Sorry, work has required my attention to be away from the college football world this week.  Which is too bad, because what a week it was!  Here’s an abbreviated update:

Congratulations to The Tradition, who won a wild week 6 with 116 points.  Second place went to bevo with 113 points, and JagRag and JHutto finished tied for third with 112 points each.

Overall standings after six weeks:

T-1st	maestro	1048
T-1st	AUBrian	1048
3rd	Allison	1047
4th	JagRag	1046
5th	pachyderm	1042
6th	The Tradition	1039
7th	bevo	1037
8th	Crimson Gator	1036
9th	SicEmFrogs	1034
T-10th	GODAWGS	1033
T-10th	Bamagirl25	1033
T-10th	JHutto	1033

Another difficult week awaits us, as five ranked-versus-ranked matchups highlight the schedule!  The first game this week is Washington State at Stanford, Friday, October 10 @ 9 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

Pity poor Arkansas. As of this writing, the SEC West’s seven teams have a combined record of 28-3, and the three losses are to other SEC West teams.  Arkansas has two of the losses, to Auburn and Texas A&M.  Every team not named Arkansas in the SEC West is currently ranked in the top 15 of the AP poll.  I have never heard of one division in a single league representing so much of the top-ranked teams in college football.  However, there are guaranteed to be three more SEC West losses after this Saturday – the six ranked SEC West teams all play each other.

Now that we’re mostly through the “cupcake” portion of most team’s schedules, it’s worth taking a look at just what kind of crazy numbers have been put up by teams so far.  A sampling:

• Most points in a game: 77 by North Texas against Nicholls St. Seven teams scored 70+ in a game.
• Most rushing yards in a game: 644 by Wisconsin against Bowling Green.  Eight teams have rushed for 450+ yards in a game, including 452 by Boston College against Southern California!
• Most passing yards in a game: 630 by Washington State against Portland State. Eight teams have passed for 500+ yards in a game.
• Most yards in a game: 789 by East Carolina against North Carolina. Thirteen teams have amassed 700+ yards in at least one game!
• Fewest yards allowed in a game: 44 by Clemson against South Carolina State. Eight teams have allowed 100 yards or fewer in a game.
• Most rushing touchdowns in a game: 8, again by Wisconsin against Bowling Green. Six other teams have 7 in a game.
• Most passing touchdowns in a game: 7, done three times, including by California and Colorado in last week’s game against each other!

Craig Bohl is the new coach at Wyoming this year.  You might remember him as the previous head coach at North Dakota State, the three-time-defending FCS champion.  He’s already got the Cowboys on the right track; if you believe in the transitive property of college football, they’re a better team than USC!  Wyoming beat Air Force (17-13), who beat Boise State (28-14), who beat Colorado State (37-24), who beat Boston College (24-21), who beat USC (37-31)!  On the other hand, Wyoming has also lost to Michigan State and Oregon by large margins, so maybe the transitive property isn’t as useful as you’d like to think…

In small-school news, Yale beat Army 49-43 in overtime.  The Bulldogs, who are the winningest FCS team of all time with 879 victories, beat an FBS team for the first time since 1982.  It was the first time an Ivy League team beat an FBS team since 1986. By the way, Yale, like all Ivy League schools, does not offer athletic scholarships. To beat an 85-scholarship team under those circumstances is a pretty impressive feat.

Congratulations to gatorbamalover, who wins week 5 with 169 points!  They won a tiebreaker over Allison and maestro.  SicEmFrogs finished one point behind with 168, and GODAWGS, Rocky Tide, JagRag, Bamagirl25, and Mayhalls picks were each one point further back with 167.

Overall standings after five weeks:

1st	Allison	944
2nd	gatorbamalover	942
T-3rd	GODAWGS	941
T-3rd	maestro	941
T-3rd	SicEmFrogs	941
T-6th	pachyderm	938
T-6th	AUBrian	938
T-6th	Crimson Gator	938
9th	JagRag	934
T-10th	bamaken	931
T-10th	Rocky Tide	931

All right, playtime’s over! The first weekend of October brings six huge top-25 matchups as the conference schedules commence in earnest.  It’s going to be a really important week to pick wisely and well!  The first game is Arizona at Oregon, Thursday, October 2 @ 10:30 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

Congratulations to LPosey who wins week 4 with 111 points!  Allison, Maestro, and Rudy Ruettiger tied for Second with 109 points and JagAL finished one point behind with 108 points for Third place.  The most damage was done by the LSU and Missouri upsets this week.

