Friday kicks off what should be a great 48 hours of college football with three games having major national championship implications and another five or six games featuring some of the best rivalries in college football. Actually, college football was kicked off last night for those who watched as Texas lost to rival Texas A&M to finish the season at 5-7. From the BCS National Championship game to ineligible for a bowl for Texas....who would have thought?! But what better way to celebrate a great weekend of college football than with a condensed smorgasbord!
* The best game on the board this weekend to me is the Iron Bowl. I still hold the contention that Alabama, despite its two losses, is the best team in the country. Vegas agrees with me making the Tide a four point home favorite against undefeated Auburn.
* It will be fun to see how Cam Newton performs on the road against the best team he faces all season. A win today should lock up the Heisman for Cam, who probably deserves the award no matter what the outcome of this game is. He has been that good.
* Oregon and Boise State will also be tested today despite both being more than two score favorites. The fact that both are such large favorites is a testament to their talent and the respect oddsmakers have for their coaches. Oregon faces a talented Arizona squad who has been faltering down the stretch in Autzen Stadium while Boise will take on Nevada's dangerous pistol offense on the road.
* The other intriguing Friday game is of course the Backyard Brawl between West Virginia and Pitt. The winner of this game continues their hope of playing in a BCS Bowl and having a successful season while the loser will spend the offseason playing the what-if game. These two teams are by far the most talented in the Big East and yet a WVU win puts Connecticut in the driver's seat for the Conference title. That is truly pathetic and goes back to the lack of game-day coaching from these teams.
* I do not want to harp on this topic too much but I have read and heard from a number of media people this week that a playoff system would take away from the meaning of college football's regular season. That notion is complete hogwash. There are three games this weekend, all today actually, that have national title implications. Unless you are a fan of a particular school or a college football junkie (or a gambler) the remaining games on the schedule have absolutely no meaning. If there were an eight or twelve team playoff, all of a sudden there are another 7-10 games with major playoff implications including games involving the Big East race, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Virginia Tech, NC State, Florida State and the list could go on further. The regular season would become more meaningful if an increased number of teams are battling for a playoff spot and the right to fight for a National Championship.
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