The College Football Czar
Week
16
Week fifteen in review: Now that the conference championships are
over, and the expanded playoff bracket is out, people are busily trying to
manufacture a controversy so that there might be a movement to expand the field
again. For example, we knew all along
that the top four seeds were not going to be the four best teams in the nation,
so there are teams that have to play in the opening round that are better than
a couple of the teams that don't. Why
start squawking about that now, instead of when the format was first revealed?
The cheapest argument for postseason
expansion is that the first team out might be better than the last team
in. Because we have a 12-team field, the
fact that SMU was chosen over Alabama to be that twelfth team is causing an
uproar. When the field is expanded to
16, then the 16th selection will be controversial. In the basketball tournament, the 68th bid is
the source of controversy and subsequent calls for expansion. The original intention of the CFP was to make
sure the best team was not excluded from the championship game. Does anybody think either SMU or Alabama
might be the best team in the nation this year?
Then the only controversy should be why the championship is being
diluted by including a bunch of unqualified teams.
Of course, there are such things as
upsets, so there's a fair chance that the national championship will be played by
teams other than Oregon and Georgia.
Nevertheless, if we were still using the BCS formula, it would match
Oregon and Georgia in the championship game, and the other ten teams would be
evenly matched against each other in some great New Year's bowl games. There would have been no controversy to that
at all. Under the new system, it
probably won't be long before a three-loss team like Clemson catches fire at
the end of the season and wins it all, but would that be good for the game? College football was always different from
other sports, in that the purpose to crowning a champion was to recognize which
team had been the best throughout the season, not to give a chance to a bunch
of teams that clearly are not the best.
Not that there's necessarily
anything wrong with a 10-7 team winning the Super Bowl, or a team five games
over .500 winning the World Series, but that's not what college football has
ever been. The ostensible purpose of the
CFP was never to cram college football through the same Play-Doh fun factory
that produces the champion of every other sport, but that has evidently been
its unspoken attention all along. Like
NIL, it was sold to the public with a lie.
With the postseason now spread out
over more than a month, and starting on the same day as the last regular season
game, the College Football Czar is issuing his bowl picks in two installments,
the first one ending with the games on the day after Christmas. He mentions this now so that you won't be
disappointed when this week's picks end all of a sudden, kind of like when
you're watching the only version of The Three Musketeers that counts for
anything, when it stops and tells you the rest will be coming soon. Why couldn't they ever do a thing like that
with a crappy movie, like True Lies?
"We've decided to stop here, now that the story is actually over. Come back another time for the other 90
superfluous minutes of tiresome stupidity."
Championship week was a bad week to
be a College Football Czar, but an even worse one to be one of the teams that
he picked to win. Three of the Czar's
picks (UNLV, Miami Ohio and Louisiana-Lafayette) scored in the single digits,
while Texas and Tulane barely did any better.
Altogether, he went 3-6 in the nine league title games, dropping his
season record to 158-113, for a .583 winning percentage.
Dec.
14
Navy (8-3) vs. Army (11-1)
Had the
Black Knights known that conference play would be so easy, they would have
taken part in it all along. After
running the table in the regular season, they trounced a formidable Tulane team
in last week's American Athletic Conference championship game, 35-14. The CFP committee must have been relieved to
see Boise State win the Mountain West that same night, otherwise there would
have been a legitimate argument over that group-of-five bid between Army and
UNLV. Imagine if the Cadets had been
tabbed as one of the twelve playoff teams, and then lost to the Midshipmen six
days later. The College Football Czar
takes this as yet more evidence that the NCAA gave very little thought to
anything when it decided to expand the playoff.
You might
be wondering how the Knights could already win the conference title before
facing their rivals from Annapolis.
Unlike the NCAA, the AAC exercised a little foresight, and decided that
the academies would never play each other in a conference game. Rather, their traditional season-ending game
is part of their respective nonconference schedules, even though they both
reside in the same league.
Halfway
through the season, this was expected to be a titanic clash, with both teams
sitting at 6-0 at the time. The Middies
have had three bad losses in their last five games, however, and will likely be
starting their second-string quarterback for this game. Starter Blake Horvath was removed early in a
35-0 loss to Tulane with an undisclosed injury.
Braxton Woodson was ineffective in his stead, but improved significantly
in a 34-20 win over East Carolina two weeks later.
