It’s that time of year where the wailing and gnashing of teeth begins – the first release of the BCS standings. The BCS is around for this year and one more, and then we shall finally have a playoff. But this is the system that we have now, so let’s take a closer look at the standings to see what we can see.

This is the first time that #1 Alabama occupies the top spot in the first week of the BCS standings. After quite a few players moved on from a defense last year that finished first in practically every major statistical category, a lot of people thought the defense would regress this year. Alabama’s defense is currently first in practically every major statistical category. To finish first in every team defensive statistic for two straight years may very well be unprecedented.

The very first surprise comes with #2 Florida. It has been a meteoric rise for Florida from the beginning of the year, when they were ranked #23.  For what it’s worth, when Auburn won the national championship in 2010, they started #23, but it took them until week 10 – the third week of the BCS standings – to reach #2.  The computers love the Gators; they have the best computer ranking of all the teams. They also are the only BCS top-10 team to give two other teams their only loss (LSU and Texas A&M).

#3 Oregon doesn’t have to worry too much about missing out on a title chance due to the two schools above them; if they win out, they will go to the BCS Championship game for the second time in three years.  The computers don’t like the Ducks at all – their highest ranking in a computer poll is 3rd, and their second-highest is 6th – but they should get a good boost by playing Arizona State, USC, Oregon State, and the South winner in the Pac-12 Championship provided they win out. Oregon hasn’t scored less than 42 points in a game all year so far.

Other things of note:

• 12 teams remain unbeaten in Division I-A.  Two of them are not ranked, and strangely enough they’re both located in the same state.  Ohio State isn’t eligible due to NCAA violations, so the Buckeyes aren’t in the BCS standings despite being 7-0. The other team is the Ohio Bobcats, who toil away anonymously in the MAC.  Also 7-0, they’re best-known this year for beating Penn State in the first game of the post-Paterno era.
• Three teams in the Big East remain unbeaten (Cincinnati, Louisville, and Rutgers), the most of any conference.  None of them are getting a lot of love from the BCS, though; the highest-ranked of the three, Rutgers, is only 15th.
• The SEC has six of the top twelve teams (Alabama, Florida, LSU at 6, South Carolina at 7, Georgia at 11, Mississippi State at 12).  Due partially to Ohio State’s being ineligible, no Big Ten teams are in the BCS top 25. In fact, the conference is only ranked sixth in the current conference standings.
• Kansas State, currently ranked fourth, has its highest BCS ranking since 1998, when the Wildcats made it all the way to #3.  Notre Dame, ranked fifth, has its highest BCS ranking since 2002, when the Fighting Irish were #3 at one point.
• Thirteen of the teams ranked in the last BCS standings for 2011 are present in the first standings of 2012.

Congratulations to Mark, who won week 7 with 166 points. Bamarock and maestro tied for second place with 162 points.

Standings after seven weeks (dropping “two worst” weeks)…

1st	gatorbamalover	1093
T-2nd	Allison	1090
T-2nd	AUBrian	1090
4th	MarylandTwerp	1089
5th	maestro	1086
T-6th	Crimson Gator	1084
T-6th	jagrag	1084
8th	Rocky Tide	1083
9th	CUTigers	1080
T-10th	BEVO	1077
T-10th	The Tradition	1077

There’s a giant slate of 21 games this week! A lot of points will be at stake, so this week is extremely important! The first game this week is Oregon at Arizona State, Thursday, October 18 @ 9 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

As much as I’d love to talk about this past weekend in college football, given the absolute chaos that reigned, I just don’t have the time to put together a full recap.  Hopefully, next week there will be more time to do so.  In the meantime, here’s a mini-version to tide you over.

Nine top-25 teams lost last week.  The last time that many top-25 teams lost in one week, it was almost four years ago (October 18, 2008).  This week’s poll features some familiar faces (Alabama at #1, Oregon at #2) and some new blood (Cincinnati at #21 and Texas A&M at #22, ranked for the first time this year, and Louisiana Tech at #23, ranked for the first time since 1999).

