The Original College Football Czar

Week 10

Week nine in review: The College Football Czar doesn't know what the final tally was, but it was a very bad week for two-point conversion attempts, which brings the Czar to his latest critique of the analytics to which so many coaches adhere with a quasi-religious fervor. Almost everybody seems to be in agreement now that if you're trailing by 14 points, and then you score a touchdown, you should go for two so that you'll be able to take the lead with another touchdown. The hypothesis is that you've got a fifty-fifty chance of succeeding, and if you fail, then if you score again, you can still go for two on that occasion to tie, the odds of succeeding on one of two two-pointers being decisively in your favor.

It makes a lot less sense once we blow up the fallacy that a two-point conversion is a fifty-fifty proposition. In reality, they're only successful about 42 percent of the time, and even that figure is deceptive. Teams that run a trick formation like the swinging gate on their extra points, and take the option of going for two when they think they've caught the other team napping, are largely successful. It's no longer unusual, for instance, to see Oregon leading 8-0 after its opening possession. If they're only up 6-0, then that's a surprise. If we remove these trick two-pointers from the equation, the success rate of the more conventional ones will be lower still.

When a team attempts two or more two-pointers in the same game, it will almost definitely use its best play first, so that it would stand the best chance of scoring on the first attempt, and that subsequent attempts would yield diminishing returns as the game goes along. Instead of having two chances at a fifty-fifty play, this scenario provides a chance of maybe 40 percent on the first attempt, and considerably less than that on the second. Okay, so the chances of scoring on one or the other would still be over 50 percent, and if it's the first one, then the team can win in regulation time instead of forcing overtime. The alternative, however, is two extra point attempts to tie the game up, with a success rate of 97 percent.

Add to that the intangible element of momentum. A team coming back from two touchdowns behind should like its chances of continuing to get the better of the play in OT, rather than gambling everything on one play. There is no secret formula that dictates that a coach should go for two when coming back from a 14-point deficit. If he does it, he's taking that chance on his own, and he must be able to explain why he took it, and not to simply pass the buck to the invisible number-crunching fairies.

The number of undefeated teams was reduced by one more in Week 9, as Oklahoma fell on a windy day at Kansas, 38-33. Later on Saturday, the undefeated team that doesn't officially exist just barely survived, as James Madison staved off a challenge from Old Dominion 30-27, with a little help from a questionable call in the end zone that deprived ODU of four points.

Cliche watch: Hardly a game was broadcast last Saturday in which the announcers did not refer to a player who plays multiple positions as a "Swiss army knife." The Czar admits he thought this was kind of clever the first time he heard it, but not the ten thousandth time. Can somebody please find an original way to get his point across? Call the guy a universal remote. Call him a thneed. Call him a many usey thingey. Anything but a Swiss army knife.

No wonder the Swiss have never conquered anybody. A knife belonging to any other army would have a blade that was more than two inches long. Those Swiss soldiers have been too busy uncorking bottles, filing nails and picking teeth.

Anyway, the College Football Czar went 11-6 for the week. His season record stands at 106-68, for a .609 winning percentage.

Nov. 3

Boston College at Syracuse

Admittedly, this stat is a little deceptive because of their level of competition, but the Eagles lead the Atlantic Coast Conference in rushing, with 213.8 yards per game. For most of the year, they've relied on sophomore QB Thomas Castellanos to carry their ground game, but running back Kye Robichaux has broken through with back-to-back 100-yard games, in victories over Georgia Tech and Uconn.

The home team should just change its name to the Range at this point, because it had no O through the entire month of October. In losses to North Carolina, Florida State and Virginia Tech, Dino Babers' bunch was outscored by a total of 119-20.

Every year it's the same thing. The Orange roll over Colgate and Army in September, and people who actually get paid to be college football analysts conclude that they're good. After chewing up nonconference marshmallows for a 4-0 start, SU has met much stiffer resistance during an 0-4 start in ACC play. You know, like those nasty little things they call marshmallows in Lucky Charms, which are hard and borderline inedible.

Not a very good analogy, there. Sorry.

