The marquee game of the day turned out to be another TCU beatdown of a Mountain West opponent.
The Horned Frogs put a 47-7 drubbing on Utah, breaking the Utes 21-game home winning streak and asserting themselves as a more than legitimate contender for the national title. TCU is for real, but we kind of knew that already. Now those of us that knew it can point at those who continue to deny it and laugh.
The Horned Frogs came into the game touting a powerful defense, and that held true as Utah’s high-powered offense didn’t cross midfield until late in the second half. But TCU’s offense was equally impressive, having its way with a Utah defense that was statistically stout.
A home date with San Diego State is next for the Horned Frogs, which could be a little tricky, although I expect them to win fairly easily. Then they get New Mexico, which might as well forfeit.
There will be arguments at the end of this season, I have little doubt. But if there is only one major conference team with an unbeaten record at the end of the regular season, there’s no way you can keep TCU out of the title game, not after something like this. Sorry, Boise, but I’ve switched bandwagons, and I don’t think I’m alone.
Thanks to Ty Duffy over at The Big Lead for the heads up on this. CBS College Sports, realizing it has the marquee game of the weekend, is offering a free preview today so people can watch the TCU/Utah game.
If you take a trip over to the network’s website and enter some information, it will tell you what channel you can view the game on.
This makes me extremely happy, as I really didn’t want to watch a pirated feed on my laptop, mainly because I planned on using the laptop to watch the Boise State/Hawaii game on ESPN3.
Today is a big day for TCU and Utah, as they get to prove themselves to a national audience in a huge game between top five teams.
Oh. Wait. This game is somehow not on any kind of normal television. I keep hearing CBS College Sports Network, which does nothing for me because I have a digital basic package. I figured Versus was going to bail me out, but nope. Versus is showing us the very important and very sought after Princeton vs. Penn game. I’d rather watch those two schools square off in quiz bowl. OK, that’s a lie. I don’t want to see that either.
Luckily for TCU and Utah, there’s a lot of hype around the game, meaning the winner will get some preferential treatment in the polls just by the final score. Not to mention the fact that TCU is being listed at No. 3 (its BCS ranking) and Boise at No. 4, while the Broncos are actually No. 3 in the coaches poll and TCU is No. 4. A win by the Horned Frogs just may push them past Boise, if for no other reason than the coaches might have just figured they already were. Don’t you love the BCS? Read the rest of this entry »
Just to have football on my television again was enough for me to sit through South Carolina’s 41-13 dismantling of Southern Miss and not have the goofy grin leave my face the entire game, but opening night in college football was largely a dud.
I guess that’s what you get when No. 2 Ohio State opens up with feeble Marshall, or No. 13 Miami hosts the Florida Institute for Dishwashers or whomever the hell they played last night.
But one game did live up to the hype, despite it being one top 25 team against an unranked.
Pundits knew how good Utah has been at home over the years. The Utes hadn’t lost a game at Rice-Eccles Stadium in close to three seasons, winning 18 in a row while also racking up a 7-0 lifetime record against current Big East teams.
That included PITT.
The Panthers got on the board early with a Dion Lewis 3-yard touchdown run, but Utah fired back with 17 unanswered points in what looked like a potential rout. Then PITT added a Dan Hutchins 37-yard field goal with just under four minutes remaining in the third quarter to make it, 17-10.
In the fourth, PITT added another field goal and Utah responded with a DeVonte Christopher 61-yard touchdown pass from Jordan Wynn. Just when you thought the Panthers would mail it in, they scored 10 unanswered points in the final 7:59 to tie the game.
Of course, that doesn’t even begin to tell what happened. PITT missed a field goal as time expired, but because Utah called a time out in effort to try and ice the kicker (which is turning out to be one of the dumbest strategies in football), Hutchins got another attempt and of course, nailed a 30-yarder to force OT.
