I hear New Orleans in January is nice

Late Sat. night, I thought my prediction of an Ohio State/Florida BCS Championship rematch was already coming to fruition. LSU was trailing Florida the entire game and it wasn’t until deep in the fourth quarter that LSU pulled out a victory over Florida knocking them once and for all out of the national championship race (however, the way this season is going, I wouldn’t county anything out for good.)

Meanwhile, over on the left coast, USC had decided that today would be a good day to end the fallacy of USC once and for all. By losing to Stanford, a 40 underdog, they preempted my prediction of Cal/Oregon/USC taking each other out of the BCS race. Meanwhile UCLA lost to Notre Dame leaving me convinced that the Pac 10 really does suck.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed watching ESPN’s Mark May fighting back tears as described USC’s while Lou Holtz laughed and threw spit wads at him.

As for the national championship, I don’t see anyone really standing in LSU’s way. Florida was the team to stop them and they fell short. Cal however, has some tough games ahead. I don’t expect them to make it through the season unscathed.

As for the Buckeyes, the last four games of the season should make for some interesting football. No question Penn State will be a tough crowd. Purdue was a tough crowd today and even though the whiteout works much better than Purdue’s “blackout,” if the Buckeye defense plays like it should today, it won’t matter. The crowd will be quickly quieted and the offense will only need a touchdown, maybe two to win.

Wisconsin isn’t panning out to be the threat we assumed they would be. Unless they find something big between now and then, expect another Buckeye win at home.

Next is Illinois. Can you believe that this may be the most interesting game left in the season (save for the rivalry factor of Michigan)? I am still not sure what to make of Illinois. Have they truly been tested? We play them at home and I’m glad their on the schedule. If we didn’t play them and somehow got shut out of the BCS Championship (ie. Cal gets in), they would get the Rose Bowl bid since they haven’t been there in a really, really long time. Since we play them at home, determining a Big Ten champion may be much easier.

And then there’s Michigan. They haven’t lost a Big Ten game yet and this may just be a Big Ten Championship game. They struggled early against Eastern Michigan and only put them away by 10 points. They play Purdue next weekend. Michigan defense is defiantly not Ohio State’s defense and if Painter and the Purdue offense can get their confidence back, Purdue may be in for a big win. The Wolverines then travel to Illinois which may be a true test of Illinois abilities. They also travel to Wisconsin. If they get through those three games, I’ll give them a little more respect when we travel to Ann Arbor.

For now, look for the Buckeye’s to be ranked #2 when the BCS comes out. Oh, and with New Orleans a mere 80 miles from Baton Rouge, if LSU makes it to the BCS Championship, they will have a huge home field advantage.