USC is overrated and a look at the standings

There are a lot of competitors for the title of worst college football announcing team, but after last night, Mike Patrick and Craig James are running away with it. Patrick’s biggest fault is not challenging James when he throws out points that make no sense. Although, last night Patrick said that he thinks Kelsey Grammar is the best comedic actor in the world. That puts his judgment into serious question.

I only watched the Oregon St/USC game for the 4th quarter, when ABC switched to it. All they seemed to want to talk about was how crazy it was that the computers had USC ranked 11th. I’m on the side that it’s crazy that the polls have USC ranked 4th. This shouldn’t be a surprise. On Gameday a few weeks ago they had on a pollster who tried to apply logic to how he voted. For some reason they had on Craig James who didn’t have much of an argument.

Something equally ridiculous happened last year during the USC/Oregon St game, I even posted about it. Chris Fowler made the case for PSU being #1 since they had won big over Oregon State. All Craig James wanted to talk about was Wisconsin.

I’m not going to go through making up my own rankings, but he’s a quick look. Remember, the BCS is supposed to be about wins and losses, that’s it.
0-losses (7): Alabama, Florida, Texas, Cincinnati, Iowa, Boise St, TCU.
1-loss (8): GT (Miami), OkSt (Houston), Pitt (NC State), WVU (Auburn), PSU (Iowa), Oregon (Boise St), USC (Washington), LSU (Florida)
I stuck to the BCS conferences for the 1-loss teams. The team the 1-loss team lost to is in parenthesis.

Wow, PSU, Oregon, and LSU have a Top 10 case. They all lost to undefeated teams. USC? If you are being generous, you could put them ahead of Pitt, in 14th. From this rough look, it’s hard to see how USC would deserve to be in the Top 10 right now, even if you are being very very generous. Not saying they can’t get there, but the rankings are not about predicting the future.

Average Games
Connecticut @ West Virginia – No one seemed to want this one. All I saw were missed FGs and interceptions. That’s exactly what I hope for in an average game. WVU won
Maryland @ Duke – Duke wins 17-13. I’m sure it was just that exciting.
Boston College @ Notre Dame – This one came down to the end. BC had 5 turnovers, ND had none. BC had no business being in this game.
Arizona State @ Stanford – Stanford won 33-14. Well, 3 out of 4 good games is pretty good.

Standings
The standings are starting to sort themselves out. I wanted to take a quick look at which teams might win their conference/division.

ACC Atlantic
Nobody really want this one. Everyone has 2 or 3 losses. Clemson might be the favorite, having beaten BC already. However BC only has Virginia, UNC, and Maryland left. I’m guessing no one wants to be the one to get beat in the ACC Championship.

ACC Coastal
GT at 5-1 is assumed to be in control. How many teams in the division have 1 loss? 4: GT, VT, Duke, and Virginia. VT’s and UVA’s loss are to GT. GT plays Duke 11/14.

Big 12 North
Not a pretty division this year. KSU leads at 3-1. I would have leaned toward Nebraska before the Iowa State loss.

Big 12 South
Texas or Oklahoma State. Which will be in Stillwater, Saturday in primetime. Oklahoma still lurks with only 1 conference loss.

Big East
Still 3 undefeated teams: Pitt, Cincy, and WVU. They will all play each other, but that’s a few weeks away. WVU heads to USF Friday night, which could start to sort things out.

Big 10
Since I’ve paid more attention to this it comes down to Iowa or Ohio State, who play each other 11/14. Iowa should win their other games, but if they keep playing tight games they could be knocked off. Ohio State just needs to win out. Penn State needs to win out (including beating Ohio State) and for Iowa to lose twice.

Pac 10
Oregon heads to USC this week, also in primetime. ABC/ESPN better not screw this up and show this game and UT/OkSt nationwide. Arizona also has 1 loss but still has Cal, Oregon, and USC on the schedule.

SEC East
UF has a 2 game lead. They have both the teams they lead (Georgia and South Carolina) left on their schedule. Florida/Georgia is this week.

SEC West
Bama/LSU in 2 weeks looks to be the decider. That game got a whole lot more interesting after Bama barely held on.

Conference USA East
Marshall, Southern Miss, and East Carolina all with 1 loss. Southern Miss has Houston this week. This division needs about 2 more weeks to get a better picture.

Conference USA West
4 1-loss teams: Houston, Tulsa, SMU, and UTEP. Houston is the obvious favorite. Except for UTEP. UTEP could win out and holds the tiebreaker since they beat Houston.

MAC East
Temple is 4-0! Ohio took their 1st loss this week to Kent St, who also has 1 loss. Temple finishes the season against those two.

MAC West
Central Michigan is undefeated. Their win over 1-loss Northern Illinois puts them in a comfortable position.

Mountain West
TCU and Utah are unbeaten after TCU’s win over BYU. Utah has yet to play TCU or BYU. That sounds like trouble for them.

Sun Belt
I don’t know if I like the Sun Belt or WAC more. They just put up points all over the place. Troy and UL-Monroe lead the way and they play each other on Saturday. I’m sure that will have wide television coverage.

WAC
Nevada and Boise St are the unbeatens. Nevada beat Idaho this week 70-45! The Nevada/Boise State game is 11/27.