Finished with a 2-5 record this weekend, 23-20 overall for season. Picked Ky and Ark upsets and missed those both by two overtime losses against Tenn and LSU. LSU beat Ark and Tenn beat Ky.
SEC showed its strength again over ACC teams this time. Thought the SEC may not be as good this year, but with SC’s convincing win over Clemson and Georgia’s huge win over Tech, SEC proved it’s probably best conference in the country. PAC-10 is in that debate; maybe the bowls will determine which conference is the best.

AU-Bama was a classic. AU pulled out all the stops to win the game, particularly in the first half. Great game plan, great effort, just a little short. Alabama showed that it is a true champion with the final drive and the outstanding play call at the goal line. Saban told his offensive coaches to pass, and they executed a tremendous play to score the deciding touchdown. Now, it’s on to Florida for Bama, while AU gets ready for bowl game and recruiting.

Florida and Tebow looked great against FSU yesterday, maybe better than they’ve looked all season. This is going to be a classic. Will give prediction later in the week.

Looked like Ingram could have fallen out of Heisman race with McCoy and Tebow taking over and an outside run from Gerhart of Stanford. If Ingram could come back against Florida and play great, could get interesting again, though he has a hip pointer and may be limited. We’ll see how that injury plays out this week.

Here are predictions for the holiday weekend:
 

Alabama 31, Auburn 21: Too much talent on Alabama’s side (score somewhat amended from Monday).

Ole Miss 31, Ms. State 14: Too much McCluster and rest of high powered Ole Miss offense. They’re on a roll.

Ga Tach 48, Georgia 28: Tech unstoppable on offense. Jonathan Dwyer (1,203 yards, 11 tds), Josh Nesbitt (847 yards, 16 tds) run all over Dawgs.

Clemson 28, South Carolina 14: C.J. Spiller and Co. too much for Gamecocks. Clemson one of hottest teams in country. Dabo doing terrific job.

Florida 45, Florida State 24: Tebow and crew get ready for Tide.

Upsets of the week:

Arkansas 28, LSU 21:Ryan Mallet throws well on LSU defense; Hogs pull it out.

Kentucky 24, UT 21: Rich Brooks gets another signature win over Kiffin this time.

Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy the games!

Oregon, Boise State, Cincy, TCU and Ga Tech are much more deserving teams to get BCS consideration than LSU, Miami and USC. Alabama, Florida and Texas are virtual locks if they win out.
 

There will be eight teams playing in four BCS games plus the national champ game pitting either Alabama-Florida winner vs Texas or TCU, Cincy, Boise State or a one loss Tech team if Texas stumbles given Texas would probably lose out if they lost to either Texas A&M or Nebraska. That’s if the BCS is fair and I don’t think they are. They lack integrity; instead they go for the bucks. Alabama and Florida can’t overlook their final games against Auburn and FSU respectively, but they should both win setting up a playoff game for a shot at the national title.

The Alabama-Florida loser goes to the Sugar Bowl to play one of those teams listed above hopefully or maybe an Iowa or Penn State. The Rose Bowl pits Ohio State and probably Oregon. That leaves the Fiesta and the Orange with Boise State, TCU, Tech, Cincy, Iowa and Penn State as the should be contenders. If the first four win out, they should be in the BCS bowls; there should be no doubt about it. One of the other two could fill out the fifth spot in the Sugar or wherever.

But USC, Miami and LSU are still in the picture according to cnnsi.com. How is that possible? Here are their respective resumes:

USC (7-3): losses to Washington, Oregon and Stanford. The Oregon and Stanford losses were blow outs and the Washington loss was a major upset to a team that was good at the time, but has struggled since. USC always chokes in one game during the season for sure; they get their Southern California cocky big heads and pay for it.  Their key wins are over Oregon State (a good team), Notre Dame (almost a terrible team) and Ohio State, a pretty good team. The win was in Columbus, so you have to give them credit for that. Still not strong enough for the BCS.

Same for Miami and LSU.

Miami (8-3): losses to Va Tech (31-7), Clemson (40-37 at home) and UNC. Good teams all three, but still that’s three losses. Key wins: FSU (not that impressive), Ga Tech (at home but impressive) and Oklahoma (without Sam Bradford and a down OU team). Not enough in my opinion for BCS status.

LSU(8-3) is the biggest joke. Losses to Florida (expected), Alabama (expected) and Ole Miss. Terrible loss to Ole Miss where the coaching should have dropped them from BCS bowl consideration in itself. Key wins: Auburn (at home) and Georgia (on the road aided by a terrible call). Unimpressive and deserves no consideration.

