College Football Season Getting Down to the Wire

As the college football season approaches its final weeks of regular season games, conference championships and bowl games aren’t too far off in the distance. However, it was last week’s games that might have sealed the fate for quite a few top-ranked teams in the country.
Last Thursday, on Nov. 22, the then 9-0 Miami of Florida Hurricanes faced an extremely tough 8-2 Washington University team, ranked 12th in the nation. Miami, whose program has been recently been resurrected by former coach Butch Davis (who is currently leading the Cleveland Browns to a possible playoff season), quite simply demolished the Huskies and left anyone’s doubt of their talent on the field. The Hurricanes stomped Washington with a 65-7 trouncing, which was a hell of a lop-sided score for a game that matched up two of the best teams in the nation against each other.
Miami has been led this season by running back Clinton Portis, who picked up two touchdowns and ran for 105 yards on 12 carries against the Huskies, and quarterback Ken Dorsey, who completed 14 of 21 passes for 189 yards and a touchdown in the Washington game.
Tomorrow the Hurricanes will face Virginia Tech, who are ranked 13th in the country. Virginia Tech, 8-2 thus in the season, has always given the Hurricanes a heated rivalry, and Miami actually hasn’t won at Virginia Tech since 1993. However, Miami is not only perfect at home this year, they have also dominated on the road, so if they manage to defeat Tech, they will easily secure a spot in the Rose Bowl and a shot for the national championship.
Another team that once had national title hopes, the Nebraska Cornhuskers, saw their hopes, for the most, part go down in blazing flames as Colorado whooped their ass by a ridiculous score of 62-36. Even though the Cornhuskers still only have one loss on the season, the huge loss undoubtedly killed their chances at playing for a national championship in January. Colorado upped their record to 9-2 on the season and will face third-ranked Texas, who is 10-1 on the year, in the Big 12 Championship tomorrow night. A solid win over Colorado would give Texas reasonable consideration for a Rose Bowl birth, while Nebraska will wait out the results of the games to see where they will playing in the upcoming weeks.
Unranked Oklahoma State pulled off another unexpected upset last Saturday by squeaking by fourth-ranked Oklahoma 16-13. The loss dropped Oklahoma’s record to 10-2 and eliminated them from national championship contention. One of the biggest upsets of the weekend, and certainly the biggest for Ohio football fans, was Ohio State’s 26-20 victory over then-10th-ranked Michigan. The Buckeyes led the Wolverines by an amazing score of 23-0 at halftime, leaving a packed house at Ann-Arbor in shock. However, as usual, Ohio State tried to find a way to lose to Michigan but somehow held on to the victory. The loss dropped the Wolverines to a rank of 16th in the nation, while the Buckeyes’ (7-4) win jumped them into the last spot of the Associated Press’s top 25 list.
Another notable loss of the past weekend was Stanford’s 17-13 victory over a hapless Notre Dame team. The Fighting Irish, who still receive television contracts because of the school’s reputation, boast an unimpressive 4-6 record heading into this weekend’s game against Purdue. The Notre Dame dynasty seems to be over, and Head Coach Bob Davie, the successor to the infamous Lou Holtz, could be on his way out. For the first time in a long time, Notre Dame’s basketball program has unquetionably become much better than the football program.
While other top-ranked teams have already accepted bowl bids (such as Maryland in the Orange Bowl), a few leaders in the Bowl College Series (BCS) standings still are in heated in competition to play the Rose Bowl. As already stated, number-one Miami still has to get by Virginia Tech to secure a spot in the title match, but Florida (9-1), Texas (10-1) and Tennessee (9-1) all have key games this weekend and could have reason to boast for national title hopes. Florida (No. 2 A.P.) and Tennessee (No. 4 A.P.) face each other in what could be one of the most exciting games of the season, and depending on how Texas fares at Colorado (No. 10 A.P.), they could essentially be playing for a Rose Bowl birth. It is likely that even if Texas defeats Colorado, the winner of this game will face Miami; that is, if they win as well. However, if Miami is upset by Virginia Tech, everything completely changes and there could be a rather complex controversy concerning who deserves to play in the Rose Bowl and who actually receives the BCS bids to do so.
Without a doubt, if you want to take time off from studying this weekend, check out Miami vs. Vigrinia Tech tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m., Tennessee at Florida at 4:30 p.m. and Texas vs. Colorado at 7 p.m. Forget watching the NBA or the NHL. There is nothing more exciting than college athletics, and I promise that you won’t be disappointed with any of these key games. Anything could happen, and anybody could end up playing for the national championship.


