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Most people you talk to are going to say this is the year of the upset, but I like to consider it the year of parody. The season started off with the biggest upset in College Football history when little known Appalachian State knocked off the perennial power Michigan, who was ranked #5 at the time. There wasn't an option to place bets on the game, but experts said it would have been about a 36 point spread. Then about a month later and we saw what truly was the biggest upset in college football history when Stanford beat then #1 USC in a game where they were underdogs by about 40 points!
The top 5 teams, heck the top 10 teams in the rankings looked more like a game of musical chairs then a poll representing the top teams in the land. It was as if no one could handle the pressure of being ranked that high. Honestly, I think it was the Thursday night games that got teams spooked as I believe there was a stretch of about a month when 3 teams ranked #2 all lost on Thursday night.
Anyways, as I said, this year not only showed us that upsets were possible, but that College Football is gaining some parody. We didn't have that dominate team or teams that steam rolled everyone throughout the year, had one big scare, and then got to play for the National Championship. We had teams feeling the weight of pressure, struggling week in and week out to get a win. The main reason, and I can't take full credit for this deduction, has to be Television. High School players are no longer restricted to watching the Notre Dame, Michigan, Miami, Oklahoma teams every week. With the onslaught of cable television channels such as Foxsports (pick your location), ESPN2, Sun network, Big Ten network, etc., players can see any number of teams. And now that there are primetime games on Thursday night and Friday night it just continues to add up to more possibilities for high school players. Think about it. If you are a wideout and you see the offense that Hawai'i is running, you are going to want to go there and rack up the numbers, but without the advent of television coverage, you would have never known. This trend is not going away, so expect more of the same year in and year out moving forward. Eventually we won't be calling them upsets, but parody. Now onto the awards.
Seesaw AwardThe award for the biggest seesaw team had to be the University of South Florida. They came up from not being ranked, all the way to #2 in the AP poll (garnering an impressive 11 first place votes), to losing 3 straight and eventually winning their last 3 to find themselves ranked in the Top 25 again. I remember when this school was nothing, and somehow they became a contender ... albeit it short lived.
Biggest DisappointmentThe biggest disappointment this year had to be the Cal Bears. They started out the season ranked #12 and impressively beat the eventual SEC runner up Tennessee in their first game. They moved all the way up to #2 in the rankings, and just like USF lost their next 3 games. However, they continued to lose and actually ended up losing 6 of their last 7 games. I have no idea how they managed to get into a bowl, but they were a sad sight at the end of the year.
Biggest SurpriseMissouri has to be the biggest surprise of the year. They were unranked to begin the season, and with 1 game left to go in the season, they were the #1 ranked team in the nation. If they didn't have to play a conference championship game, they would be getting prepared for a chance to play for the big crystal football.
Craziest Stat This year we saw the top teams in the land continuously drop off, but did you know that 3 times this year the #1 and #2 ranked team lost in the same week. How improbable is this? Well, it hadn't happened for 11 years and this year it happened 3 times! Crazy!
HeismanSpeaking of stats, have you seen the stats on Tim Tebow? Sure, you can say he is a product of the offense (see Danny Wuerffel, Alex Smith, etc.), but this guy is impressive. He is absolutely dominating at times and causes defenses headaches. I don't care that his team has lost 3 times this year or the fact that he is a sophomore, he deserves it.
So, now that the regular season is complete, it's time to get on with the 2007 Bowl Games, so be sure to check back for the Free College Football picks.