Various College Football Thoughts

Whose bright idea was it to place Louisiana Tech in the Western Athletic Conference? How is Louisiana western? Geography doesn't always make sense in college football. Is East Carolina in North Carolina or South Carolina? They never tell us during the broadcasts.

The two lines that connect your top lip to the bottom of your nose are known as the philtrum. Chris Fowler's is really long, man.

Pity Kansas. After fighting all year to get to 11-0, defeating 11 opponents who don't have so much as a single point in the "others receiving votes" categories in the polls, the Jayhawks have to play Missouri this week bearing the ominous "second-ranked" title. They're finally toast. If I was at the game, I'd bring a sign that says "Our coach can eat up your coach."

USC's last road game of the year is upon us. I'm not going. I draw the line at traveling to games on Thanksgiving or Christmas. The last bowl game I missed: the Vegas Bowl in 2001, when it was a Christmas Day bowl game. At the beginning of the year, I thought USC'S road schedule at Nebraska, Washington, Notre Dame, Oregon, Cal and Arizona State would be the toughest in the nation. So far, only one of those teams has turned out to be worth a damn.

Has any player in the country lost more relevance that Cal's DeSean Jackson?

I still think Emmanuel Moody was nuts to go to Florida, even if he becomes a "featured back" there.  The Gators have historically almost never run the ball even 20 times a game. With Tim Tebow at quarterback, most running plays would stay with him.

Emmanuel Moody claims that he doesn't mind. “For me, I don’t feel like I’m one of those backs that’s looking at what I can do,” Moody said. It’s not about what he can do, but what the team can do. But if that's the case, you have to wonder why he left the #1 team in the nation to sit out a season. Did he know something we didn't?

Speaking of crazy former USC tailbacks, I saw this quote in today's paper. "As always, I rely on the jury system," says OJ Simpson. When relying on the jury system becomes part of your personal life plan, you should start thinking about seeing a shrink.

I went through some football withdrawal last weekend, with USC getting a bye in advance of their Thanksgiving Day game. It's the closest thing to a game-of-the-year the Pac 10 has left, since this one might decide who stays in the running for the Rose Bowl or a second BCS Bowl bid. The anticipation was tougher to deal with after watching two teams ahead of USC lose to unranked opponents and then not drop below us in the polls. D'oh!

Bruin fans, are you ready for Brady Leaf to come to town to battle Osaar Rasshan? Ten bucks to anyone who predicted back in August that those would be the starting quarterbacks and that this game would have BCS bowl implications for the Ducks.

UCLA needs to beat Oregon or USC to become Emerald Bowl eligible.

Could beating Oregon and USC save Karl Dorrell's job? If you are a Bruin fan, let me know what you think. USC fans would want him fired if he put us through five years like UCLA just had. Someone pointed out that before suffering a few injuries, UCLA had 20 returning starters. That was the good news. The bad news: it was the same guys who stunk last year in all but one game.

Duke and UCLA are both expected to fire their coaches at season's end. When was the last time coaches got whacked, in large part, because of embarrassing losses to Notre Dame?

Old and busted: Notre Dame beating up service academies. New hotness: losing to service academies, but beating up on basketball schools.

UCLA fans probably felt better after Notre Dame defeated Duke. Who wants to be known as the only team to lose to lowly Notre Dame? I wouldn't have minded, but then again, I despise UCLA football. If, in August, I had been given the power to determine the outcome of every Notre Dame game this season, the Irish would finish 1-11, with a win over only UCLA.

In retrospect, perhaps the entire Pac-10 should feel good about Notre Dame defeating Duke. Imagine the conference humiliation if Notre Dame had lost to Duke before beating Stanford in its final game to go 2-1 against the Pac-10 and 0-9 against the rest of the country.

Ty Willingham's three recruiting classes at Notre Dame were ranked #32 (2004), #12 (2003) and #24 (2002). Not quite what the Irish expected, but not the cause of an 2-9 start in 2007 now, is it? Yet Notre Dame fans are not lining up to fire Charlie. Why?

My guess is that Irish fans love hype and expectation more than performance. They'd rather have a coach who can recruit talent and then disappoint them. Someone who goes 3-9 but recruits well for next year is better than some who recruits okay talent and goes 8-4 with the certain prospect of four more losses next year.

I'm not going to miss the Irish home broadcasts. They were pathetic this year. Was it too much to ask Charlie Weis to keep the snot off his face during games? If not, couldn't someone ask NBC to check Weis's face for snot rockets before cutting to a live shot of his mug? I enjoy eating and drinking during games, and it was just a matter of time before I regurgitated something during a live shot of Charlie launching a snot rocket. Every week, I had to change the channel once it started getting cold down on the field. Fortunately, I probably won't watch the Stanford - Notre Dame game.

I hate Stanford games.