The College Football Czar: 2014-15 Bowl Game Picks

Week fifteen in review: As critical as the College Football Czar is of the whole concept of the CFP Committee, he is pleased that it has succeeded in selecting the correct four teams, an obnoxious publicity campaign by #5 Baylor notwithstanding. Anybody who argues that any team other than Alabama, Oregon, Florida State and Ohio State deserves a shot at the national title is merely agitating on behalf of playoff expansion for its own sake.

Fourth-rated Ohio State certainly has its flaws, but the Buckeyes are one among the tiny minority of teams that did not schedule a lower-division opponent. Add OSU’s 59-0 blowout of Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game, and they have beaten 12 Division I-A opponents, as opposed to 10 apiece for Baylor and TCU. The Baylor propaganda machine incessantly reminds us of the Buckeyes’ terrible loss to Virginia Tech, but what makes the Bears’ defeat against West Virginia so much better?

Navy’s 17-10 win over Army helped the Czar to a Week 15 finish of 8-6, which should have been one game better, if not for a coaching decision by Oklahoma’s Bob Stoops that has earned him a Lardhead of the Year Award nomination. With the Sooners leading Oklahoma State 35-28, they punted, forcing the Cowboys to fair catch at their own 15-yard line. With one minute left, and OSU out of timeouts, the result of the play was decisively in OU’s favor. Nevertheless, Stoops accepted a five-yard penalty for running into the kicker, even though it did not give his team a first down. They punted over again, and promptly gave up a 92-yard return for a touchdown. The game went to overtime, where Stoops’ team lost, 38-35.

After the game, Stoops admitted the obvious. “In hindsight, you don’t kick it again, you put it on the 15,” he said. Yes, in foresight too, Bob – unless, of course, you’re a lardhead.

The Czar’s overall record for the regular season finished at 188-117, for a .616 winning percentage. That’s 80 percentage points below last year’s finish, and the Czar’s lowest mark since his first year publishing his picks online, in 2010. He’s confident that he’ll fare better this bowl season, but there’s not much time to get all these picks in before Saturday’s kickoff, so let’s get right to it.

The Ragin Cajuns appear in this game for a fourth consecutive year, having gone 3-0 so far against San Diego State (32-30), East Carolina (43-34) and Tulane (24-21). Still, it would be a surprise if they won again this year, after having suffered their only Sun Belt loss late in the season to Appalachian State, and then trailed lowly Troy at halftime of their most recent outing.

In its lower-division days, Nevada was known as Nevada-Reno, hence its now somewhat puzzling abbreviation of UNR. ULL has likewise tried to shake its hometown off its cleats, by calling itself just plain Louisiana, although that attempt at expansionism doesn’t seem to be catching on.

The Wolf Pack aren’t approaching their 2009 record of three 1,000-yard rushers in the same backfield, but they should have no problem getting two thirds of the way there. Quarterback Cody Fajardo needs only three more rushing yards to reach that mark, while RB Don Jackson needs 68.

Just like there aren’t many Irish players on Notre Dame, the Cajun-ness of ULL is dramatically overrated. Looking at the yearbook, there’s not a single player on that entire team that looks anything like Yul Brynner.

If the Miners had any good old days, they’d have returned to them this year not only by having a winning season, but by bringing back the Paydirt Pete helmet logo. It’s a good thing Pete is only charging while wielding a great big pick. Had he instead been running with scissors, that would have been dangerous.

Judging from their record, you might think it doesn’t matter who plays QB for the Aggies, who have lost both Chuckie Keeton and Darell Garretson since the start of the season. Their five-game winning streak behind freshman Kent Myers coincided with a sharp decline in the level of competition, though. In their regular-season finale, they got bounced by Boise State 50-19. While Myers was far from solely responsible, he hasn’t yet proven to be a threat to throw downfield. You can’t beat a team like BSU by sticking to safe screen passes all day.

El Paso could be the name of a trick play for this Miner team, which has had most of its success on the ground in year two under coach Sean Kugler, who had previously been the OL coach for the Bills and Steelers. Undersized RB Aaron Jones leads the team in rushing with 1,233 yards, but is also second in receiving, with 284 yards on 27 catches.

New Mexico calls itself the “Land of Enchantment,” and it does seem to put visitors to the state under some kind of spell. Where else could the winning team be given a trophy made with manure, and feel compelled to carry it home and treasure it?

The WAC, as a football conference, is dead, but one of its most fiercely contested rivalries lives on in this postseason border battle between teams from the Pac 12 and Mountain West. The most memorable game in the series was played in 1994, when Hughes Stadium in Fort Collins had to be temporarily expanded by almost 10,000 seats to accommodate the crowd that came to see the two undefeated upstarts battle it out. The Utes prevailed that day, 45-31, but each team went on to a historic 10-2 finish.

The Rams had the nation’s leading receiver through most of the year, until Rashard Higgins was overtaken by Amari Cooper by 16 yards, for the simple reason that Bama played a conference title game and the buttheads did not. They’ll have trouble getting Higgins caught up, however, while facing a Ute defense that leads the nation in sacks with 52.

CSU was paid a $7.5 million buyout by the University of Florida for head coach Jim McElwain. The team won’t have any of that money left when they leave Vegas, but that’s okay. Every good gambler knows it takes those first $7.5 million to get the pattern down. After that, you’ve got those casino guys right where you want them.

The Czar finds it a bit unsettling that the head coach at one of our military academies would have as perverse a conception of America as Troy Calhoun illustrated while criticizing the current postseason format. The AFA skipper said the playoff field should be expanded to 16 teams, because a four-team bracket amounts to a monopoly for the five major conferences, which he calls “un-American.”

