{"id":751,"date":"2007-11-18T07:24:53","date_gmt":"2007-11-18T15:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/18\/weekend-update-sports-november-17-2007\/"},"modified":"2007-11-18T07:24:53","modified_gmt":"2007-11-18T15:24:53","slug":"weekend-update-sports-november-17-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/18\/weekend-update-sports-november-17-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekend Update Sports: November 17, 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>Oklahoma<\/b> and <b>Oregon<\/b> departed the national championship picture this week. <b>Notre Dame<\/b> won the 1-9 bowl, guess they&#8217;re back in the BCS mix now&#8230;<b>Hawaii<\/b> and <b>LSU<\/b> hung on for wins against lesser opponents. <b>Alabama<\/b> and their $4M\/year coach lost to <b>LA Monroe<\/b> &#8211; not to be outdone, <b>Iowa<\/b> and their $2.7M coach lost to <b>Western Michigan<\/b>. Let&#8217;s see how Ohio State&#8217;s opponents did, talk about bowls, review the Top 12, and finally the Bottom 5.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<h2>OSU Opponent Watch<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Youngstown State<\/b> (7-4) &#8211;  Idle.<\/li>\n<li><b>Akron<\/b> (4-7) &#8211; Played <b>Miami<\/b> away, lost 0-7. Conclusion: Unexpected Loss<\/li>\n<li><b>Washington<\/b> (4-7) &#8211; Played <b>California<\/b> at home, won 37-23. Conclusion: Unexpected Win<\/li>\n<li><b>Northwestern<\/b> (6-6) &#8211; Played <b>Illinois<\/b> away, lost 22-41. Conclusion: Expected Loss<\/li>\n<li><b>Minnesota<\/b> (1-11) &#8211; Played <b>Wisconsin<\/b> at home, lost 34-41. Conclusion: Expected Loss<\/li>\n<li><b>Purdue<\/b> (7-5) &#8211; Played <b>Indiana<\/b> away, lost 24-27. Conclusion: Loss<\/li>\n<li><b>Kent State<\/b> (3-8) &#8211; Played <b>Temple<\/b> away, lost 14-24. Conclusion: Unexpected Loss<\/li>\n<li><b>Michigan State<\/b> (7-5) &#8211; Played <b>Penn State<\/b> at home, won 35-31. Conclusion: Unexpected Win<\/li>\n<li><b>Penn State<\/b> (8-4) &#8211; Played <b>Michigan State<\/b> away, lost 31-35. Conclusion: Unexpected Win<\/li>\n<li><b>Wisconsin<\/b> (9-3) &#8211; Played <b>Minnesota<\/b> away, won 41-34<\/a>. Conclusion: Expected Win<\/li>\n<li><b>Illinois<\/b> (9-3) &#8211; Played <b>Northwestern<\/b> at home, won 41-22<\/a>. Conclusion: Expected Win<\/li>\n<li><b>Michigan<\/b> (8-4) &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/2007\/11\/17\/buckeyes-win-big-10\/\">Played <b>Ohio State<\/b> at home<\/a>, lost 14-3. Conclusion: Loss<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Buckeye opponent&#8217;s records after the 12th week, 73-67. Conference play is now complete and <b>Ohio State<\/b> won the Big 10 and an automatic berth in BCS competition, likely playing in the Rose Bowl though still alive for the MNC game with <b>UO<\/b> and <b>OU&#8217;s<\/b> losses this week. As for the other 9 bowl eligible Big 10 teams, I predict that <b>Michigan<\/b>, <b>Illinois<\/b>, <b>Penn State<\/b>, <b>Wisconsin<\/b>, <b>Michigan State<\/b>, <b>Indiana<\/b>, and <b>Purdue<\/b> will be extended invitations. <b>Iowa<\/b> and <b>Northwestern<\/b>, though eligible, will not participate.<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<h2>Quick Hits from Around College Football<\/h2>\n<p>\nThese are the undefeated survivors; give them credit for standing tall when others are losing games they should win: <b>Kansas<\/b> and <b>Hawaii<\/b>. The Warriors eased by Nevada and the Jayhawks dominated the Cyclones. <b>Florida International<\/b> maintained its perfect zero win season, <b>Utah State<\/b> ruined its perfect zero win season upsetting <b>New Mexico State<\/b>.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nProjected BCS Top 5: <b>LSU<\/b>, <b>Kansas<\/b>, <b>West Virginia<\/b>, <b>Missouri<\/b>, and <b>Ohio State<\/b>.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nGame of the week? <b>Tennessee<\/b> rallied from 16 down in the 4th quarter to beat <b>Vanderbilt<\/b> 25-24.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nMismatch of the week? <b>Boise State<\/b> humiliated <b>Idaho<\/b> 58-14 in their rivalry game.<br \/>\n<br \/>\nMy Special Top 12 rankings: (Why Top 12? That&#8217;s where you need to be to get into BCS contention.) <\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><b>Kansas<\/b> &#8211; Thumped <b>Iowa State<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Arizona State<\/b> &#8211; Idle.<\/li>\n<li><b>Missouri<\/b> &#8211; Outscored <b>Kansas State<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Ohio State<\/b> &#8211; Dominated <b>Michigan<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>West Virginia<\/b> &#8211; Escaped <b>Cincinnati<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>LSU<\/b> &#8211; Rallied to beat <b>Mississippi<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Virginia<\/b> &#8211; Idle.<\/li>\n<li><b>Georgia<\/b> &#8211; Beat <b>Kentucky<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Illinois<\/b> &#8211; Rushed past <b>Northwestern<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>USC<\/b> &#8211; Idle.<\/li>\n<li><b>Oklahoma<\/b> &#8211; lost to <b>Texas Tech<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Hawaii<\/b> &#8211; Escaped <b>Nevada<\/b>.<\/ol>\n<p>\nMy Special Bottom 5 rankings: (Why bottom 5? If you finish there you should be relegated to I-AA) <\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><b>Florida International<\/b> &#8211; 0-10 Lost to <b>Louisiana-Lafayette<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Minnesota<\/b> &#8211; 1-11 this season. Lost to <b>Wisconsin<\/b>. <\/li>\n<li><b>Utah State<\/b> &#8211; 1-10 this season. Beat <b>New Mexico State<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Colorado State<\/b> &#8211; 2-9 this season. Beat <b>Georgia Southern<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li><b>Notre Dame<\/b> &#8211; 2-9 this season. Beat <b>Duke<\/b>.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>\nIn the coming week I&#8217;ll post a Conference Strength Report and Weekend Update Sports edition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oklahoma and Oregon departed the national championship picture this week. Notre Dame won the 1-9 bowl, guess they&#8217;re back in the BCS mix now&#8230;Hawaii and LSU hung on for wins against lesser opponents. Alabama and their $4M\/year coach lost to LA Monroe &#8211; not to be outdone, Iowa and their $2.7M coach lost to Western [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montaraventures.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}