This game
is being played in Landover, MD, home of the oft-ridiculed Washington
Commanders. Contrary to recent reports,
the team is not going to revert to its traditional Redskins nickname and logo. According to team owner Josh Harris, "For
obvious reasons, the old name can't come back," the most obvious of these
obvious reasons being that he is a simpering twit.
Army 45, Navy 21
Salute to Veterans Bowl -- Montgomery,
AL -- 9:00 (ESPN)
Western Michigan (6-6) vs. South
Alabama (6-6)
Formerly the Camellia Bowl, this
game is apparently trying to out-military the Army-Navy game. Weirdly, the entire name is the "IS4S Salute
to Veterans Bowl," sponsored by something called "Integrated Solutions for Systems." When the College Football Czar first saw
this, he did a double-take, thinking it actually said the ISIS Salute to
Veterans Bowl, which he found reminiscent of all the lying sacks of crud who
used to say they "support the troops" while openly rooting for the enemy. To give a salute sponsored by IS4S sounds
about as sincere as an Al Franken USO show.
It might be a bit of a surprise that
the Broncos have a better Mid-American Conference record than either Toledo or
Northern Illinois. WMU's overall record
is being held down by three nonconference losses, but those were to Wisconsin,
Ohio State and Marshall, all on the road.
The Jaguars' leading rusher is a
freshman named Fluff Bothwell, who has scored 13 touchdowns while averaging 7.5
yards per carry. So why would a
220-pound football player go by the nickname Fluff? Well, nobody makes fun of him for being named
Da'Marion anymore. So, there.
South Alabama 30, Western Michigan 27
Dec. 17
Frisco Bowl -- Frisco, TX (not SF) --
9:00 (ESPN)
West Virginia (6-6) vs. Memphis
(10-2)
The Tigers are the only ten-win team
from a group-of-five league not to play in a conference championship game. They did defeat Tulane 34-24 to end the
regular season, but it was not enough for them to catch the Green Wave for
second place.
The Mountaineers didn't look very
motivated to save coach Neal Brown's job, as they got toasted by Texas Tech in
their final regular season game, 52-15.
The WVU defense was weak against the run and pass alike, especially
during a second quarter in which Tech outscored them 29-0. We will see whether its effort improves with
offensive coordinator Chad Scott taking over as interim head coach, but this
Tiger team is not a likely opponent against which to get well on defense.
UM quarterback Seth Henigan is a
four-year starter at the same school, perhaps the last of those we'll ever see,
but the fans there are plenty pleased that he stuck around. Henigan has far exceeded the 3,000-yard mark
in each of his four years, for a current career total of 13,984 yards
It wasn't hard to persuade the West
Virginians to make this postseason road trip.
That's because all those in attendance get Frisco, which is short for
fried Crisco. Their favorite!
Memphis 49, West Virginia 31
Dec. 18
Boca Raton Bowl -- Rat Mouth, FL --
5:30 (ESPN)
Western Kentucky (8-5) vs. James
Madison (8-4)
What's big and red and loses the
Conference USA championship by 40 points?
A big red rock eater, whenever it tries to play football, instead of,
you know, eating rocks. That didn't turn
out to be a very good riddle. Sorry.
The Hilltoppers discovered that they
weren't the top of the heap last week, when Jacksonville State jumped all over
them, 52-12. Quarterback Caden Veltkamp
threw for a season-low 141 yards, while losing 41 yards on the ground and
fumbling twice.
During last offseason, JMU lost head
coach Curt Cignetti to Indiana and starting QB Jordan McCloud jumped to Sun
Belt Conference foe Texas State. All
things considered, the Dukes' 2024 regular season would have to be considered a
success, even though it did end with a disappointing two-game skid against
Appalachian State and Marshall.
It's a little-known fact that the
big red rock eater went extinct, because it shook up some of its rocks in a can
of Coke, and it sploded!
James Madison 37, Western Kentucky 24
LA Bowl -- Inglewood, CA -- 9:00 (ESPN)
California (6-6) vs. UNLV (10-3)
One of the many things wrong with
the college football calendar is that head coaches get hired away before the
season is over. Rebel coach Barry Odom
was pilfered by Purdue almost immediately after his team's 21-7 Mountain West
championship loss to Boise State.
There's no way he had them adequately prepared, at the same time that he
was negotiating his departure. That's
not a knock on Coach Odom. It's just the
way the game is, because The Powers That Be Stupid never do anything to fix it.
