“If you don’t see yourself as a winner, then you can’t perform as a winner.”
-’Zig’ Ziglar
Hilary Hinton ‘Zig’ Ziglar is a motivational speaker. (Could a guy with that picture be anything else?) Though he took a fall down a flight of stairs that diminished his short term memory, he still travles the country to give his talks.
Iowa ha fall down stairs, out of airplanes, and into black holes, but somehow they continued to be winners. They saw themselves as winners when no one else did except the scoreboard. But finally, they realized they’d wasted all that money on audio tapes telling them how to apply themselves, and the pressure was too much for them.
I wish they could have lost differently. It sucks that it took their starting QB going down with an injury for it to happen. Not only that, but the hit that caused the injury also caused a fumble that was recovered in the endzone by Northwestern for a touchdown, which was the difference in the game. It couldn’t have been any worse for the Hawkeyes. And without Stanzi against the Buckeyes, they don’t stand a chance.
But bad luck doesn’t change the scoreboard. With their loss, we’re down to six undefeated teams. Two are set to play each other at the end of the regular season. What fate awaits the others? Find out below, where I rank the teams and predict the winners of undefeated team’s games. (Current record: 51-16.)
#6 Boise State: If the Broncos hadn’t gotten a bit of a scare last week against Louisiana Tech, I might be tempted to pick Idaho for the upset here. They’re having a pretty good season with only three losses. But one of those was a blow out loss to Nevada. And they might be without their starting QB. And, bottom line is, the Broncos don’t lose on the blue field.
It’s easy to mock them for their schedule (trust me, I do it all the time), but now that stories are coming out about how they can’t even get one, much less two, BCS schools to schedule games against them season after next, it makes their case a lot better for a playoff. In a way, I can’t blame BCS schools for not wanting to play them. They’re consistently good enough that you might be scheduling a loss. And in most seasons, simply being an undefeated BCS school is enough to get into the championship game. And even in year’s when it’s not, would playing Boise State really help you out? If Cincinnati had beaten Boise State this year, would it get in over Alabama/Florida or Texas if all three were undefeated? Very doubtful, so why bother.
But the fact that teams are scared to play Boise State won’t help it in the BCS. It’s a system that needs to die. Meanwhile, all the Broncos can do it beat Idaho.
Winner: Boise State
#5 TCU: Another week, another Horned Frog beatdown. They are doing exactly what one should expect a good team to do against mediocre or bad competition, consistently. The way they are playing right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if they take Utah, the team everyone is calling their biggest hurdle to an undefeated season, to the woodshed. If that turns out to be the case, they’ll only have two games decided by less than 16 points. Those include a 4-point come-from-behind win over Clemson (who, as it turns out, is pretty good this year) and a 3-point hiccup against Air Force (whose other three losses are to quality competition).
Personally, I’d love to see TCU versus Bama in the national championship. Not to say that the Crimson Tide wouldn’t, but you know the Horned Frogs would play their hearts out. It would be their best possible performance. Is that good enough to match up against Alabama? I think so.
But that’s probably a pipedream. So destroying Utah will have to do.
Winner: TCU
#4 Cincinnati: I picked UConn to win last week, and obviously I was wrong. But boy did they give them a hell of a game. The Bearcats were up 30-10 at halftime, but the Huskies were only down by eight with 13 minutes still left in the 4th. Problem is, they didn’t score again until only 5 minutes were left and didn’t get the two-point conversion. Still, they kept it close until the end.
Meanwhile, Zack Collaros is Mr. Awesome Sauce. The guy threw for 480 yards. What I can’t figure out is how he only had one passing touchdown. You’d almost have to be trying not to get the ball into the endzone to get that many passing yards with only one passing touchdown. (I’m in no way knocking the guy, considering he did run for 75 yards and two more scores.)
Tonight they face West Virginia. These are not the Mountaineers of old, but they do still have Noel Devine. Still, I think the Bearcats are going to take care of business.
But things could get completed after this week. Pike, the original starter, is expected to play some in this game. Could a QB controversy really happen with a 10-0 team?
Winner: Cincinnati
#3 Florida: Where, oh where, has your offense gone? Where, oh where, could it be? A 27-3 victory over Vanderbilt is never really impressive, and especially not this year when the Commodores are down more than usual. Meanwhile, Tim Tebow is still being discussed in the Heisman talk. I love the guy and love watching him play, but he deserves a Heisman trophy like Charlie Weis deserves another chance. He just flat out does not have the numbers this year. Yes, his team is winning, but that has more to do with the defense than anything else. His only touchdown pass against Vandy was a TERRIBLE decision that got tipped to the wide open guy he should have been throwing to in the first place.
People want to elevate the “Spurrier could knock off Florida when it counts” angle, but how about the “Spurrier just got blown out by Tennessee and Arkansas” angle?
Winner: Florida
#2 Texas: They only beat Central Florida 35-3. UCF isn’t terrible, but the way Texas was rolling, they should have scored more. They killed them in yardage, so how did they manage to not get into the endzone more?
Shipley set a Texas record and McCoy came close. And McCoy will likely beat David Greene’s record of career wins, which is very impressive.
But at the end of the day, they only won 35-3. The same score against Baylor will be acceptable though.
Winner: Texas
#1 Alabama: The Tide took a one score game into the fourth quarter against Les Miles and lived to tell about it, which is a feat worthy of its own trophy. I was wrong about the upset, but I was right in that they wouldn’t be able to win this game in another ugly game of trench warfare. Despite Ingram gaining 144 yards on the ground (this guy is incredible), it still took McElroy throwing for 278 yards (his 2nd highest career game), or nearly TWICE what he’s thrown for in any game since September, for them to win.
The non-interception call in the fourth quarter was total BS. While Saban is right that LSU getting the ball back doesn’t mean they would have won, that seems like a jerk thing to say. You should still want the game to be called correctly. LSU NOT getting the pick, and then Bama kicking a field goal definitely LOST them the game, so it was a huge bad call.
I don’t think the Tigers would have won with that pick, though. I’m just saying, I want calls to be correct.
I’ve thought Bama looked like the best team until their offense disappeared. Now that it’s back, hopefully it can stick around. They could win an ugly game against Mississippi State, but why not be beautiful.
Winner: Alabama
That’s right, no upsets picked this week.