About many things

I don't really know what to blog about this week, so I will blog about lots of stuff.

- This weekend was the Army vs Navy game. It was another Navy blowout. With Navy scoring 34 points and holding Army to 7. Back in the day this game was quite the rivalry as both of these teams had all the talent in the nation lining up to join the armed forces and both of these teams were frequently highly ranked. The game is a shadow of its former self as the army hasn't won since 2001.

-I got a $10 certificate from Dicks Sporting Goods this week. So I went to Dick's and bought myself two Rapala lures- a Shad Rap and an Original Floater. The Original Floater is only one inch long but it set me back $7.50 (good thing the certificate ate five bucks of it).
                                                 
-I saw a Flint Hills Basketball game this week. They were destroyed by a team that is undefeated and regularly plays teams in higher divisions. The Flint Hills guys, along with the CHIEF guys, are always trying to recruit me to play on their teams. The main problems are that I once played for Flint Hills in the summer league and I would feel like a traitor if I played for CHIEF; Flint Hills practices at six in the morning EVERY DAY and I just can't do that; and I really don't like basketball that much. Basketball just doesn't make sense to me in general, it is too fast, I can't make shots under pressure, and you cant just tackle a guy when he has the ball. I am content to play pickup games when I get the chance.

-The bowl games are taking an eternity to get here but when they do, they will start fast. Four games- the Potato Bowl, the New Mexico Bowl, the New Orleans Bowl, and the Las Vegas Bowl are all being played this Saturday. The bowl games started earlier last year but they came at a slower pace, at one game per day. My picks in the games are CSU beats WSU, USC beats Fresno St., Tulane beats UL Lafayette, and Buffalo beats SDSU. Of course, my picks are proven to mean nothing, so don't listen to that last part.

oops

Um, yeah. I made this whole post about how Missouri would beat Auburn, ASU would beat Stanford, Ohio state would beat MSU, and Florida State would slaughter Duke. Well I got the whole Florida State thing right, but I kinda guessed all the others wrong. sooooooooo..............................................Yeah.................I know a lot.....about football.............I promise.

So anyways, this last week was a huge week in College Football. All of the bigger conferences had their championship games, even the Big Twelve championship came down to this weekend.

I did not say too much about the Big 12 last post, so I will make it up now. The deal was that the top four teams in the Big 12 just happened to play each other on the same week. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State played each other in a game that they call Bedlam. Every year the OKST Cowboys come into the game with high hopes of winning and getting into a great bowl game in the post-season. But the Sooners almost always ruin their dreams just before they reach that goal. This year, if the Cowboys won, they would be the Big Twelve champions and they would automatically go to the Fiesta Bowl. The Cowboys were the huge favorites in the game as they had only lost a fluke game against West Virginia. The Sooners were ahead 20 to 17 with only 4 1/2 minutes left in the game and the Cowboys had to go 89 yards if they wanted a touchdown. They did exactly what they needed to do. After they scored, they gave to ball back to the Sooners with only 1:46 left on the clock. Ou only had their third string quarterback and the game seemed almost hopeless, but Blake Bell drove the team across the field in only one and a half minutes and they scored on a touchdown pass to Jalen Saunders. That last Ou touchdown basically sealed the game.

The Cowboy's loss meant that another game-that started just as the Bedlam game ended-would determine the Big 12 championship. Texas and Baylor started off the season with two different kinds of out-of-conference results. Texas, a team that was ranked #15 in the preseason, lost to BYU and Ole Miss in blowout losses because of an absolutely horrendous run defense. The school fired the defensive coordinator after the BYU loss and the new guy only had a few days to prepare his defense for Ole Miss. But somehow the Longhorns started winning and they had only lost once (against the Cowboys) since that time . The Baylor Bears started off their season white-hot while scoring about 70 points in each of their out-of-conference games. The Bears had the most potent offense in the country until they lost a star receiver-Tevin Reese- to a dislocated wrist. They lost in embarrassing fashion to Oklahoma State but that had been their only loss so far. Since both of these teams have only lost to the Cowboys, this game decided the outright champion of the Big 12. The Texas/Baylor game was VERY slow in the first half with each team scoring only one field goal. The Bears looked as if their once awesome offense had suddenly become inept- until the second half. The Bears defense continued to hold the Texas offense well while the offense suddenly got going. The final score was 30-10 Baylor. The Bears suddenly have won a Big 12 Championship and just finished the best season that they have ever had.

The bowl games have all been decided and they look like this in the Big 12
Sugar Bowl: #11 Oklahoma VS #3 Alabama
Fiesta Bowl: #6 Baylor VS #15 UCF
Cotton Bowl: #13 Oklahoma State VS #5 Missouri
Alamo Bowl: Texas VS #10 Oregon
Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl: Kansas State VS Michigan
Holiday Bowl: Texas Tech VS #16 Arizona State.

