Week 12 Bowl Projections

December's approaching and that means it's time for the annual onslaught of fun (and not-so-fun) bowl matchups. But who's going where? 

BCS Championship Game
LSU vs. Alabama
It almost seems to be an unavoidable certainty at this point. Alabama just has to take care of Auburn in the Iron Bowl and LSU should be set with a split of its final two.

Fiesta Bowl
Oklahoma State vs. Stanford
The Cowboys may have blown their BCS title shot with the shocking loss to Iowa State but a win in Bedlam will still give them a Big 12 Championship and trip to Glendale. Stanford and Andrew Luck will be a good bet to go here, with the Fiesta choosing the first at-large after the Sugar replaces its lost SEC champion.
 
Sugar Bowl
Michigan vs. Houston
Some will gripe about Michigan getting selected over a Michigan State team to which it lost. The Wolverines will be a more appealing selection though for the Sugar Bowl. Watch out for Notre Dame to also be a possibility here if it beats Stanford Saturday. Houston is in line to be the automatic non-AQ one of the bowls must choose. 

Orange Bowl
Virginia Tech vs. Louisville
Organizers of the Orange Bowl have to be rooting for the idea of no more non-automatic qualifiers to BCS games, as this game has gotten some clunker matchups over the years with the Big East as a tie-in. Virginia Tech's now in position to take the ACC and Louisville, yes Louisville, can win the Big East with a win and a little help from Cincinnati. 

Rose Bowl 
Oregon vs. Michigan State
Despite its loss to USC, the Ducks can still culminate their season in Pasadena. Right now, Michigan State is the best of the Big 10 but they'll have to win in Indy to get this spot.

Other Bowls

*Bold accepted bids
Go Daddy.com           Northern Illinois vs. Arkansas St.
BBVA Compass           Miss St. vs. Pittsburgh
Cotton                      Kansas St. vs. Georgia
Gator  Iowa vs. Florida Capitol One  Wisconsin vs. Arkansas Outback  Nebraska vs. South Carolina TicketCity  Purdue vs. Iowa St Chick-Fil-A  Florida State vs. Auburn Kraft Fight Hunger  Cal vs. Temple Liberty  Southern Miss vs. Cincinnati Sun  Virginia vs. Arizona St Meineke Car Care  Penn State vs. Texas Insight  Ohio State vs. Baylor Music City  Tennessee vs. Wake Forest Pinstripe  Missouri vs. Rutgers Armed Forces  SMU vs. BYU Alamo  Oklahoma vs. Utah Champs Sports  Clemson vs. Notre Dame  Holiday  Texas A&M vs. Washington Military  NC State vs. Air Force Belk  Georgia Tech vs. West Virginia Little Caesars  Northwestern vs. Ohio Indpendence  North Carolina vs. Wyoming Hawaii  Tulsa vs. Hawaii MAACO Las Vegas  UCLA vs. TCU Poinsettia  Boise St vs. Louisiana Tech Beef 'O' Brady's  East Carolina vs. Syracuse New Orleans  UL Lafayette vs. Western Michigan Famous Idaho Potato  Nevada vs. Toledo New Mexico  UTEP vs. San Diego State

Did Tim Tebow REALLY beat the Jets?

"He's a winner."

"Tim Tebow just finds a way to win games."

Some typical comments from the Tim Tebow love affair after last night's defeat of the Jets.

Yes, the Broncos won the game but did Tebow beat the Jets?

No.

Rex Ryan and Mike Pettine did. Sending an eight-man rush and playing cover zero on that 3rd and 4, in which Tebow ran for the game-winning TD, was inexplicable. Ryan didn't have an explanation for it in his post-game press conference because it's so indefensible.

Eric Smith did.  The Jets send the house on the game-winning TD and who's left to catch up with him, the guy who has proven time and time again he can't keep up with whoever he's defending in open space. Oh and who was covering Dante Rosario when Tebow completed an 18-yard pass on that winning drive? You guessed it, Eric Smith. He needs to be taken off the field. Someone has to be better.

Elvis Dumervil and Von Miller did. They combined for three total sacks and put a lot of pressure on Mark Sanchez. Wayne Hunter's pass blocking has become a major liability. The Jets miss retired Damien Woody at right tackle, plain and simple. His absence is glaring. Sanchez consistently does not have as much time to throw as he did in previous seasons and it's coming from outside edge rushers. Andre Carter did it last week. Miller and Dumervil did this week.

Jim Leonhard did, when he whiffed on a huge first down tackle on Eddie Royal, which may have been a safety, on the 95-yard game-winning drive. 

