The story of one postseason college football contest, as told through social media:
We’re all wondering. twitpic.com/bpy4zf
— Holly Anderson (@SIHolly) December 27, 2012
FOR ALL OF THE WAR.
— Jason Kirk (@JasonKirkSBN) December 27, 2012
Should set him and Mortified Punter up for a play date RT @bubbaprog: ANIMATED: San Jose St punter freakout 30fram.es/TDH4Hb
— Land-Grant Holy Land (@Landgrant33) December 27, 2012
Military Bowl organizers surely appreciated David Fales’ crisp, efficient passing game. (AP)
The 2012 Military Bowl is just hours away. We’re sure you have so many questions. We’re here to help. (For an X’s and O’s breakdown, click through to Gabriel Baumgaertner’s game preview.)
• What’s all this, then? Before you ask! This isn’t the same thing as the Armed Forces Bowl. But — No, they’re different. We promise. That one shows up on Saturday, and is sponsored by Bell Helicopter. What you’re seeing tonight is the former EagleBank Bowl, now sponsored by defense contractor Northrop Grumman. This is one of the newer postseason contests, in existence since 2008.
• Where will this game be played? RFK Stadium, former home of the Washington Redskins and currently housing the D.C. United.
• When is it on television? Coverage begins at 3:00 p.m. ET on ESPN, with the New Mexico Bowl lineup of Bob Wischusen, Danny Kanell and Quint Kessenich providing commentary. The game will also be streamed on WatchESPN.
• Whom does it feature? Oh, just about anybody. Participants so far: Wake Forest, Navy, UCLA, Temple, Maryland, East Carolina, Toledo and Air Force.
• What about this year? Bowling Green versus San Jose State.
• Does the bowl have a social media presence? Right this way:
Some very fierce competition starting here at the Armed Forces Retirement Home with @sjsuathletics! twitter.com/MilitaryBowl/s…
— Military Bowl DC (@MilitaryBowl) December 25, 2012
Assorted bests and worsts from college football’s weekend that was:
• Most ominous foreshadowing: The head of the beloved Oregon mascot whipping off and flying away in midair, not too long before the Ducks’ first loss of the season. That led, of course, to this spectacle on GameDay:
We’ve crossed over into the other side: twitter.com/Landgrant33/st…
— Land-Grant Holy Land (@Landgrant33) November 17, 2012
We should’ve seen Stanford coming. We all should’ve known.
Speedster Dri Archer helped Kent State secure its first MAC title game berth by beating Bowling Green. (AP)
Snap Judgments from the Week 12 early slate. For more, check out our midday Snaps, our coverage of Stanford-Oregon, our look at the new BCS landscape and our complete Top 25 review.
• No. 25 Kent State 31, Bowling Green 24. Brothers and sisters, we have nearly come to the end of this thing. This is the last normal weekend of college football in the 2012 season: Next week’s games are scattered willy-nilly over the Thanksgiving holiday, and after that there’s just the conference championships and a dozen or so assorted other contests. Then, we will be all plunged into darkness with only the promise of Army-Navy and the New Mexico Bowl to guide us. So we understand your impatience, and you can imagine ours, as we flipped channels today only to be met time and again with lackluster on-field products.
We were delighted but not surprised to find the most compelling action of Week 12′s first flight of games in the form of daylight MACtion. If you’re not a regular reader of Profiles in Profiteroles or lack a fondness for college football’s less-celebrated conferences, you may not be familiar with the works of Kent State’s Dri Archer. The top-ranked kick returner in the FBS got most of the Golden Flashes’ touches at running back today, and to spectacular effect: 241 rushing yards, including touchdowns of 79 and 74 yards.
Kent State’s other two touchdowns were scored by quarterback Spencer Keith (one passing, one rushing); the last gave the Golden Flashes their final lead of the game midway through the fourth quarter. The Falcons mounted an impressive final would-be scoring drive that ended with Luke Wollet picking off Matt Schilz in Kent State’s end zone with 21 seconds remaining on the clock, and punching the Golden Flashes’ first ticket to the MAC championship game. They’ll face Northern Illinois in Detroit on Friday, November 30. [BOX | RECAP]
Monteé Ball’s last name is also a football word, which should save us all some headline writing time once he finally breaks this record. (AP)
Saturday college football games of varying degrees of interest, grouped in highly subjective categories. For more preview content, visit Andy Staples’ Walkthrough.
• Biggest game with nothing riding on it: No. 6 Ohio State at Wisconsin, 3:30 p.m. ET. The Badgers already know they’re headed to Indianapolis, as the only other teams with fewer than three conference losses in the Leaders Division (the Buckeyes and Penn State) are ineligible for postseason play. But a win here would be the biggest [screw]-you moment for Urban Meyer since the 2008 Florida-Georgia game. And if you think Urban Meyer doesn’t live for [screw]-you moments, please see the 2008 Florida-Georgia game.
What is actually at stake: The NCAA all-time career touchdowns record, currently sitting at 78 and held by former Miami RedHawk Travis Prentice. Monteé Ball is one score away from tying and two away from breaking this record, and he has a chance to do both at home. He recorded 198 rushing yards and three scores last week against Indiana; if Ball does break the record, expect to hear the hollering in Madison as far away as Kentucky, and expect little bits of glitter to spew from this page. (Please protect your eyes accordingly.)
