4 highly ranked teams (2 undefeated) win by a combined 12 points

Is anyone surprised that 4 ranked soccer teams, 3 of them highly ranked, won their games by a combined 12 points this week? It should come as no surprise that No. 1-ranked Oregon, No. 3-ranked TCU, No. 7-ranked Stanford, and No. 21-ranked Nevada all battled hard before finally prevailing.

The reason is simple: these 4 ranked teams only have a combined 5 wins against other currently ranked teams. In other words, their combined win-loss record is 39-2 BUT they haven’t played many competitive teams.

With the season winding down, they are now positioned against better competition and look much more vulnerable.

Take Oregon, the top-ranked, as an example. The Ducks ranked first in the nation in offensive scoring (54+ points per game) and total offense (567+ points per game) and 13th in defensive scoring (17+ points per game) before facing California. The Bears, who were unranked in any major polls except Sagarin, who ranked California, a 5-4 team that has played the seventh-toughest schedule in the country, as the 24th-best team.

Oregon ultimately won this game 15-13 (a 2-point margin), but could have easily lost it as Bear’s 24-yard field goal late in the game was nullified by an illegal motion penalty on the kicker’s part, which failure. the 29-yard attempt on this second attempt. A successful kickoff would have given California a 16-15 lead that they could have held.

The Ducks scored 58 offensive touchdowns in their first 9 nine games and managed 1 against California while posting their lowest point total in 10 years.

Can you beat Oregon? Despite the hype, of course the Ducks (10-0) can be beaten, and they still have to face Arizona and Oregon State in the state’s Civil War Game, a historically nasty game at best.

It could be argued that Oregon was lucky to win, and many fans, players and coaches would agree with you.

The third-place TCU Horned Frogs ranked first in scoring defense (8+ ppg) and total defense (215+ ypg), and eighth in scoring offense (41+ ppg) and total offense (492+ ypg). ) before running into the unranked San Diego State Aztecs.

TCU’s impressive stats were mainly due to them having played weak teams all year. Even last week’s 47-7 dismantling of then-undefeated sixth-ranked Utah looked a lot less impressive after Utah (now 8-2) was beaten this week by a hapless Notre Dame team 4-5, 28- 3.

Utah is good? Are you kidding? The Utes’ undefeated journey throughout the season was a fluke at best and a fraud at worst. Utah fell from 6th in the standings to 15th last week to 25th this week. What’s next, a Utah loss to San Diego State next week?

TCU trailed San Diego State by two touchdowns and couldn’t take control of the game until late in the fourth quarter, holding off an Aztec charge to escape with a 40-35 win (a 5-point margin).

All this talk about TCU being unstoppable and their defense being unstoppable is nonsense. TCU (11-0) has exactly one win over a currently ranked team this year, and it came against the impostor Utah Utes. ‘Nuff said.

The Horned Frogs’ final game is against a New Mexico team ranked 173rd out of 120 Division 1-A schools. There are 58 AA-rated teams ahead of New Mexico that could probably beat the Lobos any day of the week and twice on Saturday. New Mexico shouldn’t even be playing in Division 1 this year.

All of this means the TCU Horned Frogs will finish the season undefeated at 12-0 and complaining if they don’t play in the national championship game.

Seventh-ranked Stanford Cardinal (9-1) nearly lost a fistfight with unranked Arizona State before winning 17-13 (a 4-point margin). Only Stanford’s defense and a lengthy fourth-quarter scoring drive saved the Cardinal from losing. The Sun Devils (now 4-6) played hard, leading 13-10 before Stanford’s scoring drive.

Stanford still has to face California and the state of Oregon.

The 21st-ranked Wolf Pack from Nevada has a lot of offense and little defense, and it showed against an unranked Fresno State team that came close to winning. Fresno State scored 10 points to take a 34-28 lead before Vai Taua’s 24-yard run put the Bulldogs out for good, 35-34 (a 1-point margin).

The Bulldogs amassed 444 yards of offense to Nevada’s 416 yards, showing just how porous the Wolf Pack’s defense performs. When you’re giving up 444 yards of offense and 34 points, you better have an even better offense.

The bottom line is that the 4 undefeated teams from last week are still undefeated, but now they can clearly be beaten. Auburn and TCU are 11-0, Oregon is 10-0 and Boise State is 9-0.

