TruffleShuffle

Ohio State should have played Florida State in the BCS, it could be the battle between Hundred Dollar Handshakes and Free Shoes. Let those teams battle it out for the Dirty Program Championship. Would you prefer to drop the holier-than-thou attitude now, or when JoePa and the Nittany Lions get whipped in Miami? Maybe a slice of humble pie would do those in PA well right now. I'm shaking in my winter boots

Actually there are a fair # of coaches whose votes I don't understand, especially about the ACC/SEC title games. LSU #5 and Georgia #15 according to Frank Solich? Was Georgia's win not convincing enough for him?

The only team that ended up in the top 25 that Gary Barnett didn't vote for is Michigan. I recall him disliking Michigan when he was at Northwestern. Spurrier had the highest vote for South Carolina. And, did Mack Brown vote before the SEC & ACC title games? His vote had LSU #6 (versus #10 in the overall coaches poll) and Georgia #12 (#8 overall), and Va Tech #8 (#11 overall) and Florida State unranked (#22 overall). Maybe Mack got the voting done early so he could party Saturday night.

Hopefully you aren't losing as much running this site as Steinbrenner is running the Yankees.

Personally, I'm rooting for stadium collapse in this one.

I realize I walk a fine line on here and for the most part people have been pretty classy to me. Maybe I'll tone down some of my Cubs opinions on here. I'm not trolling, at my core just a nerd who likes chating about baseball. I don't think it's trolling... after all, I know the Cubs are going to suck this year, and I'm a Cubs fan. Being a baseball fan who can actually see reality doesn't make him a troll.

Ohio State should have played Florida State in the BCS, it could be the battle between Hundred Dollar Handshakes and Free Shoes. Let those teams battle it out for the Dirty Program Championship.

Since last year at this time? This year will be more anticipated than that. Last year you had another major conference BCS team that was undefeated, so it wasn't quite as decisive. Plus, I think going into the game last year the overwhelming feeling was that USC was the better team, whereas this year most people think that the national championship game will be very competitive.

Most of the speculation I'd seen had Michigan going to the Outback Bowl instead of Iowa. It is funny to see them in the Alamo Bowl against a bad team like Nebraska.

A lot of people around here have been saying "what if..." about the Michigan loss, but I am actually kind of glad everything turned out the way it did. Even if Penn State had held on to win the Michigan game, I think it's pretty clear to everyone that USC and Texas are the two best teams in the country. I would not have liked a scenario in which PSU makes the Rose Bowl and either Texas or USC, and seeing as how the computers did seem to like Penn State this year (strength of schedule), I don't think it's impossible that PSU could have been ranked third in the human polls and still leaped over one of the other two teams. If PSU wins the Orange Bowl they'll be pretty much widely acknowledged as the third best team in college football, which is a lot more than myself or almost anyone could have expected from a team that went 4-7 last year. In some other years, this PSU team would have been good enough to play for the title, but this year there are two teams that really stand out above any others, and there's no shame in missing out on a title shot to such great teams.

I think you drank way too much before you made this post. Seriously, I was just thinking about this, and what possible reason could you have for thinking this? Free Shoes U has 4 losses, including a home loss to a mediocre NC St. team and a road loss to a decent Clemson, whereas Penn State had only 1 loss. How is it going to be a "sound" beating by Florida State? Penn State didn't get run over by any offense this year, and PSU's defense is ranked in the top 10 in football. F$U's offense is not particularly good this year. So, it seems to me like that one way that it could be a blowout seems highly unlikely. The other way a game can turn into a blowout is by one team turning the ball over a lot and their opposition taking good care of the ball. PSU was +4 in turnovers, and of PSU's 20 turnovers, 13 came in the first 4 games. After the near-loss in Evanston, Paterno stressed the need to take better care of the ball, and Penn State turned it over only 7 times in 7 games against better opposition (Minnesota, O$U, Michigan, Wisconsin). Florida State was a -7 in turnovers, including 18 interceptions thrown by their freshman QB. So, it also seems unlikely that Florida State will be a +3 or +4 in turnover ratio, thus leading to an easy win for them. I guess the third possibility is that you are a fan of a Penn State rival, and simply want Penn State to lose to the Criminoles. This seems a little more plausible to me.