In Calhoun’s mind, the American way must be to lower the standards, and let teams compete for the title that didn’t earn the chance with their regular season play. Maybe then, his Falcons would be given a shot, despite playing in a lesser conference, and facing a nonconference slate consisting of Navy, Army, Georgia State, and Division I-AA Nicholls State. Perhaps the field should just be expanded to include all 128 teams, so that every one of the players could receive a “participant” trophy.

WMU is still seeking its first W in a bowl game, having gone 0-4 up until now. Throw in two MAC title game losses to Marshall, and the Broncos are winless in six postseason appearances.

These are the two teams that have made the biggest turnarounds in the nation, each of them finishing seven games better than a year ago. Needless to say, the Falcons, being a rival of Navy’s, did not join the Broncs in coach P.J. Fleck’s hokey “row the boat” motivational campaign. Rest assured that if Calhoun had devised a cornball slogan like “Colorado Springs Forward,” it would now be credited with his team’s victories over Boise state and Colorado State.

Know what they call an Idaho potato that isn’t famous? A common-tater. Nyuk, nyuk!

Some analysts might be critical of this game for inviting the neighboring team from Mobile, coming from a small conference with a non-winning record, but just look at the Jaguars’ nonconference slate. After an opening road win at Kent State, they lost to Mississippi State, South Carolina and Navy. Had they instead played Baylor’s nonconference schedule, they’d probably be 9-3 by now.

The Falcons have fallen, but can they get up? Their three-game skid started innocently enough, in a tough 27-20 loss at Toledo, but then they were given a Doyt nap in their home stadium by Ball State, 41-24, and mushed up by the NIU Huskies, 51-17 in the MAC title game.

The Camellia Bowl will be played at the 25,000-seat Cramton Bowl, which is where the now-defunct Blue-Gray Game was played. The Czar was disappointed to learn that the Cramton Bowl was not named after Ralph Kramden. As long as that is the case, they should just change the name of the stadium to the Camellia Bowl, because it would sound a whole lot comfier.

The quality of this matchup serves as a consolation to fans of both teams, who must have been anticipating a bigger game early this season. Before QB Taysom Hill’s season-ending injury, the Cougars were the subject of speculation about a possible undefeated season. The Tigers have finished in a three-way tie for first in the AAC, and based on schedule strength should have been first in the pecking order, but that conference has no upper-echelon bowl affiliations, let alone on that is designated for the league champion.

BYU lost four straight after Hill left with a broken leg, but they’ve since turned it around to win their last four, including quality victories over Middle Tennessee and California.

MU has played a tough nonconference schedule, with competitive losses at UCLA and Ole Miss, but they did get a break from their conference slate, which included neither Central Florida nor East Carolina. Their season-ending six-game winning streak was against the bottom six teams in the AAC: SMU, Tulsa, Temple, Tulane, South Florida and Uconn.

When you tune in to this game, do not adjust your set. The Miami Beach Bowl is not being played at a seaside, open-air venue surrounded with palm trees, but instead is being held in that sensory deprivation chamber known as Marlins Park. If we’re lucky, they’ll open the retractable roof, so that it looks like the game’s being played near the end of a tunnel, instead of in the middle of one. It makes for about as beachy a setting as a Flint Tropics game.

In another surprisingly good matchup for one of these presumably puny new games, the MAC and Conference USA meet in the only clash between conference champions outside of the New Year’s semifinal games. Say, that gives the Czar an idea. Why not commission a new game to be played in Mexico, and call it the Puny Bowl? Coaxing the winners to take home that trophy would take some serious enchantment indeed.

The Thundering Herd ran out of rumble down the stretch, not only in losing their last regular season game to Western Kentucky, 67-66 in overtime, but a week earlier they had barely beaten UAB, and in the C-USA title game, they needed a late TD to edge Louisiana Tech.

The Huskies hammered Bowling Green 51-17 to win the MAC title, but at halftime their fans might not have been so optimistic. NIU had just seemingly taken command, 20-7 with 25 seconds to go in the first half, when coach Rod Carey opted for – all together now – the squib kick. BGSU returned the kickoff to their 41-yard line, and three short passes later, kicked a field goal to pull within ten. Carey acknowledged that it was a mistake during his halftime interview, but that won’t stop the next lardhead from doing the same thing.

The College Football Czar figured that the reason why a luxurious Floridian resort town would call itself. Rat Mouth must be to fool people, so that the place doesn’t get stampeded by riff-raff. Assuming that it would be the same for every town with an unpleasant name, he decided to go on vacation to Dismal Swamp, West Virginia. To put it mildly, it was not as ironically named as he had hoped.

Whereas most bowl teams have had at least three weeks between games, the Midshipmen take the field fresh from a 17-10 win over Army ten days earlier.

These teams met in this same bowl game in 2010, when the MVP was the head groundskeeper, who maintained a playable field through several days of saturating rain leading up to kickoff. That was bad news for the Middies, who could have used a bit of muck to slow down the SDSU offense, which sprinted past them for a final of 35-14.

The Naval Academy may be the nation’s second-leading rushing team, but the Aztecs have the most prolific ground-gainer in this matchup. Sophomore RB Donnel Pumphrey enters the game third in the nation with 1,755 yards.

The Aztecs have the advantage of playing a bowl game on their home field at Qualcomm Stadium. Boy, if the Czar’s home was in San Diego, he’d sure find better things to do than ritual human sacrifice and being driven into extinction.

The College Football Czar once had a bowl of Bahamas, but there weren’t any marshmallow ghosts left. What a gyp. He trusts that this, the inaugural edition of the third bowl game played outside the U.S., will be somewhat more rewarding.

The Hilltoppers opened their season against another MAC opponent in a 59-31 bombardment of Bowling Green. It looked as if their season had peaked with that victory, until they ended with a 67-66 overtime upset of then-undefeated Marshall on the road. Rookie coach Jeff Brohm’s decision to go for two in the extra frame seemed like an easy one, considering that almost every offensive play call had worked all day long.