Video Games Predict the Outcome of Sporting Events?

So I have this crazy theory: the outcome of a video game match between two sports teams will also be the outcome of the actual game when these two teams play. It’s out there, right? You are probably wondering how I could make such a bold statement, and if you can follow my rambling throughout the rest of this article then maybe it will make sense. Believe me, it makes sense in my head, but then again I thought the movie The Cell starring Jennifer Lopez was a stunning movie and even worse, I thought she did a good job acting.
The first reason why my theory works is because it does not involve any certain person playing the game. So for example, when the Cleveland Browns take on the Baltimore Ravens in football, children all over will pick those two teams on their Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, Playstation 1 or 2 or their X-Box and play a game. Fans for Cleveland will be the Browns while Baltimore fans will be the Ravens. My theory states that the winner of the game will be the winner in real life, so either way I am right because the person playing almost never loses to the computer.
The second reason my theory works plays off the first one. This could be called the upset rule. The upset rule states that somewhere, someone picked the underdog between two teams when playing a video game and beat the computer. It is because that one person had faith in the little man that they beat the favorite. For example, somewhere a Chicago Bears fan plays “Madden 2001” or some other “Madden” version on their gaming system and beats up on whomever the Bears play that week. According to the upset rule, whenever the Bears win it was because of that one fan picking them in their game. So what happens if they lose? Well, the fans for the other team must have been playing their video games too, and they outnumbered the Bears fans.
The third rule relies on everyone in the United States who has any sort of gaming system. Each week when they play, if they pick any two teams to play each other during that week the total number of wins for both teams will determine who wins the game in real life. For example, in the match-up between Pepperdine and UCLA on Wednesday night, if 500 people across the nation played a game with those two teams against each other, in at least 251 of the games Pepperdine won. In the actual game, Pepperdine knocked off the 11th ranked Bruins of UCLA 85-78. It was the first time since 1946 that Pepperdine had beaten the Bruins.
The only rule to remember with this theory is that the games must be played within one week prior to the actual event.
While this theory holds no truth at all and it is just a bunch of incoherent rambling, it would be interesting if such a theory were backed by solid data.
One area in which video games are grounded in truth is the ability of a player. I learned this earlier this week when I took on a friend of mine, sophomore Kevin Wahl, in a game of “Quarterback Club 2001” for N64. The game came about from a statement I made in a previous article about San Diego Charger wide receiver Tim Dwight. In the article, I called Tim Dwight the “Great White Disappointment” because he was fast but was worthless other than that. Kevin proceeded to show me that Dwight was an excellent all around player as he caught seven touchdowns and had 350 plus yards receiving. He also proved to me that Tim Dwight could do more than just catch as he ran 68 yards for another touchdown, returned a kickoff for a touchdown, played tough defense and was the holder for extra point attempts. When I thought Anthony Midget’s last name was funny, Midget proceeded to return a kickoff 93 yards for a touchdown. The final score of the game was Tim Dwight plus extra points 56, me 20. I won’t tell you what the total final score was, but I will say that he did not put up triple digits on me. It was proved to me throughout the course of the game that maybe I should think before I shoot off at the mouth a player being worthless.
Let’s see, what else is there to say about video games? If I were to choose what game system I would want to pursue my theory through it would be Sega Genesis. This is the last gaming system that I purchased and I believe that, while the new systems have amazing graphics, anything with more than three buttons and a direction pad is too much. The whole mini joystick thing just throws me off severely. I have numerous times found myself running in circles, not being able to control my player and missing tackles in football because I can’t control the direction I want the player to run in. “NFL ’95” for the Genesis is by far the best game made except maybe for its predecessor “NFL ’94”. My personal choice though is “NFL ’95.” This game, I have found through my many years of playing, suits my theory perfectly. I never lose to the computer, and about 20 percent of the time when I play a game in advance I pick the right team. Granted, I don’t have the Jacksonville Jaguars or Carolina Panthers on the game and the Tennessee Titans are still the Houston Oilers, the St. Louis Rams are in Los Angeles and the Baltimore Ravens are still in Cleveland, but what does that matter? Those are just minor details, right?
While it’s just a theory, video games may hold the key to controlling the outcome of all actual games. If you have followed this article I applaud you, if you are still confused don’t worry about it. You really didn’t miss anything anyway.