If you are a fan of a team that has won a national championship in its past, you have probably experienced a weekend during that championship season much like the fanbases of Alabama and Notre Dame had this weekend. Both the Crimson Tide and the Fighting Irish squeaked out wins. Alabama’s win, a 21-17 win over #5 homestanding LSU, would probably be considered more impressive then ND’s 29-26 three-overtime win over Pittsburgh, but the most important point is that the teams won. With rare exception, a national champion team has at least one stiff test during its run. The last champion that had no losses, ties, or wins by seven points or fewer was Nebraska in 1995. Before that? You have to go all the way back to 1976 and the Pitt Panthers, and even they had wins by eight over West Virginia and ten over Syracuse.
That being said, all of the six unbeaten teams held serve (as Kansas State, Oregon, Ohio State and Louisville all won), and so there is still no clear outcome in the BCS Championship race (other than the fact that Ohio State will not be participating). Each of the teams, with the exception of Oregon, has had at least one of those nail-biter kinds of weekends (the Ducks actually played their closest game this past weekend as well in a 62-51 win over USC).
In addition to death and taxes, one of the things that you can generally count on is a Boise State victory when they play on the blue turf. Dating back to 1999, BSU’s record at home in regular-season games was 89-2 going into its game against San Diego State. Apparently, someone forgot to tell the Aztecs about this: SDSU won the game 21-19.
As I have mentioned before, I have a soft spot for the service academies’ teams. Anyone who can go through military training, be receiving a world-class education, and win a few games in Division I-A is doing all right for themselves. You have to be a fan of the triple-option; each of the academy teams has run a variant on the offense for several years now – but it’s extremely disciplined, clean football. It’s also really cool to look in the stands at the “student section” all dressed in uniform grays, navies, or blues. Army has the chance to win the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy for the first time since 1996, as they beat Air Force 41-21 last week. They’ll have to beat Navy to do it, something that they haven’t done since 2001.
Congratulations go out to Big Blue Nation, who won week 10 with 176 points. In second place was bamaken with 171 points, and there was a tie between JustWinAWeek and jagrag for third place with 169 points.
Standings after ten weeks (dropping “two worst” weeks)…
| 1st | maestro | 1635 |
| 2nd | The Tradition | 1623 |
| 3rd | jagrag | 1613 |
| T-4th | Crimson Gator | 1610 |
| T-4th | AUBrian | 1610 |
| 6th | gatorbamalover | 1602 |
| 7th | CUtigers | 1598 |
| 8th | Allison | 1593 |
| 9th | Bamarock | 1588 |
| 10th | JustWinAWeek | 1578 |
This week’s games are of prime importance! It’s the third-to-last week of the regular season for most teams. What does that mean? Well, in recent years it’s become commonplace to schedule a game against supposedly-inferior competition in the slot before the big year-end rivalry game. So for many teams, this is the last big test before those rivalry games. There are 21 games this week, so a lot of points are at stake! The first game is Florida State at Virginia Tech, Thursday, November 8th @ 7:30 ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!
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Brandon German
e-Systems.net, Inc.