10. Wyoming has replaced New Mexico in this part of the post until further notice – The Cowboys seemed decent early in the season when they beat Toledo and lost to Texas and Boise St. As it turned out, getting blown out by Texas is truly awful, a good Wyoming still would have been roasted by Boise St., and the Toledo win was a fluke. The loss to New Mexico confirmed most of that last week, but this week might have been worse: Wyoming was blown off the field in the second half by UNLV. The same UNLV that has been in this countdown more than a few times this season including last week for making an average at best BYU team look like the top 25 teams of the last few seasons. How do you lose to UNLV 42-16 at any location (yes I know the Rebels also blew the doors off New Mexico earlier this season but that is well-chronicled).
9. Also in the Mountain West – Colorado St. didn't bother to show up either. How do you lose at home to BYU by more than five touchdowns. It's astounding. Maybe TCU, Boise St., BYU, Hawaii, Fresno St., Nevada, Air Force, and whatever others out of the WAC and Mountain West should get together and form a new league worthy of a BCS bid. It would certainly be better than having to play the bottoms of whatever league they happen to be in now. Colorado St. obviously wouldn't be included in part because they and so many others in the bottom of the WAC and Mountain West make this countdown every week.
8. Texas fails again – The offensive staff should be getting resumes ready. They won't be around too much longer. At this point it is certainly possible that Texas will lose to Florida Atlantic next week.
7. Where did the Oregon offense go? - Cal home-road/Jekyll and Hyde splits have been well-chronicled, but this is ridiculous. The Golden Bears held Oregon to almost nothing. I blame this on Oregon though. Yes, Cal played well, but Oregon did not. In fact, the Oregon offense wasn't itself at all. They played tight and nearly choked it all away. One offensive touchdown on a short field won't get it done in any remaining games.
6. Big Least – Pittsburgh lost again leaving them with four losses overall and the conference lead. At this point, the BCS might be rooting for Syracuse to be the Big East AQ because at least there would be a story to sell. Nothing else in this league is compelling or even fun to watch. Game after game is close, but the quality of play is so bad this season that it is like watching paint dry, even when the score says there should be excitement.
5. Auburn's pass defense – If the Tigers reach the title game, they better hope the opposing quarterback has a terrible day because the Tiger secondary is the equivalent of air. Everybody goes off against it (except Mississippi St., Clemson and LSU for some reason). Georgia went nuts again, as most everyone else does and the Auburn pass defense is now ranked 99 out of 120 teams.
4. Florida's offense – Just go read this short post over at Team Speed Kills. They broke this down quite well. Enjoy the hunt for a new offensive coordinator in the offseason Gators. Don't hire an offensive line coach. It doesn't tend to work very well in the SEC (Auburn's 2003 team would agree). They aren't creative enough in their play design.
3. Getting beat by the same team twice – Virginia Tech managed it this season letting the hangover from the Boise St. loss catch up to them the next week against James Madison. Utah just managed it too. How else can anyone explain making Notre Dame look that good. Obviously Utah was way overrated in their foray into the top five, but even the people who thought that all along couldn't have foreseen a Notre Dame blowout like what we saw on Saturday and don't give me the Irish played up to talent level. The Irish are bad and lost to Tulsa. Utah should still be at least competitive even if they lose.
2. Run over by the Tennessee offense – To recap those who haven't followed, the Tennessee offense has been awful all season long except against the absolute dregs of the schedule (50+ points against Memphis and UT-Martin in the opener and 32 against UAB, under 20 against everyone else except South Carolina). Then they played Ole Miss who proved they are one of the dregs despite showing some signs of life since the miserable start. 51 points. To a true freshman who couldn't get on the field other than garbage time until two weeks ago. That is just awful. Houston Nutt better watch his back. He doesn't have a long leash and Ole Miss has done some crazy things to coaches in the not too recent past (see firing David Cutcliffe after one bad year just a season removed from going 10-3).
1. Losing to Washington St. is bad, but at home... - Oregon St. didn't bother to show up against Washington St. at home. That is just shameful. 31-14 home losses to the Cougars are just awful. I know Washington St. has been better this season, but they still hadn't even been in a game on the road with the exception of UCLA. May the Beavers enjoy spending the holidays at home during bowl season because that is where they will be.
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