In the extra session, Utah intercepted PITT QB Tino Sunseri (which was a great play along the sidelines), setting up Joe Phillips’ 21-yard game-winning field goal. (The final was, 24-21.)
Perfect.
On a night where the blowout was king, PITT and Utah’s thriller stood above the rest. Thank God football is back…
When the Mountain West Conference added Boise State to its ranks last week, it was one step closer to finally earning an automatic BCS bid for its champion.
But then Utah had to go and ruin the party.
ESPN.com reports that the Utes are likely headed to the Pac-10, as an announcement about their decision should be forthcoming. Along with recently added Colorado, the Pac-10 (which would have 12 teams if Utah officially joins) can now implement a conference championship if it so desires.
It’s hard to criticize Utah for the move. They’ve wanted the opportunity to play for a national championship for the last couple of years and never had a realistic shot at that goal playing in the MWC. But a move to the Pac-10 would at least give them the opportunity to play for a national title as long as they were crowned conference champions.
But while the move makes total sense for the Utes, it leaves the MWC in a bind. One of the reasons why the Mountain West doesn’t receive an automatic bowl bid for its champion is because the average computer rank at the end of the regular season for all the teams in their conference is so low. Adding a consistent winner like Boise was going to help in that area, but losing Utah (a team that hasn’t had a losing record in the last seven seasons) hurts the MWC from getting closer to its goal.
It’s going to be interesting to see how Utah fares against the likes of USC, UCLA, Stanford, Cal, Oregon and the rest of the Pac-10. But it arguably would have been more interesting to see how quickly the Utes and their MWC partners could gain an automatic BCS bid.
In one of the more impressive beat downs of the college season, No. 4 TCU beat Utah like a rented mule on Saturday night. The Horned Frogs jumped out to a 38-14 halftime lead, in route to a 55-28 victory.
TCU dominated every phase of this game, while racking up 342 rushing yards and holding Utah to just 284 yards.
Let me repeat that: TCU GAINED 342 RUSHING YARDS. Three hundred and forty two. Three…forty…two. That’s an ass-kicking of epic proportions.
TCU proved tonight that Utah didn’t belong on the same field as them. I don’t know how the Utes scored 28 points, because the Horned Frogs flustered freshman Jonathan Wynn (16-of-32 219 yards, 1 TD, 1 INT) the entire night, even if his final stats would suggest otherwise. Utah had no clue how to stop TCU and the Utes didn’t help themselves by allowing TCU to block a punt and return an interception for a touchdown.
I would love to see what TCU could do against Florida, Alabama or Texas. Some might suggest that they would get blown out, but don’t forget that Utah handled Alabama last year in the Sugar Bowl when nobody thought a Mountain West team could beat a SEC squad. So don’t jump to conclusions and assume the Horned Frogs couldn’t go toe to toe with one of the top three teams in the nation.
If you haven’t seen this TCU team play yet, you’re missing out. The Horned Frogs have one of the fastest, most aggressive defenses in the nation and an explosive offense to match it. Most would disagree, but I think they could match what Florida, Alabama and Texas bring to the table.
8. The BCS is an “unfair” system. Want to talk “unfair”? How about the Patriots — who finished with 11 wins — sitting home in January while the 8-8 Chargers, 9-6-1 Eagles, and 9-7 Arizona Cardinals all play in the postseason. My guy Kevin Hench can talk (er, whine, kick, and scream) about this far more passionately, but in the same year everyone cried about the BCS, the NFL’s postseason system left an 11-5 team out in the cold. The Texas Longhorns weren’t the only ones who got a raw deal this year.
The Texas Longhorns weren’t the only ones who got a raw deal this year.
No sh*t – so were the Utah Utes.
Yeah, the Patriots were jobbed big-time this year and the Browns were screwed last year. But those are just two teams – one team per season – over the past two seasons. The BCS continuously bends multiple teams over on a yearly basis and people still defend it.
Schrager’s comparison is freaking laughable and when you consider the Chargers made it to the divisional round, the Eagles made it to the NFC Championship and the Cardinals made it to the Super Bowl, it weakens his point even more.