Boston College 24, Syracuse 20

Colorado State at Wyoming

This traditional rivalry is played for possession of the Bronze Boot, which coincidentally is what the Cowboys got last week in Boise, to all but officially kick them out of the Mountain West race. Andrew Peasley passed for a measly 85 yards, and the team as a whole was held to a total of 112.

On a snowy night in Fort Collins, the Rams were tied with intrastate rival Air Force 13-13, when they were penalized 15 yards because their fans wouldn't stop throwing snowballs at the AFA bench. The horseplay helped the visiting team on the eventual winning touchdown drive, although the 30-13 game turned out not to be all that close in the end.

Thanks to CBS Sports for letting the viewers enjoy a good snow game, without spoiling it by superimposing yard markers onto the field the way those technodorks on the Fox broadcasts tend to do. The College Football Czar only dreads the day that some anti-sports supervillain decides to construct something called the Coloradome, and ruin all football games played in that state for the rest of eternity.

The Bronze Boot is not to be confused with the 1981 film Das Boot, which, to the Czar's surprise, was not about footwear at all. No wonder the Germans lost The Big One. They act like they're so smart, but they don't even know how to spell "boat."

Wyoming 16, Colorado State 10

Nov. 4

Florida State at Pitt

Coach Pumpkinhead returns to Boo City the weekend after Halloween, and the visiting Seminoles are the only ones expecting any treats. Last week at Notre Dame, Pat Narduzzi's Panthers gave away the opening touchdown with atrocious punt coverage, along with one TD on an interception return and another on a fumble recovery, and ten more points from converted turnovers, in a 58-7 blunderfest.

After the game, Narduzzi shocked his players by saying that the problem is that they're just not good enough. "You lose a lot of good players a year ago," he began, and you know it's going to be bad when someone starts describing his own situation in the second-person. "You think, as a coach, you're going to replace them. We obviously haven't." After several of his players tweeted (exed?) their disapproval of his remarks, he clarified that "I am 100% responsible for today's loss," but the problem was never that Narduzzi was denying responsibility. What he had said was that he was responsible for the fact that he hadn't stocked his team with better players. Perhaps that's true, but his saying so is not going to help him coach this disgruntled team through the final four games of the season.

As the panelists on ACC Huddle pointed out, these Panther players chose to whine about their coach's comments on social media, rather than going directly to him to talk about it, even though the team was probably still together on the plane home at the time. They must have been within fifty feet of the guy, yet they voiced their disagreement publicly, over their phones. That's the kind of character one would expect from a team that unravels and gives up six touchdowns in the second half.

The Seminoles have scored 30 or more points in 14 games in a row. The odds of that streak ending this week are roughly the same as the chances of a meteor striking Bigfoot in the head and killing him, thereby making it easier for President RFK Jr. to verify his existence.

Florida State 40, Pitt 8

Penn State at Maryland

Mike Locksley's team has shown itself to be a paper turtle. Since a 5-0 start against Division I-AA Towson, and four I-A opponents that each have a current record of 2-6, his Terrapins have tumbled to 5-3. In last week's 33-27 setback at Northwestern, they were either unable or unwilling to take any shots downfield. Taulia Tagovailoa completed 30 of 47, but for a total of only 247 yards.

At 7-1, the Nittany Lions continue to win, but they also continue to be offensively unproductive. In last week's 33-24 scare against an inept Indiana team, they averaged only 3.1 yards per carry, Through eight games, no PSU running back has yet had a 100-yard game against a Division I-A opponent. Kaytron Allen's 81 yards against IU has been the most for anyone all season, except for his 103-yard effort against I-AA Delaware.

In one of the most lopsided, long-running series in college football, the Lions lead by a count of 82-3-1, including last year's 30-0 thrashing in which they held the Terps to 134 total yards. It hardly matters what a disappointing dud of an offense they have, if their defense can shut Tua II down for 74 passing yards, as it did in that game.

A lot of teams might not relish visiting the home of Edgar Allen Poe so soon after Halloween, but PSU has little to fear, as long as its head coach is Vincent Price.

