2016 e-Systems College Football Pool – Week 13 Results

Conference championship games are still a fairly recent addition to the college football landscape. For a sport with almost 150 years of history, they’ve only been a part of about one-sixth of it.  Nevertheless, they’ve become hugely popular and almost ubiquitous among the FBS conferences. Starting in 2017, the Big Twelve will bring back a conference championship (the last was played in 2010), and in 2018 the Sun Belt will institute one of their own. With that, every FBS conference will have a championship game. And to think: the first one almost ruined the opportunity for a school to win a national title.

In 1992, Alabama had reached the mountaintop.  With an 11-0 record after the regular season, and as the only undefeated team in the SEC, they would have been crowned SEC champion and been an obvious Sugar Bowl selection in previous years.  However, due to the new divisional format, they had to play a team from the SEC East for the title, and it happened to be Steve Spurrier’s Florida Gators.  The Gators were 8-3, but all three losses had been by 17 points or more, so on paper it looked like an Alabama victory. Florida had other plans, however, and it took a late pick-six by Antonio Langham to secure a 28-21 Alabama win, the SEC championship, and its berth in the Sugar Bowl.  Alabama (and Miami) fans know what happened after that.  Alabama and Florida meet in the SEC Championship this week for the ninth time, by far the most common pairing in the game (Georgia-LSU is second with three).  The teams have split the previous eight games (In addition to 1992, Alabama won in 1999, 2009, and 2015; Florida won in 1993, 1994, 1996, and 2008).

As mentioned above, the Big Twelve doesn’t yet have a championship game, but they have the next best thing this weekend. Saturday’s “Bedlam” game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State will determine the Big Twelve champion.  The Sooners can become the first team to complete a perfect 9-0 run through the conference since it became a ten-team league with a win; Oklahoma State wins the league via tie-breaker over the Sooners with a win.  Oklahoma dominates the overall series record 85-18-7, but interestingly the visiting team has won the last three games in the series.  Both teams still hold out hope for a playoff berth as well, but it would take some really strange circumstances for it to happen.

Donnell Pumphrey has a chance to set some incredible marks in the Mountain West Championship game against Wyoming.  The San Diego State running back already holds the school and Mountain West Conference season records with his current total of 1,908 yards. He needs 92 yards to become the 28^th player in NCAA history to reach 2,000 rushing yards in a single season. 121 yards will give him the national lead in rushing yards, currently held by Texas’ D’Onta Foreman (who has 2,028 with no games remaining). And 218 yards will make Pumphrey the new career rushing yards leader, surpassing Ron Dayne of Wisconsin (6,397 yards from 1996-1999) – well, sort of.  The NCAA didn’t include bowl game statistics in career totals until 2002, and didn’t retroactively add them to existing records.  If you did so, Dayne would have 7,125 yards and be safely out of reach.  Nevertheless, this would be a tremendous accomplishment, and even if he does not do it this week, the Aztecs have a bowl game left to play as well, so he’ll have one more shot at the brass ring.

Navy is unique in that they always play in the final regular season game of the year against Army, but they will have a chance to do so this year as conference champions.  The Middies play Temple this Saturday in the American Athletic Conference championship game, which will be held at their home field in Annapolis, Maryland, one week before taking on the Black Knights in Baltimore.  They are scheduled to be in the Armed Forces Bowl in Fort Worth, Texas on December 23, but there’s an outside chance they might set their sights just a little east of that – Arlington, home of the Cotton Bowl.  If Navy beats Temple and Army, they’ll be 11-2 and could possibly leapfrog Western Michigan for the highest-ranked team in the College Football Playoff poll – taking the Cotton Bowl spot that goes along with that distinction.  The Midshipmen have their triple option attack going full speed ahead, having scored 141 points in their last two games, but they’ll be playing an Owls team that has only given up 10 points total in their last three games.

In small-school news, the Division II playoffs have reached the quarterfinal round, and North Alabama is still alive.  The #1 seed in their bracket, the Lions play North Greenville this weekend for an opportunity to make it to the semifinals.  North Alabama’s only loss this year was in their season opener, to FCS #3 national seed Jacksonville State; since then, the Gulf South Conference champions have beaten nine teams by an average of 44-13, including the same North Greenville team they’re playing this weekend 52-21.  Interestingly, once the final four are determined, the Division II football committee re-seeds them to determine who plays whom and who has home-field advantage in the semifinal round; the finals will be played on December 17^th in Kansas City.

Congratulations to AUBrian, who wins week 13 (their third weekly win!) in a tie-breaker over AllySun and CrimsonWhite.  Each finished with 125 points.

Standings after thirteen weeks:

The final week of the picks are upon us, and while there are only eight games, seven of them decide conference champions, so nothing comes easy this week.  It’s now or never! The first game this week is the MAC Championship game between Ohio and Western Michigan, Friday, December 2 @ 7 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!