Reflections on the 2012 College Football Regular Season

Reflections On the 2012 College Football Regular Season

The regular season is over. We can now look forward to the Beef O’Grady, Buffalo Wild Wings, Chick-fil-A, Famous Idaho Potato, Little Caesar, Orange, Outback, and Sugar Bowls topped off with the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl.

Explain to me how Northern Illinois is in the Orange Bowl rather than Oklahoma..

Also explain how Georgia Tech qualified for a bowl with a 6-7 record.

The Armed Forces and BBVA Compass Bowls are competing for the Euthanasia Bowl with all four competing teams, Pitt v. Ole Miss and Rice v. Air Force, with 6-6 record.

We saw the usual assortment of winners and losers, but the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame had their faith in Touchdown Jesus fulfilled. The Bible tells us the First Shall be Last, and the Last Shall be First.

USC was the preseason favorite in most polls, but it finished out of the running having lost 4 of its last 5 games, including to the Washington Generals, aka UCLA. Notre Dame was picked preseason to be as high as the bottom of the Top 25. It finished first in the polls and BCS with a perfect season.

Notre Dame also benefitted from blind non-replacement referees who could neither see a Stanford touchdown nor two Notre Dame players wearing the identical #2 on the field at the same time against Pitt when Pitt missed the winning field goal in overtime. A rekick from 5 yards closer might have sealed Notre Dame’s fate.

The last shall be first and the first shall be last.

Other surprising teams were Kansas State at 11-1, Northwestern 9-3, Oregon State 9-3, Penn State at 8-4, and UCLA at 9-4.

Gross underachievers were USC, Michigan State, Arkansas, Auburn, and West Virginia.

The SEC proved again why it is the best football conference. It’s pure Darwinism, as 4 of the 12 SEC teams (25%) fired their head coaches. Amongst the terminated was Gene Chizek who won the national title 2 years ago at Auburn with Cam Newton, the rented QB. Auburn had a perfect 0-8 conference record this year in the SEC.

The Michigan Wolverines pulled a singular trifecta of losing to number 1 Notre Dame, number 2 Alabama, and number 3 The Ohio State University in polls which allow cheaters barred from bowl games. Ohio State’s President Gordon Yee would refer to Northern Illinois as a “Little Sister of the Poor.”

Michigan and Texas proved they are still 1-2 years away from regaining their former stature. Tennessee is further away.

The Big Ten is sending the team with the seventh best record in the conference, Wisconsin at 8-5, to play Stanford, the second best record in the Pac 12, in the Rose Bowl. Both the Big Ten and Pac 12 championship games were far from being sold out.

The Big Ten is not the worse football conference in America. That honor goes to the Big East, which is struggling to find an excuse for survival as a football conference. It lost Boston College, Louisville, Maryland, Miami, Pitt, Rutgers, Syracuse, Virginia Tech, and West Virginia while picking up San Diego State, Boise State, and Tulane, all of whom are East of the Pacific Ocean but West of the Mississippi River.

The renegades Louisville and Rutgers competed for the Big East conference championship.

The always fickle Notre Dame, situated in the Midwest, switched its limited allegiance to the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) from the Big East.

Missouri and Texas A & M moved to the SEC, where they were welcomed as cream puffs to the tougher conference.

The Aggies under new coach Kevin Sumlin surprised all by finishing 11-2, defeating the heretofore omnipotent Alabama 29-24.

The Oregon Ducks continue to blind us with their team speed and luminescent uniforms.

Jerry Moore, the great coach at Appalachian State, the Champions of the Big House, announced his retirement.

That is a loss for college football.