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After the first weekend of college football in November, there are now just four unbeaten teams remaining out of the 130 large division BCS schools. Oklahoma, Georgia, Cincinnati, and (are you ready?) UT-San Antonio stand alone as only teams which have can boast of being undefeated through week #9 of the regular season.
What are the chances that each of these four teams go unbeaten the rest of the way? Let’s examine each team and see what dangers are lurking:
- Oklahoma – The #1 team in our SwampSwami.com Top 25 rankings for the past month has several potential landmines ahead on their schedule. The Boomer Schooner travels to 7-2 Baylor next weekend, then hosts 6-3 Iowa State, and finishes the regular season with the annual Bedlam game against archrival 8-1 Oklahoma State. If OU wins out the rest of these games, they will have no trouble being a top 4 BCS team.
- Georgia – The #2 team in the SwampSwami.com Top 25 rankings has the toughest defense in the land. The Bulldogs have given up just 59 points in nine games (about 6 ½ points per game) with no one scoring more than 13 points on their defense. The Dogs will next travel to Knoxville to play 5-4 Tennessee (on CBS next Saturday at 2:30PM) and will finish-up at home with FCS cupcake Charleston Southern (3-5) and annual rival Georgia Tech (3-6). Though most Georgia fans expect an SEC championship game against Alabama, this Bama team is overrated (except in my poll where the Tide is now ranked #8 and very easily could have lost to 4-5 LSU Saturday night in Tuscaloosa).
- Cincinnati – The Bearcats hosted their first ESPN College GameDay on Saturday and the fans’ enthusiasm was superb. Their unbeaten football team, though, nearly laid an egg at home Saturday afternoon and is seriously sputtering over the past few weeks. Cincy’s offense depends entirely on its quarterback. It has become predictable, and the University of Tulsa (3-6) had a last minute chance to tie Saturday’s game (fumbling a potential game-tying touchdown into the end zone). The remaining schedule finds the Bearcats on the road for 2-7 South Florida, home to play 7-2 SMU, and on the road to finish the regular season at 5-4 East Carolina (which has a history of playing its best against the best opponents). If Cincy goes unbeaten, they will likely face long-time rival (and future Big 12 cousin) University of Houston (8-1) in the AAC championship game.
- UT-San Antonio – If you didn’t stay up late Saturday night to watch the nightcap game of UTSA traveling to 6-3 UTEP, you missed a terrific first half of offense by the Roadrunners. UTSA’s head coach is a great story. Jeff Traylor attended and played football at Gilmer High School in northeast Texas, went to Stephen F. Austin as a walk-on, picked-up his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Education, and ultimately returned to coach his former high school team. After winning four state championships (which is an exceptional accomplishment in Texas), Jeff Traylor took the head coaching job at UTSA two years ago. This guy is for real, and so are the Roadrunners. UTSA’s remaining schedule consists of home encounters with 1-8 Southern Miss and 6-3 UAB and one final road game at North Texas (3-6). Every team in C-USA has three or more losses, so UTSA has, by far, the best chance to finish undefeated. Will the BCS overlords put them into the Final Four? I would, but they’ll probably send UTSA to a Fiesta Bowl game for a paycheck game rather than give the Roadrunners a chance to prove themselves in the final four.
Bottom Ten Alert!
If you like the word “equity”, you will now find it at the bottom of the BCS 130 as both the UNLV Running (on Empty) Rebels (which won on the road at 3-6 New Mexico State 31-17) and the Arizona Mildcats (which scored a late touchdown to defeat equally moribund 3-6 California “Boo Boo” Bears by a 10-3 final score) finally won their first game of the year on Saturday. Every BCS team has now won at least one game! It was quite neighborly of New Mexico State and Cal to help those two teams regain a little bit of self-esteem. As a result, there are now ten teams which have one win apiece. Who will finish as this year’s worst team? We’ll give you an update soon. Stay tuned…
Overrated!
The Associated Press rankings this week have three (count ‘em) three-loss teams in their top 25. Auburn was ranked #16 after the 6-3 War Eagles were handily thumped 20-3 by 7-2 Texas A&M Saturday. The AP really loves the Big Ten! Though I have four (based on merit), there are six Big Ten teams in their Top 25 with 6-3 Wisconsin Badgers (#20) and 6-3 Penn State Nittany Lions (#23) joining the party.
No disrespect meant to any of the fans of those three teams, but the SwampSwami.com College Football Top 25 rankings gives most weight to teams with the fewest losses. From there, I evaluate each team to find their “best” win of the season with extra value for those wins coming on the road.
Let’s check out my rankings for the week ending Saturday, November 6, 2021:
