7 yards per attempt,  While that includes sack yardage Lewis is at least being better protected this season.  He’s been sacked 22 times this season, which isn’t bad when you consider that he was sacked 82 times combined in his freshman and sophomore seasons.   How effective would Lewis be with a running game supporting him?

Has there ever been a coach that can just plug in a backup quarterback with no ill effects like Brian Kelly of Cincinnati?  UC was outstanding last season despite playing musical quarterbacks, and they’re doing it again this season. Tony Pike (15 TD’s, 3 interceptions) goes down with an injury and backup Zach Calleros steps in without the Bearcats missing a beat.  Calleros now has 10 TD’s, a single interception, and a ridiculous 13.3 yards per pass attempt on the season.   Unlike the Dookies, the Cinti QB’s have a ton of support from their running game, averaging 5.1 yards per rush.  The balanced Bearcats are top 10 in the country both yards per pass attempt and yards per rush attempt. 

Surprisingly, as good as Cincinnati is, and as under the radar as they are, they haven’t been a productive pointspread outfit.  Bettors are breaking even with the Bearcats since the start of last season, with an 11-10 record against the spread.  Kelly’s heroes are 5-3 this year after going 6-7 against the number last year.

A lot of offshore sports books and Vegas bookies are smiling, as the top teams continue their middling performance to the pointspread. Texas is 3-5-1 against the spread.  Florida is 3-4-1 to the number.   Bama is 6-3 spreadwise.  So the top 3 BCS teams are dead even .500 to the number.  The smaller undefeated schools know that they need their style points.  Boise State and TCU are each 6-2 against the spread. 

The Horned Frogs are just pounding people, beating their last four opponents, all Mountain West conference foes, by a combined 178-25.  The football betting market has noticed, as TCU is favored by 17 or so over a Utah team that is 21-1 since the start of last season.   And when you look into the numbers, the spread is justifiable.  If Texas were to slip up, TCU would be a worthy championship game participant, but TCU closes with New Mexico and Wyoming, which doesn’t do a whole lot for the old strength of schedule

Texas is an interesting case study.  They gain only 5.8 yards per play, which is a middling 41st in the NCAA when judging how teams do against 1-A opponents.  But they are very efficient, scoring a point for every 10.5 yards of offense, which is best in the land.   That kind of offensive efficiency is often fueled by your defense making scores and giving you short fields.  Texas’ D is the top yardage D in the land, allowing opponents a mere 3.5 yards per play.

I hope you learned something that’ll help you win a few bucks at some point. Good luck this weekend, and be careful. 

The worst thing about the Big 8’s morphing into the Big 12, other than destroying the storied SWC, was the elimination of the annual Nebraska/Oklahoma game. The Sooners and Huskers match up this Saturday and I haven’t heard a word about it.

Remember when those classics from Lincoln and Norman were the centerpiece of the day after Thanksgiving? Mike Rozier, IM Hipp, Billy Sims, Jamelle Holieway, JC Watts, all running the option to perfection. Those were the days.

The 1984 battle for an Orange Bowl wasn’t the most star-studded edition of the rivalry. But the atmosphere and drama were there all the same. Make yourself a turkey sandwich smothered with mayo and cranberry sauce, sit back, and enjoy Keith Jackson’s classic intro and the highlights:

Under the Radar Upset Weekend:   The only team inside of the Top 20 that was upset by a non-Top 10 team was formerly #14 Virignia Tech’s loss on Thursday night to North Carolina.  But get into the mediocre middle and there was a surge of upsets on Saturday.   15 favorites lost this weekend, including 8 laying 6.5 points or more.   But since the top teams were winning, it wasn’t terrible dramatic.   Vegas and online sportsbooks, as well as local bookmakers, likely took some losses on some of the more higher profile games while doing well on the rest of the board.

Betting Drama in Big 10: Indiana led Iowa 21-7 with 9:35 left in the third quarter.  First and goal for the Hoosiers on the Iowa 4 after a Hawkeye turnover.  With Indiana on the verge of going up 28-7 was there even a thought that Iowa -17.5 was a ticket that could be cashed?   But 2 plays later a Hoosier pass turns into a bizarre interception that caroms off of four or five people. The full-field return for a Hawkeye TD completely turns the tide of the game and the Hawkeyes actually cover the spread by a half-point on a 27-yard TD run with just over a minute left.  The TD was scored on 3rd and 2.  Any run of between 2-26 yards would have had Iowa taking a knee on the next play.   Condolences to Indiana bettors. 