Penn State 24, Maryland 13

Brigham Young at West Virginia

Pitt fans never thought they'd be reliving the glory days under the leadership of Kedon Slovis, but the current Cougar quarterback completed 16 of 24 for 308 yards last year in the Iron City, in a 38-31 win over this WVU team.

BYU (5-3, 2-3) has lost its last three road games, and played poorly in doing so. Last week's 35-6 loss at Texas is understandable, and so was a Week 4 defeat at Kansas by a final of 38-27. Linking those two together is a 44-11 rout in Fort Worth, to a Horned Frog team that has been otherwise awful over the past month.

The Mountaineers (5-3, 3-2) got back in the win column by emphasizing their ground game in a 41-28 trampling of Central Florida. C.J. Donaldson led the 286-yard team effort with 121 yards of his own, on 17 carries.

In order to foster a rivalry between these new conference opponents, the Czar proposes that they play for the Patty Duke Trophy, to be awarded in recognition of the two fan bases with more identical cousins than anywhere else in America.

West Virginia 17, Brigham Young 14

Washington at USC

After back-to-back losses, the Trojans trailed California 43-29 a minute in the fourth quarter. They rallied for three quick touchdowns, but then gave up a late score and had to thwart a two-point attempt to hang onto a 50-49 victory. For all their recent problems, they're still the nation's second highest-scoring team at 49.5 ppg, just ahead of Oregon and trailing only LSU. What's more, they've still got QB Caleb Williams. The 2022 Heisman winner has been hearing all season about how UW's Michael Pennixjr is going to take the trophy this year, and he's not just going to stand by and watch that happen.

The Apple Cup winners are certainly ripe for an upset, having barely beaten the bottom two teams in the Pac 12. Two weeks ago, they only reached the end zone once, on an 89-yard interception return, in an ugly 15-7 scare against Arizona State. One week later, their offense performed much better, but it had to, in a 42-33 escape at Stanford.

If the city of Los Angeles ever wants to unburden itself of its tent city population, all it has to do is hand out directions to Seattle, accompanied by pictures of the 600-foot needle in the middle of that city.

USC 55, Washington 51

Oklahoma at Oklahoma State

With last week's loss in Lawrence, the Sooners fall into a five-way tie atop the Big XII. They have not often looked like the national contenders they're supposed to be, but they have played their two best games of the year against co-leaders Iowa State and Texas.

Had Ollie Gordonii gotten enough carries in the Cowboys' first three games, there might actually be a running back in the race for the Heisman this year. The sophomore scooter now leads the nation with 1,087 yards and a 7.7-yard per-carry average, while adding another 201 yards on 21 receptions. In just his past two games, against WVU and Cincinnati, he has gained 574 yards and scored six touchdowns.

This is the final game in the Bedlam series, not just because OU is leaving to join the SEC, but because "Bedlam" is disparaging. If these two ever meet again, it will have to be in the Mental Health Care Facility series. A concerned group of insane, demented wacko loonbuckets must have complained.

Oklahoma State 35, Oklahoma 32

LSU at Alabama

Bama couldn't collar quarterback Jayden Daniels last season in Baton Rouge, when the Tigers took a game in which they had been outplayed most of the way, 32-31 in overtime. The former Arizona State QB gained 25 of his 95 rushing yards on a touchdown run in the extra frame, after which he completed a pass to tight end Mason Taylor for a game-winning two-point conversion.

The Crimson Tide seem like they ought to have receded a lot farther than #8 by this point, but since a Week 2 loss to Texas, they have just kept plodding along for six consecutive victories. Last time out, they looked terrible in the first half against Tennessee, but they gradually overpowered their opponents, to the point of shutting them out in the second half of a 34-20 grind.

They cannot afford another slow start this week, however, against a Bayou Bengal offense that leads the nation in total yardage, more than 20 yards per game ahead of #2 Oregon. Daniels has the most passing yards of anybody outside the Pac 12, and is fourth overall after Michael Penixjr, Caleb Williams and She. Sanders.

For those who are scoring at home, this is Game of the Century XIII. Okay, so a Game of the Century can't happen 13 times in 12 years, but so what? There are 14 teams in the Big Ten. There are 14 teams in the Big XII. The Atlantic Coast Conference just added two schools in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Southeast Conference is expanding into Oklahoma. The Sun Belt Conference has a team in West Virginia. Why get all scholastic all of a sudden?

