College Football Dynamite!

[eagle eye]

In the words of Harry Carey, "Holy Cow!". The college football scene changed dramatically in one night. And it was a freaking Thursday night at that! Two marquee, high profile games on a Thursday night is unprecedented and it did not disappoint.

 

Baylor 41 Oklahoma 12

The final outcome of the game was not unexpected but the ease with which Baylor dispatched the Sooners was. Is there any doubt who the coach of the decade should be? If you're thinking Nick Saban go sit in the corner. Saban doesn't have to fight for recruits--they line up at his door. There's no denying he's a great coach but please, he's got talent galore. I'm talking about Art Briles. At every level of coaching he's excelled from high school state championships at Stevenville to turning the Houston Cougars back into a relevant program again. Everybody loves Case Keenum both as Cougar and now as a Houston Texan. He's a Briles recruit, Kevin Sumlin just continued what Briles began. Now Briles has a Heisman Trophy winner (RGIII) and several players excelling in the NFL. Now, Briles has his team poised to win the Big 12. He still has plenty of challenges ahead before he gets there but make no mistake, the Baylor Bears are good, really good and the dismantling of OU shows that. There's no doubt that Baylor is a top 5 team and the BCS poll will reflect that I'm sure. I'm an OU fan but I like Briles and I'm getting to like Baylor. Go Bears!

 

Oregon 20 Stanford 26

In a span of about 3 hours the world shook with the thunder of a bolt of lightning in northern California. The Pac 12 standings were upended, the BCS was upended and the Oregon Ducks were left standing around wondering what the heck just happened. This was expected to be the best game of the season in the Pac 12 with arguably the two best teams in the conference butting heads but few, if any, believed that Stanford would beat Oregon and its up-tempo, high flying offense. Well they did it and they did it by shutting down that offense almost completely. It was a great performance by the Cardinal and now we can speculate what implications this has in college football. First it solidifies Florida State's hold on the No 2 spot in the BCS. The Seminoles and Ducks were flip-flopping between 2 and 3 for several weeks now. Oregon's hope of playing in a National Championship game is now pretty remote. Sometimes it's not whether you get beat it's more about WHEN you lose. November is not the time to lose. This catapults teams like Ohio State and yes Baylor into the mix for the final push for a National Championship. To me, Baylor should be ahead of Ohio State but that's just me. I'm a Big 12 guy. Last night was huge in college football and if you throw in a good NFL game, which the Vikings and Redskins provided, it was a killer evening for football fans everywhere!