This Weekend - 10/20 & 10/21

This weeks weekend picks come with an extra feature. One of our guest contributors 'The Truth' has a little beef with a fellow at ESPN. His commentary is in green under our picks.

NCAA
South Florida at Rutgers (BM) (JA)
Tennessee (JA) at Alabama (BM)
Michigan State at Ohio State (BM) (JA)
Florida (BM) (JA) at Kentucky
California (BM) (JA) at UCLA
USC (BM) (JA) at Notre Dame
Texas Tech at Missouri (BM) (JA)
Miami (FL) (JA) at Florida State (BM)
Kansas (BM) (JA) at Colorado
Oregon (BM) (JA) at Washington
Virginia at Maryland (BM) (JA)
Michigan (BM) at Illinois (JA)
Auburn at LSU (BM) (JA)
Brown (BM) (JA) at Cornell

NFL
Baltimore (BM) (JA) at Buffalo
Minnesota at Dallas (BM) (JA)
New England (BM) (JA) at Miami
Atlanta at New Orleans (BM) (JA)
San Francisco at NY Giants (BM) (JA)
Arizona at Washington (BM) (JA)
Tennessee (BM) at Houston (JA)
Tampa Bay at Detroit (BM) (JA)
Kansas City (JA) at Oakland (BM)
NY Jets at Cincinnati (BM) (JA)
Chicago at Philadelphia (BM) (JA)
St. Louis at Seattle (BM) (JA)
Pittsburgh (BM) (JA) at Denver
Indianapolis (JA) at Jacksonville (BM)

Brandon: 79-38 Overall (31-12 NCAA, 48-25 NFL)
Justin: 64-51 Overall (24-19 NCAA, 41-32 NFL)

Kirk Herbstreit How Do You Have a Job? You have been flat out wrong numerous times in the past year and wrong real bad.
August 2006: “I predict Miami will the win the national championship” -Kirk Herbstreit
- Miami finished 7-6

December 2006: “They should just get rid of the Coaches poll. Guys like myself, Lee Corso, Mark May watch 10 to 15 games a weekend. Coaches just cannot watch that many games. They are not voting accurately. When you talk about who is the better team Michigan or Florida, MICHIGAN is the better team. They lost by 3 at Ohio State, on a neutral field they can win the game maybe even be favorites." -Kirk Herbstreit
-Ohio State lost in the national championship 41-14 to Florida.
-Michigan lost in the Rose Bowl to USC 32-18 .

It really bothered me this morning when I put on ESPN and saw Kirk Herbstreit disagree with 76% of the country. 76% of the country thought if South Florida ran the table they deserved to go to the national championship. Herbstreit disagreed. He thought a one loss LSU deserved to go ahead of USF. That does not sound that bad.

Next 78% of the nation thought there should be a playoff, naturally Herbstreit disagreed with that also. That does not sound that bad either. Now let me break it down to you. USF right now should be the Number One team in the nation, they won at Auburn (currently #17) and they beat West Virginia (currently #9). That is two quality wins. Did I mention Auburn won at Florida and has beaten Arkansas.

Ohio State has not won a game against a team ranked in the current top 25 and their only game remaining against a top 25 is Michigan (# 25), who we all know lost to a 1-AA team at home. Shouldn’t we be calling for Ohio State not to be in the national championship, not USF. If USF wins out they would have to beat Rutgers, Cincinnati and Louisville. They have enough quality wins to make their case, Ohio State does not.

Next where is this myth coming from that if they have a playoff it will diminish the regular season? That could not be further from the truth. First if there is an eight team playoff teams will be fighting for spots. The games will still matter. While a loss right now by BC, Ohio State or USF may take them out of the national championship hunt, a loss by them may put them on the cusp of making an eight team playoff. The games still matter. Also if you forgot college basketball has a playoff March Madness with 64 teams and it is the best 3 weeks in sports. Having a tournament like that does not affect rivalry games in the regular season like Carolina Duke. Also the conference tournaments which, I would equate to rivalry weekend in college football are some of the toughest tickets to get. If anything an 8 or 16 game playoff would provide more meaningful games for college football. Many of the rivalry games in the last week of the season would be for playoff bids or playoffs seeds rather than just a mere bowl invitation. I would propose a sixteen team playoff starting on the weekend of December 14th. This would eliminate the meaningless 40-60 day layoff teams had before the national championship and the season would actually end sooner than it does now. From the rankings today it would look like this.

#16 Missouri @ #1 Ohio State
#15 Florida @ #2 USF
#14 USC @ #3 BC
# 13 Kansas @ #4 LSU
# 12 Cal @ #5 Oklahoma
#11 VT @ #6 South Carolina
#10 Oregon @ # 7 Kentucky
#9 WVU @ #8 ASU.

Naturally these match-ups would change but it would call for some very interesting match-ups, especially in the second round with games like Florida/Oregon and USC/South Carolina. A playoff needs to be implemented immediately and let the players decide the best team on the field, rather than sports writers voting on the best team. It is an outright joke that there is not a playoff as college football still remains the only sport where the season ends with controversy, with writers instead of players determining the national champion.

- Truth