LSU 42, Alabama 39

Notre Dame at Clemson

The most predictable thing about this game is that when the Fighting Irish fans arrive in Death Valley, they will say to each other, "They've sure got a lot of strange little traditions down here."

If a head football coach is going to host a radio show, he ought to be able to handle himself better than Dabo Swinney did this week, when a caller criticized him for his $10.8 million salary during this 4-4 season. Of course the two-time national championship coach has been worth a great deal to the university, but rather than calmly let his record do the talking, he launched on a hypersensitive rant, at one point telling the caller, "you can apply for the job," which doesn't make a lot of sense unless he plans to vacate it. Doing his best Dizzy Dean impression, he said, "Clemson ain't sniff a national championship for 35 years. We've won two in seven years, and there's only two other teams that can say that, Georgia and Alabama, OK?"

He followed that up by saying, "Is this a bad year? Yeah, and it's my responsibility." Wait a minute. He's already calling it a bad year, with a third of the season left to play? That doesn't sound very hopeful. It's almost as if he doesn't expect games against ND and North and South Carolina to go very well.

Irish coach Marcus Freeman could have gone into a similar panic earlier this year, but he has steadied his team to the point where they might reenter the CFP picture before the season is over. At 7-2 and apparently gaining momentum, they finish against weak opponents Wake Forest and Stanford.

Clemson ain't sniff!

Notre Dame 23, Clemson 10

Kansas at Iowa State

The Cyclones' series against K-State is the one that's known as Farmageddon, but this unrecognized rivalry is just as competitive, and the teams are an hour closer together. The Jayhawks snapped a seven-game losing streak in the series with a 14-11 victory in 2022, to lead the all-time series 50-45-6.

The KU-KU Pigeon Sisters outlasted Oklahoma 38-33, in a second half that featured five lead changes, and in which the teams combined to go 0-for-5 on two-point conversion attempts. Tailback Devin Neal rushed for 112 yards, including the game-winner with less than a minute to play.

ISU won its third in a row, 30-18 over Baylor, to remain in the running for the Big XII championship with games remaining against Texas and Kansas State. The Czar might say RB Cartevious Norton was mischievious, except there's no such word as that, and even if there were, it wouldn't quite apply. Anyway, the sophomore scored his first two touchdowns of the season, while gaining 58 yards on only ten carries.

In decades past, this series might have been known as Just Plain Awful. Get it? Cuz, they're in the Plain States, and they were, um, not very good, you know, at football.

The Czar will work on it.

Kansas 33, Iowa State 28

Texas A&M at Ole Miss

If LSU beats Alabama, the Rebels can create a three-way tie in the SEC West with a victory against A&M. The fact that they lost head-to-head to the Tide would be relatively unimportant in that case, because their win over the Tigers would create a rock-paper-scissors scenario.

The Conjunction Boys (5-3, 3-2) haven't gone of the tracks altogether, but neither will they ever arrive in their destination of Atlanta, being only the fourth-place team in the West division. Yes, they've got a winning record in SEC play, but the three teams they've beaten have got a combined conference record of 2-14. Last Saturday, they halted a two-game losing streak by beating South Carolina 30-17. Sophomore QB Max Johnson passed for 249 yards, his highest total in four games since taking over the starting job from an injured Conner Weigman.

Rock destroys scissors, and scissors destroy paper, but paper only covers rock? What a raw deal that is. The paper might as well be the antelope in the Circle of Life.

Ole Miss 27, Texas A&M 17

Ohio State at Rutgers

If the 6-2 Scarlet Knights don't beat the Buckeyes this time (and, spoiler alert, they won't), they will continue not to do so for the foreseeable future. This is by far the closest they've come to an even matchup against OSU, having been blown out in all nine previous meetings by an average score of 53-11. They're 5-0 at home this season, and those convincing wins over Northwestern and Virginia Tech are looking a lot better now than they did at the time.