• Biggest game we feel like we couldn’t predict if our lives depended on it: No. 21 USC at No. 17 UCLA, 3:05 p.m. We have well established at this point in the season that even when relying on math and the best available logic, picking games is tricky work. It’s much more fun, and equally ineffective, to rely on factors like spite and cussedness and probably-imaginary-but-maybe-not-surefire jinxes to decide, particularly in rivalry matchups, which is why this weekend’s clash in the Rose Bowl scares the hell out of us. Some factors to consider: Whose coach to dislike (or grudgingly admire) more? Is it cosmically dangerous to even bring up that “football monopoly” talk at this point? Can we straight-up call this game for USC because keeping an opposing team’s costumed representative from poking one’s field with a sword is the furthest possible thing from a power move imaginable?
What glories yet await Cory Dorris and the Golden Hurricane as Conference USA play continues? (AP)
Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome.
Tis the season for car commercials with big-ass bows and conference math. We attempted to explain, in bewildering detail, how the MAC races could shake out from here in our Wednesday night MACtion preview. We are here to inform you (with some glee, as we adore late-season chaos) that the MAC has far from the most convoluted conference race situation at the moment. Very quickly, the current states of the remaining non-AQ conference races, as teams not named Navy or BYU begin to prettify themselves for postseason suitors:
• Conference USA: Two teams with perfect 6-0 league play records top the two divisions: Central Florida in the East and Tulsa in the West. After Saturday, one squad’s record will bear some blemish when the two clash in Tulsa, but don’t expect that to affect the race. The Knights have only UAB to clear after that in the regular season, and hold a head-to-head advantage over East Carolina, the only other team in the division with fewer than three conference losses. Tulsa’s championship game aspirations could still be spoiled with a loss tonight and another at SMU November 24, assuming the Mustangs (4-2 in league play) beat Rice in the meantime.
Dave Clawson is here to hand you this many more losses, Ohio. (AP)
• Bowling Green 26, Ohio 14. In the span of less than two weeks, the Bobcats have lost both their shot at a perfect regular season and an undefeated home season, but this year’s class of seniors will still depart as the winningest in school history. Tyler Tettleton was sacked four times by three different Falcons, but he did manage to become the school’s all-time leading passer, with his 145 aerial yards bumping his career total to 5,475. The Falcons scored 19 points in the second quarter and were led offensively by Anthon Samuel, who rushed for 181 yards and two scores. [BOX | RECAP]
• It’s that time of year. We don’t really get into recruiting as part of our bloggy antics here, but it’s always proper to mark that special day on the calendar when the commitment of the nation’s top recruit is called into question. Keep up with the movements of Robert Nkemdiche with this StoryStream from our friends at SB Nation.
We will never tire of using this photo of Tyler Tettleton, points and pointing enthusiast. (AP)
A full, uninterrupted week of glorious football continues with a little Wednesday night MACtion. We’re sure you have so many questions.
• What information do I, the discerning consumer, require in order to consume this game? The Falcons and Bobcats are scheduled to kick off at 8 p.m. ET in Athens’ Peden Stadium. The game will be televised on ESPN2 and streamed on WatchESPN.
• What’s at stake here? With Ohio’s loss to the Miami RedHawks, the Bobcats and Falcons are both 4-1 in league play, trailing 5-0 Kent State in the MAC East. Kent State’s remaining regular-season opponents, by the way: Miami, Bowling Green and Ohio. November in the MAC is gonna be FUN. More sentimentally: A win tonight would wrap up an undefeated home season for the Bobcats (their first since 1988). Ohio has won four of the past five meetings in this series, including last year’s 29-28 nail-biter in Bowling Green.
Robbie ‘Mighty Mouse’ Rouse, out for a leisurely stroll against one of the worst football teams in human memory. (AP)
Our weekly highlight show of lesser FBS luminaries. Non-AQs and independents, be welcome.
Soooo remember last week, when we were all “Robbie Rouse is 79 yards away from becoming Fresno State’s all-time leading rusher, isn’t that swell?” We all know by now what happened next. So while we’ve got Mighty Mouse up on a pedestal, let’s put some of his teammates up there with him.
Video game football doesn’t begin to cover what Fresno State did to Colorado in Week 3; this was more akin to watching a cartoon. Were you aware …
• Rouse’s 94-yard touchdown run, the one that made him Fresno State’s all-time leading rusher, wasn’t even the Bulldogs’ longest scoring play of the game? On Fresno State’s prior possession, Derek Carr and Isaiah Burse combined for a 97-yard pitch-and-catch touchdown run.
• Carr recorded his 300 passing yards and five touchdowns all in the first half?
• Fresno State’s defense recorded four interceptions and four sacks?
• Safety Phillip Thomas was responsible for three of those interceptions, two of which he returned for touchdowns?
• Even the Bulldogs’ punter, Andrew Shapiro, got in on the rout with a career-long 69-yard punt?
Fan-altered Notre Dame helmets, coming to an ACC stadium near you. Huzzah, realignment news! (Landov)
• News that is mostly not about football. From a fresh ACC release: “The Atlantic Coast Conference Council of Presidents has unanimously voted to accept the University of Notre Dame as a new member. The Irish will compete as full members in all conference sponsored sports with the exception of football which will play five games annually against league programs.” Pete Thamel has more, including the thorny issue of the Fighting Irish’s exit date for its sports currently operating in the Big East. We now return to football things.
• It is also a secret music box that plays “Afternoon Delight.” In yesterday’s Profiles in Profiteroles column we mentioned that the new trophy for the Toledo-Bowling Green Battle of I-75 rivalry hadn’t been completed in time for last year’s game. It’s more than ready now, making a splashy entrance with its own hype video, complete with four Toledo football players flexing their acting chops.
• Injury report story hour. Jordan Wynn impresses in his retirement press conference … Robert Marve has, you might have suspected, torn another ACL … TCU defensive end Ross Forrest is likely out the rest of the season with a knee injury … Syracuse receiver Jeremiah Kobena is out for several weeks with what the school is calling “an upper body injury that required surgery.”
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