Six qualifying teams got off to slow starts before winning.

Baylor led 23rd-ranked Texas A&M 30-21 at the half, but the Aggies won, 42-30, holding the Bears scoreless in the second half. North Carolina led 16th-ranked Virginia Tech 10-9 at the half, but the Hokies rallied in the second half with 17 points while holding the Tar Heels scoreless to win, 26-10. . Kansas State gave 20th-ranked Missouri a game but lost in the end, 38-28.

Bo Pelini’s Nebraska Cornhuskers held Kansas to an 87-yard total offense as they won, 20-3. The Jayhawks got exactly 5 first downs and were sacked 6 times. Texas held 12th-ranked Oklahoma State to a 3-3 tie after the first quarter, but the Cowboys scored 23 points in the second quarter and won 33-16.

Second-ranked Auburn scored the opening goal and then saw Georgia score 3 touchdowns before finally pulling a fourth-quarter breakout to win, 49-31. All week, Auburn and its star quarterback, Cam Newton, had been pummeled in the press with accusations of wrongdoing, but the Heisman favorite Newton took it all in stride.

Newton completed 12 of 15 passes for 148 yards and 2 touchdowns. More importantly, he rushed 30 times for 151 yards (5.0 yards per carry) and scored on runs of 1 and 31 yards. Onterio McCalebb added 3 scramble touchdowns. By winning against Georgia, Auburn becomes the SEC Western Division Champion and will face Eastern Division Champion South Carolina for the SEC championship and a spot in a BCS bowl game.

Seven other qualified teams posted wins by at least 20 points.

Really good wins included Boise State in fourth on the road over Idaho 52-14, LSU in fifth at home over Louisiana-Monroe 51-zip, Wisconsin in sixth at home over Indiana 83-20, Ohio 8th-place State at home over Penn State 38-14, 11th-place Alabama at home over 17th-place Mississippi State 30-10, 14th-place Arkansas over UTEP 58-21 and 19th-place Oklahoma over Texas Tech, 45-7.

Among the 7 games, the one in Wisconsin was the most impressive. The Badgers’ 83 points scored were their best offensive performance in 95 years, was the most points by a major school this season, tied the highest scoring total in the Big Ten Conference since Ohio State’s 83-21 win over Iowa in 1950, and it was Wisconsin’s most points since an 85-zip win over Marquette in 1915.

Wisconsin’s Montee Bell rushed for 3 touchdowns in his first career start, James White rushed for 2 more and Scott Tolzien threw for 3 touchdowns. The Badgers scored on all 12 of their possessions. Did Wisconsin move up the score? Other than Indiana, who cares?

Penn State won the first half against Ohio State, 14-3, but the Buckeyes won the second half, 35-zip.

Five qualifying teams were upset, costing virtually every one of them a more prominent invitation to a bowl game in the coming weeks. They included Iowa (now 7-3), Utah (8-2), Arizona (7-3), Florida (6-4) and Central Florida (7-3). All were outclassed by unranked teams except Florida.

Northwestern beat 13th-ranked Iowa 21-17, Notre Dame beat 15th-ranked Utah 28-3, Southern Cal beat 18th-ranked Arizona 24-21, 22nd-ranked South Carolina beat 24th-ranked Florida 36- 14, and South Mississippi beat 25th-ranked Central Florida 31-21.

The biggest upset went to South Carolina, as the Gamecocks (7-3 overall and 5-3 in the SEC) clinched the SEC East and snapped a 12-game losing streak to Florida.

Southern Cal’s win put the Trojans back in the AP Poll at 20th, and Miami’s 35-10 victory over Georgia Tech gave them 24th place. To make room for these two returning Top 25 teams, Florida and Central Florida (UCF) were kicked out of the Survey.

Winning saw Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas A&M move up the AP Poll, Southern California and Miami FL moved back up the Survey, and losing Iowa, Mississippi State, Arizona and Utah all lost ground significant.

No. 10 Michigan State and the unranked Washington Huskies were inactive this week.

Four unranked teams became bowl eligible this week by winning: East Carolina, West Virginia, South Florida and Army.

Copyright © 2010 Ed Bagley

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