10. Heisman Trophy organizers invite right players – No controversy this season at least with the invites. Kellen Moore, Cam Newton, LaMichael James and Andrew Luck are among the best players in the country. They are certainly the best in the traditional winning positions of quarterback and running back. They also all play for top teams and in fact all would be in the top five right now if Boise St.'s kicker made the winning kick at Nevada.
9. Pitt RB Dion Lewis in the snow against Cincinnati – Last season, Lewis had a huge game in awful snowy conditions against Cincinnati running for over 200 yards. This season, in even worse snowy conditions, Lewis had over 40 carries and nearly 300 yards rushing, an amazing game to close out a disappointing season.
8. Miami (OH) has risen from the dead – Two seasons ago Miami (OH) went 2-10 and got coach Shane Montgomery fired. Last season, Mike Haywood was even worse going 1-11 and getting shut out in the first two games. This season, things changed immediately. The Redhawks were competitive in their opener at Florida (though this was more an indictment of the Gators this season than a complement to Miami), then won close game after close game to sneak there way into the MAC Title Game where they made the big plays needed down the stretch to win the league for the first time since Ben Roethlisberger was the quarterback in 2003.
7. Oregon wins and we're bored – Oregon scored 37 points and won easily on the road against a rival with College Gameday on hand. Ho hum. That is a complement to how good the Ducks have been this season. Oregon heads to the title game with one of the best offenses ever in college football.
6. Thomas Weber – Weber has had a truly awful season after being a finalist for the Lou Groza award as best placekicker last season. He redeemed himself (at least in the kicking game, see lowlight #4 for his awful punting) with five field goals including a 52 yarder and two successful extra points that proved to be the difference in a game decided by two blocked extra points.
5. Washington is bowl eligible – The Huskies have not been to a bowl game since the 2002 Sun Bowl. Congrats to the Huskies on taking the next step back towards their rightful place in the Pac-10.
4. No let downs in the WAC – Conference tri-champions Hawaii, Nevada and Boise St. all played overmatched opponents and all won easily. Hawaii smoked UNLV, Boise St. went back to hanging 50 in obscurity against Utah St. and Nevada came out sleeping, but woke up in time to get an easy road win against Louisiana Tech.
3. Evidently there are some teams with defenses in Conference USA – The title game in Conference USA, home of scores like 56-50 and 65-41 over the last few weeks was the last one I expected to have a 17-7 championship game. Nice job by the defenses at Central Florida and SMU to get ready and hold their opponents to almost nothing, especially by C-USA standards.
2. 52 yard field goal for the win – Dave Teggart probably won't kick a bigger field goal in his life than the one he kicked to send UConn to the Fiesta Bowl as the Big East Champion. Whatever your opinion of the Huskies being in the BCS, Teggart's kick to win the conference with under 30 seconds to play was a heck of a kick.
1. Cam Newton and the Auburn passing game – In the run up to the SEC Title Game, South Carolina's coaches said they thought Cam Newton was more of a thrower than a runner as they prepared for the first matchup between the two teams in September when Newton really kick started his Heisman campaign with a five touchdown outburst. They probably should have kept that game plan. It worked better than the one that said stop Newton as a runner and make him beat you throwing. The overlooked Auburn receivers (who had a great season without as much of a running game and a noodle armed quarterback last season) had an incredible game and found themselves open all over the place, especially Darvin Adams who, if not for a couple of drops, could have had 300 yards receiving by halftime. Cam Newton did a great job of finding these receivers and the Auburn passing game torched the beleaguered South Carolina secondary.
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