Last year, the 6-6 Chippewas were among the very few bowl-eligible teams not to be invited. They were given a bid a year earlier, also at 6-6, and they defeated this same WKU club in the Little Caesar’s Bowl, 24-21. Well, not the exact same WKU club. Big Red has since stepped up from the Sun Belt to Conference USA, and has become immediately competitive in its new conference.

This game is being played in Thomas Robinson Stadium, so named after a track athlete who represented the Bahamas in the Olympics. Bully for him, but unfortunately, that means there’s a giant running track surrounding the playing field. As a result, the stands are so far from the field that if the running track were a moat, and Diana Nyad tried to swim from the front row to the sideline, she’d never make it. Even if she cheated. Not that she would.

The Bulldogs were eligible for this game even though they have a losing record, because they are division winners who only fell below .500 because of a 28-14 loss to Boise State in the Mountain West title game. And to think that 9-3 Georgia Southern was banned from the postseason, for the totally frivolous reason that this was only its first year in Division I-A.

Rice might as well have brought some red beans with them to Louisiana Tech for their final regular season game, where they became the main course in a 69-31 feast. When the Owls have lost this year, they’ve been thorough about it. Even while going two games over .500, they’ve given up more points than they’ve scored.

Coaches often refer to bowl game road trips as rewards for the players, but wait a minute. Boise State wins the Mountain West Conference, and is judged to be the best team among the five small conferences, and they go to Glendale, Arizona. FSU is the sixth best team in the league, and they get to go to Hawaii? No offense to Glendale, but what’s it got that makes it the more desirable of the two? An In-N-Out Burger?

The Fighting Illini were excited to welcome Oklahoma State transfer Wes Lunt at quarterback this year, but it turned out to be little-used senior Reilly O’Toole who was instrumental in leading them to the postseason. O’Toole used his whole utility belt in a 47-33 win over intrastate rival Northwestern, in which he rushed and threw for 147 yards each.

LTU quarterback Cody Sokol was not so cool in a C-USA championship loss to Marshall, so he might as well just get a decent haircut already. In the 26-23 defeat, Sokol completed just 7 of 20 for 72 yards – by far a season low.

Every real football fan knows that the stadium named the Cotton Bowl should still be home to the Cotton Bowl, and not some nameless fill-in-the-sponsor bowl like this one. The Czar thinks the game should officially rename itself the Heart of Dallas Classic at the Cotton Bowl, since the building still has every right to that name. Then, if that other game wants to distinguish itself, it can adopt a title like the Cotton Bowl Game at the Unsettlingly Shadowy Domain In Which Lurks None Other Than the Eminently Peculiar Jerry Jones. Then we can score one for truth in advertising.

This game, being played at Ford Field, forced the demise of the Little Caesar’s Bowl, which had been held at the same venue. When this new bowl affiliated itself with the Big Ten, the committee must have envisioned a stadium packed with fans from someplace a lot closer than Piscataway.

Tarheels’ “Supervisor of Morale” Caleb Pressley had an easy day when his team played rival Nc State, because there was no morale for him to supervisor. Even before QB Marquise Willams and WR Ryan Switzer were injured in the second half, they and their teammates showed few signs of life in the 35-7 debacle. Only a token score with under two minutes to play prevented UNC from being shut out. Reports that Williams and Switzer are completely recovered should bolster the team’s morale to the point where Pressley can start earning his … whatever it is they use to compensate him for his dubious employment. Pogs, maybe?

The Scarlet Knights probably won’t be able to control the line of scrimmage like NCSU id. They’ve only had two rushers top the 100-yard mark all season, and have been unable to protect QB Gary Nova against quality opposition.

In Detroit, the quick lane is the one without a guy in a ski mask in it. Trust me, you do not want to be the oaf in front of him who’s trying to pay with a check.

George O’Leary’s Knights are going for their third consecutive ten-win season, which they’d already have, if only they’d gone to QB Justin Holman a little earlier. Holman was the backup during a gruesome first half against Penn State in Dublin, but he threw for 204 yards in the second half of a 26-24 setback. Since he’s taken over as the starter, UCF has lost only to Missouri, and, incredibly enough, Uconn.

Shadrach Thornton is playing as if he just leapt out of a furnace recently, recording his first two 100-yard games of the season. The Wolfpack’s leading rusher has gained 271 yards in his past two games, more than half his total from the first ten games combined.

Still, the Pack mentality might not be very strong against a team that’s tied for its conference championship. For the season, they’re 1-5 against bowl-bound teams, having beaten only 6-6 North Carolina. The College Football Czar admits to having laughed at this game when it was called the Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl, but at least Beef ‘O’ Brady’s is something. Bitcoin is so not something that it could become the nickname of an MLS expansion team.

If you don’t understand coach Gary Andersen’s move from Wisconsin to Oregon State, just look at UC’s Tommy Tuberville. Leaving a major conference team like Texas Tech might not have seemed advantageous, but Tuberville knew that his days in Lubbock were numbered. Had he waited to be fired, his next job would not have been comparable to the one he’s got now. Instead, he left on his own terms, which allowed the Bearcats to boast that they’d hired away a big-league coach, rather than humble themselves by taking a bigger school’s table scraps.

To hear the pundits tell it, the Gobblers are such a terrible team that Ohio State should have declined its Sugar Bowl bid out of shame for having lost to them. Yet five of Tech’s six losses have been by seven points or fewer. If they had a slightly steadier passing game, they could be approaching Florida State “they’re just winners” territory by now. Last time Frank Beamer’s team ended the regular season at 6-6 was two years ago, when their defense stymied 9-3 Rutgers in the Russell Athletic Bowl, 13-10.