There are a bunch of games where the Big 12 looks out-gunned, but there are also some really good matchups. Hopefully the Big 12 can have a better bowl season than it had last year

regular season almost over

The regular season in college football is almost over. The final games are the championship games and the games between teams that play in conferences that do not have conference championships.

The regular season has ended for many teams in college football. A conference with twelve or more teams is divided into two divisions. For example, the Big Ten is divided into the Leaders Division and the Legends Division. The best of each division will play each other to determine the conference champion.

The Big Ten Championship Game will feature the #10 Michigan State Spartans from the Legends Division and the #2 Ohio State Buckeyes from the Leaders Division.
MSU is a team that was very much under the radar earlier this year. They had only six wins last year and were not expected to do much better. They have won every game in convincing fashion- except for one loss against the then-#22 Notre Dame Fighting Irish. They boast one of the best defenses in college football, only allowing an average of 11.8 points-per-game. Their only weakness is their offense, which ranks 64th in the nation in average points-per-game.
OSU is the team that everybody expected to get to this game. They have not lost a game since Urban Meyer (former head coach of Florida and Tim Tebow) became their head coach at the beginning of last year. They are very capable of scoring massive amounts of points against most of the teams that they play. The problem is that they sometimes have had to rely on their offense to win games when their defense could not get a stop. They barely won this week's game against Michigan- a team that got owned when they played MSU.
This game will probably be determined by the offenses of either team. If MSU can score well enough against OSU and their defense holds strong, they could win this game. But if OSU can overcome the MSU defense they are heavily favored to win
I would pick Ohio State to win this game because of their ability to score. They have not scored less than 42 points since mid-October and MSU has only scored an average of 23 points in their last five games. OSU 35-24

The Pac-12 Championship Game is between the #7 Stanford Cardinal of the North Division and #11 Arizona State Sun Devils of the South division.
Stanford is a team that was highly ranked in the preseason and they stated their dominance early in the year against the then-#23 Sun Devils by a 42 to 28 victory. Their season just continued to improve with wins over Washington and Washington State, but they fell to a now- 5-7 Utah Utes team. They bounced back with a huge win against the then #3 Oregon but they fell again against USC. They seem to be a team that plays very well at times but they are very inconsistent in games that they should easily win, such as their win this last week over Notre Dame where they only won by seven points.
Arizona State was embarrassed by Stanford earlier this year, but their only other loss was against Notre Dame (they must really get around). Besides their losses, the Sun Devils have looked fairly good in their games. They feature a high powered offense that has scored an average of 43.3 points per game this year. They have showed their ability with three solid wins over teams that are or were ranked at the time that they played.
The game will be determined by Stanford's ability to score. If they cannot score more than the 20 to 27 that they seem to like scoring, the Sun Devils will find a way to outrun them.
This game will probably end in either a close game that is won by Stanford or a blowout win for ASU. I will pick ASU to win this game because they seem like the hotter team coming into the home-stretch. ASU 42-28

The SEC Championship Game is a top-5 matchup between the #3 Auburn Tigers of the West and the #5Missouri Tigers of the East.
This game is the last thing that anybody expected for the SEC Championship Game. AU and Mizzou both ended their seasons last year without bowl games. They combined for a 2-14 SEC record last year, but this year they are a combined 14-2 in the SEC.
AU was the team that nobody believed in. They lost all but two of their games last year and have a new coach (Gus Malzahn) this year. But they just won an absolutely massive game against #1 Alabama and have only one loss against #15 LSU that hurts their schedule. They have an extremely powerful rushing attack that averages over 300 yards-per-game, and they appear able to run it against even the powerful Alabama defense. The last two games that they have played have had incredible finishes, one was a miracle hail-mary that bounced off of the defender's hands and right into the receiver's and the other was a missed field goal that was returned for a touchdown (this has only happened a few times in college football).
Mizzou was a team that had just joined the SEC last year. They ended up doing very poorly in their first season and only won four games. The team has turned things around in a big way this year. Their offense is very balanced and capable of scoring large amounts of points and their defense is one of the best in the SEC. Their only loss this year was to the now #8 South Carolina Gamecocks in double-overtime. Other than the loss against SCar, Mizzou has been able to effectively shut down their opponents in most phases of the game.
This game will end with a very high score. In the end, the game will be determined by the defenses of both teams- whichever team can get more stops on defense has the edge in this game.
I will pick Mizzou to win this game because of their consistent and balanced play on both sides of the ball. Mizzou 42-38

The ACC Championship will feature the #1 Florida State Seminoles and the #20 Duke Blue Devils
There is not much analysis for this game (because I am tired) because there is a clear favorite in this game.
It is worth noting that Duke is a well-known basketball school and has not had much gridiron success until this year. They set a new school record of 10 wins this year when they beat UNC this last week.
Florida State is (in my mind) above and beyond the best team in college football. They have not even come close to losing this year, even when they played the then #3 Clemson in hostile territory. They have the best defense -in terms of scoring- in the FBS and they have the second highest scoring offense in the FBS.
All I have to say is "Good job for making it this far Duke."
FSU 49-17

One final thing- or maybe four. K-State won, Texas A&M lost, Nebraska lost, and Alabama lost- a perfect week.

