The College Football Czar

Week 13

Week twelve in review: The national title picture has been altered in a way that we would all rather it not be, with a tragic, career-threatening injury to Florida State quarterback Jordan Travis, during a needless game against a lower-division opponent that should not even have been on the schedule. His absence brings up another uncomfortable topic, which is the subjectivity of the College Football Playoff Committee. Surely, FSU will still be in the field of four if it remains undefeated, but what if it loses a game, either this week to Florida or else to Louisville in the ACC championship? The Seminoles are not the same team without Travis that they have been with him. Should the committee factor this in when doing an "eye test" comparison between them and, say, the runner-up from the Big Ten? How could it not? It wouldn't be much of an eye test if it deliberately overlooked the obvious.

Speaking of uncomfortable, a Lardhead of the Year Award is hereby extended to whoever at the CBS Sports Network wrote the headline on that channel's ticker that said Travis had left the game with an "apparent leg injury." To everybody who has seen the video (and if you haven't, please don't), that reflects a rather shocking level of obliviousness.

There are currently five major conference teams that are undefeated, another four that have only one loss apiece, and no group-of-five schools for which a legitimate argument exists for CFP consideration. By the time the conference championships are over, it is likely to be obvious which teams belong in the final four, as it is every year. So why expand the field by eight teams, as will be the case next season? Are the fans being ill-served by not giving Penn State and Ole Miss another chance to beat the teams they've already demonstrated they can't beat? Under the current format, the Nittany Lions and Rebels might be matched against each other in a really enjoyable bowl game, instead of getting stifled again by the likes of Ohio State and Alabama in playoff quarterfinal games.

As always, the College Football Czar is on a very short week for Thanksgiving, so that his readers may peruse his picks during breaks at work on Wednesday before checking out for the long weekend. So, as he always asks this time of year, please excuse this hastily assembled edition for its relative unliteratudification. The Czar is confident he can keep that to a minimum, though. He majored in word-usin.

With Thanksgiving ushering in the Christmas season (or "The Holidays" for those living out there in BCE-land), the College Football Czar would like to take this opportunity to remind everybody, but especially football announcers, that "gift" is a noun, and "ask" is a verb, and not the other way around. Furthermore, when a quarterback spikes the ball in order to stop the clock, that's called spiking the ball, not "clocking" it. These are not difficult rules for non-lardheads to live by. Really, they're not.

Naturally, fans are focused on the highly-ranked teams this late in the season, and probably want to read about them. Many of them won't appear here this week, however, simply because the Czar cannot in good conscience pad his record with mismatches like Georgia-Georgia Tech and Alabama-Auburn. That Iron Bowl is especially disappointing, with the Tigers getting trounced at home last week by New Mexico State, 31-10. Anybody who still expects them to put up a competitive game against the Crimson Tide is embracing the cliche that in a rivalry game, you can throw the records out the window. That isn't really true. For every rivalry game that produces a shocking upset, there are probably a dozen or more that go exactly as expected. UGA has won five straight against GT, for example, and 18 of the past 21, so what's the point? Besides, the last thing some unsuspecting bypasser needs is to have records falling on his head.

The Czar continued his late-season rally with a record of 14-3 in Week 12. For the season, he is 150-80, for a .652 winning percentage.

Nov. 23

Ole Miss at Mississippi State

This year's edition of the Egg Bowl is such a mismatch that if it this weren't the only Thanksgiving college football game, the College Football Czar would not bother including it in his picks. The Rebels are running neck-and-neck with Missouri for the SEC's top non-CFP bowl bid, while the Bulldogs are only 1-6 in the conference, and have already gotten first-year coach Zach Arnett fired.

MSU has gone 4-0 outside the conference, however, including a quality win over Arizona. If they can somehow pull off a shocker against their rivals from Oxford, they will actually become bowl-eligible, even at four games under .500 in league play. In the SEC, that's what used to be known as The Kentucky Plan.

Home field advantage hasn't been much of one in this series in recent years. On their last three visits to Starkville, the Rebels are 2-1. The only loss during that stretch was by the score of 21-20, when WR Elijah Moore scored a late touchdown, but moved the extra point attempt back 15 yards by committing an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, when he "celebrated" by getting down on his hands and knees and lifting his leg like a dog. He later apologized for his actions, but what for? All in "fun," right?

