This Weekend in College Football: Week 12

As usual, all times Eastern and all predictions wrong.

Noon:

• Iowa @ Michigan (ESPN): Where have you gone, Denard Robinson? / Wolverine nation turns its lonely eyes to you  Okay perhaps not quite yet, but regardless if the former wunderkind plays today or not Michigan should win.
• Northwestern @ Michigan State (ESPN2): Picking Northwestern to win Big Ten games feels so wrong, yet so far this year it's been almost mostly right.
• Florida State @ Maryland (ESPNU): FSU should be able to name their score in this one.
• Central Florida @ Tulsa (FSN): This might be the best game of the bunch. What to expect? Points, and lots of 'em. That said, I expect a rematch between these two in a couple of weeks, so this one is probably for home field advantage in that game. I'm expecting the rematch to be in Orlando.
• Temple @ Army (CBSS): Temple, probably.
• Indiana @ Pennsylvania State (BTN): Penn State, almost certainly.
• Arkansas @ Mississippi State (SEC): Miss State just lost the three games on its schedule it was supposed to lose. Now the question is if they can get back on the horse and see things out to 9-3.

12:30: Virginia Tech @ Boston College (ACC): Virginia Tech's offense is bad, but fortunately for them they're facing one of the few that is even more inept.

1:30: Washington @ Colorado (FX): The only thing worse than Colorado's offense is their defense. Serious: they score 17.6 per game (118th in the nation) while their opponents score 47.2 (124th in the nation, aka, dead last). Yeah, I think the Huskies have this one.

3:00:

• Southern California @ California-Los Angeles (FOX): As pointed out elsewhere, UCLA won't be lame ducking their way into the Pac-12 title game this year, but that said, I don't think they'll get there at all because I think USC will win this one. Maybe I'm just not looking closely enough, but still, I like the Trojans here.
• South Florida @ Miami (ACC): Virginia sure isn't very good, but that was probably a fluke. The Hurricanes should prevail once again over USF, if for no other reason than because unlike USF, Miami actually is in any area one might reasonably call "south Florida".

3:30:

• Mississippi @ Louisiana State (CBS): Well, this result will probably be less embarrassing than last year's 59-3 "kneel down with 8 minutes to go" debacle, but not by much.
• Wake Forest @ Notre Dame (NBC): Despite their numbers, Wake is still 5-5, which may cause some to say that they're not awful. The thing is, they certainly aren't very good, and it's hard to see how the nation's 109th ranked scoring offense is going to do anything against its best defense. Oh sure, the Demon Deacons could catch a few lucky breaks, but that's their only hope.
• Ohio State @ Wisconsin (ABC/ESPN2): So Wisky already has the Big Ten (checks divisions again because they still make no sense) Leaders division in the bag, while Ohio State still has the diluted goal of an undefeated season. (Still think there should be a "Terry Bowden Trophy" for this situation.) Anyway, the point is, the Buckeyes are probably going to win.
• North Carolina State @ Clemson (ABC/ESPN2): This the last chance for Clemson to pull a Clemson this year. Doing so would probably actually cause more chaos in the BCS than Alabama's loss did last weekend. That said, it wouldn't be much of a Clemson-ing if one could actually predict them, so therefore I have to take the Tigers.
• Duke @ Georgia Tech (ESPNU): Not sure what to write about this one. I think of Duke's competent passing attack and think of our shambolic defense. I see Sean Renfree (one-time GT commit, though given his abilities I'd say he made the right decision after Chan got fired) doing his best Matt Ryan impersonation, bombing above and behind our beleaguered secondary. Both of these defense give up more than 30 points per game. GT is slightly better on offense, though that's certainly been spotty at times.
  Simultaneously the most entertaining and maddening thing about college football is its unpredictability. Duke should not be in a position to play for the ACC title. Neither should Georgia Tech. The difference, though, is one of these teams is happy with a potential 6-6 record, the other should not be, having recorded at least one utterly inexcusable loss. If the win over UNC last week was an upset, then it was certainly a narrow one - Tech has beaten no other opponents this year against which we have been not been favorites. So we haven't pulled off the upset, and we've been victims to multiple ones.
  I guess I'm just rambling (no pun intended) at this point. Anyway, there's a pretty good reason why I always say "all predictions wrong" because I suspect that more often than not I am. And even though I have to for the bowl predictions, I hate making predictions involving my own team. All I can do is watch and hope.
• Colorado State @ Boise State (NBCS): In yet another edition of "awful offense" against "really good defense", Boise should win in a landslide.
• Texas Tech @ Oklahoma State (FSN): Overtime against arguably one of the worst teams in major college football does not do much to inspire confidence in me, Texas Tech. Also I still have this probably irrational respect for Oklahoma State. I say that because I'm pretty sure I haven't actually seen them play this year. But hey, it makes sense. I think.
• Texas State @ Navy (CBSS): Thanks to their special exemption, Army and Navy get to play a week after the actual end of the season, meaning after this Midshipmen don't have another game for two weeks. They should head into their double-bye with a win.
• Minnesota @ Nebraska (BTN): Minnesota is most of the way through my prediction of them going 2-6 in the Big Ten and making a bowl game. Don't let me down, Gophers!