By the way, if VT’s 35-21 win over Ohio State diminishes the Buckeyes so badly, then what does OSU’s subsequent 50-28 romp over Cincy say about this Bearcat team? Don’t blame these teams if they look at this road trip as something of a consolation prize. Sure, Annapolis is a great football town, but an Indianapolis another word for a pomegranate – and who doesn’t suddenly love pomegranates these days?

When ASU has lost this year, it has been done in by its run defense. That could cost them against a Duke ground game that is averaging 4.9 yards per carry, and very nearly the same per-game average as the Arizona team that just beat Todd Graham’s team on Thanksgiving weekend.

The Blue Devil defense is statistically very sound, but untested against the type of attack it will face from Graham’s offense. David Cutcliffe’s club faced an embarrassing nonconference schedule consisting of I-AA Elon, Troy, Kansas and Tulane. Even when they faced tougher challenges in ACC play, it was against overwhelmingly run-based offenses.

This may superficially seem like an even matchup, but it isn’t. Not only have the Blue Devils played a far weenier schedule, but Sun Devil mascot Sparky looks genuinely evil. The Blue Devil logo, on the other hand, looks like David Niven. What’s the most devilish thing he’s going to do, order red win with seafood?

This may sound like a bitter Pitt fan speaking, which it is, but why would this bowl committee select the Hurricanes, who finished behind the Panthers in the standings after losing to them to end the regular season? Not only have the Canes lost three in a row, but they’ve remained in sulk mode ever since the Florida State game started to get away from them.

Compared to last year, when they went 11-2, the Gamecocks have allowed almost 11 more points per game, while plummeting from a plus-13 to a minus-4 in turnover margin. Their offensive output has remained consistent, but they’ve lost four games in which they’ve scored 28 points or more.

This is another bowl that thankfully has restored its traditional name, having gone incognito as the Advocare V100 Bowl last season. Now, it’s back to being called the Independence Bowl, while being sponsored by Duck Commander.

A duck commander does not command ducks, of course. That’d be silly, because they wouldn’t listen anyway. A duck commander throws things at people’s heads and commands them to duck. Those who don’t duck don’t graduate. Cruel, but effective.

A bitter Pitt fan would also wonder why this bowl passed on the chance to arrange a rivalry game and invite BC instead, but if the committee’s sole aim was to create a competitive matchup, they couldn’t have done much better than this. The only possible upset in this game would be if the outcome isn’t still in doubt in the fourth quarter.

The Nittany Lions have the nation’s leading run defense, and are facing an Eagle offense, behind scrambling former Florida QB Tyler Murphy, that isn’t much of a threat through the air. The catch is that the PSU offense can’t pull away either. In fact, they didn’t score more than 19 points in regulation time of any Big Ten game all season. That means this game is likely to be decided by miscues, and QB Christian Hackenburg has 15 interceptions to only eight touchdowns this year.

This bowl game is only five years old, but it gained instant prestige because it’s played in the House that Ruth built. Gee, that Ruth must have been one beefy dame.

The Cornhuskers obviously canned Bo Pelini for reasons other than his record. Surely, they don’t expect more than nine wins a year out of longtime Oregon State coach Mike Riley, whose teams have gone 29-33 over the past five seasons. Given Pelini’s volcanic personality, it might be that they simply wanted to hire a nice guy who doesn’t finish last.

In the Czar’s opinion, any coach with Pelini’s record who suddenly became available would be snapped up by another Division I-A program in a second, if not for serious questions about his temperament. The fact that he so quickly settled on I-AA Youngstown State validates the Huskers’ decision, however much he may protest.

Since Stanford upset UCLA at the end of the year, the Trojans would have played for the Pac 12 title if only they hadn’t been so passive on Arizona State’s Hail Mary earlier in the season. Because they eked out a 28-26 win at Arizona a week later, they would have won the tie-breaker against the Wildcats had they pulled even in the standings.

Last year, a recording surfaced in which Pelini berated Nebraska fans as bleeping fair weather bleepers. Well, he doesn’t have to worry about any more fair weather where he’s going.

Mountaineer quarterback Clint Trickett will be back in the lineup after suffering a concussion against Kansas State a week before Thanksgiving. Since taking over during that KSU game, sophomore Skyler Howard has thrown five TD passes with no interceptions, and ended his team’s three-game skid with a 37-24 victory over Iowa State.

The Aggies are only 2-2 since freshman Kyle Allen has taken over at quarterback, but one of those wins was the 41-38 upset that eliminated Auburn from the national title chase. They’ve since had two tough losses, both at home, against Missouri and LSU.

WVU athletic director Oliver Luck is leaving that school to become something called the NCAA executive vice president of regulatory affairs (harrumph, harrumph). His ascension to that position will also force him to resign from the CFP Selection Committee. The NCAA must now fill that vacancy with another representative from the Big XII. The Czar proposes that they appoint Bevo, for all the difference it will make.

The reason the Liberty Bowl is in Memphis is so that the players can visit the very spot where Elvis said, “Give me liberty, or give me a squirrel sandwich!” At least that’s what the history majors from Morgantown think.

Freshman QB Deshaun Watson will not be playing this game, which leaves the Tigers’ fate in the hands of Cole Stoudt, the son of former NFL and USFL quarterback Cliff Stoudt. One look at Cole’s stats for this year tells you that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, especially when the tree has a weaker arm than the ones in The Wizard of Oz. He has thrown ten interceptions to only six TDs, while averaging a meager 9.5 yards per completion.

Trevor Knight, however, is expected to return from a neck injury. The sophomore slinger had thrown for 2,197 yards in eight games, and has been a far more significant deep threat than freshman Cody Thomas.

