College Football Weekend Review

From the start of the first game of this past weekend, Friday night's Boise State-Idaho tilt (which the Broncos won resoundingly), to the last games on Saturday night, the world of college football experienced a rollercoaster-like series of ups-and-downs, and shocking victories and defeats.
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Most notably, top-ranked Oregon narrowly defeated California, 15-13 in Berkeley. The Ducks escaped thanks to a missed 29-yard field goal following a false start by kicker Giorgio Tavecchio late in the game-Oregon should consider themselves incredibly lucky that they won despite scoring only one offensive touchdown, and both polls reflect that, as they lost a total of 14 votes between both the Associated Press and coaches' polls, despite holding on to the top spot.

Across the country, the second-ranked Auburn Tigers faced similar on-field adversity, rallying to defeat Georgia 49-31 after trailing 21-7. Despite dealing with an intense investigation by both the NCAA and now the FBI, QB Cam Newton accounted for four total TD's and 153 rushing yards-that statline looks extremely impressive, regardless of whether or not the allegations surrounding Newton are true, although most of the evidence points towards his guilt at this point. That news, however, pales slightly in comparison to the rest of the day's college football action.

In seeing other hourly updates throughout the evening, pollsters and football pundits were undoubtedly shocked to see another upset brewing, this one in Fort Worth,Texas. There, third-ranked TCU was also forced to come back from an early deficit,and throughout that game, San Diego State gave the Horned Frogs all that they could handle in losing by a mere five points On that note, the Aztecs might be one of the most underrated 7-win teams in the country.

Looking at the Big Ten race, Northwestern delivered a crushing blow to Iowa's conference title hopes in winning 21-17. QB Dan Persa was key in carrying the Wildcats to a victory, and that Hawkeyes loss eliminates them from the series of ties atop the Big Ten, which bolsters MSU's own position. Among the teams involved in that tie, Ohio State also rallied to win, knocking off Penn State 38-14.  For a look back at that game, see my wrap-up of OSU-PSU below.

The Michigan State Spartans get back to work on Monday, with the Purdue Boilermakers on the way. For an early preview of that contest and more thoughts from the world of sports, check back here later this week.

--Beau