Last week, the Rebs had a date with Louisiana-Monroe. They must have gotten her name and number from former coach Hugh Freeze's cell phone.

Ole Miss 40, Mississippi State 21

Nov. 24

Penn State at Michigan State

PSU quarterback Drew Allar is expected to return from an apparent shoulder injury that caused him to miss the second half of a 27-6 stroll past Rutgers. The new co-offensive coordinators do not seem to be very popular with the fans, after only allowing backup Beau Pribula to throw one pass in the entire second half. For the record, it was a nine-yard completion to Tyler Warren. Facing a third-and-short with a tenuous 10-6 lead, they predictably had him run the ball on consecutive plays, resulting in a turnover on downs.

The Spartans (4-7, 2-6) captured the Old Brass Spittoon last week against Indiana, 24-21. They never have gotten their offense going this season, but freshman QB Katin Houser did pass for a season-high 245 yards and three TDs against the Hoosiers. The O.J. trial was 28 years ago, so it doesn't make sense that Katin would have been named after Kato Kaelin. That would have been a poor excuse, but at least it would have been an explanation.

The Land Grant Trophy looks as if it were assembled from leftover pieces of an assembly-required particleboard bookcase. Affixed to it are knickknacks of a Spartan and a Nittany Lion, accompanied by photographs of the campus tower from each university. One side of the structure is dedicated to a series of small, metal plates, on each of which the name of Penn State or Michigan State is engraved, depending on the outcome of that year's game. The clunky 50-pound box is topped with a generic, scrawny, football-playing figure that appears to be running like Zeppo Marx in Horsefeathers. This is undoubtedly the weakest of all Big Ten game trophies, so completely boring that only Bert from Sesame Street could love it. The only thing missing is the cap from a bottle of Figgy Fizz.

After another long season of being subjected to the awful, repetitive, piped-in music at football games, the College Football Czar has come around to agreeing with Bert about the superiority of marching band music. Still can't share his love of pigeons, though.

Penn State 20, Michigan State 3

Oregon State at Oregon

Defenders can't wait until they don't have Nix to kick them around anymore. The eleventeenth-year senior passed for 381 yards and six touchdowns last week in the first half alone, as he staked his Fighting Ducks to a 42-0 lead at Arizona State. The merciful 49-13 final keeps the quackers a game ahead of Arizona for a berth in the Pac 12 championship game.

It was a tough night for quarterbacks at rainy Reser Stadium, where the Beavers bottled up Michael Penixjr but were still unable to derail undefeated Washington, 22-20. D.J. Uiagalelei completed only 15 of 31 for 164 yards and two interceptions, and appeared to injure the thumb on his throwing hand.

Last season, Duck coach Dan Lanning blew both of his team's rivalry games by going for it on fourth down in his own territory, while leading late in each game. Evidently, he has not learned his lesson, because he lost to Washington again this year, 36-33, because of three unsuccessful fourth-and-three plays that should never have been called. If this game is close enough to be decided again by an unnecessary gamble, he's just the man to make it.

The winners of this game will be awarded the Plate of Pus. Let's just hope they don't spill it on themselves, in lieu of a Gatorade bath. What's that you say? The trophy for this game is not a plate of pus, but a "platypus," which you say is an animal that has anatomical features similar to both a duck and a beaver? Oh, sher, like the Czar is really gonna believe that one.

Oregon 38, Oregon State 27

UTSA at Tulane

The mighty Green Wave has subsided over the course of the season, weakly managing to lap over the goal line often enough to beat East Carolina, Tulsa and Florida Atlantic. Still, their only loss of the season was way back in Week 2 against Ole Miss, a game that TU quarterback Michale Pratt missed due to injury.

Last Friday against South Florida, Frank Harris became the only QB this year in Division I-A to throw for more than 400 yards and rush for over 100 more. The 49-21 victory keeps the Roadrunners in the running for the championship of the American Athletic Conference, where these two teams and SMU each enter the final week of the regular season with a league record of 7-0.

Conventional wisdom says the winner of this conference will get the group-of-five berth in a New Year's Six bowl, but that would not hold true for the meepers, whose 1-3 nonconference mark includes bad losses to Houston and Army. Even if Texas San-Antonio wins this game, and then takes the league title game next week, they're probably headed for a middle-echelon postseason game like the Armed Forces Bowl.