The lumpy nuts labored through another subpar offensive performance at Wisconsin, but at least WR Marvin Harrisonjr had yet another great day, catching six passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns, in the 24-10 victory. Not only does Marvin stand out talentwise among everyone else on the field, but he has the distinction of being one player who adds a suffix to his name, whose father is actually relevant to his doing so.

It was Marco Polo, and not Columbus, who discovered Piscataway on behalf of the Italians, but tragically, he did not have any Parmesan cheese. That was the last time in history that China had its intellectual property stolen by somebody else. Here endeth the lesson.

Ohio State 31, Rutgers 20

Virginia Tech at Louisville

With a win, the Gobblers (4-4, 3-1) would climb over the Cardinals into second place in the ACC, putting them on course for a berth in the conference championship game. The College Football Czar just can't see that happening. True, Tech has won three of four, the only loss being against league-leader Florida State, but their wins have been against the bottom three teams in the standings (Pitt, Wake Forest and Syracuse).

The Cards demolished Duke last week, holding the Blue Devils to 202 total yards, while running back Jawhar Jordan romped for 163 yards and two touchdowns. In the previous loss, a shocking 38-21 defeat at Pitt, Jordan had been pulled after only two carries, rather than risk reinjuring his hamstring on the wet grass.

As well as this Cardinal team has played at home, the Gobblers couldn't beat them this week, even if they had the Hokies there to help them. What's that, you say? The Gobblers and the Hokies are the same people? So who says a person can't be two people? Antipluralist!

Louisville 28, Virginia Tech 12

Kansas State at Texas

The Wildcats have not allowed a score of any kind in seven quarters, since yielding an early field goal against TCU. They followed that 41-3 thumping of the Horned Frogs by blanking Houston 41-0, to remain in the thick of a wild race for first place in the Big XII.

Pointy cow quarterback Quinn Ewers was not in the lineup for last week's methodical 35-6 trudge over BYU. Big freshman backup Maalik Murphy got the job done, but his team will need more than just a steady hand to beat the defending conference champions.

If the Longhorns drop out of the championship picture, they may find themselves sadly singing "The Way Ewers." At least that wouldn't be as depressing as Barbra Streisand. Seriously, when you're forcing some flunky to sprinkle rose petals in your toilet every time after you flush, that's a classic warning sign of being depressing.

You're probably not even surprised to know that she does that.

Kansas State 27, Texas 23

Missouri at Georgia

The Bulldogs can all but put away another SEC East division title with a win over second-place Mizzou. For the most part, they've dominated the series, leading 11-1 and not having lost since the year the Tigers joined the conference. Last season, however, they barely escaped with their national championship chances intact, scoring a 26-22 comeback victory after trailing by ten early in the fourth quarter.

The Tigers (7-1, 3-1) have yet to beat an SEC opponent that has a non-losing record in conference play. Their record might look a lot more realistic three games from now, after they've faced UGA, Tennessee and Florida. They did score a big nonconference win back in Week 3, however, bumping of defending Big XII champion Kansas State 30-27, on a last-second 61-yard field goal by Harrison Mevis.

Why in the world is Missouri competing in the Southeast Conference, let alone the East division of it? They call themselves the Show-Me State, but evidently nobody has ever shown them a map.

Georgia 51, Missouri 35

Central Florida at Cincinnati

The two schools that supposedly proved that group-of-five teams are just as good as the ones from the major conferences are now tied for last place in Big XII play, with a combined conference record of 0-10. Way to validate that UCF 2017 national championship claim. What an injustice that the Knights were officially denied the title they so richly deserved. President RFK Jr. will have to investigate that.

Every week, the announcers working the Bearcat game wonder aloud how that team can be struggling so terribly, when they've got Emery Jones at quarterback. Gee, let's see if we can figure this out. The interception-prone former Florida QB started for three years at three different schools, has never thrown for more than 273 yards against a Division I-A opponent, and his play has contributed in no small part to the firing of two head coaches. Yet UC not only welcomed his transfer, but seemingly let him have the starting job without any serious competition.

The Knights started out 3-0, but have lost five in a row since conference play began. It almost seems as if teams in a power conference face dangerous opponents on an almost weekly basis, and that piling up a lot of wins against group-of-five teams doesn't compare.

