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Posted 10/07/2007 at 11:06 AM
Saturday was rough, both personally and professionally. Personally, I watched my Gators blow a fourth quarter lead over the number one team in the country. Professionally, I was 1-6 on the worst day in my college football handicapping career. I'm not sure which felt worse but they were both pretty bad.
I don't want to blame Urban Meyer for the loss and that's because he wasn't on the field for five LSU fourth down conversions. I do however blame him for not taking a time out with 1:40 left on the clock and the Tigers about to march into the end zone. Meyer did eventually call that time out but about :29 too late. It's hard to imagine what might have been on the Bayou if those precious seconds were still on the clock.
USC's title hopes took a major hit on Saturday as they fell at home for the first time since 2001 as Stanford QB Tavita Pritchard threw a 10-yard TD pass on fourth and goal with 49 seconds left to stun the Trojans. Pritchard had only thrown three passes in his college career prior to Saturday and on the final plays of the game had to make his own play calls as he couldn't hear the plays coming in from the sidelines. As 41 point underdogs, the Cardinals pulled the biggest upset of the year. (Sorry Appalachian State). Stanford coach Jim Harbaugh just made a major stride in recruiting.
Just two weeks removed from a big Thursday night win over Texas A&M, the Miami Hurricanes were embarassed by North Carolina in the first half of Saturday's game. Outscored 27-0, the Canes couldn't get enough points on the board in the second half to overcome the deficit. Butch Davis gets his first win at N.C. over a Division I program. Ironic?
Speaking of embarassment, let's talk Big Ten football. Purdue was suppose to announce it's arrival back to the top of the polls but was instead spanked on its home turf by Ohio State and Wisconsin was upset by Illinois to knock the Badgers from the top 5. Add in Northwestern's upset of Michigan State in East Lansing and Michigan's poor performance over Eastern Michigan and you have to wonder about the state of the Big Ten.
Some other obeservations from Saturday:
Missouri is good. N.C. State is bad. Auburn's stock is up. Clemson's stock is down. Rutgers won't win the Big East, Andre Woodson won't win the Heisman, and FIU won't win a game.
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