There are two games this Thursday night so be sure to get your picks in by THURSDAY, 6:30 for Texas Tech @ Oklahoma State kickoff!!  Good luck to everyone!

Overall standings after week 4:

1st	pachyderm	777
2nd	Allison	775
3rd	GODAWGS	774
T-4th	gatorbamalover	773
T-4th	AUBrian	773
T-4th	SicEmFrogs	773
T-4th	Crimson Gator	773
8th	maestro	772
9th	bamaken	769
10th	JagRag	767

We hope you continue to enjoy playing and pulling for your teams!!

Congratulations to GODAWGS who wins week 3! Pachyderm finished Second and Crimson Gator finished one point behind for Third Place. Last week had 4 upsets that took points away from everyone. We shall see what surprises are in store for Week 4.

Be sure to get your picks in by THURSDAY, 6:30 for the Auburn Tigers @ Kansas State Wildcats kickoff!!

Overall standings after week 3:

1st	gatorbamalover	672
T-2nd	pachyderm	671
T-2nd	Crimson Gator	671
4th	GODAWGS	669
T-5th	War Ralphie	667
T-5th	AUBrian	667
T-7th	Allison	666
T-7th	SicEmFrogs	666
9th	bamaken	664
T-10th	maestro	663
T-10th	JagRag	663

Good luck to everyone and enjoy playing!!

“The Power 5 conference members have no business playing anyone but each other.” You might have heard a variant of this argument at some point during the college football off-season, and one could easily make this observation based on some of the results of this weekend’s games.  For example, just considering ranked teams (rankings were as of last week’s games):

• #2 Alabama rolled up 620 yards and gave up 145 against Florida Atlantic in a game stopped halfway through the fourth quarter due to lightning. Alabama won 41-0.
• #4 Oklahoma at least went to Tulsa to put up their outlandish numbers, as opposed to taking on the Golden Hurricane at home. They rolled up 580 yards and won 52-7.
• #5 Auburn had over 250 yards twenty minutes into their game against San Jose State. They could have had more, but they lost the chance to start a drive because they returned a Spartan punt for a touchdown.  They ended up with 493, and won 59-13.
• #9 Texas A&M ran 78 plays against Lamar. 30 of them went for first downs as the Aggies rolled up 630 total yards in a 73-3 win.
• #10 Baylor had 438 yards passing, 538 yards total, and 49 points against Northwestern State at halftime. They slowed down to end up with 720 yards in a 70-6 win.
• #12 LSU obliterated Sam Houston State 56-0 as the Tigers amassed 590 yards, and because Les Miles is Les Miles, also faked a punt.
• #23 Clemson outgained South Carolina State by almost 700 yards. They had 735, the third-largest total in school history, and only gave up 44. They won 73-7.
• #25 Louisville led their game against Murray State 45-7 at halftime. They won 66-21 and rolled up 603 total yards.

But it doesn’t have to end up that way. Ask Nevada, which beat Washington State 24-13. Or Central Michigan, who beat Purdue 38-17. Or Northern Illinois, who knocked off Northwestern 23-15. And there were several close calls: McNeese State, San Diego State, Eastern Washington, and Ball State almost pulled off big upsets over #19 Nebraska, #21 North Carolina, Washington, and Iowa respectively.  Or ask North Dakota State.  The three-time defending champion of FCS currently hold a five-game winning streak against the big boys, with wins over Kansas State, Minnesota, and most recently Iowa State in week 1 of this year.  Sometimes the little guy takes home more than a paycheck.

