The college football gods smiled on us this week, giving us a fantastic SEC championship game, with #1 Florida taking on #2 Alabama. We haven’t seen an SEC championship game this exciting in nearly twelve whole months, back when #1 Alabama took on #2 Florida. Gotta love the SEC.
We’ve also got #22 Nebraska attempting to spoil #3 Texas’ season in the Big 12 Championship game, which would be sweet revenge for the 1996 game when an unranked Texas team stunned #3 Nebraska 37-27.
And in a bit of scheduling serendipity, the Pac-10 and Big East are both hosting de facto championship games as #16 Oregon State and #7 Oregon play for a Rose Bowl berth (oh wait, this already happened) and #5 Cincinnati and #15 Pitt play for the Big East’s BCS spot.
The black sheep in all of this? The ACC, whose title game participants both shat the bed last week (Clemson losing to South Carolina, Georgia Tech losing to Georgia), setting up a less-than-compelling matchup between 10-2 and 8-4 teams. Snooze.
Nevertheless, I’m all atwitter about the weekend, so let’s get to some picks, shall we?
Last week: 12-6
Good calls: the Pac-10 (4-0), South Carolina over #15 Clemson (South Carolina win 34-17), Oklahoma over #11 Oklahoma State (OU win 27-0)
Bad calls: the SEC (1-3), Kentucky over Tennessee (Tennessee win 30-24), #20 Ole Miss over Mississippi State (Mississippi State win 41-27).
ACC Championship Game
#10 Georgia Tech (10-2) vs. Clemson (8-4) in Raymond James Stadium (Tampa, FL)
This is not a particularly interesting matchup. This has been a problem for the ACC lately. When the league hijacked Miami and Virginia Tech earlier this decade, they probably had designs on an annual Florida State vs. Miami/Virginia Tech supergame. Thus far, the ACC championship game has looked like so:
2005: #22 Florida State over #5 Virginia Tech 27-22 – a dream come true! Little did they realize this would be the only championship game appearance for Florida State so far.
2006: #16 Wake Forest over #22 Georgia Tech 9-6 – you read that correctly. 9 to 6. I remember watching that game and thinking they were setting football back a hundred years.
2007: #5 Virginia Tech over #12 Boston College 30-16 – this game had a glamour team (Virginia Tech) and a future star (Matt Ryan of BC). But let’s face it, Boston College is not the ideal participant if you’re looking for national interest.
2008: #25 Virginia Tech over #20 Boston College 30-12 – which is why ACC organizers couldn’t have been thrilled about seeing a rematch.
So the highest ranked team ever to play in this game has been #5 Virginia Tech (twice). This game will continue to sit on the backburner of the public consciousness until Miami or Florida State returns to prominence.
The pick: Georgia Tech 41, Clemson 13
SEC Championship Game
#1 Florida (12-0) vs. #2 Alabama (12-0) in the Georgia Dome (Atlanta, GA)
This is the game of the week. Hell, this is the game of the year. You don’t see #1 vs. #2 outside of the context of the national championship game very often, so this should be a good one. My first instinct is to pick Florida, since they’ve done nothing but win since the gun fired on that Ole Miss game last year. They’ve been #1 all season long. They’ve got Tebow. And sure, they lost one of their best defensive players because he drunkenly fell asleep at a green light, but still, they returned almost their entire championship-winning defense from last year anyway. So logic points toward the Gators.
Besides, Alabama has really been nothing but a solid, if not unspectacular team all year. And all of our recent national champions have had a certain “sexy” quality to them – be it Tebow or LSU’s defensive stars or Vince Young or Leinart/Bush…Alabama doesn’t really seem to have any of that. But like I said, they do have solid players. Mark Ingram. Terrence Cody. Rolando McClain. Javier Arenas. And oh yeah…Nick Saban. I think the most under-reported aspect of this game is the fact that two college football titans of coaching are going head-to-head in what could end up becoming the great rivalry of this generation. Meyer vs. Saban. Meyer won round one. I think Saban wins round two.
The pick: Alabama 24, Florida 23
Big 12 Championship Game
#3 Texas (12-0) vs. #22 Nebraska (9-3) in Cowboy Stadium (Arlington, TX)
I don’t think anyone in their right mind thinks Nebraska has a fighting chance here. Their offense has been putrid all season long. But you never can tell with these things. That’s the magic of college football. The one thing they can hang their hat on is their defense, which is led by a defensive-minded coach and a single transcendent player, Ndamukong “A Boy Named” Suh. So maybe if they can shut down the Texas run game (which is relatively non-existent anyway) and make UT one-dimensional…I mean, you never know.
Personally, I think the Longhorns have been overrated for the last two years, but you can’t argue with 12-0. Even if they have played a weaker schedule (49th, according to the Saragin ratings). It looks like UT is going to sneak their way into the national championship game. The game is being played in Arlington, so maybe you’ll see a fuller Nebraska section thanks to all the TCU fans driving in from nearby Fort Worth.
The pick: Texas 33, Nebraska 9
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