Why is New Orleans known as The Big Easy? Monica Lewinsky isn't even from there.

Tulane 31, UTSA 21

Texas Tech at Texas

How long can the Longhorns hold on in the CFP chase, with their offensive herd thinning by the week? First, they lost dominant running back Jonathon Brooks for the remainder of the season to an ACL tear, and now the status of leading receiver Xavier Worthy is in doubt, after he hobbled from the field during last week's 26-16 win at Iowa State.

Red Raider running back Tahj Brooks busted up Central Florida for 182 yards and a touchdown, but his team still needed to come up with a blocked extra point to preserve a 24-23 victory. That result boosts Tech into the top half of the Big XII, while also making them bowl-eligible.

With a win, the pointy cows (10-1, 7-1) can clinch a bid to the conference championship game, while three teams are battling it out a game behind them at 6-2, and three others, including TT, a game behind those three, at 5-3. The Czar knows this suggestion is not going to be well received, but back when there were ties in college football, the smattering of them that happened every season helped to sort out conference standings. Without them, and with most leagues expanding to 14 or more teams with no divisions, we're going to see some tiebreaking rules enacted that will produce far more unsatisfying results than the occasional tie game.

In the case of a tie among three or more teams, the first Big XII tiebreaker is head-to-head, but only if all the teams involved have played each other. Not only is this not likely to be the case, but even if they have all played each other, they might have taken turns all beating each other. The second tiebreaker is, "Record against the next highest placed common opponent in the standings (based on record in all games played within the conference), proceeding through the standings." Then, there's this caveat: "When arriving at another group of tied teams while comparing records, use each team's winning percentage against the collective tied teams as a group (prior to that group's own tiebreaking procedure) rather than the performance against individual tied teams."

If a tie is like kissing your sister, then being dealt out of the running for a conference championship through this convoluted process is like orally inspecting your dog for mites.

Texas 27, Texas Tech 24

Iowa at Nebraska

The Hawkeyes have already clinched the Big Ten West, but they could further devalue the conference championship game if they can't trudge past the clumsy Cornhuskers. Last Saturday against Illinois, they took the lead in the fourth quarter on Kaleb Johnson's 30-yard touchdown run, but they must have reached their scoring quota because the extra point was blocked for a final tally of 15-13. The College Football Czar predicted that they would win 15-12, which might look pretty impressive, but he must confess that Hawkeye scores are not the hardest to guess, anything above 24 points being pretty much off-limits.

Is this the end for the N-men? The Huskers fell to 5-6 with their third consecutive setback, 24-17 to Wisconsin in overtime. Neither that nor their previous 13-10 loss to Maryland is a particularly terrible result, but the slump started with a 20-17 upset at Michigan State.

If the Big XII illustrates the stupidity of eliminating divisions, the Big Ten demonstrates the motivation for doing so. Penn State is a distant third in the East division, but they drubbed the Hawkeyes head-to-head by a count of 31-0, so when Kirk Ferentz's team takes on the winner between Michigan and Ohio State, that will be a matchup for the conference championship between the first and fourth-best teams.

That's not the only place where the Hawkeyes have lowered the bar. This season-ending clash is called the Heroes Game, because each state nominates a hero every year, for the purpose of honoring the two of them at halftime. This year, Nebraska is honoring a man who saved somebody from a van that had crashed into a lake, whereas Iowa has nominated a teacher. For teaching. No, really. They did this. Because teachers are heroes, as we were told ad nauseum while most of them were blowing off their jobs during the Covid shutdowns. It's not this guy's fault he was chosen, of course, but how embarrassed is he going to be, standing on the field alongside the guy who saved somebody's life, both being presented as heroes?

As Oddball famously said, "To a New Yorker like you, a hero is some type of weird sandwich." Next year, they ought to leave Iowa out of this game, and invite a school from New York, so that it can nominate a sandwich. It would be an improvement.

Iowa 13, Nebraska 7

Air Force at Boise State

The way this November has gone for the flyboys, it is as if some maniacal off-duty Alaskan Airlines pilot tried to seize control of the team and crash it into the ground. Hypothetically speaking, of course. By the end of October, the Falcons had easily dispatched intrastate rival Colorado State 30-13 to improve to 8-0, making themselves a favorite to advance to a New Year's Six game. Now, they have dropped three straight, including last week's 31-27 loss at UNLV. Nevertheless, they can earn a rematch with the Rebels if they can beat BSU on the blue turf.