That wasn’t the only big favorite to improbably cover in the Big 10 on Saturday.   When I left the house to take my kids trick-or-treating and Northwestern and Penn State were tied after 3 quarters I have to admit I felt pretty good about my Northwestern +17.5 bet.  But Northwestern QB Mike Kafka left the game with a hamstring pull (reported to be OK for this week), the Wildcats could generate little offense under his backup, and the Wildcat defense simply wore down as Penn State won the 4th quarter 21-0 to earn the cover.  

By all reports, Indiana was jobbed by the officials, but both IU and Northwestern didn’t do a thing to help their cause down the stretch.   Indiana turned 8 Iowa turnovers into a grand total of 3 points, while Northwestern’s D allowed one-play TD drives of 53 yards and 69 yards in the final stanza.   Northwestern also fumbled away a cover with 2 minutes left on first and goal from the Penn State 6.   Iowa and Penn State were lucky to cover, but Indiana and Northwestern could have done a lot more to stop them.  It was an ugly week in the Big 10.  Every game involving a Big 10 team was decided by 18 or more with the exception of Minnesota’s 42-34 win over Michigan State, which news reports from both sides indicated was an abominably played game.

Boise Runs it Up: If you had San Jose State +36.5, avert your eyes., as there was some good old-school score padding by Boise State in their effort to secure a BCS berth.  With a 38-7 lead and in a situation where a hell of a lot of coaches would be taking a knee, Boise’s Doug Martin ran for a 26-yard TD with 20 seconds left for the 45-7 final.  Obviously Boise’s conference is dreadful, but that win over Oregon gets better and better all the time.  Oregon’s whipping of USC was no fluke. Duck advantages were 613-327 in yardage and 31-17 in first downs.   They scored every time they touched the ball in the second half.  Yet Oregon’s time of possession advantage was only 31:00 to 29:00?  TOP can be one misleading statistic.  

FSU Pointspread Failures, Seminole Fans Vacate The Reservation: Gutty Christian Ponder played poorly Saturday, but he is not the problem in Tallahassee.  Despite seeing his 254 pass no-INT streak broken, as well as suffering from bruised ribs, Ponder hung in there to pilot his Seminoles to victory over NC State.  It was not an impressive outing by the Seminoles as a whole, as the Wolfpack are shaky.  FSU has little home field advantage this season.  The crowd for the NC State game was the smallest in 16 years, with over 20,000 empty seats creating a dull environment .   With a lessened advantage at home, Florida State is 0-4 against the spread in the Land of the Flaming Spear, and underperformed in their narrow escape in an unlined game against 1-AA Jacksonville State as well.

In the current economic environment the attendance decline has to be something that factors in to the decision on Bobby Bowden’s future, doesn’t it?  And let’s hope that the talk of Bowden going to UAB to let son Tommy run the show is pure rumor.  Granted “the ‘Ham” is his hometown, but that would be one sad, cheap way to stay in contention with Joe Paterno for the career wins record. 

Sunshine State QB Trio: Back to the football field, Ponder, Jacory Harris of Miami, and Tim Tebow (maybe you’ve heard of him?) make up an impressive troika of QB’s in the Sunshine State.   Harris led his Hurricanes back from what looked like sure defeat at Wake Forest.   Wake’s loss to the Hurricanes was their third in a row and it doesn’t get any easier for the Demon Deacons, as they visit a Georgia Tech team that can seemingly score at will with Paul Johnson’s Triple Option offense.   The Jackets gained 597 yards and pulled away in the second half against an outmatched Vanderbilt team.   The defense is vulnerable for Georgia Tech, but the offense just keeps scoring points.

Defending the Spread: The spread option is tougher to defend these days than the pass-based spread passing offense.  Have you noticed that teams just aren’t putting up the same kind of numbers in those as they used to?   Big 12 coaches are recruiting defenders with defending the spread in mind, particularly defensive backs that can play man-to-man well.  Certainly less offensive firepower in that loop.   Oklahoma State leads the Big 12 in yards per pass in conference games, passing for 7.8 yards per attempt.   Last year 7 teams were at least that good, with 5 of them at 8.2 or better in conference games.  

Coaching ‘em Up: Overlooked coaching move has been Frank Cignetti, Jr. taking his offensive coordinating skills to Pitt and turning Bill Stull into a star QB.   Pitt hosts Syracuse this Saturday and remarkably, it is only Syracuse’s 2nd road game of the season.   The Orangemen are well coached and their game plans are keeping them in most games until late, when their lack of talent and depth catches up to them.  The 28-7 loss to Cincinnati Saturday could have been a lot closer had SU not turned the ball over twice on drives inside the 10.  But the Orangemen’s task got more difficult on Monday, when troubled WR Mike Williams, one of ten finalists for the Biletnikoff Award, quit the team.  How much money does a kid cost himself in the draft when he quits the team now instead of sticking around for an extra month?