The Golden Bears' last game, a 38-6
stomping by SMU, was their only uncompetitive loss of the year. Although they finished the regular season at
.500, they outscored their opponents by a combined total of 47 points.
So why, you might ask, is this
called the LA Bowl, when SoFi Stadium is not really in Los Angeles? Just try putting yourself in its place. If somebody called you an Inglewood, you
would rather be Los Angeles, too.
California 29, UNLV 20
Dec. 19
New Orleans Bowl -- New Orleans
(obviously) -- 7:00 (ESPN2)
Georgia Southern (8-4) vs. Sam
Houston (9-3)
The Bearkats' unquestioned
eligibility to play in this game tells us that the NCAA has stopped enforcing
its stupid rule prohibiting "transitional" Division I-A teams from playing in
the postseason. The Conference USA
newcomers have played a twelve-game schedule comprised of only I-A
opponents. That's not a transitional
schedule, so there's no basis upon which to consider this team to be
unqualified.
Of the 14 teams in the Sun Belt
Conference, the Eagles rank #12 in both offense and defense, yet they were the
third-best team in the league with a conference record of 6-2. Although they are appearing in their third
consecutive bowl game, they lost their previous two to end each year at
6-7. This year's winning record will be
their first since 2020, when they picked up their last postseason victory over
Louisiana Tech, 38-3 on this same field.
Are you surprised that the NCAA so
recently discriminated against transitioners?
Well, this is different, because SHSU has genuinely changed from a
Division I-AA team to a Division I-A team.
It's only those who transition into what they're not and can never be
that have a right to do so.
Georgia Southern 19, Sam Houston 16
Dec. 20
Cure Bowl -- Orlando -- Noon (ESPN)
Ohio (10-3) vs. Jacksonville State
(9-4)
At long last, the Bobcats won their
first ever MAC championship game, and their first conference championship since
they finished first in the 1968 regular season.
The OU defense throttled Miami Ohio 38-3, allowing the defending champs
a mere 189 total yards.
In the only non-playoff bowl game to
pit two conference champions against each other, the Gamecocks are coming off a
52-12 torching of a Western Kentucky team that had upset them only six days
earlier. The nation's third-leading
rusher, Tre Stewart, served up three touchdowns as part of a 210-yard feeding
frenzy.
Conference USA is by far the weakest
league in Division I-A football, as is suggested by Jax State's 1-3 record in
nonconference play. In their only
previous game against a Mid-American Conference opponent, they were edged by
Eastern Michigan, 37-34 in double overtime.
This game is officially rated NC-17,
because it is now the StaffDNA Cure Bowl.
We remember from the Clinton years what "DNA" euphemistically means, and
identifying it as "Staff" DNA leaves little doubt as to its identity. Moreover, we know he was seeking a cure for
it, because we now see commercials for the stuff every day on cable news
channels.
If this gag has been too subtle for
you, that means you have come to the wrong website. Please instead go to Barstool Sports, where
the naughty references are as blunt as a mallet to the forehead. If you hurry, you might even be lucky enough
to catch a witty joke about flatulence.
Ohio 30, Jacksonville State 23
Gasparilla Bowl -- Tampa -- 3:30 (ESPN)
Tulane (9-4) vs. Florida (7-5)
It would be interesting if we could
go back in time and have Florida and Indiana play each other's schedule, and
see how close the Gators might have come to the playoff, and whether the
Hoosiers would be getting much notice at all.
This year's five losses for UF have been to Miami, Texas A&M,
Tennessee, Georgia and Texas.
The hardest thing about picking bowl
games anymore is trying to figure out who's still around. Green Wave QB Darian Mensah has decided to
transfer to Duke. This would appear to
leave the offense in the hands of former Oregon backup Ty Thompson, who has
thrown only eleven passes all season while being used primarily in the wildcat
formation. Thompson had waited patiently
at UO to no avail, as a parade of transfers kept marching along right in front
of him. It's about time the portal took
somebody out of his way and gave him a chance instead, but one must wonder why
he hadn't beaten the redshirt freshman out for the job in the first place.
Once again, Raymond James Stadium
hosts this bowl game, which is apparently sponsored by a beverage that causes
flatulence. Before being renamed in
2017, the magic.jack/Beef O'Brady's/Bitcoin/St. Petersburg Bowl was played
across the bay at Tropicana Field.
There's no danger of it returning there now, because the roof of that
building was blown off by Hurricane Milton, illustrating once and for all that
GOD HATES DOMES!