Under interim coach Spencer Danielson, the Broncos blew out neighboring foe Utah State, 45-10. Senior RB George Holani blew holes through the Aggie defense for 178 yards and two touchdowns on just 15 carries. Since a midseason collapse against Colorado State, they have won three out of four to tie the AFA and San Jose State for second place in the Mountain West, except that each of these teams has already defeated SJSU.

That homicidal pilot was high on hallucinogenic mushrooms, which have just been decriminalized in Colorado. How comforting it is that our Air Force Academy resides in that state.

Boise State 26, Air Force 18

Nov. 25

Pitt at Duke

Last year in the Burgh, the Blue Devils dug themselves a 14-point hole, but climbed back with two touchdowns in the last ten minutes of game time. If only coach Mike Elko, then a rookie, hadn't obeyed the analytics, and missed two two-point conversions. The 28-26 defeat ended his team's chances of playing for the ACC championship.

It sure seems like Panther offensive coordinator Frank Cignetti must have been quietly demoted before last Thursday's 24-16 victory over Boston College. Head coach Pat Narduzzi reportedly overruled Cignetti in starting QB Nate Yarnell over Christian Veilleux. Then, all of a sudden, underutilized tailback Rodney Hammond got a season-high 15 carries, with which he gained 145 yards, including a 66-yard touchdown run. The only element that was missing was the forgotten man, Gavin Bartholomew, but the junior TE suffered a leg injury at Syracuse in Week 11, and will not be ready to return for this season finale.

The Devils have been defeated in four of their past five, eking out only a 24-21 win over Wake Forest on a last-second field goal. Last week, they lost 30-27 to a Virginia team that is currently tied with the Panthers for eleventh place.

Yarnell played well in his only start of 2022, but this year he has had to wait patiently behind two quarterbacks who had transferred in from other schools. This preference that college football coaches seem to have for transfer QBs over their own recruits is not unlike pretentious people who insist that they do everything better in Europe.

Don't count the College Football Czar in that category. He could never have any respect for people who end words with schwas.

Pitt 23, Duke 19

West Virginia at Baylor

It's taken five years, but Mountaineer head coach Neal Brown is finally producing the kinds of results he had been used to during his four-year stint at Troy. Last Saturday, his team beat former Big East rival Cincinnati 42-21, to improve to 7-4.

The Bears have given up 33.3 points per game, which is more than anybody else in the Big XII. A week ago, TCU teed off on them for 531 total yards, in a 42-17 tatering. At 3-8, their only wins have been against Cincinnati, Central Florida, and Division I-AA Long Island.

It's been a tough season for coach Dave Aranda, but this year, BU just doesn't have enough talent for tactics to matter much. That's a shame, because we all know how much the Waco kids like to play chess. Never mind that other thing they like to do.

West Virginia 34, Baylor 16

Ohio State at Michigan

The Michiganders didn't miss head coach Jim Harbaugh during his first three-game suspension of the season, against East Carolina, UNLV and Bowling Green. During this stretch against significantly better competition, they're not nearly the same team they were midseason.

If the Wolverines' now-familiar group photo poses on the sideline serve as evidence that they're taking opponents lightly, then consider last week's game against Maryland to be Exhibit B. Once leading 23-3, the maize and blue nearly got caught coasting in the second half, before they escaped with a 31-24 win. The phony "fun" chorus will tell you the guys are just celebrating, but is it a good thing to celebrate during the game? We're not talking about a spontaneous outburst of enthusiasm here. This was a premeditated, orchestrated celebration, in the first half of a football game. The lack of focus on the job at hand ought to be concerning, even to those lardheads to whom poor sportsmanship is not.

The Buckeyes committed a similar act of buffoonery after a pick-six during their 37-3 rout of Minnesota, except that they did it in the end zone, and, believe it or not, were penalized. Because a second unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in a game results in a penalty, the referee had to call the numbers of all six players who participated, to make it clear that a second offense by any of them would trigger an ejection. Maybe they were able to laugh that off because it was 27-0 at the time, but people who get into the habit of doing stupid, selfish things like that cannot be counted on to exercise discretion in the future. If one of these boobs ends up getting himself thrown out of the CFP championship game, it won't be because he hadn't been warned.