This week’s featured team: the South Carolina Gamecocks. The Ol’ Ball Coach has been drawing a few plays in the dirt, and Carolina has never looked finer.  Their 35-7 victory over Georgia was the biggest in series history for the Gamecocks, and their current ranking of #3 is their highest in 28 years.  South Carolina is currently riding the program’s longest ever winning streak – 10 games.  This isn’t your older brother’s Steve Spurrier team – this team wins with defense.  They’re currently 11th in the nation in total defense and 4th in the nation in scoring defense (10.5 ppg).  Carolina has not won a conference championship since they won the ACC in 1969 – the only conference championship in the history of the program.  The next Chinese Year of the Rooster isn’t until 2017, but who’s to say that 2012 couldn’t be the year of the Gamecock in the SEC?

Congratulations to bamaken, who won week 6 with 150 points. AUBrian was second with 141, and Allison was third with 137.

Standings after six weeks (dropping “two worst” weeks)…

1st	MarylandTwerp	943
2nd	The Tradition	935
3rd	AUBrian	933
4th	gatorbamalover	932
T-5th	Allison	930
T-5th	Crimson Gator	930
7th	jagrag	928
8th	Rocky Tide	925
9th	maestro	924
10th	CUtigers	923

A big slate of 18 games this week, and with this week starts the mid-season rivalry games. One of the biggest, of course, is Oklahoma-Texas, held every year at the Cotton Bowl during the Texas State Fair (unofficial motto: “we deep-fry anything”).  But there are several top-25 teams facing each other, so your picks and points will be paramount! The first game is Louisville at Pittsburgh, Saturday, October 13 @ 11 AM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

—

Brandon German
e-Systems.net, Inc.

To borrow a song from the 60’s, where has all the defense gone? ESPN researchers noted the past football weekend as the second-highest scoring weekend in college football history. I don’t know exactly what benchmark they’re using, but their research budget (time and money) is much higher than mine, so let’s just leave it at that.  Continuing an all-offense trend, this weekend:

• Every BCS conference had at least one game with over 75 points combined between the opponents.
• Baylor scored 63 points in regulation and lost, only the third time that’s ever happened. There were 1,507 yards of offense between Baylor and its opponent, West Virginia.
• There were more games featuring ACC teams that had more than 80 points (2; Miami 44-37 over NC State, and Louisiana Tech 44-38 over Virginia) than under 50 (1; Florida State’s 30-17 win over South Florida).
• Once considered the last bastion of defense, the SEC was not immune: in the Georgia-Tennessee game, the teams combined for 1,038 yards and 95 points, both high-water marks in a series that has 42 games.

So is scoring a lot of points a cure-all? Well, not necessarily. The top two teams in scoring offense (Oklahoma State and Baylor) have three losses between them.  It’s still useful to keep the other guys out of your end zone every now and then.

LSU had an interesting scheduling quirk this year. LSU, of course, are the Tigers. Last week they played Towson (also the Tigers) a week after playing Auburn (ditto). Part of me really wishes LSU was playing Missouri this weekend. I’m pretty sure that would be one of those once-in-a-lifetime sort of things.

This week’s featured team: a team that hasn’t won a share of its conference title since 2000, and hasn’t won it outright since 1995. But currently, it finds itself as the only bowl-eligible undefeated team in its conference.  Ladies and gentlemen, your Northwestern Wildcats! The Big Ten is down this year, and the only currently-ranked team left on their schedule is Nebraska; could Pat Fitzgerald do as a coach what he managed as a player in 1995 – take “the Purple to Pasadena”? Given that the teams they have played so far this year have a combined record of 6-14 with one I-A win between them, perhaps we’ll reserve judgment until a later date. The Wildcats go to Penn State this weekend.

Congratulations to badgerTime, who won this week in a tie-breaker over Allison with 147 points. Mark finished third with 145 points.

