This Week in College Football: Week 12

For the last month of the season, in addition to the usual weekly column we’ll also examine the Tuesday through Friday action as well.

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Tuesday

8:00: Ohio @ Temple (ESPN2): There’s a 3-way tie for the MAC East right now, so once again your Tuesday MACtion has championship implications. Ohio has already beaten the other team in the tie (Miami) so a win here would be huge for them with only beatable Kent State to go. Meanwhile, a Temple win here and a Miami win against Akron on Wednesday sets up a season ending showdown a week from Friday. As for this game? Honestly, I like the Owls here. They’ve just been dominant against almost all of their MAC foes and it’s at home.

Wednesday

6:00: Miami @ Akron (ESPNU): As I said above, Miami is the other team in the tie. Akron… is not. Akron is probably the worst team in major college football this season due to be 0-10 on the year. I think the predicted winner here is obvious.

8:00: Bowling Green @ Toledo (ESPN2): Going with the decent team (Toledo) over the 2-8 team (Bowling Green).

Thursday

7:30: Georgia State @ Alabama (ESPNU): Ordinarily, I don’t list DI-AA vs. DI-A competition on here. This game won’t be any less lopsided than the ones I usually list. In fact, it will probably be even more lopsided because it’s first-year Georgia State going into Tuscaloosa. (It may still be less painful for former Alabama (and Georgia Tech) coach Bill Curry than the time an Alabama fan threw a brick threw his window.) At any rate, this is the conclusion of ESPN’s documentary of Georgia State football, a series I’ve been fascinated with as it talks about the trials and travails of a team that’s just getting its feet. But unlike a lot of other teams of this sort, at least they’re staying within their means and not trying to jump into I-A in two years. So watch the beginning out of respect, and then look away out of respect, because no one likes rubberneckers.

8:00: California-Los Angeles @ Washington (ESPN): Yeah… they schedule these Thursday night games at the beginning of the year. Sometimes they’re right about which ones will be good. Sometimes, they’re, um, not and you end up with two Pac-10 teams with losing records. U-Dub just finished the murder’s row portion of their schedule (Arizona, Stanford, Oregon) and now settles back into games they have a chance to win, needing to win their next two over UCLA and Cal to go into the Apple Cup with a shot at a bowl. All that said, I think UCLA will win.

10:00: Air Force @ Nevada-Las Vegas (CBSCS): No one in the Mountain West that isn’t TCU, Utah, BYU, SDSU, or Air Force has more than 3 wins. I’ll take Air Force here.

Friday

9:30: Fresno State @ Boise State (ESPN2): This Fresno team is pretty okay. But I’ve seen nothing this year (including watching Fresno last week against Nevada) that thinks they’ll get anything other than blown out by Boise. I was going to write that it’ll be an upset if Fresno covers but I just looked up the line and it’s Boise by 30.5. Okay, so they might actually cover, but that’s the sort of respect Boise is getting from Vegas, at least.