The Tigers’ only chance is if a certain head coach, who rhymes with gloops, turns into something that rhymes with phmardhead. In other words, OU wins, unless it sets an NCAA record for squib kicks.

The Razorbacks went on a rip-snorting rampage in November, even while only splitting the four games they played that month. They barely lost to then-#1 Mississippi State, when their attempt to tie the score was intercepted in the end zone. Then, the Hogs went home for two games, where they blanked both Ole Miss and LSU, before losing by seven at East division champion Missouri.

The Longhorns’ victories this year have been against the five teams trailing them in the Big XII standings, and North Texas. They’ve been demolished by the top three teams in their conference, as well as by BYU. That element of predictability has only added to the boringness of their season. It’s a good thing that cows sleep standing up, so it’s harder to notice just how little of the crowd is still paying attention to the game.

There are five bowl games played in the state of Texas, so why is there only one of them that’s entitled the Texas Bowl? Why, that’s because it’s named after the fingerbowl one uses after eating one’s Texas toast.

At least they use those bowls in the elitist enclave of Austin. The rest of the state is kind of ashamed they exist.

If only the Fighting Irish could have played the first half of their schedule twice, they could be where Florida State is right now, and be wildly overrated on the basis that “they just win.” Instead, they’ve lost five of their last six as their opposition has improved, culminating in a humiliating 49-14 defeat at USC.

The Tigers haven’t tacked many points on the board this year, but they haven’t had to, because they’ve got the third-rated scoring defense in the nation, yielding only 16.4 points per game. Their success hasn’t all come against the Louisiana-Monroes and New Mexico States on their schedule, either. On consecutive weekends late this season, they upended Ole Miss 10-7, and took Alabama to overtime before falling by a final of 20-13.

Now that football coaches are forbidden from using the word “midget” (because “little person” is SO much less demeaning), what do we do about the Notre Dame leprechaun? Surely, adding an element of ethnic stereotyping doesn’t make a leprechaun any less offensive than a midget, so must the leprechaun become a “little person” also? And if “little people” is sensitive, then would “teensy-weensy people” be even more so?

Actually, Disney was way out in front of this trend with their 1959 film, Darby O’Gill and the Little People, which was politically correct decades ahead of its time. Not coincidentally, it was also a really crappy excuse for a movie.

In the Bulldogs’ bizarre overtime loss to Georgia Tech, coach Mark Richt probably squib-kicked them out of a Peach Bowl matchup with TCU. Although this has historically been a quality bowl game, it may be hard for Richt’s team not to view it as a letdown for that reason.

UGA sure hasn’t had any letdowns after its other losses, though. After being stopped on fourth-and-short in an upset loss to South Carolina, they trampled Troy 66-0, and after getting gashed by rival Florida, they bounced back to blow out Kentucky, 63-31.

Being in the same division with Florida State and Clemson, the Cardinals have flown under the radar in their first year in the ACC. Since the massive wingspan of WR DeVante Parker returned to the lineup, they’ve won four out of five, the lone exception being a 42-31 loss to Florida State. Even in that game, Parker pulled down eight receptions for 214 yards.

Whatever public relations consultant came up with the idea of nicknaming Louisville “The Ville” is obviously not from there. As former Cardinal coach Lee Corso can tell you, the people there don’t pronounce their city “Loo-ee-vill.” Instead, they say, “Loo-vuul.”

The Terrapins’ performance on the field was as motley as their attire during their debut season in the Big Ten. Since a conference-opening victory over Indiana, they’ve alternated wins and losses the rest of the way, ending the regular season with a 41-38 loss to Rutgers.

The Cardinal had figured to play a postseason game at Levi’s Stadium, but they’d have preferred that it be in the Pac 12 championship game, where they would have been vying for a third consecutive title. They did finish second in the North division, but three games behind Oregon, mostly due to the absence of their traditional power running game.

Foster Farms sells politically correct, everything-free, dingbat-approved chicken and turkey, which it peddles to the meat-hating granola munchers on the Left Coast. But wait a minute. If they can get away with labeling bird bits as “hot dogs,” what makes anyone think that the “chicken” they sell is genuine chicken? Maybe it’s made of some other critter that supposedly tastes like chicken. The Terps better keep a close count of their players when loading them on the team bus to go home.

The resilient Rebels had every reason to run up the white flag after being eliminated from the SEC West race in a shutout loss to last-place Arkansas. Instead, they not only upset rival Mississippi State, but controlled the game from start to finish for a 31-17 triumph. Even then, the erratic play of Bo Wallace was a concern, though, as he completed just 13 of 30, with an interception. Unlike their rivals from Waco, the Horned Frogs seem to have gotten past their exclusion from the championship brackets and been able to focus on the game at hand. A 55-3 stomping of Iowa State didn’t seem to impress anybody, but it did show that Gary Patterson has not let his team get distracted.

Did you know that the “C” in TCU stands for “Christian”? Tisk, tisk. Now that the word “Christmas” is almost universally treated as an expletive, “Christian” surely must be prohibited as well. Just ask those politically correct rattlenoggins at Elon University, who jettisoned their school’s classic “Fighting Christians” nickname back in 2000. Supposedly, the name was deemed offensive to students who are hostile to Christianity, yet chose to attend a Christian school anyway, just so they could promote “tolerance” of bitter, petty, malodorous, slimy little people like themselves.

Sorry, the Czar didn’t mean to call them little people. He meant to call them bitter, petty, malodorous, slimy midgets. No offense.

As atrocious as the Broncos’ opening 35-13 loss to Ole Miss was, nobody would have expected that each of those teams would play its way into one of the games in the CFP rotation.

For the Wildcats, the Pac 12 championship game could have been called the Siesta Bowl, the way they went nappy-bye for about an hour right in the middle of a 51-13 defeat. For the game, they were outgained by Oregon by a total of 627 yards to 224.

