Zach Randolph, Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan drop by to chat with Bill.
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It's the last week before bowl season, and though much has been decided, there's at least a modicum of drama left. Let's get all judgmental and count down the eight best games.
8. No. 9 Oregon vs. "UCLA," "Pac-12" "Championship"
Once in a while, as a kid, I would invite my neighbor up to play basketball. He wasn't very good, but there was no one else around. I'd regret it almost immediately; he'd feel bad for not playing well, I'd feel bad for beating him, and then I'd try to let him win a game to make it less horrible, but it ended up making it more horrible because he knew what I was doing. Still, we'd have to keep going to maintain the whole facade, to make sure no feelings were hurt. But why were we playing? What was the point? What I'm trying to say is, that neighbor's name was Rick Neuheisel (gasp!).
After the frenetic highs of Week 12, Rivalry Week was a slow coming-down party. In 16 games involving ranked teams, there wasn't a single upset -- at least by the rankings. Most of the games weren't even close. The rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and several avenues of escape were cut off.
Your viewer’s guide for the final full weekend of the college football season, parsed into dual categories: The (relative) mainstream (The Cannon) and the indie (The JaMarcus).
The Cannon: No. 3 Arkansas (10-1) at no. 1 LSU (11-0), 2:30 p.m. EST, Friday, CBS
Appeals To: Bill Clinton, James Carville
Rivalry Week is here, and there's a lot more at stake than just pride. Which is great because, really, who cares about pride? Most of us threw that out the window when we went on welfare just so we could afford HBO. It's the American story, folks. Don't blame the messenger. Anyway, there are more games with BCS implications this week than I can ever remember. The rundown is enough to make you store canned peaches and rifles in an underground shelter and pray for Thursday. So, here it be. (Note: I realize that not all of these games are true rivalries, so quit it with your semantics. There are bigger problems in this world, dude, such as your reflexive anger at trivialities.)
Here are the main takeaways from Saturday:
I feel bad giving the Oregon-Stanford blowout short shrift, but the result can really be summed up in two words: speed kills. The Stanford run defense, which had been one of the nation's best prior to facing Oregon, gave up 232 yards. From the size of the holes LaMichael James was exploiting, it felt like Stanford was playing a prevent defense all game. In fact, if you'll let me brag for a moment (and I hope you will, because I'm so often wrong), everything I predicted in the preview essentially came true. The words of the prophet:
Five titles for the book about the Alabama-LSU game:
"The Questionable Classic"
"Czar Nicholas Comes Unglued"
"The End Zones Were Not Breached"
"The Foster Debacle"
"Catch the F*&%ing Ball, Michael Williams"
Or maybe it should have something to do with soccer. Over the weekend, Twitter was afire with living room pundits comparing LSU-Bama to the beautiful game, and their words were not flattering. These analogists, diametrically opposed to anyone who believed the long defensive standoff was a sign of something epic, were peeved at the pace of play and wanted more scoring.
In case you were out living a life of leisure, here's what you missed in sports on Thursday.
Week 9 is an opening act. Week 9 is a kid brother. Week 9 is the junior-varsity game, starting at 5 p.m. Week 9 is trying out conversational tidbits in front of the mirror before the big date. (You guys do that too, right?) Week 9 is a house salad with vinaigrette dressing when you can smell the steak sizzling in the kitchen.
Week 9 is the week before the week.
The genesis of this feature is simple: The editor in chief of this website, having fallen into a deep funk over the now-irreversible cancellation of a Raptors-Pistons preseason game, and having deemed himself too slothful to do the legwork required to consult his television listings as the college football season nears its apex, has ordered me to do the work for him. Under veiled threat of expulsion from various wagering pools, I have complied. The (completely arbitrary) results have been collated into time slots (EDT) and tiers: One for mainstream populists (The Bo), and one for contrarians and indie-rockers (The Dudek).