You might wonder why you sometimes hear the term Michigander, but never Michigoose. It's for the same reason that you don't hear much of the word "actress" or "comedienne" anymore. The females of the species feel the term is demeaning, and want to prove that they can honk and crap with the best of them.

Ohio State 14, Michigan 10

Florida State at Florida

The gruesome injury to FSU quarterback Jordan Travis was made all the more horrible by the fact that it happened in a game the Seminoles should never have been playing in the first place. At the time, they actually trailed 13-0 against North Alabama, which is a Division I-AA team, and not a very good one at that. Led by new starter Tate Rodemaker, the Seminoles poured it on to beat UNA 58-13, for what that's worth, which is nothing.

All other statistical factors suggest that the Noles still have an advantage in this game, but the Czar just can't believe they can recover this quickly from such a devastating blow to their national championship ambitions.

Gator QB Graham Mertz will miss this game due to injury, also. Late in his team's wild 33-31 loss to Missouri, Mertz initiated a ferocious collision while rushing for a first down, resulting in a broken collarbone. At the end of one of the toughest runs the Czar has seen all season long, Mertz at least remained standing, while two defenders lay on the ground, looking like victims of a grenade attack.

Don't mess with Ethel!

Florida 24, Florida State 21

Iowa State at Kansas State

The Wildcats won the Sunflower Showdown, which is not as easy as it might sound. If you've ever looked at a sunflower face-to-face, you know that it can be rather imposing, as flowers go. In fact, the sunflower is known as the Lee Van Cleef of the botanical world. Well, not really, but the College Football Czar is trying to get that to catch on.

The Cyclones could have created a five-way tie atop the Big XII, but they fell to first-place Texas 26-16, due largely to a ground game that got gummed up for a total of only nine yards on 21 carries. ISU ranks twelfth in its conference in rushing yards per game, ahead of only Baylor and BYU.

This rural rumble is hilariously nicknamed Farmageddon, although people who drive from Ames to Manhattan for the game will swear from the scenery that the apocalypse had already occurred several days earlier.

Kansas State 22, Iowa State 14

North Carolina at Nc State

It didn't take the Wolfpack long to stop missing quarterback M.J. Morris, who abandoned them on short notice when he announced that he was redshirting himself, which he should not be at liberty to do. Brennan Armstrong returned to the lineup and completed 18 of 26 for 203 yards and two touchdowns, in a 35-28 victory at Virginia Tech. NCSU is all alone in third place in the ACC, but having lost to Louisville head-to-head in Week 5, they cannot catch up regardless of this week's results.

UNC sophomore Omarion Hampton has had six consecutive 100-yard games, to enter this weekend tied with Oklahoma State's Oliver Gordonii for the NCAA rushing lead at 1,414 yards. Incredibly, the Tar Heels lost half of those games.

There's no apparent reason why the Heels keep cooling off in the second half of each season.. It's the greatest mystery to hit that state since "Who blackballed Howard Sprague?" Let's blame Goober for this, too. Talk about a fella who always looks like he's up to no good.

The hat that Goober wears is known as a "whoopie cap." The College Football Czar will be totally content never to know why.

Nc State 34, North Carolina 30

Kentucky at Louisville

All of the losses for the 6-5 Wildcats had been against high-quality SEC opposition until last week's letdown, a sloppy 17-14 setback at South Carolina. The defense did its job as usual, but three offensive turnovers cut short two UK possessions at midfield, and the other all the way down at the Gamecock 15-yard-line.

Expectations for the Cats have been that they would become a consistent challenger to the traditional powers in the SEC East, but since the but they seem to be a fixture in fourth place for the foreseeable future. Even their 10-3 records in 2018 and 2021 included three conference losses apiece.

The Cardinals won in a laugher last week in Miami, not because the game wasn't close, but because two Hurricane defenders comically collided to spring wide receiver Kevin Coleman for the game-winning 58-yard touchdown. The 38-31 victory delivered to them not only a berth in the ACC title game, but also the brand new Schnellenberger Trophy, a pair of bronzed boots that once belonged to the former coach of both the Cards and Canes.

They thought about bronzing Howard's moustache instead, but they wanted something the players would be able to lift.