Mark Sanchez did, when he stared down Broncos corner Andre Goodman and made an incomprehensible decision in his own territory, leading to an easy pick six.  The Broncos won by four. Sanchez gift wrapped six. He throws that away, Jets punt and the outcome's probably different.

Other intangibles of which you can't quite quantify the ultimate effect. You could also call them excuses: the short week and long trip to Denver (a tough place to play), not having LT, and then losing Shonn Greene early in the game, other injuries to Brodney Pool and Jeremy Kerley.

Don't get me wrong, Tim Tebow's likable. He's a good guy.

But he just didn't play a good game. The Jets let him win the game, by playing a five defensive back set for more than 90 percent of the final drive rather than the 3-4 base which was successful all game long.

He was shutdown until the Jets allowed him to move the ball down the field in the game's most pivotal moments. He ran for 11 yards in the game's first 54 minutes but then 57 yards in the last six.

Tebow played a part in the win  and is now 4-1 since taking over for Kyle Orton but there were many Jets and Broncos who were much more responsible for the win than him.

Give credit to who really beat the Jets, a Broncos defense that played a heck of a game, holding the Jets to 3 of 14 on third down...and the Jets themselves.

Too soon to write off Sanchez

Five seasons- that's how long it took, Eli Manning, now beloved by the NY/national media to become a decent NFL QB. 

Remember when Manning was "garbage?" Fans and media wanted to run him out of town.

Look at Manning's stats for his career:

Year 1 (7 GS): 48.2 % comp, 1043 yds, 6 TD, 9 INT

Year 2: 52.8 % comp, 3762 yds, 24 TD, 17 INT

Year 3: 57.7%, 3244 yds, 24 TD, 18 INT

Year 4: 56.1%, 3336 yds, 23 TD, 20 INT

Year 5: 60.3%, 3238 yds, 21 TD, 10 INT

Year 6: 62.3%, 4021 yds, 27 TD, 14 INT

Year 7: 62.9%, 4002 yds, 31 TD, 25 INT

Year 8 (so far): 63.1%, 2688 yds, 17 TD, 8 INT

Sanchez's career stats:

Year 1: 53.8%, 2444 yds, 12 TD, 20 INT

Year 2: 54.8%, 3291 yds, 17 TD, 13 INT

Year 3 (so far): 56.7%, 2081 yds, 14 TD, 9 INT

It took Eli Manning, who many are now putting in the MVP discussion, until his fifth season to have a completion percentage of 60%.

Manning threw 1,363 passes in his college career at Ole Miss. Sanchez threw 487 in his at USC.

If there were ever a guy who would have been well served by sitting a season or two behind a veteran backup, it would have been Sanchez. But he was thrown into the fire right away. He has attempted 1,169 passes as a NFL QB. That's less than Manning attempted in his college career.

Yet many are done with Sanchez, ready to blame all the Jets' troubles on him. What most are expecting out of him in year three is unrealistic. He's raw. Pete Carroll said as much when he left USC and entered the draft. He has started one year in college and two in the NFL.

Sanchez has attempted 1,654 passes in his college/pro career. Rookie Andy Dalton, who is being lauded for an impressive start, has attempted just 50 less, 1,604 passes, between his four years at TCU and this season with the Bengals.

You can judge Sanchez as you would typically judge a third-year QB but you'd be improperly evaluating him. His actual on-field passing experience is near the equivalent of a rookie with lots of college experience, like Dalton.

As a junior starter with USC, Sanchez completed 65.8 percent of his passes for 3,207 yards, 34 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. His ceiling can still be high no matter what anyone else says about him right now.

Writing off Sanchez now, midway through year three, is a mistake. See Eli Manning and Alex Smith on that one.

Penn State Scandal: Football will go on without Paterno

Everyone’s mad at someone. Everyone has an opinion on who was right and wrong.

You see Penn State students out flipping over a media truck and screaming against the Board of Trustees. Students angry that the media made it all about JoePa and led to his firing.

But scapegoating the media is not the answer. Scapegoating the Board of Trustees is not either.

The people truly at fault are the ones who created and then allowed this to go on, to become a mess. Jerry Sandusky, Tim Curley, Gary Schultz, Graham Spanier, Mike McQueary, Joe Paterno. You can’t blame one and not the other.

The first three are most at fault: Sandusky, the sickening perpetrator of the molestation of young boys according to a grand jury report and Curley/Schultz, those at the top of the chain of command who chose to ignore it.

Paterno and McQueary fall in the middle. McQueary witnessed a horrifying act and reported it to his superior. Paterno was informed and told his superiors. They did something, maybe not enough.