So, now that these schools are in the big leagues, the Czar assumes that the fans in Cincy and Orlando think undefeated Air Force deserves a shot at the CFP.

Not that the Czar is being sarcastic or anything. Heaven forfend!

Central Florida 24, Cincinnati 14

Oregon State at Colorado

No wonder half of the state of Oregon wants to break away and join Idaho instead. They want to escape the stupidity, and not just of the political variety. First, Oregon coach Dan Lanning blew a game his players deserved to win by repeatedly going for it on fourth-and-three, and now OSU coach Jonathan Smith has nearly eliminated his team from the Pac 12 title race, with the most absurd fake field goal attempt of all time.

With the score tied 10-10 on the final play of the first half, the Beavers lined up for a 33-yard attempt, when the coach decided to be clever. The holder took the snap, and tossed the ball back to kicker Atticus Sappington (no, really), who carried it down to the 7-yard-line. It was a well-executed play, which would have been successful had they only been going for a first down, but with time expiring, it had to be a touchdown or nothing. Success depended on the kicker managing to pick his way through the defense for a 16-yard gain. It wasn't going to happen. He's been a very good kicker, however, and almost certainly would have given his Beavs the halftime lead. With excruciating predictability, Smith's team wound up losing the game to Arizona by three points.

In addition to the Lardhead of the Year Award, the Czar is going to have to commission the Sanders Family Trophy, to be awarded to those sports media figures who excel in the areas of suckuppery and jocksniffery. One of the ways of demonstrating this is to pretend that Deion Sanders' sons, both of whom play for him at Colorado, are being victimized by the officials.

Chris Fowler, a CU alumnus who was nevertheless working last week's game for ABC, insisted multiple times that QB Shedeur Sanders was on the receiving end of the worst intentional grounding call in football history. In Fowler's opinion, the fact that Shedeur took a hit was the reason his pass was so wildly offline, but of course it's not unusual for a quarterback to ground the ball as he's taking a hit, since the whole point of committing the penalty is to avoid a sack. Replays showed nobody to whom he might have been trying to complete a pass. Two defenders converged on him, and then he spiked the ball into the ground about five yards downfield. It was probably a correct call, but even if it wasn't, it was certainly not the worst of all time.

That was just one man's opinion, but media condemnation of the targeting penalty against safety Shilo Sanders has been as unanimous as it is wrong. Shilo delivered a blow with the crown of his helmet to the facemask of Bruin running back Carsen Ryan, after which the buffalloon proceeded to flex his muscles and literally pat himself on the back. In a just football world, he would have been assessed an additional 15-yard penalty on top of the targeting call. It was a deliberate helmet-to-helmet shot, with no attempt to use his arms to make a tackle, and yet it's next to impossible to find anyone who agrees that it was a penalty. You can tell that the Sanders family has become a political cause, because they are getting the Serena Williams treatment. Absolutely every sportswriter or broadcaster who offers an opinion about it feels compelled to lie by blaming the official.

Perhaps the most over-the-top reaction came from ESPN's Robert Griffiniii: "WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE GAME THAT WE LOVE?" Umm, Coach Deion Sanders and Sons happened to it. Shedeur and Shilo are very undisciplined players who probably deserve twice as many 15-yarders as they already get. What Shilo did was such a textbook example of targeting that the NCAA should use it in an instructional video for its officials. Had the hit been delivered by a non-celebrity player, nobody would be questioning it. The Czar would go so far as to say that the penalty would not be controversial if it had been committed by an otherwise sportsmanlike player. The fact is that the sports media love unsportsmanlike conduct. They love totally selfish jerks. Unlike 99 percent of the fans who were watching back in the 80s, these guys have fond memories of the Miami Hurricane teams from that era. That's reason number 84(b) why sports fans cannot trust them.

For his part, Shilo tweeted, "Bring old school football back," which might be taken as an admission that his play was against the rules that now exist. One can imagine the uproar if this reaction had come from just about any other player after committing a similar penalty. Any non-Sanders would be threatened with suspension unless he agreed to subject himself to sensitivity training sessions, during which he would be strapped down and given the Clockwork Orange eyedrop treatment until he demonstrated his newfound appreciation of the seriousness of traumatic brain injuries.

