Week 12 Rundown

With SEC playing out its annual cupcake week, it was a rather dull week for college football.  Nothing happened that made you do more than slightly raise an eyebrow.  West Virginia lost to Oklahoma State on the road.  A little surprising?  Yes.  Shocking that they would lose?  No.  In a league with little resistance to high-powered offenses, Big XII games always can go either way.  Alabama tied with the Citadel at halftime?  Definitely worth an eyebrow raise, but everyone knew what the second half would bring.  Even Alabama is a team made up of kids that no doubt were not taking their opponent seriously.

Arizona State lost to Oregon.  That has clinched Utah a spot in the PAC 12 title game.  That's good for Washington State.  Assuming they beat Washington in the Apple Cup (definitely not a sure thing), they will probably have a ranked opponent in the PAC 12 title game.  Utah has to beat bitter rival BYU to stay ranked.  Washington State is the PAC 12's lone Playoff hopeful and they need a whole bunch of chaos ahead of them plus win out to even have a shot.

Utah State has been killing it in the Mountain West, but they needed a penalty on Colorado Sate to wipe out a game winning touchdown and survive.  The Jacknife power rankings are usually a pretty good indicator of the Playoff selections that will occur.  This year Utah State is quite the outlier.  They are ranked 3rd in our rankings, but definitely have no shot at the Playoff.  They have a big game against Boise State this week to determine who gets to play in their conference championship.

Michigan pulled one out against Indiana as they undoubtedly were looking ahead to Ohio State.  This is the big game they have been waiting for since Jim Harbaugh arrived.  They really need this win to put themselves back into the elite.  They are a road favorite against the Buckeyes.  Win this one and the aura around Harbaugh will be bright once again.  Of course they would then still have to beat Northwestern in the Big 10 championship - a team the Wolverines only beat by 3 points earlier in the year.  Speaking of Ohio State, they had another week where they won but looked like garbage.  They needed a failed 2-pt conversion by Maryland in OT to walk away with a win.  Not a good look for them the past few weeks.

UCF destroyed fellow top 25 team Cincinnati in the prime time game of the week.  They can only keep beating the teams in front of them and hope that the committee gives them a shot.  They probably are not going to crack the top 4 unless Notre Dame, Michigan, and Clemson all lose for starters.  Then they need Oklahoma and Washington State to lose.  If Alabama loses to Georgia in SEC championship that doesn't help them because Georgia will just jump into the top 4 and Alabama might still stay in the top 4.  Of course UCF has to keep winning and winning with style points too.

The final week of the regular season is upon us.  Enjoy the last slate of full games as you eat your turkey and kick off the Christmas season!