Two amazing streaks were snapped Saturday night in the Big Ten.  With a 31-0 loss to Notre Dame, Michigan’s streak of scoring in games was snapped at 365, an NCAA record. The Wolverines had not been shut out since 1984, a 26-0 loss to Iowa. The longest active streak now belongs to Florida, at 323 games.  Ohio State lost to Virginia Tech 35-21, which broke a string of 35 straight seasons in which the Buckeyes won their opening home game. The last Ohio State opening home loss was in 1978, 19-0 against Penn State.

Congratulations to Rudy Ruettiger, who wins week 2 with 251 points, missing just one game!  Second place for the week was a tie between gatorbamalover, Bronson, and Bamagirl25, who scored 249 points.

Overall standings after 2 weeks:

1st	gatorbamalover	501
2nd	Bamagirl25	499
3rd	JHutto	498
T-4th	JagRag	497
T-4th	Ross	497
T-4th	War Ralphie	497
T-4th	Crimson Gator	497
T-8th	AUBrian	496
T-8th	pachyderm	496
T-8th	AUTiger	496

Once again, this week’s games do not feature many matchups between top-25 teams.  However, it is a pretty good week as far as intersectional “Power 5” games are concerned.  Three good examples: Purdue plays Notre Dame, Tennessee travels to Oklahoma, and UCLA heads to Austin to take on Texas.  The first game this week is Houston at BYU, Thursday, September 11 @ 9 ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

To begin, I want to warmly welcome all of our new players this year. Welcome aboard! We hope you have fun and that this adds interest to your college football season. I want to clarify a few of the rules this year so that we’re all on even ground.

First, I want to ensure that everyone understands the way that the confidence points system works. Place more points on games in which you feel more confident in the outcome. Your score will be based on the points assigned to your correct picks.

In previous years, we have often used a “drop two worst weeks” format, where each player’s lowest two weekly point totals are removed to determine their total. This year, however, every week and every game counts towards the grand prize! Now, if you end up accidentally missing a week, it might be tough to catch up for that prize, but don’t stop playing! We’re coming up with new categories to compete in this year, and the only way to give yourself the best chance of winning one of these categories is to keep picking each week!

Now, for a bit of trivia: Florida State’s 37-31 win over Oklahoma State was interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it was the 500th win in school history, which is pretty impressive given that FSU has only been playing football since 1947. (For comparative purposes, Michigan, the all-time winningest program with 911 wins, has won 526 in that span). The second is a little more disconcerting for Seminole fans: it was the closest margin of victory by the #1 program in their first game since 1991. But perhaps Florida State fans shouldn’t be too concerned. Several teams that have ended up winning the national title have had close calls in their first game: the 2009 Alabama team won 34-24 over Virginia Tech. USC beat the Hokies 24-13 in 2004. In 1998, Tennessee needed a last-second field goal to beat Syracuse 34-33.

Congratulations to Mayhalls picks, who wins week 1 with a tie-breaker over gatorbamalover! Both finished with 252 points, having only missed their 1-point game. War Ralphie, Allison, bamaken, JHutto, and AUTiger were all a single point behind with 251 points. Starting next week, I will also list a top ten standing.

There are 22 games on the docket for next week, so there will again be a large number of points on the line! The first games are Saturday, September 6 @ 12 PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

Our biggest congratulations go to the winner of the 2013 e-Systems College Football Pool:

AUBrian

AUBrian finished the season with 2,286 points in the “drop two worst weeks” format. Pachyderm finished in second place with 2,258 points, and maestro was third with 2,240 points. Congratulations to all three for their great performances! All three will receive special prizes for their accomplishment.

AUBrian used big weeks to cruise to the win. He finished first in three weeks (3, 7, and 12), and tied for the lead in week 10. In addition, he finished 2nd in a week three times and in the top five two more times beyond that. During the stretch from week 6 through 12, he never finished lower than seventh. He also finished first in the total points category, with 2,425 points. Pachyderm (2,411) and maestro (2,382) were again #2 and #3 respectively in this category as well. Well done to these three players!

One more note on AUBrian before we move on. This is the fifth year I’ve been compiling statistics on our pool. In those five years, AUBrian has never placed lower than fifth overall in a year, including winning the 2010 title. That’s some impressive year-over-year picking consistency!