BCS (umm what does that mean)

College football is exceedingly complicated, so it is time to slow down and explain. There is one big organization called the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association). Under the NCAA there are many different sports and many divisions of those sports. There are three divisions in all college sports. Division I is the division with all of the best teams. Division I football  has two sub-divisions- FBS and FCS (Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision). The FCS is a division that decides its champion by a tournament system, but the FBS decides its champion by one game.

The reason it is called the FBS is because there are many bowl games that are played in the postseason. A bowl game is a game with two teams that do not play each other in the regular season and are often very evenly matched. The oldest and most famous bowl game is the Rose Bowl- a game which pits the PAC-12 and BIG 10 champions against each other.

There are five bowl games that are called BCS(Bowl Championship Series) bowl games- The BCS National Championship Game, the Rose Bowl, the Fiesta Bowl, the Sugar bowl, and the Orange bowl. They are the bowl games that everyone cares about and wants to go to. There are six conferences that get automatic BCS bowl bids for their champions. They are called AQ conferences. There is a rule that if a team from a smaller conference ends up number 12 or better in the BCS rankings, they get an automatic bid in a BCS bowl game. This is important because Northern Illinois is currently ranked number 14 in the BCS rankings and if they finish the season either at number twelve or at number 16 AND ahead of an AQ champion they will get to go to a BCS bowl game.

All the rest of the bowl games are played by teams that either did not have awesome seasons but still won six games or are in a weak conference but still put together at least six wins. There are some bowl games that are more prestigious than others. For example, the Cotton Bowl is a big game that pits the second-placed team in the BIG 12 against the third/fourth/fifth team in the SEC.

Of course, everybody is more interested in Kansas State so it is time to talk about them. Kansas state lost their last game against Oklahoma, which is sad but not devastating. Kansas state became bowl-eligible with the win over TCU two weeks ago and they only have KU left. When K-State played Iowa State, they won 41 to 7. When Iowa state played KU, they won 34 to 0. So if we extrapolate, we come out with a wildcat victory.

As for those teams that everyone hates. Alabama blew out nobody Chattanooga and Nebraska beat Penn State in overtime, but Texas A&M got their faces handed to them by LSU. I will take one of three this week.

other things

I am running out of fishing material, but I am interested in other things.

So I am starting a new blog.

I am very interested in college sports, especially with Kansas State and the Big 12. So today I will post about Big 12 football

The first thing that a newbe should know is that the Big 12 only has ten teams- Iowa State(ISU), Kansas State(KSU), Kansas(KU), West Virginia(WVU), Oklahoma(OU), Oklahoma State(OKST), Texas(UT), Texas Tech(TTU), Texas Christian(TCU), and Baylor(BU). Some may wonder why the Big 12 won't change its name. The reason for this is that the Big 10 already exists. Some other people may say "But the Big 10 has 12 teams so why don't they just switch names." The reason for this is that it would cause confusion (oh wait, it's confusing either way. Guess this is just a loose-loose situation.)

The Big 12 is a conference that does well in both basketball and football, But since football is more important, I will stick to it for now.

The Big 12 is one of the deepest conferences in all of college football, meaning that the bad teams are still able to compete with the good teams. Last year the Big 12 sent 9 teams to bowl games. To qualify for a bowl game, a team must win six out of twelve games. To do this, the team must beat at least three other teams in the conference. To put the depth of the Big 12 in perspective, the SEC also sent nine teams to bowl games- out of the fourteen that they have, and the Big 12 only gets three out-of-conference games as opposed to the four that bigger conferences get.

This year is a down year for the Big 12 because there are four teams that will finish with losing records this year- ISU, TCU, WVU, and you guessed it KU. In the Big 12 there are only three teams (UT, OKST, and TCU) that have last year's starting quarterbacks still on the team.

Every year there are 35 bowl games, all of which occur in the post-season. Some bowl games are much better than others, for example, the Cotton Bowl is a much bigger bowl game than the Music City Bowl. There are four games that are called BCS (Bowl Championship Series) Bowl games- Fiesta, Sugar, Orange, and Rose; and there is one called the BCS National Championship. The winner of the Big 12 automatically goes to the Fiesta Bowl (unless they go to the National Championship game).

This year Baylor is undefeated and has a shot at the National Championship if they win out. The only problem is that a team has to be ranked number one or number two in the BCS rankings if they want to go to the championship game. The only teams ahead of Baylor in the rankings right now are Ohio State, Florida State, and Alabama. Baylor is really close behind Ohio State, but they would still need either Florida State or Alabama to lose if they want a shot at the crystal football.

One final point needs to be made. The point is that everyone hates Alabama, Texas A&M, and Nebraska....yes.....everyone..... I interviewed like two people. It is well advised that you cheer viciously and maliciously against these teams at all times