7:00:

• Oklahoma @ West Virginia (FOX): Oh sure, WVU might score 40, but their defense is so awful the Sooners could well score 80.
• Tennessee @ Vanderbilt (ESPN2): I think I predicted Vandy to beat Tennessee last year as well, and as I recall, they probably should have. They should again this year, but as stated often around these parts, that doesn't mean much.
• Syracuse @ Missouri (ESPNU): With Texas A&M on the docket for next weekend, this is their last, best hope for a bowl game. I've been predicting all year in the bowl predictions they won't make it, so may as well stick to my guns.
• Iowa State @ Kansas (FSN): It's difficult to overstate how awful the Jayhawks are this year, so let me just say it again: Kansas is awful. Fortunately for everyone there, basketball season has started, so there will only be a few curious and/or brave souls to see that they lost to Iowa State.

8:00:

• Stanford @ Oregon (ABC): Game of the day right here. I know everyone's probably saying that but that doesn't make it any less true. That said, it's only the Cardinal's decent defense up against the onslaught that is the Oregon offense. If you read one article about college football this week that isn't this one, it should be Chris Bown's article about the Oregon offense. (Really, you should be reading lots of other article about college football in a given week because this one isn't very good.) A lot of people think that Chip Kelly will go to the NFL if he wins a national title. I really hope he gets the chance to kick the NFL into the 21st century. Oh, the league is gradually evolving, but Kelly would jump the league right into the deep end. (Probably the key takeaway from the article for me was the point about Kelly's quarterbacks: they actually don't run that much, negating one the usual cracks on run-based college offenses in the NFL. Also I still think even the Urban Meyer spread offense could work in the NFL, because it certainly couldn't be any worse than every attempt I've ever seen at running the speed option in a NFL Game. I just tear my hair out going "the pitch angle is all wrong, it's like they're just doing this for the hell of it!") Anyway, as for this game, I think Stanford isn't going to be a wet piece of toilet paper, but Oregon should still win by at least 2 scores.
• Kansas State @ Baylor (ESPN): One might be tempted to be worried about Baylor's offense against Kansas State, but then you remember they've already beaten several teams as good or better on offense than the Bears this year. And then you also see that K-State is 14th overall in offense, and their ability to measure out drives means that they can make time of possession meaningful. It's difficult to score if you don't have the ball, which I think is a predicament the Bears will find themselves in.
• Texas-El Paso @ Southern Mississippi (CBSS): Reminder: Southern Miss won 12 games last year. One of these days I'll remember too look up if anyone has ever had a 12 game swing from year-to-year, because USM is probably on their way.

10:00: Arizona @ Utah (ESPNU): They're finding their feet, but the Utes are still a little out-of-place in the Pac-12. Arizona should be able to handle them.

10:30: Brigham Young @ San Jose State (ESPN2): Well, you can't have MACtion on a Saturday night, but you can certainly have WACtion. Okay that was bad, I'm sorry. Anyway, this one should be pretty interesting, but nonetheless I think BYU is a little better and will come away with the win.