Personally, the Czar would absolutely love to see this entire Colorado team have to play by old school rules. Among other things, that would mean the officials no longer look the other way when a player earns an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty. Okay, so Shilo could not be flagged for targeting, but he would still get 15 yards for behaving like a flaming equine arse after the play. What fun it is to watch players get penalized for that kind of behavior, and to see the penalties adversely affect the teams whose coaches condone that kind of thing. And nobody wants to take the fun out of the game. GOT THAT, ROBERTGRIFFINIII?

Oregon State 37, Colorado 27

Boise State at Fresno State

The Bulldogs rallied past UNLV for 24 third-quarter points, in a 31-24 victory late last Saturday night. Because they don't play Air Force in the regular season, a win this week would put them on course for a berth in the conference championship game. The Broncos, however, will need to win this big road game, and also upset the AFA in their regular season finale, in order to earn the right to a rematch.

Following a collapse against Colorado State, BSU was not about to blow another big lead in the fourth quarter against Wyoming. Instead, they kept the defensive pressure on the Cowboys for the entirety of a suffocating 32-7 win that whittled the wild Mountain West race down by one team. This week, they take on a far more formidable passing game, and one far closer to the one from CSU that staged such a furious rally.

These two schools in dairy communities play annually for the Milk Can, an 11-gallon aluminum container that was used to transport fresh milk to the dairy for processing. It looks a little like the base of the Stanley Cup, but with no actual trophy part for it to carry. Since last year's 28-16 FSU victory, the trophy resides at the school in California, where students stare at it in amazement, thinking, "that must have been one big almond!"

Fresno State 20, Boise State 19

UCLA at Arizona

Looking at the remainder of their schedule, the Wildcats could rally their way into the Pac 12 championship game, if they can get a good start by beating the Bruins in this critical Pac 12 clash. At 3-2 in the conference, the U of A has lost only to Top Ten teams Washington and USC, and by a combined total of only nine points.

Bruin coach Chip Kelly wouldn't admit it, but he has reason to regret giving the starting QB job to freshman Dante Moore, who led them in losses to Utah and Oregon State, completing fewer than half his passes in each game. Since getting back into the lineup, Ethan Garbers has gone 20 of 28 against Stanford, and 20 of 27 against Colorado. The change may have come to late, although this team could still rally its way into the title game also, with a little help.

It's no wonder the blue bears are skipping town this week, after the CU players allegedly had lots of jewelry stolen from their locker room in the Rose Bowl last week. They probably expected the crime to go unreported, because what men are going to admit to wearing jewelry? And calling it "bling" doesn't make it sound any manlier at all!

UCLA 47, Arizona 43

Charlotte at Tulsa

Biff Poggi says we have seen the enemy, and it is us. The first-year 49er coach has suspended "a number of players," though he didn't say which ones or how many, after exposing a national TV audience to an exhibition of undisciplined play and outrageous on-field behavior in a 38-16 Friday night farce against Florida Atlantic.

The Golden Hurricane have given up more than 65 points on two occasions this year, and on each occasion its opponent (Oklahoma and SMU) took it easy on them in the fourth quarter. Last week in Dallas, they trailed 52-3 at halftime, on their way to a 69-10 final.

Poggi's Pick-Cs, conversely, are a surprising third in total defense in the American Athletic Conference, trailing Southern Methodist and Tulane. Their lone win in league play has been a 10-7 scrap against East Carolina, in which they stifled the Pirates for 127 total yards, and stopped them on 13 of 15 third and fourth-down conversion attempts.

The UNCC skipper is known for his far-too-casual attire, and especially his cutoff tee-shirts. That kind of makes him the John Fetterman of college football. Unfortunately, that means you'd have to be about as bad an opponent as Dr. Oz in order to lose to him, but the Cane just might fit that description.

Can you imagine if Fetterman had been running against Ozzy Osbourne instead of Dr. Oz? Their debate would have sounded like seals mating.

Charlotte 18, Tulsa 11

The College Football Czar

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