Predictions

South Carolina hasn't given up more than 24 in a game so far this year, but neither had Vanderbilt or Kentucky. And South Carolina averages 24 points a game. I think the Gators will eclipse that 24-point barrier both coming and going. I know its the ol ball coach and South Carolina has good players, but I see another convincing win.
Prediction: 44-10, Gators.

Forde Compares Big 12 and SEC

Of Course the BCS Committee Doesn't Like It!!!

How great and fulfilling is the regular season (the faux-tournament) when Ball St, Utah, and Boise St, 3 Division I teams (formally equal to all other Division I teams), may all go undefeated and win all their games by double-digits and still not get a shot at a National Title?

Tebow For Repeat Heisman

Schlabach and Feldman Go With Tech vs. Fla

Mayne Street

Florida-Oklahoma: Book It

Oklahoma seems to be the forgotten team right now. They are two spots below Texas in the BCS, but I think they will jump them with consecutive wins over Texas Tech and Oklahoma St. This would give them the nod in a Big 12 south 3-way tie; and a win in the Big 12 championship would secure their spot in the BCS title game as far as humans and computers are concerned.

The Oklahoma-Texas Tech game should be a major shootout. These are the 2nd and 3rd ranked scoring offenses in the nation. Combined they average just under 100 pts/game. Also, they allow a combined 56 pts/gm (and they are the 2nd and 3rd best defenses in the big 12!). Neither team has scored under 35 points all season, and I don't see any reason that should change next Saturday. I think Oklahoma will win, because it is at night in Norman... and Stoops is 60-2 at home. And I can't help but point out (seriously, I can't help it) that Oklahoma has superior athletes.

49-35 Oklahoma

Edit: Last night during the South Carolina-FL game, Danielson and Lundquist were saying that if Oklahoma does beat Tech then Texas should still be voted ahead of OK, since they beat them.... as in, this is one case where we don't need a vote, its already been decided. The thing they forgot is that its not just between OK and TX.. its between OK, TX, and Tech. In this scenario, all three would have 1 loss. If we put TX over OK because they beat them, then why not put Tech over TX since they beat them? My point is, the whole idea behind a 3-way tie is that head to head no longer matters. Voters will have to look at the 3 teams independently and decide who has the most impressive resume. Since that's impossible to do, voters will resort to the usual "what have you done for me lately" technique. In a scenario where OK beats Tech and OK State, they will have not lost since mid October, while TX and Tech will have both lost in November. Also, let's not forget how much a big win in a prime time game can sway voters (and Texas has the week off).
Of course, like Sean said, we could get into a situation where the better team in the polls isn't the better team in the BCS. You wouldn't think that would happen though, since these 3 teams basically have the same schedule.

Meahwhile, While We Sit In Judgment of Violence In The Middle East And At European Futbol Matches...

Gameday In Tallahassee...But Not For 'Noles

BCS Speculation

In spite of moving ahead of Texas in human polls, the BCS still has Texas ahead of us at #3- me not worried though. The top 5 is 2 SECs and 3 Big 12s--we will get to play Alabama, and, borrowing an idea Dave had, I don't think 2 Big 12 teams will go. Now, in 2006 and 2007, Michigan and Georgia were kept out, partly because people didn't believe a non-coference-champ team should not be in the title game-- however, this won't necessarily repeat itself because the voters (coaches and Harris voters) right now ARE voting Texas below us but the computers are nudging them ahead of us--so we can't simply depend on human consensus like in those other years... But, I think winning the SEC championship game would be enough for the computers to push us up into the top 2, possibly #1, jumping any 2nd best Big 12 team, since that 2nd place Big 12 teams will not have a championship game win (and our win would be against a #1 team). So, in 2006 we depended on humans to bump us up after beating Arkansas, and this year we will depend on computers to bump us up after beating a potentially #1 Alabama. (Notice the principled stand we maintain here at "Ode," we realize Florida can almost always make it into a title game with 1 loss, and another SEC won it all last year with 2 losses, but we still support equal [at least formally] opportunity playoffs.)

Destiny Is In Our Hands

We are #3 in Coaches and AP.

Better Than What We Have

Here is a defense of an 8-Team Playoff, and an example of what it may look like this year. I prefer a 16-Team version, with automatic bids for all conference winners (partly for reasons I defended in my post below), and with 5 at-large teams (the 5 highest ranked teams that are not conference champs). However, this 8-teams scenario is way better than what we have, and I think it would be pretty good overall. He argues for keeping a 2 teams per conference limit, which I disagree with. Realistically, a conference would only occasionally have a third team in the playoffs under the 11/5 system, and when there is a third team, we are talking about a top 12 type team, most likely...and we are talking about a conference with some very dominant teams at the top. We should remember when thinking about this part of the design that there are sometimes great teams in conferences that do not play each other in the regular season, nor in the championship game--LSU and Georgia did not play each last year, for example. Kansas didn't play hardly any good Big 12 South teams last year (and Missouri hardly plays any this year--just Texas). Since anomalies like this occur within the conferences, I think it's important not to put conference limits on what teams get included in the playoffs. And even if 3 teams from a conference are invited, there are still 3 more available at-large spots for second or even third- place teams from other conferences.

Lastly, I think not putting limits on the number of teams invited from 1 conference can be a sort of concession to good conferences, a sort of compromise, since we would be inviting all conference champs, it would be a good way to set it up so that having a less-than-stellar conference champ would not push out a stellar non-champ from a currently more competitive conference (Remember Gator fans, Florida would have made the playoffs last year in this 11/5 system I defend! A Gator team with obvious flaws would have been in... as well as ALL conference champs.)