In the “number of games picked correctly” category, BEVO finished first, with 232 games correct. Pachyderm was second, with 229, and AUBrian, Crimson Gator, Liquid Heat, and The Tradition all had 227 games picked correctly. Great work!

The first half of the game (weeks 1-8) was won by AUBrian, and the second half (9-15) by Pachyderm. Good job!

There were several multiple-week winners this year. In addition to AUBrian’s three weekly wins, other multiple-week winners were JagRag (weeks 1, 4, and 14), BEVO (weeks 2 and 15), and War Ralphie (weeks 5 and 8). Other weekly winners were badgerTime (week 6), maestro (week 9), bamaken (week 10), BritanniaTex (week 11), and BamaHouGirl (week 13). Congratulations to all of the weekly winners!

Everyone will receive a prize for participating this year! If you aren’t sure that we have your current mailing address for shipping, please respond to my e-mail that was sent today and we will update our records.

How Did We All Do?

Picks: 4,601 / 5,611 (82.000%)
Points: 48,682 / 55,170 (88.240%)
Best Week as a Group: week 4 (442 / 456 picks – 96.930%; 4,505 / 4,560 points – 98.794%. Both are records since I’ve been keeping statistics in 2009)
Ten weeks with over 80% of picks correct
Seven weeks with over 90% of possible points gained
“Perfect” weeks: 18 (14 in week 4, 4 in week 10)
“All but 1 game right” weeks: 29

On behalf of all of us at e-Systems, thank you again for participating in our 10th annual College Football Pool. We always look forward to college football season every year, and this pool always makes watching the games a little more entertaining, as I root for my upsets and hope my big-point picks squeak out wins! I hope that all of you will join us again in 2014, when we’ll do it all again! In the meantime, we hope you will think of e-Systems for all your custom application and system needs. We’re just as much fun to work with!

And so we have reached the end of the road, both for the season, and for the BCS. It goes without saying that the Bowl Championship Series has had its ups and downs. Many times it wasn’t necessarily clear to people who the top two teams were. But this much can be said: however they were determined, the BCS always had #1 play #2 in a bowl game. It didn’t always used to be that way, of course. The first season in which the AP voted on the national champion after the bowl games was 1965 (the UPI, the forerunner of the coaches’ poll, started doing this in 1974). The first season of the BCS was in 1998. In the 33 years from 1965-1997, only 10 seasons featured a bowl in which the AP #1 team played the #2 team:

1968: 1969 Rose Bowl – #1 Ohio State 27, #2 USC 16
1971: 1972 Orange Bowl – #1 Nebraska 38, #2 Alabama 6
1973: 1973 Sugar Bowl – #2 Notre Dame 24, #1 Alabama 23
1978: 1979 Sugar Bowl – #2 Alabama 14, #2 Penn State 7
1982: 1983 Sugar Bowl – #2 Penn State 27, #1 Georgia 23
1986: 1987 Fiesta Bowl – #2 Penn State 14, #1 Miami (FL) 10
1987: 1988 Orange Bowl – #2 Miami (FL) 20, #1 Oklahoma 14
1992: 1993 Sugar Bowl – #2 Alabama 34, #1 Miami (FL) 13
1993: 1994 Orange Bowl – #1 Florida State 18, #2 Nebraska 16
1995: 1996 Fiesta Bowl – #1 Nebraska 62, #2 Florida 24

The BCS will go out much as it started. The first BCS championship game, the 1999 Fiesta Bowl, featured Florida State against an SEC team (Tennessee, who won the game 23-16). The last BCS National Championship game will pit Florida State against an SEC team, Auburn. This is the fourth de facto BCS championship appearance for FSU, which is the most of any team, but their first since 2000. The Seminoles appeared in the first three championship games. Auburn’s appearance is their second in the championship game; the Tigers won 22-19 over Oregon in 2010.