This will be BSU’s third trip to the Fiesta Bowl, where they memorably outwitted and outgritted Oklahoma 43-42, at the end of the 2006 season. Three years later, they returned to beat TCU 17-10, to cap a 14-win season. This is the first time they’ve gone to Glendale without a perfect record, however, mostly because they lack a dominant defense like they used to have. Once you’ve allowed 49 points against New Mexico, taking on the winners of the Pac 12 South division looks like a daunting challenge.

Those who are partaking in the fiesta better be careful not to grab anything that falls from the funny-looking critter when it bursts open, because that’s not a pinata. It’s just coach Rich Rod’s exploding head.

Conventional wisdom says that the efficacy of a triple-option attack like Tech’s is diminished during the bowl season, when the opposing team has several weeks to prepare. For once, the conventional wisdom seems to be correct, as demonstrated by the Yellowjackets’ having lost eight of their last nine bowl games.

Dan Mullen’s mud puppies have got one of the game’s best run defenses, holding opponents to 3.7 yards per carry while playing in the SEC West, of all places. Those few teams that have had success against them have been far more prolific passing teams than the Ramblin Wreck. The Bulldogs have been to the Orange Bowl twice before. They lost to Duquesne, but then defeated Georgetown a few years later. As you can tell, that was kind of a long time ago.

The Orange Bowl is not named after Rusty Staub, but let’s pretend it is anyway. There are a lot of French Canadians who have migrated to the Miami area, and if we make them mad, they’ll yell through their noses at us.

If the Badgers’ 59-0 beating by Ohio State in the Big Ten championship didn’t end their season, coach Gary Andersen’s subsequent departure for a lower-prestige position in Corvallis did. Throw in the fact that the whole team helped spoil Melvin Gordon’s shot at the Heisman, and morale has got to be lower than a badger’s belly button.

A lardhead’s explanation for the Tigers’ 55-44 loss to Alabama is that their offense was not efficient enough, in that they had to settle for five field goals. Never mind that they also scored four touchdowns. Had they scored four TDs and only two field goals, nobody would have blamed the offense, but scoring nine more points in excess of that is supposedly what did AU in.

Considering that Badger athletic director Barry Alvarez loves to spin Oliver Stone-like Pac 12 conspiracy theories to explain UW’s losses to teams from that conference, it’s more than a little amusing that Andersen defected to a Pac 12 school under circumstances that might be considered mysterious. So what is it this time, Barry, a mind-control device? Perhaps the real Coach Andersen was kidnapped and replaced with an impostor. Or maybe, just maybe, coaches keep leaving Madison unexpectedly so that they can get away from Barry Alvarez.

The way the Bears have bellyached about being left out of the championship brackets calls to mind the 1998 Kansas State Wildcats, who were also 11-1 after playing a weenie schedule, and whined incessantly about their exclusion from the BCS. The Cats were so busy complaining about the bowl game they thought they deserved that they never saw 7-4 Purdue sneaking up on them in the Alamo Bowl.

The Spartans’ only losses have been against semifinal teams Oregon and Ohio State, but their defense took such an uncharacteristic beating in each of those games that it may not bode well for them against the nation’s leading offense from BU. Out of MSU’s ten wins, however, they’ve held eight of those opponents to 17 points or fewer.

Lost among all the great running backs in the Big Ten this season was Spartan tailback Jeremy Langford, who finished sixth in the conference, but #20 nationally, with 1,360 yards. Langford has gained over 100 yards in each of his last nine games, and is averaging 5.5 per carry for the year.

This year’s Cotton Bowl is being sponsored by Goodyear, and yet they persist in playing the game indoors. Can’t wait to see those blimp shots of the AT&T Stadium roof. Michigan State 45, Baylor 38

The Tigers were overmatched in the SEC championship game for a second year in a row, but last year, they didn’t let that disappointing result faze them in their preparation for the Cotton Bowl, which they won over Oklahoma State, 41-31.

Coach Jerry Kill is looking for his first bowl victory in five tries. In each of the last two years, his Golden Gophers have lost tough games at the Texas Bowl against Texas Tech and Syracuse. When he was at Northern Illinois, his Huskies were defeated by Louisiana Tech in the 2008 Independence Bowl, and South Florida at the International Bowl in Toronto a year later.

Mizzou has already faced one Big Ten team this year, and they were shocked by Indiana, 31-27. Tevin Coleman cooled them off that day, with 132 yards on only 19 carries. Like most other teams in their league, the radiant rodents also have an excellent running back in David Cobb. The 230-lb senior has 1,545 yards and 13 touchdowns.

Minnesota could be in a lot of trouble when they get to Orlando. Not from the Tigers, but because those cantankerous Disney lawyers might slap the Golden Gopher with a “cease and desist” order.

According to the “they’re just winners” theory, FSU should be able to defeat the Fighting Ducks just as if they were no different from Notre Dame, Miami or Boston College. Sometimes it works that way, that a team will play just above the level of its competition for the whole season, but how realistic is it to expect that?

If the Seminoles stand a chance, it’s because shutdown Duck cornerback Ifo Ekpre-Olomu suffered a knee injury in practice, and will not be available for the postseason. Even with him in the lineup, the UO defense has always been vulnerable in the early moments of games, which also happens to be when Noles’ QB Jameis Winston has been at his worst. If Winston waits until the third or fourth possession to get warmed up, his window of opportunity might no longer be open.

The Ducks had a very promising RB tandem a year ago with Byron Marshall and Thomas Tyner, but they’ve both been pushed out of the way to make room for freshman Royce Freeman, who has rolled for 1,299 yards this year. Marshall, last year’s leading ground-gainer, has adapted nicely to becoming the team’s leading receiver, with 814 yards on 61 catches.