Leaders after week 5 (Dropping “worst two” weeks):

1st	MarylandTwerp	767
T-2nd	Allison	752
T-2nd	gatorbamalover	752
T-2nd	Rocky Tide	752
5th	AUBrian	750
T-6th	Crimson Gator	749
T-6th	The Tradition	749
T-8th	CUtigers	747
T-8th	jagrag	747
T-10th	AggieMom	745
T-10th	BEVO	745
T-10th	maestro	745

Hoo boy. This weekend features some toughies. Three games feature top-11 teams facing each other. Every pick’s going to be important! The first game is Southern California at Utah, Thursday, October 4 @ 9 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

—

Brandon German
e-Systems.net, Inc.

Welcome to the meat of the schedule, kids. For the most part, the games versus rent-a-win teams are done (LSU – Towson notwithstanding). Conference games are starting up, and with it comes the first Big XII game for West Virginia. It is a home game against Baylor, which means the Bears get to travel around 1,300 miles to Morgantown. One of the big issues with conference realignment has been the extra distance between locations. It’s worth noting that Baylor already had to travel 1,015 miles to reach Ames, Iowa to play Iowa State…what’s a couple hundred more going to hurt, right?

Are there two rival teams that look any different from each other than Oregon and Oregon State? Oh, I don’t mean the uniforms (although Nike does its best, or worst, depending on your opinion)…I mean their style of play. Oregon is glitz and glamour: hurry-up offense, lots of points, national publicity. Oregon State? No one talks about them. Their offense is pretty good at moving the ball (currently 14th in passing yards), but not in scoring (18.5 points per game, 113th in the country). All they do is beat you. They’re currently 2-0, with both wins over teams that were top-25 at the time (Wisconsin, UCLA). This makes them one of only two schools currently ranked in the top 25 with two such wins. The other? Notre Dame (Michigan State, Michigan).

Other quick tidbits:

• How unusual was Boise State’s 7-6 win over BYU? Consider this: in the 39 home games since Chris Petersen became head coach, Boise State had averaged almost 44 points per game and had been held under 20 once (a 19-8 win over Oregon in 2009). The last time the Broncos had been held under 10 points in a game was all the way back in 2005 (a 27-7 loss to Fresno State).
• Cobi Hamilton had 303 receiving yards for Arkansas against Rutgers in a 35-26 loss, setting school and SEC records. Not counting Hamilton, only 40 players in the country have 303 receiving yards so far this season.
• Tavon Austin of West Virginia is listed as a running back. He has 84 rushing yards this season – and 345 receiving yards. Maybe the R in “RB” really stands for “receiving”…
• In 1-AA news, Taylor Heinicke of Old Dominion threw for 730 yards in his last game against New Hampshire. He needed them all – ODU won 64-61. For what it’s worth, Army is on pace to throw for 540 yards this entire season.

Congratulations to The Tradition, who won the week with 186 points. BritanniaTex was second with 184 points, and AUBrian third with 183.

Leaders after week 4 (Dropping “worst two” weeks):

1st	MarylandTwerp	550
2nd	Rocky Tide	544
3rd	gatorbamalover	543
T-4th	Allison	542
T-4th	Ralphie	542
5th	maestro	540
6th	AUBrian	539
7th	Crimson Gator	538
T-8th	CUtigers	537
T-8th	jagrag	537
10th	The Tradition	536

This week’s games begin with Stanford at Washington, Thursday, September 27 @ 9 PM ET, so be sure to get your picks in by then!

—

Brandon German
e-Systems.net, Inc.

“Football games aren’t played on paper…they’re played inside television sets.” — Kenny Mayne

Okay, let’s play a game called “Be Honest With Yourself”. How many people out there actually believed that Pittsburgh – two-touchdown loser to 1-AA Youngstown State and 24-point loser to Cincinnati – would go out and not only beat Virginia Tech, but win by 18? How many people saw Stanford handing USC a fourth straight loss against them? Who foresaw Notre Dame, who’d just squeaked by Purdue at home last week, going up to East Lansing and handling Michigan State with relative ease? (Some of you, according to your picks, can raise your hands on one or more of these – good job!) Most people didn’t, and that’s why they play the games.

