Pretend College Football Playoffs Round One

We’re ready to start our pretend college football playoffs and you may find a few surprises in the results. All first round games are played on neutral fields using the BCS Bowl System starting with the Rose Bowl between #4 TCU and #5 Florida.

Rose Bowl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
#5 Florida Gators	9	3	0	6	18
#4 TCU Horned Frogs	0	10	10	6	26

Florida gets off to a quick start by actually taking a 12-0 lead in the second quarter but then TCU’s Joseph Turner takes over. Finishing with 187 rushing yards and two touchdowns Turner leads the Frogs to a 26-18 upset.

Sugar Bowl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
#8 Ohio State Buckeyes	0	6	0	3	9
#1 Alabama Crimson Tide	17	7	3	6	33

Ohio State has no answer for Bama’s defense and the Heisman Trophy winner, Mark Ingram, has a banner day rushing for 142 yards and a score. Tide marches on.

Fiesta Bowl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
#7 Oregon Ducks	0	0	0	7	7
#2 Texas Longhorns	10	7	3	10	30

The Longhorns hold Oregon to 151 total offensive yards while Colt McCoy passes for 230 yards and a score.

Orange Bowl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	Total
#6 Boise State Broncos	7	7	7	17	38
#3 Cincinnati Bearcats	7	14	7	7	35

In another BCS miracle the Boise State Broncos outscore Cincinnati 17-7 in the fourth quarter to end the most exciting game of the first round with a 38-35 upset win over the Bearcats.

College Football Pretend Playoffs: The Seedings

The way it looks now it will literally take an act of congress to get a college football playoff and with a little more than a week remaining until Texas and Alabama face off in the BCS Championship Game we’re still left wondering what if. What if teams like Cincinnati and TCU were given opportunities to play for all the marbles? Would they get trampled over by a champion from a BCS or would they actually have a punchers chance at providing a March Madness like shocking moment? Unfortunately we’ll never know and instead we have a series of bowl games that look like this;

Rose Bowl – Ohio State/Oregon

Sugar Bowl – Florida/Cincinnati

Fiesta Bowl – Boise State/TCU

Orange Bowl – Iowa/Georgia Tech

BCS Championship – Texas/Alabama

Honestly, unless you’re a fan of one of those teams which game are you just nuts about watching? The Texas/Bama game should be fun for a championship but we’ve got to deal with Boise State/TCU before we get there. Really?

I’ve always argued that you could use the current BCS formula to select the top eight teams for a playoff and things would be much more exciting during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. How about this for the first round?

Rose Bowl - #4 TCU/#5 Florida

Sugar Bowl - #1 Alabama/#8 Ohio State

Fiesta Bowl - #2 Texas/#7 Oregon

Orange Bowl - #3 Cincinnati/#6 Boise State

Come on, you can’t tell me that doesn’t look like a better BCS Bowl lineup. Can you imagine the ratings for these match-ups? Advertising revenue would be through the roof with excitement and anticipation off the chart. The next round would move to the home sites of the two remaining top seeded teams and then finally a BCS Championship game that rotates sites as normal. It would be a lot of fun but we’ll never see it. So in the meantime we’re going to use imagination and computer simulation over the next week to play through our pretend playoffs.

Oregon Loses Game Then Player Loses Control

Oregon running back LeGarrette Blount takes losing to Boise State personal. After last season’s loss in Eugene Blount was ready to take it to the Broncos and get one back. Saying that he owed Boise State an, “A** Whipping” Blount backed up his trash talk with 8 carries for -5 yards. Not necessarily the type of performance that portrays any type of a whipping.

Anyone want to guess what happened when Blount’s words were thrown back into his face after the game. If you haven’t already done so, this is the part where you watch the video.

For his efforts in thuggery LeGarrette Blount has drawn a season long suspension. I wonder what the NCAA is thinking of that pre-game handshake idea now.

Las Vegas Bowl Preview

The Oregon Ducks (7-5) are riding a 3-game losing streak while the #19 BYU Cougars (10-2) haven’t lost since September 16th. Both teams have high powered offensive attacks. The Cougars average 36.7 points per game and the Ducks put up 31.3 points per game. Defense is a different story where BYU is a respectable 16th in total defense but Oregon is 84th.

2006 BYU Schedule/Results			2006 Oregon Schedule/Results
at Arizona L 13-16			Stanford W 48-10
Tulsa W 49-24			at Fresno State W 31-24
at (23) Boston College L 23-30			(15) Oklahoma W 34-33
Utah State W 38-0			at Arizona State W 48-13
TCU W 31-17			at Cal. L 24-45
San Diego State W 47-17			UCLA W 30-20
UNLV W 52-7			at Washington State L 23-34
at Air Force W 33-14			Portland State W 55-12
at Colorado State W 24-3			Washington W 34-14
Wyoming W 55-7			at (7)USC L 10-35
New Mexico W 42-17			Arizona L 10-37
at Utah W 33-31			at Oregon State L 28-30

Three Reasons to Watch the Las Vegas Bowl
1. The BYU Cougars are looking to win their first bowl game in 10 years.

2. Oregon offensive coordinator Gary Crowton coached BYU from 2001-04 before being fired. While at BYU he recruited Cougars quarterback John Beck and hired current Cougars head coach Bronco Mendenhall as his defensive coordinator.

3. BYU quarterback John Beck set Las Vegas Bowl records for completions (35), attempts (53) and passing yards (353) in last year’s 35-28 loss to Cal.

My Prediction
The Oregon Ducks are a team in turmoil after losing the last three games of their regular season. Their defense has struggled as of late and they are unsettled at the quarterback position. On the other hand BYU is rolling and focused. I say Cougars win an exciting game 31-24.