FSU coach Jimbo Fisher says he wouldn’t be surprised if Winston decides to stay in college for another year, even though he thinks his QB would be the first or second player taken in the draft. So why might Winston pass up a chance to start earning millions of dollars, rather than risk damaging his value with another year in Tallahassee? Do stolen crustaceans taste crustier?

Just in case you still don’t believe it happened, the Buckeyes bottled up the nation’s leading rusher for 76 yards on 26 carries, while third-string quarterback Cardale Jones threw for 257 yards and three TDs, in a 59-0 annihilation of Big Ten West champion Wisconsin. After that performance, it almost seems unfair to be skeptical of OSU’s chances against the Crimson Tide. Nevertheless, the Czar must ask how much of Jones’ success against UW was his own doing, and whether Bama will give him the same kind of time to compose himself while throwing the deep ball. The first of those questions is open to debate. The answer to the second is no.

Against the Badgers, Jones had enough time to pull out his iPhone and get updates from the more interesting games, before finally having to look for an open receiver. He’s not going to have that kind of luxury against a pachyderm defense that hurried Mississippi State’s Dak Prescott into throwing three interceptions.

The Tide turned things around after having by far their worst defensive performance in a 55-44 Iron Bowl win over Auburn. Against Missouri in the SEC championship game, they allowed only one touchdown and 41 rushing yards, in a 42-13 romp.

If you want to see an entertaining game in the Superdome, you’d better tune in for that bowl season opener between Nevada and ULL.

The Panthers will be making their third bowl appearance without a head coach in five years. This time, it’s a less demoralizing circumstance than when popular coach Dave Wannstedt was fired, or when Todd Graham sneaked off after one year without even addressing his players. At least Paul Chryst will be departing for Wisconsin on amicable terms.

The same can’t be said of the Cougars, who in the Czar’s opinion made a curious decision in dismissing Tony Levine after a three-year record of 21-17. If they thought they would be able to continue the success they had when they were fortunate enough to have Kevin Sumlin, they’re going to be terminally disappointed. Nevertheless, they’ve probably made a good hire in Ohio State offensive coordinator Tom Herman, who has worked wonders with Buckeye backup quarterbacks, and will be tasked next year with getting Greg Ward and John O’Korn to take better care of the ball.

Statistically, UH has a very good run defense, but the lack of formidable running backs in the American Athletic Conference has got something to do with that. When the Cougs stepped out of their league to take on BYU, they allowed 323 yards on the ground, so don’t be surprised if Panther RB James Conner has one of his most productive games of the season.

Being a Panther head coach in this decade is a little like being a Soviet premier in the 80s, with the not insignificant difference that you don’t have to get dead.

The Czar persists in calling this game by its traditional moniker, knowing that it will revert to it just like the Sun, Peach and Independence Bowls have. For now, its official title is the TaxSlayer Bowl, which in a way is fitting, because it figures to be as exciting as an accountant playing Dungeons & Dragons.

The Volunteers must have thought the acres were greener on the other side when they fired Coach Eb in 2012, for a three-year record of 15-21. Former Cincinnati coach Butch Jones is only 11-13, however, and he doesn’t have the excuse of having to clean up after Lane Kiffin. If UT’s confidence in Jones is waning, you’d never know it. In fact, they just extended his contract, and increased the amount in his buyout clause.

Hawkeye RB Mark Weisman has been basically on his own this year, whereas in 2013, he was one among a trio of productive backs. Now, he’s left to lug around all that gold, frankincense and myrrh along with the football. Mind you, he doesn’t have anywhere to take the stuff. He just keeps it with him so that he has an excuse to say “myrrh” when he wants to. It’s a great ice-breaker at parties.

Each team ended the regular season with a loss, but the Wildcats’ 38-27 setback at Baylor is far more understandable than the Bruins’ languid 31-10 home loss to Stanford. All Jim Mora Jr.’s team had to do was successfully defend their own turf against a 6-5 team, and they would have been in the Pac 12 championship game instead of Arizona.

The balanced Bruin offense should have an advantage against a K-State team that gets roughly twice as much yardage through the air as on the ground. Both quarterbacks Brett Hundley and Jake Waters have eclipsed the 3,000-yard mark, but the blue bears have Paul Perkins and his 1,378 yards at tailback, whereas the Cats’ leading rusher, Charles Jones, has 521.

Like his father, Mora is known to have a bit of a temper, but it’s completely understandable. Just imagine being one of those guys, and having someone walk up and say, “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s Jim Mora.” After 40 or 50 times, you’d be ready to clobber somebody too.

The game originally known as the Copper Bowl, most easily recognized as the Insight Bowl, and most recently named the Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, goes back to using a title that gives fans an idea where it is being played. During last year’s Wild Wings Bowl, fans across the country probably tuned in and were disappointed not to see snow.

Perhaps the biggest reason the Huskies have a winning record and the Cowboys don’t is because the former are a plus-12 in turnovers, while the latter are minus-8. It’s a good thing OSU quarterback Daxx Garman has two x’s in his name, because one wouldn’t be enough to cross out his interceptions, which have equaled his TD passes at 12.

Garman knows he’s in trouble when he lets go of the ball, and immediately hears a voice say, “recalculating.” Washington 34, Oklahoma State 21

If the Czar had been told before the season that there would be a three-way tie atop the American Athletic Conference, he would have assumed that the Pirates would be one of those three. ECU led for much of the season, but lost three of its last five games, its only wins since October coming against tomato cans Tulane and Tulsa.

In the Gators’ last game, they only led Florida State 9-7 at the end of the first quarter, despite having already intercepted Jameis Winston three times. Not surprisingly, they failed to hold that lead, and ultimately fell 24-19. They only gained 282 total yards for the game, 105 of which they gave back on penalties.

