2013 College Football Pool – Week 10 Results

In the earliest days of college football, teams played games in bunches. It wasn’t uncommon for a team to take an extended train trip away from campus, playing games on different campuses and cities as they went. For example, 130 years ago, Michigan’s 1883 football “season” was a four-game stretch between November 19 and November 27 that started in Hartford, Connecticut, and ended in Hoboken, New Jersey. (The Wolverines went 0-4 on the trip.) Later, it became clear that having more games on days when classes were not held would make more sense for the student-athletes, and so college football was played almost exclusively on Saturdays. 100 years ago, Michigan’s 1913 season consisted of seven games, all on Saturday. (UM fared much better this time, finishing with a 6-1 record.) Fast-forward several more years, and with the advent of better, faster methods of travel, playing games on other days of the week became viable again. And not only viable, but profitable! Now, we have college football games almost every day of the week once the season gets rolling, but the Thursday night games have especially become something of an institution.

I write all of this to lead up to this bold statement: this might be the biggest non-Thanksgiving Thursday night in the history of college football.

This Thursday, at 7:30 PM (Eastern): #10 Oklahoma at #6 Baylor. Oklahoma has only one loss, is fresh off a win over a top-10 opponent at the time, and is trying to fight its way back into contention for a conference title and a BCS bowl bid. They face Baylor, 7-0, who at 6^th has their highest BCS ranking ever. Don’t forget about their supercharged offense, which is averaging 718 yards and 64 points per game. However, the Bears are only now beginning to face what most pundits would consider the meat of their schedule. They have the inside track to the Big XII championship, but they’re still hoping for more. A top-10 matchup on Thursday night is a treat. Under most circumstances, that would be enough to get millions of eyes glued to the TV. But only an hour and a half later:

Oregon. Stanford. The Pac-12 matchup everyone’s been waiting for. Oregon is third in the country and hasn’t had an opponent finish within 21 points of them all year. They’re averaging 55 ½ points per game. They face the only team that many people give even a slight chance of beating them in the regular season. One major reason why is because they did it last year, and in Eugene to boot. This time, Stanford already has a loss on their record, but has come back to beat back-to-back top-25 opponents. They are fifth in the BCS, and would love nothing better than to spoil the Ducks’ championship hopes for a second-straight season while keeping their own dreams of Pasadena alive. The differences in styles are night and day as well, and I’m not just talking uniforms – it’s the speed and tempo of Oregon versus the power of Stanford. If it’s anything like last year’s overtime thriller, it’ll be one for the ages.

Two top-10 games, one of them a top-5 matchup, on a Saturday is a big deal. To have them both on Thursday night is unheard of. And given how these games have the potential to completely change the national picture this late in the year, I don’t feel out of place standing by my above statement.

Oh, by the way, this little game called LSU-Alabama happens on Saturday. You know, when college football games are normally played?

Congratulations to bamaken, who won a four-way tie of perfect pickers this week to take the week 10 title! Also finishing with perfect scores of 136 points this week: AUBrian, aggiemom, and The Tradition. Just one point back this week with 135 points were DirtyDiaperSlinger, Crimson Gator, and Allison.

Standings after ten weeks (dropping “two worst” weeks):

We’re getting down to the crucial last few weeks, so every point’s going to be critical! If you’ve read this far, I probably don’t need to tell you when the first game is this week, but otherwise I’ll feel strange ending one of these emails in a different way, so here goes. The first game this week is Oklahoma at Baylor, Thursday, November 7 @ 7:30 ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!