College Football Midseason Report: Aughtoberfest for California Sports Fans

We are officially in the midst of the time students across the country know simply as "midterms." Likewise, the first BCS rankings, college football's midterm report card, were released today.

BCS Ring Game

Taking stock of the California sports scene, former teacher dp finds failure everywhere. It’s been a brutal month. The A’s, Giants, and Dodgers missed the post-season completely, the Padres were eliminated by the Rockies in the wild card tiebreaker, and the Angels were unceremoniously swept by the Red Sox in the Divisional Series. Worse still for football fans, UCLA, USC, and Cal have all recently endured appalling losses that damaged their BCS dreams.

First, riding high at 2-0 and ranked #11 in the country on Sept. 15, UCLA got trounced 44-6 by a Utah team that was winless at the time and still possesses a losing record in the mighty Mountain West Conference. Worse still, on Oct. 6 the Bruins travelled to 0-5 Notre Dame and were thoroughly embarrassed in a 31-7 loss. Notwithstanding these two black eyes, UCLA is in second place at 3-0 in the Pacific-10 and may statistically have a chance to win the conference, but with upcoming games against #12 Cal, undefeated Pac-10 leader #8 Arizona St., #10 Oregon, and #14 USC, the Bruins are bound to take a few more blows to the chin and topple further down the standings.

Astoundingly, USC’s season was also spoiled on Oct. 6. Pete Carroll’s juggernaut, which was a 41-point favorite against lowly Stanford, suffered the biggest upset in college football history in losing 24-23 at home in the Coliseum to Jim Harbaugh’s geeks. The Cardinal, who at 1-3 in conference play (2-4 overall) have yet to win again in the Pacific-10, somehow tamed the Trojan horse despite the fact that quarterback Tavita Pritchard entered the game having thrown all of three passes in his collegiate career. The Trojans are battling through a slew of injuries that have forced 11 starters to miss games yet remain in a three-way tie for third in the Pac-10. Up next for the Trojans? The (meekly) Fighting Irish of notorious shame.

Finally, Cal visits the Rose Bowl to face UCLA this Saturday and looks to rebound from its own crushing defeat last week, when the Golden Bears dropped a 31-28 heartbreaker at home to Oregon State. Entering the game undefeated and ranked #2 in the country, Cal stood to move into the top spot in light of #1 LSU’s triple-overtime loss to Kentucky, but clock mismanagement in the final seconds cost Cal a chance to kick a field goal and force overtime.

With all the craziness across campus gridirons this fall, it’s likely that a one-loss team like Cal or USC could still play in the BCS title game. Yet at this point, Oregon is a stronger candidate than either USC or Cal. Granted, Cal did defeat Oregon 31-24 on Sept. 29, but the Ducks have blown out all of their other opponents and have to be considered the best candidate to unseat Arizona St. at the top of the Pac-10.

At least California college football fans can commiserate in beautiful weather. The Pac-10 is not the Big 12, after all....