The Florida – Florida State game has, in the last three decades, been one of the fiercer rivalries in the country. The Gators and Seminoles have played many games with national implications on the line – and in fact, played twice in the 1996 season, once for the national title. (The Seminoles won the regular season game 24-21, but the Gators took the rematch 52-20, and the trophy with it.) The names of the players in the series stand out, some on a single-name basis: Charlie Ward. Danny Wuerffel. Tebow. Jameis. This edition? Well, this edition is different. Both teams enter the game with losing records. The Gators cannot go to a bowl game, but they can play spoiler to an incredible streak by Florida State – if Florida wins, Florida State (without a lot of help) will miss a bowl game for the first time in 36 years, the longest such streak in the nation by over a decade.<\/p>\n
Speaking of Florida rivalry games, we’ve finally reached the one a lot of people have been waiting for: South Florida-UCF. The 9-1 Bulls and 10-0 Knights meet for just the ninth time, but this one is easily the biggest in the history of the game. The American’s East division is on the line, making this only one of two rivalry games played this week where the winner advances to its conference title game (the other is the Iron Bowl between Alabama and Auburn). UCF’s offense is the highest-scoring in the country, averaging 48.2 points per game. South Florida is no slouch there themselves, averaging almost 38 a game, propelled by a rushing attack that averages almost 280 yards a game. The coaching matchup is intriguing as well – USF’s Charlie Strong is proving that there is life after the crucible at Texas, while UCF’s Scott Frost is on all the trendy “up-and-coming” lists. It should make for a great “War on I-4”.<\/p>\n
The University of Idaho doesn’t have a particularly strong college football tradition. The Vandals have an all-time record of 459-609-26. They’ve only been to three bowl games in their history, and have only had two winning seasons since 2000. However, they’re about to make college football history. After this week’s game against New Mexico State and next week’s season finale against Georgia State, Idaho will officially move from FBS football to FCS, becoming the first team in history to do so. The move was necessitated by the Sun Belt Conference essentially showing the Vandals the door. Idaho (and fellow pariah New Mexico State) are well outside the geographic boundaries of the conference, and it decided to move forward as a ten-team league. Idaho, not seeing interest from any other FBS conference, faced the music and made the historic decision. The Vandals will play in the Big Sky Conference next year, thus making this paragraph our last reference ever to Idaho football not in the “small school news” section. Maybe next year we’ll check in on the Vandals and see how they’re doing in their new digs.<\/p>\n
Speaking of which, in small-school news: the FCS playoff field is out, and people are complaining. Of course, with a playoff field, there’s always some grief about who got in at whose expense, but a seemingly-egregious case can be made for Austin Peay. The Governors had an 8-4 record overall, which on the face of it sounds okay, if not superb. However, three of those losses were to FBS teams Cincinnati, Miami (OH), and UCF; Austin Peay was 8-1 against FCS competition. They compiled a 7-1 record in the Ohio Valley Conference, their only loss coming to FCS #2 Jacksonville State. The “guarantee” games against FBS competition are big for two reasons: helping supplement the athletic budget, and recruiting. Austin Peay’s decision to play three such games may have cost them a chance at playing for a national championship.<\/p>\n
Congratulations to Jeff4Bama<\/strong>, who wins week 12 with 269 points! Bamarock<\/strong> was second with 267, and BEVO<\/strong>, BoomBoomTX<\/strong>, and Publius<\/strong> each had 261 points.<\/p>\n Standings after twelve weeks:<\/p>\n Rivalry week is historically one of the hardest weeks to pick, and with such a tight race at the top, all the games take on an even greater importance! Happy Thanksgiving to all, and remember that your first game this week is Thanksgiving night. It’s the 114th<\/sup> renewal of the Egg Bowl between Ole Miss and Mississippi State, and it kicks off Thursday, November 23rd<\/sup> @ 7:30 PM ET<\/strong>, so make sure to get your picks in by then!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Florida – Florida State game has, in the last three decades, been one of the fiercer rivalries in the country. The Gators and Seminoles have played many games with national implications on the line – and in fact, played twice in the 1996 season, once for the national title. (The Seminoles won the regular […]<\/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-390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-football"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390","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=390"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/390\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-systems.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\n
\n 1st<\/sup><\/td>\n AllySun <\/strong><\/td>\n 2379<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 2nd<\/sup><\/td>\n Crimson Gator <\/strong><\/td>\n 2375<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 3rd<\/sup><\/td>\n AUBrian <\/strong><\/td>\n 2373<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 4th<\/sup><\/td>\n Paul Herron <\/strong><\/td>\n 2371<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 5th<\/sup><\/td>\n Bamarock <\/strong><\/td>\n 2366<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 6th<\/sup><\/td>\n JagRag <\/strong><\/td>\n 2365<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 7th<\/sup><\/td>\n WarTiger91 <\/strong><\/td>\n 2355<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n T-8th<\/sup><\/td>\n Jeff4Bama <\/strong><\/td>\n 2353<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n T-8th<\/sup><\/td>\n pachyderm <\/strong><\/td>\n 2353<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n \n 10th<\/sup><\/td>\n G8rBamaLvr <\/strong><\/td>\n 2318<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n