Sick Boxscore of the Week:  How about North Texas 68 Western Kentucky 49?   Those responsible for the huge line move on North Texas up to -14.5 had to breathe a sigh of relief. It’s not often you can lay two TD’s into a team that scores 7 TD’s in the first 3 quarters and never punts, yet still win your bet.   Of  the 117 points, 115 were scored by the offenses, with no returns for TD’s padding the stats, only a 4th quarter safety for North Texas augmenting things.

Heartbreak for UConn:  Poor UConn has lost a pair of gutbusters since the senseless murder of starting cornerback Jasper Howard.  Saturday was the first home game for the Huskies and after an apparent game-winning TD.  But Rutgers pulled out a miracle with an 81-yard TD pass to Tim Brown with 22 seconds left to pull out the 28-24 upset win.   In a chilling irony, Rutgers’ Brown grew up in Miami two doors down from Jasper Howard.  The two were best friends.  A nice story if it wasn’t so heartbreaking for UConn.

Media Quote of the Week:  Let’s finish on a lighthearted note from Portland Oregonian reporter Paul Buker, the beat writer covering Oregon State football. There’s a lot more openness about sourcing in the media these days, to let people know where original work and research comes from. Buker credits the source of some information for a preview, with a caveat, “Some early-in-the-week game notes for Saturday’s Oregon State-Cal game in Berkeley, courtesy of the tireless crew at the OSU sports information department. Some of this has been condensed, clarified, expanded, and in some cases deleted. For instance, we are NOT going to call OSU’s Wildcat formation the ‘Wild Beaver.” Sorry. We just aren’t.”

Mid-50’s and light winds in Blacksburg tonight, where Virginia Tech is a 15.5-point home favorite against North Carolina, with a total of 43.5.  Tech was favored by as much as 17 earlier in the week.  So why is this line going down?  Bettors probably are noticing that UNC was a 3.5 point favorite in their close loss to Tech at home last year, and the fact that they have the better defense. 

Better defense?  Yep, the better defense is a big underdog in this one, as North Carolina allows 16 points per game on 267 yards, while Virginia Tech permits 19 points and 317 yards per game.  A few weeks ago you could have made a case that facing Alabama and Nebraska in non-conference games would help Virginia Tech offset a statistical edge (UNC played a bland non-conference schedule), but with those offenses struggling some, maybe the Tar Heels really do have the better defense.

North Carolina is fresh off a big blown lead a week ago tonight, and it will be interesting to see how they bounce back from that dispiriting loss.   Carolina was supposed to take a big step up in Butch Davis’ third year at the helm in Chapel Hill.  But the influx of talent that supposedly has been signed the past three Februarys apparently has not included many skill position players.   The Tar Heels lost their productive wide receivers to the NFL and as a result, QB TJ Yates is struggling mightily.  Last season was a fairly productive one for Yates, who threw for 8.7 yards per pass with 11 TD passes and only 4 interceptions in an injury-shortened season.  This year has been a far different story for Yates, averaging 5.6 yards per pass attempt, 7 TD passes and 8 INT’s.   But his coaches continue to support Yates, and his backups have been even worse, with no TD passes and 4 interceptions in just 19 combined attempts.  Opponents can stack the line and dare the Heels to throw. 

Surprisingly, Virginia Tech’s strength is their offense.  While tonight’s opposing QB has regressed, Virginia Tech’s Tyrod Taylor has improved year-to-year as much as any QB in memory.  After a disastrous 2008 that saw Taylor pass for only 6.0 yards per attempt, with only 2 TD passes and 7 interceptions, 2009 has been a sea change for the junior.  Taylor leads the nation with 9.5 yards per pass attempt, and he has 15 TD passes and only 3 interceptions.   The defense is solid, but not at the level of some past Hokie outfits.   Tech has a five-day rest edge, as they were off last week while UNC choked away their Thursday nighter against the Seminoles.

Since North Carolina was favored by 3.5 in their home game against the Hokies last September, this line seems high.  But UNC has been a double digit dog against Virginia Tech in each other year since the Gobblers joined the conference in 2004.  The past two visits to Blacksburg have seen UNC getting 19.5 points in 2007 and 24 points in 2005.  So while the line is hefty compared to last year, by other historical measurements, it is reasonable.   

Taking away series history, this line seems high here considering UNC’s sound defense.  And teams that disappoint at home frequently bounce back strong as a road dog the next week.  But the complete reversal of form for these two QB’s from last year to this season is jarring.   And while Virginia Tech doesn’t create the points out of thin air that they used to, how many times have we seen the Hokies break open a close game with a special teams or defensive return for a TD?