College Football Week 13 Recap

Penn State
Mike: I think I’d feel better if the Michigan State game would have been closer. Now I know that this is a great Penn State team. That makes the Iowa loss even harder. I have little excitement about the Rose Bowl at this point. I’d have a much different feeling if we were heading into the playoffs.
Evan: I had some Michigan State fans over to watch the game, they were wholly disappointed. I’m rooting for Oregon State to lose to the Ducks, I’d much rather watch a USC/Penn State Rose bowl then a rematch of Beavers-Nittany Lions. I also think that beating the Trojans would legitimize Penn State in a way that beating Oregon State would not. I would also like to point out that this was written before I read what Mike had to say about the Pac 10 champ. Great minds think alike.
Ahad: I agree that this game only made the Iowa loss hurt so much more. I’m glad to see the seniors go out on a high note (I’m talking regular season). I don’t want to see Oregon State in the Rose Bowl. I have a bad feeling that the players will take them lightly as they beat them soundly in the previous meeting. I would love to see a matchup with USC. It can only legitimize the Big 10. Why was MSU calling timeouts at the end of the game? I heard rumblings that the coach thought they were running up the score. I can’t believe anyone would accuse JoePa of running up the score.
Matt: I am not sure which loss hurts more, the Iowa loss, the Michigan loss in ’05, or the Minnesota loss in ’99. This was the best game the team played since the Wisconsin game on both sides of the ball. Where was this long ball aerial attack all season? I was also curious about the timeout situation at the end of the game. Mark D’Antonio had a smirk on his face after they took that second one. Were we really running up the score? Come on, what, did we have just that one TD in the 4th quarter? That was our backup QB in there. As I touched upon last week, I was and still am frowning upon a PSU-Oregon State rematch. I would much rather prefer a showdown with USC. We will have to root hard for Mike’s Ducks next week.
Mike: I had the same thought as Matt about which loss hurt more. For some reason I was the most devastated by that ’99 Minnesota loss. Matt and I were both at the ’05 Michigan game and that was really painful. I think this year I might have started to believe some of the talk that we couldn’t stack up with the top teams. After coming off a sloppy start against Michigan and barely getting out of Ohio State with a win I thought we were making too many mistakes and wasn’t all that surprised. I think it was just that in ’99 I didn’t know any better. I thought we were perfect. I didn’t analyze the team as much back then, I wasn’t a Penn Stater yet.

Pac 10 Champ
Mike: To me, this is a question of who I’d like to see Penn State play. We’ve already played Oregon State and beaten them badly. Playing them again would look to be an easy win but thinking that way would lead to a very close game. I also like Oregon State in general and would like to see USC out of any BCS bowl. Still, playing USC would give us the chance to prove to everyone that we are for real and that the Big Ten should not be judged on the fact that Ohio State fails to perform in big games.
Ahad: I spoke to this in my previous comments. I want to see USC in the Rose Bowl.
Matt: I am really hoping it will be USC.

Texas Tech/Oklahoma
Evan: In a way I’m not surprised. This will hurt TT in the next few years, as they will not get “benefit of the doubt” points as pollsters fill in their rankings.
Ahad: I had a very good feeling that Stoops would take care of business. He is very familiar with Leech’s offense, as he was the offensive coordinator back in 99. Stoops said that he often knew what play they were going to run before they ran it. OU dominate the line of scrimmage on both sides of the ball and made it look easy. Also, OU was accused of running up the score to impress the voters. If they really wanted to run up the score, I doubt all the starters would have been pulled.

Rankings
Evan: BCS hasn’t come out at the time of this report, but Bama-UF are 1-2 in AP, not that that matters. Bottom line looks like the national championship should be (I say should because I’m still wary of UF-FSU) the Bama/Florida winner vs. either Oklahoma or Texas. Oklahoma has the opportunity to add style points when they play Ok State next week, while Texas has to play lowly A&M. Here’s my question – let’s assume Oklahoma beats Ok State and is the highest rated Big 12 South team, then they go to the Big 12 championship and lose to Missouri. Who would the UF/Bama winner play? – A 1 loss Texas team that didn’t even play for its own conference title? A 1 loss USC team who didn’t win the PAC 10 outright, or a 1 loss Penn State team?
Ahad: What is going to happen if the Big 12 south winner loses in the Big 12 championship game? This would cause BSC chaos and give PSU a shot at the National Title Game. I would love to see BSC chaos.
Mike: There would have to be quite a bit of chaos for Penn State to play in the championship game. The only matchup that would make it possible would be against Utah.

More from Matt about Bobby Engram
Bobby Engram came and watched the Michigan State game with the alumni group on Saturday. I did not get a chance to ask him how he felt about Deon Butler breaking his pass receptions record. He did, however, throw in a pair of his personal game tickets for a Seahawks home game into our weekly raffle. Kathleen and I ended up winning them! I think we are going to go to the Patriots game on Sunday Night Football on Dec. 7th. I can’t wait to see where these seats will be.

Scores from Week 13