Your Home of the Oregon ILLINI. Oskee Wa Wa!

Lights out, game over! Saturday is the BEST DAY of the year. First it was Texas (#2) going down at home to Ohio State. Then it was Notre Dame (#2) going down at home to Michigan. Tonight, it was Florida (#2) going down on the high plains at Auburn to those nasty Tigers. How about the WAR EAGLE? She's flyin' high tonight in Auburn, AL. It's hard to win a CFB game. It's even harder to win an SEC CFB game. And, it's really tough to win one of those on the road. Did you really think that Auburn would lose two home games in a row? For Florida, it just wasn't meant to be - scoring no points in the 2nd half. Give them credit for taking a 17-11 lead into halftime. They really had Auburn up against the ropes in the 1st half. Too bad for them that they didn't stick to that gameplan, especially running the ball. But when it mattered the most (2nd half) Auburn came through in the clutch with blocked punts, fumble recoveries, and interceptions. Pretty amazing that Auburn won this game tonight w/o scoring an offensive TD. But give credit to Tuberville. He CALLED OUT his team, especially the defense, at halftime by challenging their manhood. They played like little girls in the 1st half. It seemed to work tonight. Auburn's D responded in the 2nd half and shutdown the high-powered GATOR offense. What a game, quite possible the best of the year so far in terms of living up to the hype and advanced bililng. Auburn held the GATORS to 3 turnovers, 90 yards, and zero points in the 2nd half. Yes. Wow, glad I watched this one. It was great! No. 2 goes down again. Wow! Another one bites the dust!

And, I'm sure you're wondering about those ILLINI. I'm not. They lost their 2nd game in a row today at home to OHIO UNIVERSITY. It was a back to back last - second field-goal deal as well. We had the bowl for a game-winnning drive but fumbled on our own 16-yardline with under a minute to go - essentially handing victory to Ohio on our home turf. This one really hurt considering we had 6 fumbles in the game and lost 4 of them. We also outpassed and outrushed Ohio in two to one fashion. Another game we had no business losing. Ugh! How do we beat SPARTY on the road and them come home only to lose two in a row to Indiana and Ohio. Ugh Ugh! Pain, sharp pain. Send more aspirin. I need help. Basketball season can't start soon enough. I'm tired of the agony already. Honestly, I don't see us winning another game this year. It only gets tougher from here.

PICK EM Update for WEEK 7 - Every point counts. Thank you Maryland. I'll take my 3 points the hard way. In case you missed it, the TERPS were down 20-0 in Charlottesville today against Virginia. They won 28-26 for the first time in a long time. And more importantly, they earned me 3 valuable points. Yes! One of these weeks I'm going to post my first 55 of the season. Mark those words. Ugh! Thank you Missouri. Javoski Lane of A&M just killed me today. Gig 'Em Kiss Ya Girl! Congrats Jim. Good win for the Aggies today. Pass the wings please! I'll take my 53 points. Not a bad week. My system seems to be working according to plan. No major changes all year. Some of the games just didn't work out like the should have. All in all, I'm feeling pretty good about how the picks and the points are working out. Competition is tougher than ever this year. 50 points no longer means as much as they used to. KUDOS to Mr. Trecker and the HUSKER NATION for posting his 2nd 55 of the year tonight. Very impressive. Too bad you missed week #4. Honorable mention to Mr. Frey, our WORLD CUP PICK EM champ. 54 is nothing to sneeze at this week. Can't blame him for putting 1 point on his alma mater, Penn State. But for now, it's getting tight at the top after 7 weeks in the books. Very intersting. If you've played every week, you're in the top 75% in the nation. A 3-way tie for 2nd place between the POSER, Mr. TWISTY, and the KIWI from NZ. But for two weeks in a row now REGGIE REDBIRD has the lead into the next week. Here we go! 6 more weeks to go in the regular season of PICK EM. Love this game. Luv it!