Does anyone aside from a die-hard Oregon fan really think that if Oregon had hosted Texas and traveled to Penn State, that the Ducks would really be a one-loss team? O$U suffered close losses to two of the top three teams in college football, whereas Oregon got trashed at home by USC. Oregon isn't as good as Notre Dame or O$U, I feel pretty confident about that.

I think you drank way too much before you made this post.

By the way, I'm really glad PSU is playing at Notre Dame last year. La Tech backed out of playing Penn State next season due to scheduling conflicts within the new WAC, so now PSU is bringing in I-AA Youngstown State next year. Temple is also coming to Happy Valley, which makes two joke teams here. At least the third non-conference game is against Akron, which won the MAC, so that shouldn't be as ugly.

Teams get ripped for kicking field goals to pad leads too. 4th and Goal is a no-win situation for a team with a huge lead in a football game. A field goal is reasonable, and expected, on 4th and goal. A TD is not when the lead is that big. It is classless. Because either way, the points are meaningless. If you kick the FG, you're going for easy, gimme points. I have heard of many teams that will never kick field goals on 4th down when they're up big. Besides, the play you're talking about, Texas was up 37-13 with 10 minutes left to go in the game. That's not an overwhelming score like you're making it out to me. I would guess that most coaches would go for it on 4th and goal from the 1 yard line in that situation. I've seen much, much worse examples of running up the score, like Steve Spurrier, or Ohio $tate throwing deep on Illinois with under 3 minutes to go in this year's contest and a 38-3 lead.

Teams get ripped for kicking field goals to pad leads too. 4th and Goal is a no-win situation for a team with a huge lead in a football game.

Texas is building a railroad clear across the country

Give credit to Texas, they won at Ohio $tate and pretty much steamrolled every other team they played. This fan votes Vince Young for Heisman. Talent-wise, this has to be one of the best Heisman races in recent memory... Leinart and Bush are #1 calibre picks, and Young is a sure top 5 pick. If Quinn goes to NYC, that's four Top 10 picks up for the Heisman.

Yeah, the Big XII is a joke, but Texas is really, really, really good. Dominating performance. I'm rooting for USC simply because the Rose Bowl really would be one for the ages. I think I'm leaning toward picking Texas, USC's 33-game winning streak notwithstanding. Texas just looks so dominant right now.

Man I knew Texas was going to blow out Colorado, but I didn't know it would be THIS ugly. Talk about completely outclassing your opponent.

It's unimportant because USC isn't going to lose anyway. Neither is Texas... I expect both teams to win by at least 20.

As a college football fan, as well as a Northwestern fan who saw them early in the season, let me tell you that they could very easily have two by now. Penn State could also very easily have zero losses by now, as they lost one very close game and won one. Similarly, Northwestern could very easily have another loss if they hadn't gotten lucky on the onside kick versus Iowa. Hell, USC could've easily had a loss if Leinart hadn't fumbled the ball out of bounds against ND. That's the way college games work, you get an L or a W, and hopefully the close games even out in the end.

PSU should be ranked ahead of LSU. PSU's loss came on the road to a Michigan team that finished 7-4, while LSU lost at home to Tennessee, which isn't even bowl eligible. LSU had 5 wins of 4 points or less, including at home this past week to a bad Arkansas team. Only one of PSU's 10 wins came by less than a touchdown (Northwestern).

Penn State won the regular-season title in all of the major fall sports (football, men's soccer, women's soccer, field hockey and women's volleyball). Football is #3 in the BCS. Women's volleyball is ranked #2. Field hockey was ranked #6. Women's soccer spent much of the year at #1 and is now ranked #3. Men's soccer is #9. Pretty solid fall!

:cry: The (major league) Cubs looked great a couple of years ago, but they have lost momentum too.