Since undergoing gastric bypass surgery in 2011, Pirate coach Ruffin McNeill has lost over 200 pounds – an entire grown man’s worth of weight. Coincidentally, the Gators have just shed about that much humanity at the head coaching position themselves.

This is the Red Wolves’ fourth consecutive trip to this same bowl game, and on each occasion, they entered with a less impressive record than their MAC opponents. In 2011, they were defeated by Northern Illinois, 38-20, but since then, they’ve bumped off Kent State (17-13) and Ball State (23-20). This time, they’re not playing as well going into the game, however, with November losses to Appalachian State and Texas State.

The Rockets didn’t make it to the MAC championship game, but they did pick up a piece of the West division title with a 52-16 rout at last-place Eastern Michigan on its fearsome gray turf. There were no signs of a leg injury that had slowed up Logan Woodside, who took EMU to the shed for 323 yards and five TDs with no picks.

The NCAA has got to pass a rule mandating that all artificial turf must be of a color consistent with a natural surface. The Czar caught some of that TU-EMU game on ESPN3, and it was like watching one of those Sin City movies, but with better acting.

The College Football Czar has always been in favor of adding a championship game onto the end of the bowl season. The only drawbacks to this first effort are that there are no other games for eight days beforehand, and that it’s being played in a miserable dome, like the NCAA apparently wants to be the case two-thirds of the time, judging from the venues it selected for the playoff bowl rotation.

For the second game of the postseason, the focus will be on Olomu again, naturally. It’s not as if the Fighting Ducks don’t still have talent in their defensive backfield, but they might as well get used to the idea that Amari Cooper is going to get his yardage. Then again, most opponents get their yardage against UO, but it doesn’t generally translate into scoring. The Duck defense is only ranked #83 in yards allowed, at 414 per game, but the average score against them of 22.5 ranks at #29.

The webfoots will have senior center Hroniss Grasu back in the lineup, to help a running game that is already rumbling along at 5.5 yards per carry. The Crimson Tide defense is only allowing 2.8, but it hasn’t yet seen an attack as versatile and explosive as the one led by Heisman-winner Marcus Mariota.

Aside from directing the Ducks’ running game, Mariota will likely have thrown for 4,000 yards by the end of the Rose Bowl. He’s also tossed 38 touchdowns to only two interceptions, and has completed 68.3 percent of his passes.

There’s no disputing the fact that Bama coach Nick Saban is a little person, but are we allowed to call him that, now that the teensy-weensies have staked a claim to the “little person” moniker? Or is he now a man without an identity, doomed to be exiled to the island of political misfits, along with non-Oriental Asians, non-Indian native Americans, and people who “identify as” themselves?

Impy’s probably Crappy Bowl picks based on brief analysis

Dec 20th

New Orleans Bowl, The Nevada Wolf Pack wins a road game against LA-Lafayette

New Mexico Bowl, Utah State over UTEP

Las Vegas Bowl, CO State lost their coach to Florida but the team rallies for a major victory over Utah

Idaho Potato Bowl, Western Michigan grounds Air Force

Camellia (some kind of flower) Bowl, MAC runners up Bowling Green get a road win over South Alabama

You picked up on that too?

Daniel puts the icing on west coast football supremacy...I truly don’t know why any football team would dare to show up and challenge ANY PAC-12 team.

Of course, if those darn Seminoles are LUCKY enough to score more points than Oregon, we already know the reason for that...So, a guy who survives a 12 game rockum/sockum football schedule uscathed, tears up his knee during a walk through? At least he doesn’t have to worry about getting torched by Winston now and hurting his chances of getting drafted by the NFL...Oh, and that “Heisman”, of Marizona’s...Let’s not forget that Oregon’s only loss came this year when Marizona coughed up the ball to Arizona when his team had a chance to still win the game...I’m checking to see how many times Winston screwed up and cost his team a chance at victory this year..., ..., ..., let me check last year..., ..., ..., there has to be something wrong here, we all know that Marizona is the greatest college quarterback in the land this year...right?

Winston will torch the Ducks and end up serving Duck L’Orange for New Years Day. Marizona is just a part of the charade that has been foisted on football fans this year. The PAC-12 is a farce and will be exposed in the bowl games.

Check this out:

For the Ducks this year...

Non-Conference opponents won/loss record 16 - 20
Conference opponents won/loss record 57 - 53
All opponents won/loss record 73 - 73

If not for Michigan State, the Ducks opponents Won/Loss record would have been well under .500 for the year...Doesn’t get much weaker than that.

So it’s all hot air that has the Duckies so high.

“You do, of course realize that THE OSU has only beaten ONE SEC team (a third tier Arkansas team, at that) in its entire history, right...???”

Oh, I think Alabama will defeat OSU, but it’s just not axiomatic that the defeat will be a total blow out. It may very well be a total blowout, but I think the game might be closer than many believe.

What's 3 years, 7 years or 20 years ago have to do with these two teams and coaches? Are you implying that Alabama's tradition along with the SEC the past 10 years alone is qualification for just crowning them the winner? New history is written everyday; if OSU stumbles this year it is only because they have literally just risen out of the ashes of scholarship sanctions and program rebuilding this year. Next year the Buckeye dynasty will kick into gear, coupled with the mighty SEC officially (finally) coming into line with the NCAA on scholarships and who qualifies as student athletes, I would think in 3 years, 7 years, or 10 years that this "transparency" and equality in recruiting "student" athletes will have it's toll on both LSU and 'Bama - which leads us back to your implication of tradition and history.

Watching OSU this year is just beginning to reveal what Urban Meyer's coaching will be from here forward - everybody loses a few and if the underdog doesn't lose.... Ha, lets just have fun and watch the kids play.

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