10. The Sun Belt title chase – It's not great football (or even good really), but the Sun Belt race is really entertaining. Games are coming down to the wire every week with two one point games this week and there is good offense and defense being played by these schools (though usually not both by any one single school) It has been entertaining where the Big East in a similar situation has not been because nobody expects Sun Belt games to be good. When they are, you pleasantly watch and be happy Troy isn't running away with everything again.
9. Northwestern vs Iowa – Northwestern is a good team, until they play Iowa. Then they become a great team for that short period of time for some reason. This time, the mojo didn't kick in until the 4th quarter, but what a 4th quarter it was. The Wildcats came from 17-7 down with two touchdowns and they also intercepted normal Iowa 4th quarter hero Ricky Stanzi (who they knocked out last year) on the five yard line early in the quarter. Well done Wildcats.
8. Syracuse is alive and bowl eligible – The only positive story in the Big East this season is the continued revival of Syracuse. This program, much more so than the recent contenders at West Virginia, South Florida, Louisville and Pittsburgh is the one that the Big East needs to reassert itself on the national stage for the league to be respected again as this is the one program in the league that carried lots of respect even when the results didn't match that reputation (see most of the late 90s when Syracuse was a contender and was routinely overrated in the preseason on the way to a nice 8-4 or 9-3 season). The Big East has no program like that now and it needs one.
7. Michigan holds someone under 20 – The Wolverine defense is still awful, but anyone can max out once, as the Michigan defense showed against injured Purdue. Considering Denard Robinson didn't play very well and Michigan only scored 27 points, getting an easy win because of the defense had to feel good for Wolverine fans.
6. The Texas pass defense had still been fine until... - they met Brandon Weeden. Nobody had a really huge day throwing the ball that was well outside the ordinary against the Texas defense until Oklahoma St. came to town. Weeden threw for over 400 yards against the beleaguered Longhorn defense and led Oklahoma St. to the win in Austin, a place that has been a house of horrors for the Cowboys, especially in the second half.
5. Running out the clock in the Pac-10 – Oregon turned the blur off the offense at the end running nearly 10 minutes of clock off to end the game against Cal. Stanford ran the clock out by going down inside the ten yard line instead of scoring in the final minute knowing the kneel down was a surer way to win rather than scoring and giving Arizona St. the ball back in a two score game.
4. Ohio St. after halftime – The Buckeyes trailed 14-3 at halftime and looked bad enough to be headed to the other countdown that can be found on this blog. Then the Buckeyes came to life and before anyone blinked it was over as Penn St. was buried under a 35-0 second half deluge.
3. How long was that field goal? - Florida St. played without quarterback Christian Ponder and looked ugly doing it. That said, the game was against Clemson who seems incapable of doing anything the easy way even when its given to them. Ultimately though, the game belongs to Florida St. kicker Dustin Hopkins who redeemed himself for blowing the winning kick from 40 yards against North Carolina last week. His kick as time expired was good from 55 yards. Not many college kickers have a prayer of making that kind of kick.
2. Boise St. continues to incinerate everyone – Another week and Boise St. is over 50 points and their opponent is under 20 again. It's clockwork in the WAC for the Broncos.
1. South Carolina finally won something – The Gamecocks have been mostly average to bad since joining the SEC. Congrats to them on winning the SEC East for the first time and congrats to Marcus Lattimore who had 40 carries in the win over Florida. The South Carolina offense has been very good when he has played well. The only game they lost with a full strength Lattimore in the lineup was at Auburn (who oddly bottled him completely up, something they haven't done to anyone else all season).
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