Week 1: Broncos go BCS busting, while Big East focusing like a laser on the #10 seed

Well, the college season started with cheering crowds, fresh faces, and another new coach at Notre Dame. Somewhere, a young 18 year-old attended their first tailgate party in a sun-filled picturesque campus, learned to use a keg, began the process of learning the school songs, was grabbed and placed into body surfing duty, and later spent all the money their parents gave them for the semester, losing it in on-line poker. Ahh, the joys of freshman year.

In the most famous Bronco drive since A.C. and O.J. rode the California freeways, Boise State won as dramatic a first week game as one can think of. So the big question, would the game have the same impact in my ten team tourney as it does under the current system? Well, my interests are 96% about my tourney and 4% real life, and it was a huge, dramatic game to me. For a tourney, the impact was that a BSU loss may eliminate them from the tourney, whereas winning puts the Broncos in line for a top two seed. Either way, that game gave me the "what a game!" buzz since.

Well, I can't guarantee the Big East champ will be the #10 seed in my tourney, but they are making a run for it. Of course, maybe it will be like last season, when no Big East team was in the 2009 pre-season top 25, yet the Cincy Bearcats (bearcats are actually binturongs, a viverid carnivore, FYI) finished the regular season at BCS #3. But with Pitt losing to Utah, Cincinnati losing to Fresno State, and UConn losing to Michigan, it seems like the Big East champ may not have the greatest winning percentage.

That Bearcat thing reminds me when I was a mammalogy grad student, and I had a skin of a raccoon dog out on top of the cabinets in the collection at the Museum of Natural History. An anthropology professor (and tenured at that) walked through the room, and asked what it was. When I told him it was a raccoon dog, he said, "I didn't know they could breed!" Had to explain it was just a species name, not a hybrid.



For the projections of the BCS standings that I use for my tourney, which are not officially released for weeks, I will use the information from my good friends at BCSguru.com. Actually, I don't know them at all, but it seems like big-time internet people always say, "our good friends at blank.com, blah blah blah." Since I am a pretend big-time blogger with a pretend college tourney, it seems fitting to have a pretend friendship with the BCSguru.com guy.

The BCS Guru is "taking the BS out of BCS." Well, that leaves only "C," but I guess it is a better catch phrase than, "puts the 'fun' into 'funeral.'" We like BCS Guru because he combines all the polls and computer rankings, so I don't have to do it. Wikipedia says, "Finding a true guru is often held to be a prerequisite for attaining self-realization." Wow, what is self-realization? Wikipedia says, Abraham Maslow defined self-realization as “the impulse to convert oneself into what one is capable of being.” Wow, I guess I am glad I found BCSguru.com!

So here are the new tournament projections:

"In college football, one day you're in, and the next day you're out." -Bo Schembechler

OUT-Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh
IN-Nebraska, Miami (FL), West Virginia

FIRST ROUND:

In Pittsburgh:#7 Nebraska (at-large) vs #10 West Virginia (Big East champ)

In Corvallis: #8 Oregon (Pac-10 champ) vs #9 Miami (FL) (ACC champ)


BCS BOWLS (Quarterfinals)

Sugar: #1 Alabama (SEC champ) vs Oregon/Miami (FL) winner

Rose: #4 Ohio State (Big Ten champ) vs #5 Texas Christian (at-large)

Orange: #2 Boise State (non-BCS conference automatic) vs Nebraska/West Virginia winner

Fiesta: #3 Texas (Big XII champ) vs #6 Florida (at-large)

Semi-finals in St Petersburg FL

BCS Championship in Glendale Arizona