Any other SEC teams want to play Sun Belt teams this year? (Alabama against Florida Atlantic this week aside.) Louisiana-Monroe came this close to pulling off their second straight SEC overtime shocker against Auburn, Troy took Mississippi State down to the wire before succumbing 30-24, and Western Kentucky pulled off a Boise State-esque OT win against their in-state rivals in Kentucky. That leaves the Sun Belt with a 2-5 record against SEC schools this year, but given the nature of the above games the record doesn’t tell the whole story at all. Does this mean a down year for the SEC as a whole, or is parity in college football increasing?

With the season one-quarter of the way done for most teams, there are now enough games to yield some interesting statistics. For instance:

• Florida State currently has the stingiest defense in the country (at 103.33 yards per game, although that perhaps should be expected given the overall level of competition they have played). But guess who’s second? Would you believe Texas Tech? The Red Raiders, long considered an offense-oriented team, have given up 160.33 yards per game in their first three contests. Incidentally, Texas Tech hasn’t exactly slacked off on the offensive side of the ball either; they’re averaging 597.67 yards per game on offense, good for 6th nationally.
• Oklahoma State has the highest-scoring offense in the country (62.33 points per game), but is only 2-1 due to a loss to Arizona.
• Oregon State has the second-lowest scoring offense in the country (10 points per game), but thanks to a quirky schedule and a 10-7 win over Wisconsin, they’re currently undefeated at 1-0.
• Alabama and Mississippi State lead the nation in turnover margin, at +3.67 per game. They’ve each caused 12 turnovers and given up only one.
• Sixteen teams still have red zone efficiency ratings of 100% (defined as scoring points when a drive reaches the red zone). Oklahoma State has reached the red zone on drives 20 times this year. Oregon State, once.
• Texas hasn’t had to punt very much this year (5 times), but when they do, it’s generally successful – their net yards per punt is 49.4, almost half the field!
• The new kickoff rules were supposed to discourage returning so many kicks, right? Thirteen different teams have kick returns for touchdowns. New Mexico has two!
• Louisiana-Monroe has gone for it on fourth down eleven times this year in two games – and has converted nine of them. The only team to try more often on fourth down? Southern California, with 14 attempts – and they’ve made eight of them.

For the second week in a row, MarylandTwerp takes the week! This time, it was in a tie-breaker over JustWinAWeek (sorry…so close), both finishing with 217 points. BEVO finished third with 216 points.

The overall standings after three weeks (keep in mind, this is “drop two lowest weeks”)…

T-1st	Allison	276
T-1st	bamaken	276
T-1st	Bamarock	276
T-1st	Crimson Gator	276
T-1st	CUtigers	276
T-1st	gatorbamalover	276
T-1st	maestro	276
T-1st	Rocky Tide	276
T-1st	The Tradition	276
T-10th	AggieMom	275
T-10th	AUBrian	275
T-10th	BamaHou	275
T-10th	jagrag	275
T-10th	MarylandTwerp	275
T-10th	Ralphie	275

Four top-25 matchups are part of this week’s games, so accurate picking will be important! The first game this week is BYU at Boise State, Thursday, September 20 @ 9:00 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

—

Brandon German
e-Systems.net, Inc.

Well, that was different, now wasn’t it?

This past week involved one of the biggest upsets in college football history, in terms of point spread. Louisiana-Monroe walked into Little Rock a 30 ½ point underdog, and walked out a winner. It wasn’t technically the biggest upset this year by point spread (that honor goes to Texas State’s upset of Houston as a 36 ½ point underdog), but it was certainly the biggest in terms of national magnitude. Louisiana-Monroe had never beaten a ranked team and probably counted a 2007 win over a then 6-4 Alabama team as its biggest win of all time to that point. Adding insult to injury, the Warhawks also took home a $500,000 guarantee check from Arkansas to play the game. Not a bad night’s work.