Louisville 21, Kentucky 12

Wisconsin at Minnesota

The College Football Czar can hardly believe he's defending the ever-irritating P.J. Fleck, but the Golden Gopher coach is taking a lot of flak for punting on consecutive first-half possessions against Ohio State, and he was absolutely right to do so. Had he gone for two fourth-and-fives from outside the OSU 40-yard-line, as his critics would have preferred, the game would probably by then have been over. For the game, the radiant rodents registered only 4.7 yards per pass attempt, and 2.4 per rush, but the presumption seems to be that the odds were in their favor trying to gain five yards against the nation's #3 defense.

The criticism is that Fleck was already in damage control mode, merely trying to manage the margin of defeat. To the contrary, a coach who was serious about winning would have had more confidence in his own team than to show such desperation so early in the game. The score was 7-0 when he opted to punt the first time, and 10-0 the second. Both times, the Buckeyes took possession inside their 15-yard-line. Any coach who would have hit the panic button in that point is not one who would hold down a Big Ten head coaching job for seven years, as Fleck has already done.

The Badgers finally became bowl-eligible on their fourth attempt, a 24-17 overtime triumph over Nebraska. Quarterback Three-Finger Mordecai could have counted his touchdown passes on one hand before that game, but he tossed his fourth TD of the season in the second quarter. That's 29 fewer than he had last year at SMU.

These Big Ten West rivals play for the Paul Bunyan Axe, which as the title would suggest is very large, just right for chopping a rowboat to tiny bits. (Hint, hint.)

Wisconsin 19, Minnesota 14

California at UCLA

There had been some misreporting before last week's game suggesting that Bruin coach Chip Kelly had been fired. One 38-20 trouncing of arch rival USC later, the coach sounds confident that he will be accompanying his team into the Big Ten next season. The blue bears have clinched a winning season at 7-4, but they are 4-1 when Ethan Garbers starts at quarterback, which makes one wonder why that has not been more often.

The Golden Bears beat Stanford 27-15, but of course everybody already knew that. It was The Big Game, after all. Freshman QB Fernando Mendoza threw for 294 yards and three TDs to lead Cal (5-6, 3-5) to a defeat of the Cardinal (3-8, 2-7) in a titanic battle that kept the nation riveted.

Sophomore Bear wide receiver Trond Grizzell may be named like a character from a Star Wars reboot, but we know he's not that, for the simple reason that he does something interesting once in a while.

UCLA 20, California 17

Texas A&M at LSU

The Czar does not mean to sound cruel, but any alleged sportswriter who has been speculating about A&M hiring Coach Prime away from Colorado does not deserve to be paid. The Aggies just fired Jimbo Fisher over a 45-25 record. Twenty years ago, they fired R.C. Slocum, who never had a losing season, and finished with a mark of 123-47-2. This is a program that is determined to win national championships. Simply being very, very good just isn't good enough. There's no way they are interested in hiring away a coach who is finishing a tumultuous first season in Division I-A on a downward trajectory. Any journalist who makes such a suggestion is simply bucking for the Sanders Family Trophy for jocksniffery and posterior-puckery.

In their first game under interim coach Elijah Robinson, the ampersanders beat up on Division I-AA Abilene Christian, 38-10. That ought to provide them just enough false confidence to leave them completely bumfuzzled by what happens to them against the Tigers in Baton Rouge.

The Bayou Bengals have some great home uniforms, which they refuse to ever wear. In keeping with one of college football's worst traditions, they wear their white jerseys for all home conference games. Last week, they hosted nonconference opponent Georgia State, so they wore their purple jerseys, but with crappy white helmets. What is that, spite? Against Grambling in Week 2 and Army in Week 8, they chose to wear their whites again, even though those were not conference games. Why even have home uniforms if they don't like them enough to break them out once in a while? They remind the Czar a little bit of the high school science teacher who wears the same suit every day and walks around with chalk on his butt.

LSU 48, Texas A&M 23

Northwestern at Illinois

Coach David Braun has made the most of an extremely unpleasant situation, leading the Wildcats to bowl eligibility in the wake of the hazing scandal for which Pat Fitzgerald was fired. It is important not to discount the role of Skip Holtz in this surprising success, however. Holtz, who has won two USFL championships since being stupidly fired by Louisiana Tech, was hired shortly before the season as a special advisor to Braun. It's only natural to wonder who's really in charge, the rookie head coach who was thrust into that role by accident, or the guy who won 152 games during 17 seasons at East Carolina, South Florida and LTU.