Oklahoma wins, but CFB loses. AP went down today for the rest of the year. He might return in December for a bowl game. But really, Adrian Peterson was the only real threat to Troy Smith winning the Heisman this year. He had 180+ yards rushing today before breaking his collarbone late in the game with his dad watching. Yes, his dad. Big deal, so what. Actually, it was a big deal since his dad was just released from a halfway house last week. He hasn't seen his son play a football game in 10 years. Being in jail tends to do that from time to time. But, this is not good news for Oklahoma or CFB. It looks like AP will go pro next year to support his family; and who can blame him. Go to the pros and make your millions AP, you deserve them. You remind me of sweetness, Walter Payton. Nobody runs harder!

And USC escaped tonight after blowing a 21 point lead at home. Wow, USC is getting freaky scary at winning close games. All of those great USC streaks are alive. USC gets a bye week next week. But, this was a scare for the Trojans just barely beating the dangerous SUN DEVILS at home tonight, 28-21. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't an impressive victory. But the TROJANS won. And, until somebody in the PAC-10 can beat them they remain the team to beat in the WEST. Congrats to the BEAVER NATION in their victory over a tough UW squad up in Seattle on Saturday. Very impressive comeback after trailing at the half.

Down goes Georgia, again. 2x in a week. Today at home to Vanderbilt. Congrats to Mr. Dennis and the Commodores. Oh, how Georgia has fallen. If you don't have a QB in the SEC your're done. Stick a fork in it! The DAWGS, like Iowa, are overrated. And congrats to Terry Hoeppner and IU. Big win today at home in Bloomington over the HAWKEYES. I'm very glad for this team and their coach. IU is 3-3 on the season. Bowl? Maybe....more work to be done guys.

My TOP 10: #1) Ohio State, #2) Michigan, #3) Texas, #4) Florida, #5) Tennessee, #6) WV, #7) USC, #8) CAL, #9) Louisville, #10) Clemson. Here is the official AP POLL. Well, this is very interesting - isn't it. With the only guarantee being that either Michigan and/or Ohio State will have at least 1 loss before the end of the season, it's entirely possible that Texas could be playing for another national title this year. Here are the latest CBS Bowl predictions as of today. USC is still a top-10 team for now, although living on borrowed time in my book. I still have them best in the West until somebody like a CAL or Oregon takes them down, maybe even Notre Dame. But the Trojans are barely hanging on right now, ripe for the taking in my opinion. And, I'm just not sold on the BIG EAST this year quite yet. Sure, they have 4 good teams in Rutgers, WV, Louisville, and Pitt. But Louisville and WV both have problems on defense.

And, here are the much-awaited first look at the BCS rankings for the year. Not sure I agree with all of them. USC, Auburn, WV, Louisville, and Notre Dame are all too high in this poll for my liking. I think the big losers so far here are Texas, CAL, Tennessee, and Clemson. Oregon comes in at # 14 right now. But it is close at the top between Ohio State, USC, and Michigan. We'll see how things play and compute out over the next month leading up to rivalry weeks. I'm sure there will be some good swings here.

Teams on the RISE - Wisconsin, Rutgers, Arkansas, CAL, Clemson, Michigan, TEXAS. Teams on the DIVE (or expected to shortly) - USC, Georgia, Florida State, Miami. What happened last night in Miami between FIU and the CANES was disgusting. Big-time suspensions and expulsions are in order. That stuff has no place in our game.

Heisman Race: Troy Smith and everybody else. It's just about over now that AP is out for the year. Don't get me wrong, there are many great players out there. But, this one is just about over. Mail in your ballots now, before Thanksgiving. Mr. Troy is the man!

Only 800 hours until Ohio State hosts Michigan in a likely #1 vs. #2 match-up of the greatest rivalry we know in the game. Could be the first time since 1970 that this has happened. BTW, the blog is still doing well at 15 unique hits / day on average. But it only logged 57 of them last week, 9 week low. I'll have to spice things up a bit going forward. The all-time record week for unique hits is 167.