Notre Dame & Alabama narrowly escaped with their unbeaten seasons intact. Nebraska narrowly escaped with its path to the Big Ten title still intact. Florida narrowly escaped with its path a BCS at-large spot still intact. But Boise State wasn’t so lucky. The Broncos lost late Saturday night at home to San Diego State, 21-19, and with the defeat saw their hopes of an Orange Bowl bid go up in smoke.
The month of October is in the books for college football and the crazy season is about to begin. November has a way of throwing a monkey wrench in everyone’s BCS bowl projections. From the strain of a long season to the challenges college kids have with keeping focus as media spin swirls around them to playing high-quality opposition looking to make a name for itself, November almost never goes as planned. Still, TheSportsNotebook is undeterred in making its BCS bowl projections five weeks from the finish line.
The eyes of the nation are going to be in Big 12 country on Saturday night. And I don’t deny that Notre Dame’s visit to Oklahoma (8 PM ET, ABC) is a big deal with major implications on the race for the national title. But the nation might want to make it a doubleheader day in the Big 12, because there’s a game whose implications are potentially even bigger. Kansas State hosts Texas Tech in a game that doesn’t have the marquee sizzle, but on substance, this game at 3:30 PM ET on Fox has some landscape-reshaping potential.
The run of big games continues for South Carolina with their biggest battle yet, as they travel to play Florida on Saturday afternoon. The Gamecocks are #7 in the BCS standings, while the Gators are #2, but more important, the winner of this game controls its fate in the SEC East the rest of the way.