Florida 24, Tulane 13
CFP First Round -- South Bend, IN -- 8:00 (ABC)
Indiana (11-1) at Notre Dame (11-1)
The Hoosiers have handed out some
hellacious beatings this year, but the one time they stepped up in competition,
they were easily handled by Ohio State, 38-15.
Not only haven't the candelabra-heads had to play Oregon or Penn State,
but they didn't run into Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota or Rutgers, either. In fact, the College Football Czar really
doesn't understand why they were projected into the field of twelve with any
greater certainty than SMU.
Stopping the upstarts has been a
Fighting Irish specialty this season.
For the third time, they face an inflated underdog, having easily
brushed aside 6-0 Navy and 9-0 Army. Each
of those games was revealed to be a mismatch right at the opening kickoff, and
the Czar does not expect this one to be much different.
IU quarterback Kurtis Rourke threw
for 349 yards and six TDs against Purdue, but why was he left in the game long
enough to do that? The 66-0 slaughter
was already 45-0 at the end of the third quarter. Only a lardhead would risk his starting QB by
keeping him in the game to chalk up two more scores. Feeling the need to impress the CFP committee
doesn't explain that.
As long as Hoosier coach Curt
Cignetti is being just such a lardhead, let him explain why he didn't save some
of those 66 points for this week's game.
Notre Dame 44, Indiana 23
Dec. 21
CFP First Round -- State College, PA -- Noon (TNT)
SMU (11-2) at Penn State (11-2)
Do you ever wonder if you're a
lardhead? Here's a simple way to find
out. If you were disappointed in the Big
Ten championship game between Oregon and Penn State because there was a minimum
of selfish buffoonery, and you found it to be "no fun" because nobody pretended
to excrete the ball in the end zone, or pranced up and down the sideline
wearing the Tackle-For-Loss Tiara, then you are such an outstanding lardhead
that you might have a future as a college football announcer. You probably even use lardheaded phony verbs,
like "clocking" the ball, or "gifting" the opponents a touchdown. If, on the other hand, you found the absence
of buttmonkery refreshing, or you didn't even notice it was missing, then the
answer is no. Here endeth the lesson.
There's not much history between
these teams, with the Nittany Lions leading the series 1-0-1, but longtime
Mustang fans might look at it as something of a grudge match because their
program was famously given the "death penalty" in 1987, whereas PSU was spared
that same punishment for the Sandusky scandal 35 years later.
But wait a minute, SMU was penalized
over "pay for play," which is now the norm.
According to the Reggie Bush precedent, the school must be retroactively
innocent, even though it obviously broke what had been the rules at the
time. Illogical as it is, there will
eventually be a lawsuit demanding reparations, and the NCAA will settle. The College Football Czar is not kidding
about this.
Don't be deceived by those 45 points
PSU gave up against the Fighting Ducks.
Its defense got pressure on almost every snap, but was often foiled by
the quick release of QB Dillon Gabriel.
It's unlikely that Southern Methodist sophomore Kevin Jennings can get
the ball away as quickly and accurately with the same consistency.
There's really no such thing as a
red horse. The Mustang logo only came to
be that color through the use of an artificial dye known as Red #9, which the
Big Food profiteers have been using to poison us for decades, even though it
has been factually proven to dissolve the face of everybody with whom it comes
into contact. This ingredient is banned
in Canada, which is why the same horse, when it serves as the logo for the
Calgary Stampeders, is colorless.
RFK Jr. says that Canadian Froot
Loops are good for you, because they contain only three ingredients, one of
those being Froot, of course. The other
two are beer.
Penn State 28, SMU 17
CFP First Round -- Austin -- 4:00 (TNT)
Clemson (10-3) at Texas (11-2)
For the Longhorns, the SEC
championship game turned into Tales of the Unexpected, for Lardheads. With Georgia's punter injured, Steve
Sarkisian's team was caught flatfooted by a fake punt that kept a key drive
alive early in the fourth quarter. In
overtime, UGA quarterback Carson Beck, who had been knocked out of the game
with an ugly elbow injury, was forced back in by an injury to backup Gunner
Stockton. Entering the game on a
first-and-goal from the four, Beck, who could not have possibly thrown the
ball, handed off to Trevor Etienne. A
seemingly startled Texas defense offered little resistance as the running back
stomped up the middle for the winning score.
