So, it's the day after the week after NU's season ended. First thangs first: let's see how our hypothetical bowl opponents fared in their ultimate/penultimate week of action and look at our bowl scenario.
- Some excellent things happened Friday/Saturday for NU's Champs Sports bowl hopes: Oklahoma naked-lapped No. 12 Oklahoma State, 27-0. This means the Cowboys are essentially a nonfactor when it comes to BCS, which means Iowa/Penn State - lookin like Iowa at this point - is basically a shoe-in for a BCS bowl bid. Which means we move up the ladder a spot in terms of bowl selection, which means we can't go to a bowl worse than the Champs Sports. No.10 PIttsburgh also played nice and lost to West Virginia clearing out a spot in the top 10 for Iowa, but that was going to happen to either the Panthers or Cincinnati when they match up next week, so, no biggie.
- Now, the ACC, for those of you that were overwhelmingly excited by my Champs Sports Bowl post the other day: North Carolina came on, but failed to raise up, as a last-second blocked field goal, losing 28-27 to the NC State Wolf Pack. The loss spoiled the Tar Heels' chance of keeping pace with the 40,000 other 8-3, now 9-4 teams in the ACC, and severely hamper their chances of being our matchup.
- Clemson is also 8-4 after losing yesterday to South Carolina by an embarrassing final tally of 34-17, but since they're in the ACC Championship game next week, they probably will be picked higher up than Champs Sports - I mean, if they win next week against Georgia Tech, they're going to a BCS bowl. No. 11 Virginia Tech romped 42-13 over Virginia, so, they're likely to get the third spot, and THE U beat South Florida 31-10, leaving them tied with the Hokies in the standings, but not as good as them.
- UNC and BC - who beat bottom-feeders Maryland by a shaky 19-17 - are each 8-4. They'd each have to jump either the U, Clemson, or Virginia Tech to be the #4 spot, and I don't see that happening considering how much of a bigger name those three schools have than UNC when it comes to football. BC seems to have even less of a chance, since they got beat by UNC. Right now, I'd project us to play the U, but that's just me.
- I was going to put up an Alamo Bowl teams we might face post like the one I just did for the ACC next week, but with OK State losing, that might not be necessary. I'll get up an Outback bowl one.
Moving on. Jump it up!
I've spoken repeatedly about my obsession with polls. Well, thanks to top-25 teams insisting on shooting themselves in the feet, hands, and occasionally, faces in their games last week, NU vaulted a massive 15 points in the Others Receiving Votes category, and now have a whopping 18.
This, of course, doesn't mean that 18 people voted for us, but rather, that four people voted for us, because as always, there's one sportswriter who thinks he's pushing the envelope, really, is just taking the envelope, ripping into tiny little shreds, sprinkling gasoline over the ex-envelope, throwing it down a manhole, and then throwing a match down there and running away as fast as humanly possible. You see, three people semi-reasonably put NU as the 24th best team in the country, but Teddy Feinberg, a man amongst boys, boy among toddler amongst infants, and infant amongst fetii, put NU a whopping FOURTEENTH when he filled out his poll.
Feinberg, a sports editor for the Las Cruces Sun-News of Las Cruces, New Mexico whose main beats appear to be high school sports and New Mexico State Aggies football/basketball, is this week's winner of the Sippin on Purple Overestimating-Poll-Voter-Sportswriter-Guy Hero of the Week. As a possible future sports writer (WHAT UP MEDILL!) I hope that if I'm ever asked to vote in a poll, my decisions aren't picked apart by some punk in his dorm room with a computer. But until that day, I'll consider it one of my jobs - nay, duties - to find and mockingly praise the people who put NU absurdly high in their polls.
I am open to one of three possibilities: first off, Teddy has more important things to do than fill out some stupid little poll, which, most likely, most sportswriters forced to do these things do. Or, perhaps, somehow, Teddy is confused enough to think NU is in fact, the 14th best team in the nation. Or, in the third and most likely scenario, Teddy Feinberg is, in fact, Teddy Greenstein, the guy who writes about NU football for the Chicago Tribune and therefore decided to inflate NU's worth without endangering his job for the Trib. Although, if this is true, I'd like to chastise Teddy for giving his alter ego the same first name and a similarly ambiguously Jewish last name and not something more creative.
So congratulations, Teddy Feinberg. You're a true Northwestern hero, at least until next week when you realize that no other sportswriters agree with you and you rank us 22nd even though we didn't play this week. Use your powers wisely.
NU also got 23 points in the coaches poll, but nobody cares about the coaches poll except the assistant coaches that head coaches make fill out their bracket so they can focus on important things, like actually coaching football. Either we were mediocre on a bunch of peoples brackets or Coach Schnellenberger put us third behind suspenders, which is probably more likely.