More BCS facts: Alabama has the most BCS championships with three, and the SEC has the most championships with nine (and a possible tenth this year). The Big Ten has the most appearances in BCS bowl games, with 26, but the SEC has the most wins (17). In the sixteen years of the BCS, counting this year’s appearances, the school with the most appearances in the BCS bowls (Fiesta, Orange, Rose, Sugar, and the Championship Game) is Ohio State, with 10 (although one appearance was later vacated, which would tie the Buckeyes with Oklahoma at nine for the most official appearances). As both Ohio State and USC have vacated one of their six “on the field” wins in these games, these schools and Florida have the most BCS Bowl wins, with five apiece. West Virginia went to three BCS bowls and never lost (a mark Auburn can match with a win this season), the most BCS games any school went to with an undefeated mark in those games. Notre Dame went to four BCS bowls and never won. At the end of this bowl season, 51 schools will have played in at least one BCS bowl game during this time, with Baylor, Central Florida, and Michigan State serving as the final three newcomers to the party.

The BCS was also where the “little guy” could show their stuff. It began with Utah, whose 35-7 win in the 2005 Fiesta Bowl over Pittsburgh capped a 12-0 season for the Mountain West champions. But perhaps the most famous of these games was the 2007 Fiesta Bowl, where Boise State jumped onto the national scene with a 43-42 overtime win over Oklahoma that featured:

• 25 straight points by the Sooners, including an interception return with a minute to go, to erase an 18-point Boise lead (it was the second Oklahoma touchdown in 24 seconds):
• The famous “hook and lateral” play that Boise pulled off to go 50 yards for the tying touchdown with seven seconds to go:
• A 25-yard run on the first Oklahoma play in overtime by Adrian Peterson (who has since enjoyed a moderately good NFL career), for the Sooners to quickly take the lead in OT:
• A responding touchdown by Boise, the choice to go for two and the win, and a successful “Statue of Liberty” play to convert and win the game for the Broncos:
• And finally, a marriage proposal by the star Boise running back to his cheerleader girlfriend immediately after the end of the game.

It’s widely considered one of the greatest college football games of all time, and it opened the way for several other small-conference teams to step up and take a swing at the big boys. Several connected. A couple even parlayed their success into membership in a major conference (Utah is now in the Pac-12, and TCU is now in the Big XII).

The BCS has had its time, but it’s time for it to say adieu and make way for the College Football Playoff. Now the controversy will be over “who’s #4”, not “who’s #2”, so there will still be arguments, but I think most will believe that it will be a fairer judgment of the national champion. And, hey, there will be one more game of college football at the end of the year, and that’s never a bad thing, right?

Congratulations to Rocky Tide, who wins week 15 in a playoff over BEVO with 45 points. BamaHouGirl was next with 43 points, and Pachyderm and The Tradition each had 42 points.

Stay tuned for the season wrap-up!

What with the Christmas crush, and with another early game this week, this will have to be a short write-up. We’ll have a good long recap next week to make up for it.

Congratulations to JagRag, whose big bet on Auburn paid off with a total of 145 points and a week 14 win. It’s their third weekly win of the year! Liquid Heat and AUBrian were tied for second with 138 points, and Crimson Gator, Rocky Tide, and BEVO were next in line with 134 points.

Standings after 14 weeks (dropping “two worst” weeks):

1st	AUBrian	2150
2nd	Pachyderm	2129
3rd	maestro	2115
4th	bamaken	2106
5th	BEVO	2098
6th	Crimson Gator	2085
7th	BritanniaTex	2077
8th	Allison	2070
9th	The Tradition	2064
10th	DirtyDiaperSlinger	2052

Guess what? We get one more week of picks! I thought all along that there would be 14 weeks, but they’ve added a 15th week consisting primarily of the conference championship games, so everyone gets one last chance at a weekly championship! The first game is Louisville at Cincinnati, Thursday, December 5 @ 7:30 ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!

Okay. I could go on and on about the big results in college football this past week. I could write about the tremendous offensive juggernauts of Baylor, Oregon, and Texas A&M getting handcuffed by Oklahoma State, Arizona, and LSU respectively. I could mention how Duke is playing for a chance to win a conference championship, or how Florida became the first I-A school to lose to a team that failed to complete a forward pass, or how Vanderbilt won against Tennessee in a way that they’ve seemingly lost so many games before. But this is the biggest Iron Bowl in my lifetime, and this email does originate from the state of Alabama, after all. So here’s a first: the all-Iron Bowl special.

The Iron Bowl was first played in 1893. That game, a 32-22 Auburn win, is called the last game of the 1892 Alabama season, but the first game of the 1893 Auburn season. Why? Because the teams played the game on February 22, 1893. To this day, it remains the only game Alabama has ever played in February (Auburn played one against Georgia in 1892, but I believe that this game is the only other one). This game is the 78th in the series; Alabama currently holds a 42-34-1 edge. The lone tie was in 1907, a 6-6 game which was the last time the schools would play each other for 41 years. As one or both of the schools did not field teams in 1918 and 1943, if the teams had played during this time, this would have been the 116th meeting between the schools, which would tie for the 8th-most played game in I-A.

So why wasn’t it played during 1908-1947? At first, the schools couldn’t decide on how much the per diem should be for the players, or from where the officials for the game should come. Every so often, the schools would consider playing again, but nothing came of it. It actually took the state government threatening to withhold funding from the two schools for them to agree to play again (state of Texas, take note: you’d have historic precedent!). So the presidents of the respective universities came together in the spring of 1948 and literally buried a hatchet in Birmingham, and the game was back on. Alabama won that 1948 game 55-0. It still marks the biggest victory in the series. Auburn promptly came back in 1949, and as a team with a 1-4-3 record coming into the game, upset 6-2-1 Alabama 14-13.

The game gets its name from Birmingham’s role at the time as a center for iron and steel production. However, the teams don’t actually play for an iron bowl as the trophy, as appropriate as that would be. Instead, the trophy is the James E. Foy V-ODK Sportsmanship Award (that’s a mouthful). Named after a former Alabama graduate and Auburn dean of students, it holds a somewhat unique distinction among rivalry trophies in that it isn’t given to the winner on the day of the game. Rather, it is presented to the winning school on the date of their home basketball game against the losing school.

This is only the second Iron Bowl in history to feature two top-5 teams. The other was in 1971, when 10-0 Alabama was ranked #3 and 9-0 Auburn #5. With #1 Nebraska having beaten #2 Oklahoma two days prior, the winner of the game was bound to play the Cornhuskers for the national title in the Orange Bowl. Alabama had Johnny Musso; Auburn had Pat Sullivan. Alabama won 31-7. Auburn got a measure of revenge the next year, as the #9 Tigers beat #2 Alabama in the famous “Punt Bama Punt” game, 17-16.

Let’s see. What else is there to know? Alabama and Auburn fans probably already know what games I’m talking about when I mention “The Run in the Mud”, “Bo Over the Top”, “Wrong Way Bo”, “The Kick”, “The First Time in Jordan-Hare”, “Honk if you Sacked Brodie”, “One for the Thumb”, “The Beatdown in T-Town”, “The Drive”, or “The Cam-back”. This game has a storied and unique history in all of college football. It was recently ranked the third-biggest rivalry in college football behind Army-Navy and Michigan-Ohio State. Most fans on either side would tell you that’s two ranks too low. Whether you wear crimson and white or orange and blue, or even if you’re not a fan of either but a fan of college football in general, it represents one of the can’t-miss games of the year, and this year raises the stakes even higher: the SEC West, the SEC, and even the national titles are all potentially on the line. At 2:30 PM this Saturday, the state will stop to watch. I can’t wait.

Congratulations to BamaHouGirl, who takes the week 13 title with 179 points! She wins a tie-breaker over Rocky Tide and Pachyderm. Both bamaken and JagRag were one point behind with 178 points.

Standings after 13 weeks (dropping “two worst” weeks):

1st	AUBrian	2012
2nd	Pachyderm	1995
3rd	maestro	1984
4th	bamaken	1976
5th	BEVO	1964
6th	Crimson Gator	1951
7th	BritanniaTex	1945
8th	Allison	1940
9th	The Tradition	1930
10th	DirtyDiaperSlinger	1924

The race has tightened up a bit! With 18 games, this week is your last chance to improve your position and stake your own bragging rights, so pick wisely and well! Thanks to more late-season #MACtion, the first game this week is Western Michigan at Northern Illinois, Tuesday, November 26 @ 7PM ET, so make sure to get your picks in by then!