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Upset Alert - Week 13
November 21, 2012
By CarbonSports
The last major week of the regular season in college football is upon us and that means rivalry games across the board. It also means that the National Title game is up for grabs in more ways than one this weekend. That holds true for #1 Notre Dame, the only remaining undefeated team eligible for post-season play. A win this week @ USC and they will be in the title game, waiting whomever the computers rank as #2 in a few weeks. The Irish caught a break with future NFL QB Matt Barkley getting hurt last week and ruled out for this game, but that doesn't mean they avoided this week's upset alert page.
Notre Dame (-6) @ USC (+6)
With a playoff system on the horizon for college football, fans everywhere get to see the first "unofficial" playoff game this week as for all intents and purposes this is a semi-final game for Notre Dame. Win and they will be in the National Title game in January, simple as that. Lose, though and their season will come to a crashing end. Obviously with a loss Notre Dame would still find them in a BCS Bowl game, but it won't be the one they want to be in with the crystal football on the line.
USC has dominated this rivalry in the past 10 years though, going 9-1 SU over that span and sporting a 7-3 ATS mark in that time as well. However, the lone loss during that time was when QB Matt Barkley was hurt, an eerily similar situation to what we have this year. Backup QB Max Wittek has already made the bold claim that his Trojans will pull off this upset in his first career start and Notre Dame fans have definitely posted his comments everywhere. You can't sleep on these Trojans though, no matter who is at QB because they still have dynamic players on offense and the arguably the best WR tandem in the country. They know that their season may be done in terms of relative championship hopes, but to spoil Notre Dame's hopes would be oh so sweet. If they can find a way to continually move the ball on Notre Dame's tough defense and get a few stops of their own, the BCS standings could be in store for one final major shake-up.
Georgia Tech (+13) vs. #3 Georgia (-13)
This game isn't getting the crazy national attention that others are this weekend but the Bulldogs still stand as the #3 ranked team in the country and currently hold the tie-breaker over Florida in the SEC East. A win over in-state rival Georgia Tech would put them in the SEC championship game and likely a shot at playing in the national title game. A loss and they would have to wait on what Florida does vs. Florida State later in the day and hope for the best. That's not even taking into account what a loss would do to Georgia in the rankings.
What may be most concerning for Georgia though is preparing for the style of offense that the Yellow Jackets run. The triple-option attack is tough to prepare for when you don't see it all that often, or on minimal prep time. Now, Georgia plays this team every year so there is that history to fall back on, but with so much at stake for themselves in this one, you can't help but wonder if they will come out nervous.
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