So, whatever happened to those hazing accusations, anyway? Before the season, we were told anonymous tales of an institutionalized system of punitive sexual assault carried out by senior players against underclassmen in the Wildcat locker room, but today we are listening to accusations that Coach Fitzgerald must be racist because he disapproved of QB Noah Herron's hair. Has everybody forgotten the original story? Dozens of former NU players are now coming forward with a variety or complaints, obviously hoping to be included in a legal settlement of some kind. Is anybody asking them which of their teammates were guilty of the sexual abuse? If the original stories were true, it cannot be that all of those players over so many years were innocent, and that Coach Braun and the rest of the staff were also innocent, but that Fitzgerald and he alone was guilty.

As things stand now, Northwestern has not only fired Fitzgerald, but essentially rendered him unemployable, and for no reason that has been backed up by anything substantial to this point. It's a good thing the Big Ten is introducing four new members next year, because it looks like all of the old ones are going to be driven into bankruptcy by losing $100 million-plus lawsuits to former football coaches.

Meanwhile, the Fighting Illini missed out on a chance to become bowl-eligible themselves, in a 15-13 loss to first-place Iowa. The stats for that game were almost exactly even: 18 first downs apiece, no turnovers for either team, 281 total yards for the Hawkeyes to 280 for the Illini. A first-quarter safety proved to be the difference.

The Cats only beat last-place Purdue 23-15, in spite of going plus-3 in turnovers. In addition, they stopped the Boilermakers on fourth down on three occasions, while never once committing a turnover on downs themselves.

The Land of Lincoln Trophy is one of the College Football Czar's favorite game trophies, because it is s statue not of Abraham Lincoln, but of his hat. There can be little doubt that Abe himself would find it thoroughly amusing.

Why do people think Abraham Lincoln was such a smart person? He wasn't so smart, and we have the trophy as proof of this. As college football fans are aware, all super-geniuses wear visors. Anybody who wears an entire hat must be ashamed of his brain.

Illinois 24, Northwestern 17

Clemson at South Carolina

Gamecock coach Shane Beamer is begging the fans in the student section, known as the Cockpit, to remain in the stadium for this entire game. Seriously, this is what he's concerning himself with. No, really. On the brink of bowl-ineligibility, and with a three-year record of 9-14 in SEC games, and with a game coming up against an arch rival that has caught fire in the last month of the season, the head coach is trying to shame the students over their lack of team spirit.

The Tigers scored their third straight win against quality competition, knocking off #20 North Carolina 31-20. Running back Will Shipley, who had been injured on a vicious hit to the base of the neck near the goal line against Nc State, returned to the lineup last week against Georgia Tech, and has now gained 7.0 yards per carry in two consecutive games.

Coach Beamer broke his foot by kicking stuff after his team lost to Florida. How many of you Carolina students have broken feet? What's the matter? Lack of commitment?

Clemson 25, South Carolina 10

Middle Tennessee at Sam Houston

If there's no such thing as a bearcat, is it possible to misspell it? Yes, which the Bearkats do with a perverse pride. They've made their share of mistakes during their first season if Division I-A football, though not as intentionally so, resulting in five losses by seven points or fewer. They finally scored their first Conference USA victory over Louisiana Tech, 42-27 in Week 11, and enter this season finale with a record of 2-9.

A three-game season-ending winning streak would ring hollow for the MT-heads, who have become accustomed to playing in minor bowl games, but have been resigned to a losing season since coming up on the wrong side of a 13-7 defensive slugfest with New Mexico State in Week 10. Since 2006, Rick Stockstill has been successful enough to have become the fourth longest-tenured head coach in Division I-A football, after Kirk Ferentz of Iowa, Mike Gundy of Oklahoma State, and Kyle Whittingham of Utah.

One of these days, the College Football Czar would like to attend a Sam Houston Bearkat game, just so he can try to start a "gimme a C" cheer. Ideally, he'd like to do that without getting roundly pelted with horse apples, but you can't have everything.

Middle Tennessee 33, Sam Houston 31

The College Football Czar

a sports publication from The Shinbone