Depending on the poll, 85%-90% of football fans would like to see some sort of a playoff. For now, we’re stuck with the BCS, which gave us Florida and Oklahoma in the title game. The problem is, now that the bowls are finished, there are three other teams (not including Florida) that have a legitimate argument that they are the #1 team in the country. Utah finished the season undefeated and beat two teams that are ranked (or will be ranked) in the top 10. USC beat up Penn State and looked great doing it. And Texas put away a feisty Ohio State team in the Fiesta Bowl…oh, and they beat Oklahoma as well. Or is the #1 team Florida, who only looked so-so in their win over the Sooners?
The Gators received 48 first-place votes and 1,606 points in the poll released early Friday, after they beat Oklahoma 24-14 in the BCS national title game.
Utah, the only team in major college football to go undefeated this season, got 16 first-place votes and 1,519 points.
“I thought we had an outside chance,” Utah coach Kyle Whittingham said in a telephone interview with the AP. “There was enough national sentiment, I thought we might get the No. 1 slot. It wasn’t to be.”
Florida won its third AP national championship and second in the last three seasons. Steve Spurrier and Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel led the Gators to the 1996 title.
No. 3 USC received one first-place vote. Texas was No. 4, and will have to settle with finishing ahead of fifth-ranked Oklahoma.
The Utes from the Mountain West Conference swept through their regular season, while Florida and Alabama from the SEC, Texas and Oklahoma from the Big 12 and Southern California from the Pac-10, jockeyed for position in the national title chase.
The Mountain West does not have an automatic bid to the BCS — it’s not considered a strong enough league to deserve one — but the Utes earned their way in.
Utah was seventh in the final regular-season poll, but that perfect record looked much more impressive after the Utes beat Alabama 31-17 in the Sugar Bowl last week.
The Pac-10 should do the right thing and bring Utah and BYU (or TCU?) into its conference. Then they could have a conference championship game and Utah and BYU (or TCU?) could show how good they really are.
Imagine if the NFL had the same system college football has. We wouldn’t have had the opportunity to witness one of the greatest Super Bowls of all time when the Giants beat the Patriots last year, because the Giants would have been ranked No. 6 in the polls.
Let there be no doubt, or sour-grapes discussion today, about a national championship left unresolved.
Let there be no rote resumption of complaints against the Bowl Championship Series or a renewed cry for a playoff.
The BCS got it right this time, and the right team won. The better one. The best one.
Anybody who doubts that today must be from Texas or Southern Cal or Utah. Or perhaps an idiot on general principle.
The Gators flat-out won this game and this title, and all the more impressively because it was less by Tebow’s magic (though he was voted game MVP) than by his defense defusing the other team’s epic offense.
Bradford had thrown 48 touchdown passes this season. His offense ran on jet power.
Florida made that offense look more like Oklahoma’s symbol: the Sooner Schooner, a covered wagon pulled by two small ponies of the type rented out for kids’ backyard birthday parties.
Let me pause for a second to laugh…
Anybody who doubts that today must be from Texas or Southern Cal or Utah. Or perhaps an idiot on general principle.
Then punch me in the face and call me an idiot, Greg, because I certainly doubt that the BCS has ever got it right. And that’s not a knock against Florida because they were amazing after losing to Ole’ Miss earlier in the year, but how could anyone in their right mind say that the BCS got this right? Utah didn’t get a chance to play Florida and neither did Texas. And saying that the “Gators flat-out won this game and title” is a bit of a stretch considering that if Oklahoma converts in the red zone, I don’t know if Florida comes back with the way their offense played for most of the night. (Again, not to take anything away from the Gators’ defensive play.)
No, no, no, no – NO! This isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. There should be a clear cut winner and no debate that follows. Their should be a playoff, where all the deserving teams get a shot and then (and only then) can we say that a team “flat-out won this game and this title.”