There was no easy answer to what to do with Paterno. No solution that would come close to pleasing everyone.

Fire him, as the Board of Trustees did, and face a firestorm from the legion of Penn State students and supporters, an avid and extremely passionate base.

Let him coach out the season and get chastised for not doing enough, allowing a man who was a part of a heinous scandal to remain the face of a tattered program.

Truly, step back, and you can see both sides of it. Understand both rationales.

When put in the place of Paterno or McQueary, doing what they did may have seemed like the right thing. Hindsight is 20/20. Many people don’t go above and beyond. Sadly, people don’t always take the ideal, morally perfect action, in many aspects.

The Seattle Times did a feature exposé in 2003 on coaches who prey, many keeping their jobs as teachers and coaches, as administrators didn't address it. It’s years old but still relevant. Those known for molestation and sexual abuse continuing to get hired because they’re successful as coaches.

Winning, along with making money, trump morality.

Breaches of morality mean saving face, usually cleaning house. That’s why Joe Paterno’s gone. The Board of Trustees had to send a message. I don’t know how you legislate morality but apparently the Board of Trustees does.

Lots and lots of muck and mire get covered up. Thinking about how many scandals fester in the seedy world of college athletics is sickening.

The most sickening thing to remember though is the details of that 23-page grand jury report, just the mere thought of Jerry Sandusky even placing his right hand on a child’s left thigh while driving, let alone the much more explicit actions he took.

That’s what this is all about. As we argue about what more could have been done, we must think of what now can be done for the victims. The strength it took for them to speak up years later. Even beginning to understand their psyche is impossible.

It’s now almost trite to say it’s all about the victims. But it is. Kids who had innocence stripped away from them.

Joe Paterno had many joyous moments in his illustrious career as a coach at Penn State. He is neither the perpetrator nor victim.

In that regard, it’s black and white. Sandusky the abuser, the kids who were molested by an old man the victims.

Football will go on without Paterno. It really will.

Look outside the football prism, and please, just don’t ignore the real victims again. Too many who could have changed this story already have.

Penn State scandal disturbing but not surprising

I was going to write a blog today about the BCS and my continued yearly issues with that flawed system. But that will have to wait. Something just didn’t seem right about doing that right now.

Hmm, right and wrong- an interesting concept to delve into this week in college football.

Actually, forget this week, any week in a sport that’s on-field glory is continually marred by off-field seediness that makes your typical afternoon soap look tame.

Scandal after scandal rocks a game that’s supposed to foster tradition, unity and family among its fan bases. Saturdays come and go with hundreds of thousands of people packed into parking lots tailgating, then filling stadiums and screaming their lungs out. It’s rare you go a week without some kind of crazy finish.

Or crazy scandal.

We all now know the latest disturbing scandal, the child sex abuse allegations against former Penn State defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky.

But should we really be shocked? Logically, yes. Morally, yes. Knowing what we know about these programs, absolutely not.

This August, New York Times college athletics writer Pete Thamel detailed why college football is more embattled than ever, coming at the heels of the revelation of the U of Miami scandal involving Nevin Shapiro.

Thamel wrote, “the problems of college football seemed to move from the admittedly serious to the plain hard to believe last week with the news that a major donor to the University of Miami had admitted to providing cash payments, prostitutes and lavish gifts to 72 Hurricanes players from 2002 through 2010.”

Miami set a new standard for reprehensible actions within a college athletics program- a standard that lasted three months.

Disturbing, disgusting, sickening are all adjectives that came to my mind when hearing about the actions of Sandusky and inaction of Penn State folks in the know.

Shocking was not one of them. Maybe like kids who are supposedly desensitized to violence by being plastered with it in TV shows, movies and video games, I have just been  desensitized to the shock factor of these scandals.

By no means am I saying this is not shockingly wrong. It is. It's difficult to read, hear and process what was done to these kids and how it took more than nine years to come to light.


But knowing what I do of those in power in college athletics from past examples is why I’m not surprised at the inaction.

In his article Thamel also wrote, “College football has never been more prosperous, with five of the major college sports conferences recently signing billion-dollar broadcast deals.”

There’s your answer to why this is not surprising. Higher-ups in college programs are raking in tons of money. They will do everything to ensure that continues. It’s why the BCS won’t be changed, realignment is ongoing and indiscretion will go unreported.

Money trumps morality.

Tradition and winning reign supreme over common sense and propriety.

It’s a sad reality. One that doesn’t seem like it’s going to change any time soon, no matter how deep the depravity.