Ripper Ramblings

Big 12 North. The division hit rock bottom when the regular season ended with Colorado being trounced 70-3 by Texas in the 2005 Big 12 Championship Game. It concluded a season that saw the North go 7-11 against their South Division counterparts. Only one team finished ranked, Nebraska at 24. It was six mediocre teams. Nebraska finished with the best record at 8-4 and Kansas State finished with the worst record at 5-6, mainly due to mediocrity cannibalizing itself. Flash forward to 2008 and only two coaches remain, Missouri's Gary Pinkel and Kansas' Mark Mangino. New blood has breathed life into the Division with the hiring of Dan Hawkins, Ron Prince, Bo Pelini, and Gene Chizik. Gunslinging QBs are abound in Chase Daniels, Josh Freeman, Todd Reesing, and Cody Hawkins. Four teams are currently undefeated. What a difference three years can make.

Washington. Ty Willingham's days are obviously numbered. Perhaps the most intriguing rumor has Washington throwing a lot of cash to bring Gary Pinkel back to Seattle to restore the once proud program. Pinkel spent 12 years as a Washington assistant. Historically, Washington has been the best challenger to USC in the Pac 10. Hiring Pinkel would likely make that be the case again.

Bowling? Not so easy. In this day and age where 68 teams will play in bowls, many people like to diminish the accomplishment that qualifying for a bowl is. Well, take a look at the list of schools that are in danger of not qualifying for a bowl and it should make programs like Boston College, Purdue, Georgia Tech, and Texas Tech happy that they have been going to bowls regularly. All of these historically top tier programs could end up home for the holidays: Florida State, Texas A&M, Syracuse, Michigan, UCLA, Washington, and Arkansas.

Passing in the night. One interesting game this weekend that will be little more than just a score at the bottom of the screen during the Alabama/Georgia game is Duke/Virginia. A year ago Duke won one game and Virginia played in the Gator Bowl. In under a year Duke has risen to being a 7 point favorite over the Wahoos and both programs appear to be headed in absolutely opposite directions.

Clock Rules. Much of the discussions concerning the new clock rules have been flawed. While its accurate that the number of plays is slightly down due to new clock rules, the wrong rule is getting blamed. Most people point to the new 40 second play clock as the reason for the drop in plays. However, that rule has little impact on the length of game, but simply provides more consistency in how a game is time. In my mind an improvement. The reason for the decrease in the number of plays has everything to do with the fact that the game clock now restarts after out-of-bounds plays once the ball is whistled ready for play.