It's a good thing for the Son of
Clem that it got that last-second 56-yard field goal to stave off an SMU
comeback in the ACC championship game, because it could never have contended
for an at-large bid with such a week conference schedule. The Paw Boys only played one of the other six
teams that finished the season with a winning record in that league, and they
lost that game, to Louisville. Not only
had they not faced the Mustangs in the regular season, but they also never ran
into Miami, Syracuse, Georgia Tech or Duke.
To hear Tiger coach Dabo Swinney and
quarterback Cade Klubnik tell it, the Good Lord cleared the way for them to
play for the ACC championship. What a
ridiculous thing to say. That would mean
God punished Miami by making it blow a 21-0 lead and eliminate itself from the
CFP.
Upon further review, that sounds
entirely plausible.
Texas 23, Clemson 10
CFP First Round -- Columbus -- 8:00 (ABC)
Tennessee (10-2) at Ohio State (10-2)
In spite of a frustrating loss
against arch rival Michigan, the lumpy nuts are still capable of winning the
national championship. What the College
Football Czar wonders is whether Coach Brutus wants to prolong the season by
four games, before he almost inevitably moves on.
The Volunteers have the
second-leading offense in the SEC, but that's misleading, because they put up
most of the big numbers against wretched nonconference opposition. In their eight SEC games, they averaged an
even 25 points, as opposed to 61.8 outside of the league. Wonder why Alabama is openly talking about
weakening its future schedules? This
2024 UT team is all the explanation that is necessary. Because they're in the SEC, they are assumed
to have an excellent schedule strength, even though they don't. Had they played Bama's nonconference opponents,
they could easily have at least one more loss, and an invitation to the
ReliaQuest Bowl.
Former Ole Miss RB Quinshon Judkins
was expected to be a big hit in Columbus, but he hasn't had a 100-yard game
since conference play began in late September.
In nine Big Ten games, he put up a pedestrian average of 4.2 yards per
carry.
Q: Why does the College Football
Czar refer to the OSU head coach as Brutus instead of Bluto?
A: Because he would never last seven
years in college.
Tennessee 24, Ohio State 20
Dec. 23
Myrtle Beach Bowl -- Conway, SC -- 11AM
(ESPN)
UTSA (6-6) vs. Coastal Carolina (6-6)
The College Football Czar is trying
to enjoy the bowl games for as long as they last, but there is no defense
against the argument that there are too many when you consider that this CCU
team finished fifth, not in the entire Sun Belt Conference, but only in the
East division.
The Roadrunners have been running on
the road like Roy Riegels, as they have gone winless away from home, compared
to 6-0 in the confines of the Alamodome.
That makes it seem kind of cruel that they have to play their bowl opponent
on its own field. UTSA did play its best
road game last time out, however, in a 29-24 setback at Michie Stadium against
Army.
The intimidation factor favors the
birds that are known for running away over their opponents, the teal
chickens. Don't they know that according
to the code of collegiate sports, they need to rename themselves the Fighting
Teal Chickens?
UTSA 36, Coastal Carolina 33
Famous Idaho Potato Bowl -- Boise --
2:30 (ESPN)
Northern Illinois (7-5) vs. Fresno
State (6-6)
Since their historic Week 2 win at
Notre Dame, the Huskies have only gone 5-5, with a bad loss to Ball State in
Week 9, to finish in a tie for sixth place in the Mid-American Conference. Could it be that Thomas Hammock's team has
been resting on its laurels?
Bulldog quarterback Mikey Keene
would have needed only 118 passing yards in this game to finish the season with
3,000, a mark he missed a year ago by only 24 yards. Instead, the former Central Florida slinger
has decided to transfer for a second time.
At least he's not stat-conscious.
You can tell that the Idaho potato
is famous because all of its tater tots are now transgendered. And if you can't tell that, you just aren't
looking closely enough.
Northern Illinois 27, Fresno State 19
Dec. 24
Hawaii Bowl -- Honolulu -- 8:00 (ESPN)
South Florida (6-6) vs. San Jose
State (7-5)
A year ago, the Spartans lost this
same bowl game to Coastal Carolina, 24-14, so why are they being rewarded with
another trip to Hawaii? They have now
dropped three bowls in a row, and the last time they won one, they still
finished the season with a losing record.
Until they prove they deserve better, they ought to be the team that has
to play an indoor Monday afternoon game against Pitt in Detroit.
