COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEKEND OBSERVATIONS

by WCT, The Ship of Fools

Before we begin, a mea culpa: Man, was I wrong. I have no idea why it took me this long to figure this out. When I fill out my blogpoll ballot this week, the number one team on my list will be the West Virginia Mountaineers. The WVU games I saw this year (Marshall, South Florida, Maryland, Cincinnati) led me to believe that Mountaineers weren't really that impressive. Wrong. What they did to Connecticut on Saturday afternoon should be illegal it was so brutal.

The way I see it, West Virginia should kill Pittsburgh in their season finale, and be favored by a significant margin over whomever they face in the BCS Championship Game.

- One more point on WVU: Everyone is handing the Heisman trophy to Tim Tebow, and rightfully so, he has been amazing this year. But why are so few people considering Pat White who plays essentially the same role on a more successful team?

- The game of the century lived up to the hype on Saturday night, and so did Chase Daniel. Give that man some Heisman love!

- The next coach of the Michigan Wolverines will be Les Miles. No, I don't have inside information, or inside sources feeding me this information. I just know that in the first half of Friday's Arkansas-LSU game, the Tigers looked like they were being coached by a guy with one foot out the door. They looked flat and uninspired, and this performance just happened to come in the first game after the Michigan job officially became vacant. Someone was a bit distracted.

- By the way, what is it with SEC games and multiple overtimes? This year we have seen LSU-Kentucky, Arkansas-LSU, and Tennessee-Kentucky all play overtime games. Have there been three overtime games in all of the other BCS conferences combined?

- You know who just might find their way onto my blogpoll ballot this week? Hawaii. Yes, Hawaii. They crushed Boise State on Friday night and are one win away from probably appearing in a BCS bowl.

- Speaking of the BCS, we will have a pretty weak crop of BCS at-large candidates this year. Besides the six conference champions (Ohio State, WVU, probably USC, ACC champ, SEC champ, Big 12 champ) who is deserving of an at-large bid? Texas' loss to A&M probably eliminates them, so who is left? Three-loss Florida? Three-loss Georgia? A fraudulent Arizona State? The Virginia Tech-Boston College loser? UConn?? Ugh. How ever it shakes out, there are going to be some weak teams playing in BCS bowls in January.

- The worst kept secret in the world was let out of the bag on Saturday when Nebraska fired head coach Bill Callahan. Good thing they gave him that contract extension this year. That Nebraska "defense" allowed 65 to Colorado on Friday, two games after allowing 76 mind you, to bring their yearly total to nearly 38 points allowed per game.

- How good did USC look on Thursday night? Yes, Arizona State is probably a fraud, but they looked like a completely different team than the sluggish unit that lost in Eugene. That is one team I would not want to face right now.

- I take back all of those nice things I said about Steve Spurrier and the South Carolina Gamecocks. That team has completely derailed. Can you believe that this team ws #6 in the nation at one point? That seems like it was ages ago.

- University of Alabama: How is that $4 million-per-year investment in Nick Saban working out for you so far? 'Bama fired a guy who won 10 games two seasons ago, and hired a guy who would go 6-6 and lose to Florida State, Mississippi State, Louisiana Monroe, and Auburn among others. Hell, Mike Shula could've done that.

Pic: AP