With the events of the past weekend, the number of undefeated teams has dropped to two: Clemson and Iowa.\u00a0 The Tigers are 11-0 for only the second time in school history; the Hawkeyes have never been 11-0 before.\u00a0 Clemson has a top-20 scoring offense and defense; Iowa rides offensive balance (208 yards rushing, 210 passing per game) and a top-20 defense of their own.\u00a0 Both teams own wins over two currently ranked teams.\u00a0 Both have already punched their tickets for their conference\u2019s championship game, where they will most likely face a one-loss top-10 team for the right to make the national semifinals.\u00a0 Suffice to say, it\u2019s been a special season in Clemson, South Carolina and Iowa City, Iowa.<\/p>\n
There is no week in sports like this week.\u00a0 Rivalries exist in most every sport; indeed, they are as old as sport itself.\u00a0 But I know of no other sport that has so many rivalry matchups scheduled at one time.\u00a0 Games like Bedlam, The Civil War, and Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate have histories over a century old.\u00a0 Trophies like Paul Bunyan\u2019s Axe, the Old Oaken Bucket, and the Apple Cup can salvage a bad season when they\u2019re won.\u00a0 It\u2019s one of my absolute favorite sports days of the year.<\/p>\n
Those who have read this blurb know that I have a soft spot for service academy football.\u00a0 This year is truly a special one for two of the schools.\u00a0 Navy has lost only to Notre Dame and can lock up a spot in the American Athletic Conference championship with a win over Houston this week.\u00a0 If that happens, the Midshipmen would find themselves in the unique situation of playing a regular season game after the championship game, since their traditional season-ender against Army is December 12.\u00a0 Air Force is the champion of the Mountain Division of the Mountain West, and will play San Diego State for the conference title.\u00a0 That game will be played on the Air Force Academy campus.<\/p>\n
In small-school news, the FCS playoff brackets are out, and a local team finds themselves as the number one seed!\u00a0 Jacksonville State, whose only loss this year was to Auburn in overtime, is the overall top seed in the tournament for the first time.\u00a0 Jax State has FCS top-5 rankings in total offense and total defense, and no team has come within twenty points of them since October began.\u00a0 The Gamecocks will be going for their second overall national championship \u2013 they won the Division II title in 1992.\u00a0 They made the Division II national title game three other times, but have never advanced beyond the quarterfinals in the FCS.\u00a0 Could this be the year they add another championship?<\/p>\n
Congratulations to BritanniaTex<\/strong>, who wins week 12 with 163 points!\u00a0 Tied for second were AllySun<\/strong> and AUBrian<\/strong>, each with 162 points.<\/p>\n Standings after 12 weeks (dropping two lowest weekly scores):<\/p>\n As I mentioned before, this is rivalry week! \u00a0Keep in mind that several games will be played on Friday this week, so make sure to remember to pick.\u00a0 The first games are Friday, November 27 @ Noon ET<\/strong>, so make sure to get your picks in by then!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the events of the past weekend, the number of undefeated teams has dropped to two: Clemson and Iowa.\u00a0 The Tigers are 11-0 for only the second time in school history; the Hawkeyes have never been 11-0 before.\u00a0 Clemson has a top-20 scoring offense and defense; Iowa rides offensive balance (208 yards rushing, 210 passing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":312,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311\/revisions\/312"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n 1st<\/sup><\/td>\n AllySun <\/strong><\/td>\n 2019<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 2nd<\/sup><\/td>\n Jeff4Bama <\/strong><\/td>\n 2011<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 3rd<\/sup><\/td>\n AUBrian <\/strong><\/td>\n 2010<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 4th<\/sup><\/td>\n JagRag <\/strong><\/td>\n 2004<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 5th<\/sup><\/td>\n Ralphie <\/strong><\/td>\n 1996<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n T-6th<\/sup><\/td>\n pachyderm <\/strong><\/td>\n 1979<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n T-6th<\/sup><\/td>\n Crimson White <\/strong><\/td>\n 1979<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 8th<\/sup><\/td>\n Jhutto <\/strong><\/td>\n 1974<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 9th<\/sup><\/td>\n JagAL <\/strong><\/td>\n 1972<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 10th<\/sup><\/td>\n Maestro <\/strong><\/td>\n 1971<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n