Those other four teams belong in the Orange and Fiesta and the other Sugar Bowl spot. Throw in Iowa and Penn State, too. LSU, USC and Miami don’t measure up.

Two best football conferences in the country. SEC has the best two teams in the country, but PAC-10 probably has better depth. While Florida and Alabama are superior teams, Oregon might give both a run. Other teams like Oregon State (8-3, 6-2), Stanford (7-4, 6-3), Cal (8-3, 5-3) and even USC, Arizona and UCLA probably are better teams than the SEC’s second tier.
I would have to say the Pac-10 is probably a better conference overall this year. The SEC has two elite teams, but not as much depth.

Here are my grades for SEC teams this year:
 

Alabama: A: Best team in the country in my opinion. Could very well be in Pasadena hoisting national championship trophy on January 7, 2010.

Florida: A-: Second best team in the country, just not as impressive as last year offensively without some key offensive linemen and Percy Harvin. Still in national championship picture.

Ole Miss: B+: Have come on strong at end of the season. Dexter McCluster is all world.

Kentucky: B+: Played well throughout the year. Rich Brooks is an excellent football coach and doing great things at a basketball school. Need to beat UT to get eight wins; huge for UK.

Arkansas: B-: Had some good wins. Petrino will get them there.

Tennessee: C+: Kiffin did OK in first year. Mouths off too much, but he may be OK with a good staff.

Auburn: C: Started off great, but became erratic. Defense was shoddy a lot of times, offense was inconsistent; great at times, not so good at others.

Mississippi State: C: Did better under Mullen. Still has a ways to go.

Georgia: D: Had a bad year. Losing Stafford and Moreno didn’t help.

LSU: D: Miles had a meltdown against Ole Miss. Team really struggled for an identity. No fluidity on offense. Team’s a mystery.

South Carolina: D: Had an implosion from the halfway point of the season once again. Spurrier has not had a decent qb yet in Columbia.

Vanderbilt: F: 0-8 in SEC, 2-10 overall. Nothing’s changed. I guess you have to keep the faith if you’re a Vandy fan. Just remain hopeful; hope is all you’ve got.

 This isn’t really a news flash that Alabama just has too much talent for Auburn this year. The Tide is a machine and is focused on the big prize. But there is no overlooking Auburn, there never is any overlooking for either team any year; the game is too important. Ingram, Julio and the offense are solid, and Javy, McClain and the defense are spectacular. Auburn will give it everything they have, and the home field helps, but it’s just too difficult a task for them.  Alabama 35, Auburn 17.

I just looked at McCoy’s stats: 396 yards passing and four tds. So he’s not out of it by any means. He doesn’t play the competition that Ingram and Tebow play, but you can’t deny his numbers. Definitely a featured guy in the competition, though Ingram is definitely in the lead.

It’s now a two man race for the Heisman as Mark Ingram and Tim Tebow have separated themselves from the rest of the pack. You could make  Colt McCoy an outside possibility, but Ingram ran for over 100 and had  two scores and Tebow had 317 all-purpose yards and accounted for three Tds. It’s going to come down to Ingram and Tebow in the SEC Championship game. My poster Joltin Joe predicted this would happen a week ago. Good call Joe.

Was 5-3 for this weekend. 13-7 for the season. Kentucky turned out to be a pretty good football team. Rich Brooks has done a terrific job at a hard place to win. 
Alabama rolled as expected. Ingram went for over 100 with a couple of tds. What a punt return by Javy. Incredible player. I was at the game. There is so much excitement for this team.

Cal big win over Stanford. Cal is a scrappy team. Thought they were going to be special at beginning of season, but some key injuries caused them to lose some games they would have won.

Georgia will probably get beaten pretty soundly by Ga Tech next week. Tech is the real deal.

Ole Miss escaped LSU. I’m not sure if LSU could have gotten their snap off in time to kick a game winning field goal, but there was no plan if they got that fourth down which they did. Major mistake by the coaching staff. Let about 20 seconds roll off the clock, too, after a third down when they had their timeout. Very poor game management by Les Miles and his coaching staff. As Houston Nutty said to the Wolf after the game: “Look up at that scoreboard and it’s 25-23.”

Big week coming up with rivalry games, headlined here by Bama-Auburn on the Plains at 1:30 Friday on CBS. Will preview later this week along with other games. Will be back in touch tomorrow (Monday).

UAB 28 ECU 24. I don’t care if I’m wrong; I just want Blazers to win.