And then there’s Savannah State. The school, which has a 4-72 record against 1-AA schools since it became one, has found itself as the poster boy for the trend of “cupcake” games. It had its game against Florida State mercifully called in the third quarter due to inclement weather. The Tigers were trailing 55-0 at the time. This means that for approximately $860,000 worth of guarantee money, Savannah State has played a little over six quarters of football (against Oklahoma State and FSU), has been outgained 1,069 yards to 167, and has been outscored 139-0. College athletics, among other things, is supposed to be about educating the athletes on the teams and preparing them for life. I’m not sure what the life lesson is here, but I don’t think it’s a positive one. In case you’re wondering, Savannah State has a bye this week.

This is not to say that all matchups between 1-A and 1-AA schools went the same way. The entire state of Colorado must be wondering what happened after Saturday, when both Colorado and Colorado State were beaten by 1-AA schools (Sacramento State 30, Colorado 28; North Dakota State 22, Colorado State 7). 1-AA Eastern Washington almost pulled off a second win over a 1-A opponent in as many weeks after beating Idaho in week 1 and losing 24-20 to Washington State on Saturday. They don’t get nearly the attention that the major programs do, but there’s some good football that’s played every Saturday at smaller venues all across the country – sometimes even good enough to beat one of the big boys.

The rash of upsets this week led to a little more spread in the standings. Congratulations to MarylandTwerp, who pulled off their second straight 275-point performance to take this week outright. GO Ponies was second this week, with Rocky Tide finishing third.

The overall standings after two weeks:

1st	MarylandTwerp	550
2nd	Rocky Tide	544
3rd	gatorbamalover	543
T-4th	Allison	542
T-4th	Ralphie	542
6th	maestro	540
7th	AUBrian	539
8th	Crimson Gator	538
T-9th	CUtigers	537
T-9th	jagrag	537

Remember that this year, the worst two weeks of each player will be dropped to determine the champion. Starting next week, I will be listing overall standings by that measure. The first games this week are Saturday, September 15 @ Noon ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

—

Brandon German
e-Systems.net, Inc.

From Dictionary.com: Unprecedented: adjective. Without previous instance; never before known or experienced; unexampled or unparalleled.

Perfect weeks are not completely uncommon in the history of the pool. There have been quite a few since I’ve started keeping records in the 2009 season. There have even been weeks where two people have had a perfect week, and even once before where three did. But nine? There has never even been an entire season since 2009 where we’ve had nine perfect weeks. For this to happen in a week, you generally need every favorite to win (which doesn’t happen nearly as often as you might think, but actually did happen this week). But some games can be extremely close to choose – it’s worth noting that had Auburn won its game against Clemson, three different pickers would have had perfect weeks.

All this meant that the tiebreaker would have incredible significance, and it literally came down to the type of score that Virginia Tech made in OT to win against Georgia Tech that gave CUtigers the tiebreaker win for the week. Congratulations! The other perfect pickers this week (it seems right to list them all) were Crimson Gator, Rocky Tide, gatorbamalover, Allison, The Tradition, bamaken, maestro, and Bamarock.

In addition to this plethora of perfection, everyone as a whole did quite well. With 29 people participating in the first week’s picks, 92.05% of the games were picked correctly – the second-best week that I have in my records since 2009 (week 1 in 2010 was 92.6%). The percentage of possible points scored was 96.002%, only the fourth time since 2009 that the 96% mark was reached. Well done, everyone!

Now, if you didn’t pick perfectly this week, or even forgot to pick, don’t fret! This year, we’re bringing back the “drop two worst weeks” method of determining the overall winner, so anyone can still win!

In the world of college football itself, what have we learned after week 1? Well, probably not a whole lot overall. There were not too many games between ranked (or even reasonably-matched) teams, and it’s hard to get a read on teams after one game anyway. So I’ll hold off on football-related analysis until next week.

There is another huge slate of games this upcoming week – 24 in all! The first games start Saturday, September 8 @ Noon ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

—

Brandon German
e-Systems.net, Inc.