The day after Thanksgiving might be Black Friday at the shopping malls, but it’s “Fantastic Friday” in the world of college football. Maybe that doesn’t have the same ring as Separation Saturday, but whatever the case, today is a fantastic day of college football. And more importantly, the Stanford football team has a chance to gain ground in the 2010 BCS standings before they even step on the field tomorrow afternoon.
The BCS rankings could see solidification of current positioning or a huge shakeup courtesy of some intriguing matchups today. There are four college football games involved ranked opponents. I’ll let you guess which three are of the most significance (all times pacific):
No. 1 Oregon vs. No. 21 Arizona – 4:00pm
No. 2 Auburn @ No. 11 Alabama – 11:30am
No. 4 Boise State @ No. 19 Nevada – 7:15pm
No. 15 Nebraska vs. Colorado – 12:30pm
The Nebraska-Colorado game should be a fun game to watch, but its impact is almost non-existent on the top of the BCS and Stanford’s BCS bowl chances in particular. A Nebraska loss would have a big impact on the Big 12 title game and the Big 12’s automatic BCS berth, but that’s about it.
However the other three games involve teams ranked ahead of Stanford and all three games are rather dangerous for those teams. If I had to rank them in order of likelihood of upset with most likely to be upset at the top, I’d go:
1. Auburn-Alabama
2. Boise State-Nevada
3. Oregon-Arizona
The Wildcats have been inconsistent and certainly could surprise folks, but I don’t see Oregon doing anything but squashing Arizona. Boise State travels to a Nevada team that blew a shot at undefeated when they lost at Hawaii but remains incredibly tough to beat. That pistol offense could give Boise State’s defense some trouble. Of course the Broncos are tough across the board so I don’t see the upset happening. But we can always hope.
That brings us to the 2010 edition of the Iron Bowl. Alabama and Auburn have long had an intense rivalry, and this year’s edition has a whole lot riding on it. While Auburn is guaranteed a spot in the SEC title game, losing today would likely end their BCS title chances. It’s certainly possible they could still sneak into the title game with one loss, but TCU and Boise both have momentum on their side.
Rivalry games are always hard to figure out and seem to even the playing field a little bit (unless we’re talking about Cal last week). Alabama had a chance to potentially get back into the national title picture but lost a tough one at LSU. They can’t get to the national title game or even into the SEC title game, but with enough good things happening to them they could end up in a BCS bowl. It’s not a highly likely scenario, but beating Auburn would certainly be a step in the right direction. And even if Alabama was not even going to a bowl this year, the motivation would still be there to be the Tigers. It should be a fun Iron Bowl