College Football: Week 12 Wrap-Up

#10 Ohio State def. Michigan 21-10
Not too much mystery here - you can't turn the ball over six times and expect to win, particularly against a team as conservative as Ohio State (1 turnover). That said, Michigan had every opportunity to win. The Buckeyes were run run run as expected (Pryor was 9/17 for only 67 yards!) and Michigan contained it somewhat even if they couldn't stop it and the stats were strikingly even (well, evenly depressing). Here's to a better Michigan, and thus a better Big Ten, next year.

Connecticut def. Notre Dame 33-30 (2OT)
This is really Notre Dame's MO now - offense keeps it close, Golden Tate runs wild, defense is unable to stop the run despite the announcers telling us several times how fantastic Kyle McCarthy is. So I suppose the Irish will get rid of Charlie Weis and I have to say, I think that's a good idea for more than just the wins and losses. I've been a Notre Dame hater my entire life, but even I can admit that they were always classy and I think that's changed under Weis. In this game alone, the Irish had two late hits, LB Brian Smith yelling "what's my mother fucking name" after intercepting a pass, and countless strutting after routine plays. At one point, Tate took a line drive punt back about 15 yards and then was tackled by the first player to touch him and then taunted the UConn sideline. Really? If Notre Dame can't win or be counted on to behave, who are they?

Mississippi def. LSU 25-23
Only caught the second half of this one, but it was plenty. It was a pretty even game and definitely the Runnin' Rebels best of the year. Snead was serviceable and McCluster was fantastic as usual - sweet halfback pass! - but Mississippi wasn't prolific enough to put the game away the way they should have (particularly up 22-17 and inside the 10-yard-line in the 4th quarter). Add in a blocked FG return for LSU and you have a close enough game to produce that bizarre ending - see below.

#11 Oregon def. Arizona
Very entertaining game! Oregon started off great, but then appeared to be possibly trying to throw the game. The one plus of this was that I could kind of see the team that lost to Boise State, which made my 'alien abduction' theory less plausible. Anyhow, AZ QB Nick Foles took good care of the ball and even made some nice plays, but his defense couldn't contain Masoli and LaMichael James and you know the rule: if you can't stop the run, you can't win. Oh, and Ducks WR Jeff Maehl had a terrific Johnny-on-the-spot-type game, which definitely helped set up the run.

This Week's 'Yell at the TV' Moment: Definitely the end of the LSU-Ole Miss game. LSU has the ball at the edge of field goal range, about 30 seconds left. QB Jordan Jefferson moronically takes a sack closer to midfield with 26 seconds left and LSU strangely waits until there are just nine seconds left to take the timeout. Jefferson throws a Hail Mary that's caught just inside the 20, but there's not enough time to get another play, either a spike or the game winning field goal off. Obviously, Miles handled the clock poorly and even worse, sold out his quarterback and didn't own up to his mistake after the game. But his real failing, in my opinion, is not considering the possibility that the ball could end up outside the end zone. He has to know that his quarterback can only throw the ball 40 yards!

In other news: The Ohio State-Michigan rivalry has really fallen - the ABC cameras caught a lot of Wolverine fans yawning in the stands.....In UConn's first set of downs in OT#1, the ball was spotted near the 15 and the refs brought out the chains to measure. You gave them the ball at the 25, right? So is it at the 15 or not?.....Oh no, UGA died!.....Arizona and Oregon appeared to be trying to out-do each other in terms of ugly uniforms. Oregon had white names on white jerseys while the Wildcats appeared to be wearing some sort of red unitards.