By Brian Towle
Week 12 has arrived and you know what that means. Only three more weeks of the college football regular season. Sad pandas we all are. Title games are being decided and bowl bids are on the line, not to mention certain jobs. The peaks and valley’s of last week include -
Winners:
Clemson: The Tigers are ACC Championship Game-bound again. Now, how to win one of those things...
Oregon: The Ducks win the Pac-12 North and will host the inaugural Pac-12 Championship Game. Run the table, get lucky, and the Quack Attack may be facing LSU again for all the marbles.
Missouri: A good win against a Texas team that had an offense firing on all cylinders. Emphasis on "had."
Virginia Tech: The Hokies are setting up their showdown with Clemson.
Losers:
Boise State: An inexcusable loss against TCU essentially ends the height of the Kellen Moore era. This is rather sad, because if Moore was at any AQ school, he’d be winning his second Heisman this year. Moore's a winner and will keep notching victories in the NFL. That doesn’t take away that the sting of Boise losing two crucial games by field goals during the past two seasons.
Texas: Losing in Columbia and hearing SEC chants was bad. Losing running back Fozzy Whitaker for the year is even worse.
Arizona State: If a team can’t show up for a game against the worst team in the Pac-12, they don’t deserve to go to the title game. The problem is that no one else in the Pac-12 South deserves to go either.
Georgia Tech: The Yellow Jackets played Virginia Tech tough, but had the rug yanked out from underneath them at the end.
Stanford: For the second year in a row, Oregon slugged the Cardinal in the mouth and they couldn’t answer. This Stanford team shouldn't have been ran out of their own home.
Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Maryland, Syracuse and Tennessee...normally you all would deserve a special something, but one team in particular gets that honor.
Auburn:
To preface this, there isn’t a fantastic slate games this week to display the usual total feature on. Since this week is essentially an appetizer, we'll go through the games of main interest. Those include:
The Good (Watch or stream these games):
No. 5 Oklahoma at No. 22 Baylor: Can Bob Stoops and company dodge a bullet into Bedlam for a shot at the Big 12 title?
No. 13 Kansas State at No. 22 Texas: No Fozzy and a shaky scoring could doom the Longhorns against an above average offensive output from the Wildcats.
No. 21 Penn State at Ohio State: This'll be an interesting environment as the Lions head to Columbus thick with rumors of Urban Meyer taking the reins. This isn't even taking into account the Buckeye seniors who have been tainted from Tat-gate leaving the program.
SMU at No. 11 Houston: If there is an offensive coordinator that won't mind going blow for blow with Kevin Sumlin, it’s SMU's June Jones. That being said, does Jones have the ponies to stay with Case Keenum?
USC at No. 4 Oregon: Chip Kelly will have none of Kiffin's shenanigans. Kelly may hang 90 on the Trojans if Lane acts up.
The Mediocre (keep an eye on these scores):
Iowa at Purdue: Iowa is reeling and Purdue is riding a wave of momentum after the upset against Ohio State last week. Who will underachieve most?!
Virginia at No. 25 Florida State: The Seminoles should roll, but the Cavaliers do give others fits.
Miami at South Florida: Two teams that are fighting to claim the ranking of No. 3 in the state. South Florida has the better quarterback, Miami has the hyped one.
Colorado State at No. 19 TCU: It'll be interesting to see how the Horned Frogs handle the emotional after effects of the win over Boise State.
Kentucky at No. 14 Georgia: The Bulldogs are playing to secure an SEC title game bid while Kentucky may be playing for Joker Phillips' empoyment.
The Ugly (You are watching cause you’re family, lost a bet, or took the line and are profusely sweating about it):
No. 2 Oklahoma State at Iowa State: Mike Gundy's Cowboys will come firing and secure their No. 2 national ranking.
Kansas at Texas A&M: At least we know there will be scoring in the second half.
No. 1 LSU at Ole Miss: This would have been a game ranked higher until Houston Nutt showed his true colors. You would think Nutt would come out guns blazing, however the more analysis this game is given, the more obvious it is that the Rebels are headed for slaughter.
No. 10 Boise State at San Diego State: Kellen Moore is mad and he’s gonna take it out on Brady Hoke's former team.
Arizona at Arizona State: Two schools that are fighting for the Northern Nogales Chamber of Commerce seal of approval.
Vanderbilt at Tennessee: ...I've got nothing.
Coaches cooking in the Crock Pot this week are:
Rick Neuheisel, UCLA: Sneaking into the Pac-12 title game could save you. That being said, beating USC likely will save you.
Turner Gill, Kansas: You're provided a perfect opportunity to get people to call off the dogs on Senior Day. Unfortunately, your defense couldn’t stop a cold much less RG3. With Pinkel's issues, would beating Mizzou help much?
Paul Wulff, Washington State: The Arizona State win helped your cause. Beat Washington and you may get a pass.
Steve Fairchild, Colorado State: Four years in with barely a 33 percent winning percentage. Not good, although Colorado's Embree is indirectly helping.
Randy Edsall, Maryland: Less worrying about uniform combinations and more about winning. Ralph Friedgen got fired for this freak show?
Mike Sherman, Texas A&M: From where this team started 2011 to a must-win game against Texas to be bowl eligible. How far have you fallen? Then again, beat the Longhorns, have the crowd chant SEC as Thanksgiving night ends, and General Dog may be lenient.
Tom O’Brien, NC State: His team has scored as many points as his team they've. Not the type of balance a football team is looking for.
David Cutcliffe, Duke: Getting paid $1.6M at a basketball school doesn’t cut it when you have consecutive three-win seasons.
Mike Riley, Oregon State: The school in Eugene is getting the talent and the attention. Not good.
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