Neither of these teams has beaten a
single opponent that finished the season with a non-losing record. That trend would remain intact with an SJSU
victory, because the Bulls are only .500 going in. By far the best team USF has topped has been
5-7 Charlotte. In addition, they've
beaten the three worst teams in the AAC, Sun Belt doormat Southern Miss, and
Division I-AA Bethune-Cookman.
Former Spartan quarterback Nick Nash
is now the nation's leading receiver, in receptions (104), touchdowns (16) and
yardage (1,382). As of this writing, every
indication is that he is expected to play, which the College Football Czar
thinks is not only ethical, but smart.
If the eleventeenth-year senior is concerned about his draft position,
he stands a better chance of improving than hurting it by showcasing himself in
a bowl game that has the national TV audience all to itself.
Anybody who sings for figgy pudding
in Hawaii is likely instead to receive poi, which is even nastier, at least
according to the CFP ratings for semi-solid, debatably edible substances.
San Jose State 38, South Florida 26
Dec. 26
Game Above Sports Bowl -- Detroit --
2:00 (ESPN)
Pitt (7-5) vs. Toledo (7-5)
Pat Narduzzi's team started 7-0, and
now it finds itself in something called the Game Above Bowl. They're only two games above at the end of
the regular season. What is it that the
sponsor knows that the Panthers don't?
The Panthers have just barely won
two previous postseason games against MAC opponents at Ford Field: the 2013
Little Caesar's Bowl, 30-27 over Bowling Green, and the 2019 Quick Lane Bowl,
34-30 over Eastern Michigan.
In their season-ending 21-14
overtime defeat, the Rockets became the first bowl-bound team to lose to Akron
since Northwestern did it in 2018. The
highlight of their season has been an early win over a Mississippi State team
that is now 2-10.
After one especially bad home game,
Narduzzi referred to Pittsburgh as "Boo City."
After this, he will remember Detroit as "vvvvvvhhh City." That's the sound of the air conditioning in an
empty dome.
Pitt 21, Toledo 16
Rate Bowl -- Phoenix -- 5:30 (ESPN)
Rutgers (7-5) vs. Kansas State (8-4)
What happened to Guaranteed
Rate? Now it's just plain Rate? That's not very reassuring. You wouldn't want to drive on Year Tires,
would you?
The Wildcats almost always outperform
expectations, but this year they lost three of their last four, to tumble into
eighth place in the 16-team Big XII. They
had been 7-1, having lost only to Brigham Young, until they started their
tailspin with a damaging defeat at Houston.
In only their second game of the
season against a former divisional foe from the Big Ten East, the Scarlet
Knights dismantled Michigan State, 41-14 on the road. Senior running back Kyle Monangai carried the
ball 31 times for 129 yards and a touchdown, for what the fans in Piscataway
hope was not the final game of his college career. The league's second-leading rusher is
reportedly trying to decide whether to skip this game, so that he may "prepare
for the draft." Scoff if you will, but
the College Football Czar once heard of a player who decided not to abandon his
team before its biggest game of the season, and five months later, the draft
took him by surprise, resulting in a career-ending neck injury. Well, not really, but can Monangai afford to
take the chance?
Kansas State 17, Rutgers 10
68 Ventrues Bowl -- Mobile, AL -- 9:00
(ESPN)
Bowling Green (7-5) vs. Arkansas
State (7-5)
What the heck is the '68 Ventura
Bowl? You mean it's being sponsored by really
old cars?
A bowl game can never have any
continuity as long as it sells its naming rights to fly-by-night sponsors. This game, for example, was previously known
as the GoDaddy Bowl, the Dollar General Bowl and the LendingTree Bowl. Why can't it just go back to its traditional
name, the GMAC Bowl? Oh. Never mind.
The Red Wolves managed to contend
for most of the season in the Sun Belt Conference, with a league record of 5-3,
even though they ranked dead last among the 14 teams in total defense. Last game, they lost to Old Dominion 40-32,
by giving up 406 rushing yards.
Early this season, the Falcons fought
to within a touchdown of both Penn State and Texas A&M. The only question about their being a better
team than A-State is whether well-traveled senior QB Connor Bazelak sticks
around to play.
Coming soon: the rest of the College
Football Czar's postseason picks. Until
then, remember that wrapping up Part One with the 68 Ventures Bowl is not a
letdown; it's a cliffhanger!
Bowling Green 38, Arkansas State 20
a sports publication from The Shinbone