Oklahoma in #1 By a Huge Margin

For the first time probably all season, I spent a Saturday glued to the TV to watch college football. Well, except for the Georgia Tech game, which I could only get online, I hooked up my second monitor to my computer so I could watch and still do internet/bridge base stuff and not miss any of the game. There were several upsets last week, most notably Wisconsin over Ohio State and Kentucky over South Carolina. For the record, my computer correctly picked Mississippi State to beat Florida.

This weekend there are two matchups of undefeated teams: Oklahoma at Missouri, and LSU at Auburn. But probably the only game I'll watch (between sessions at the Columbia, SC bridge tournament) is Georgia Tech at Clemson.

The last column in the table below isn't one I've included so far this season, but it is the team's strength of schedule rank among the 121 FBS teams. Wyoming has apparently played the most fierce competition to date.

Rank	Prev	BCSrank	W	L		Team	Total Rtg.	SS Rank
1	1	1	6	0		Oklahoma	100.000	12
2	10	4	7	0		Auburn	88.915	32
3	4	7	7	0		Michigan State	87.728	56
4	3	11	6	0		Missouri	87.386	57
5	2	6	7	0		LSU	85.150	36
6	5	3	5	0		Boise State	84.708	60
7	7	2	6	0		Oregon	82.866	102
8	6	5	7	0		TCU	82.269	83
9	8	8	6	1		Alabama	80.704	48
10	12	14	6	0		Oklahoma St	79.815	81
11	11	12	5	1		Stanford	76.991	33
12	9	10	7	1		Ohio State	76.798	86
13	18	15	5	1		Iowa	75.471	55
14	17	18	5	1		Arizona	72.231	53
15	31	13	6	1		Wisconsin	71.057	84
16	16	17	6	1		FSU	69.388	73
17	21	22	5	1		Kansas State	69.238	54
18	29	24	5	2		Mississippi St	67.895	31
19	14		7	1		Nevada	67.304	92
20	15		5	2		NCST	66.108	35
21	27	20	5	1		WV	66.039	82
22	33		4	2		UNC	65.805	10
23	13	21	4	2		South Carolina	65.362	18
24	28	9	6	0		Utah	64.484	120
25	22		5	2		Michigan	64.193	39

So, here's what my computer says about this week:
Clemson 27, Georgia Tech 25
Kentucky 29, Georgia 28
Oklahoma 27, Misouri 23
Auburn 30, LSU 23
Iowa 27, Wisconsin 24
Oklahoma Sate 36, Nebraska 27

Drawing Attention to the Law Breakers

When a cell phone rings in an environment that is supposed to be quiet, what happens? People make more noise in efforts to fund the guilty party and to clear their name. You hear a lot of "it wasn't mine", "my phone is off", "it's over there", "it was Jimbo".
People have a natural tendency to want to disobey the rules but people also have a tendency to point out when other people are caught disobeying. Even moreso, I think people enjoy disobeying, not getting caught, and then bragging about it later. Why do we care so much about such things. When a phone rings in the middle of a meeting or during a bridge game or in the middle of a class, why does everyone give the incident lots of attention? It doesn't make sense. We should all just try to ignore it, except for the one person whose responsibility it is to reprimand the violators.
It's kind of a similar thing that most new stories are about people breaking the rules. Humans have a cruel nature about them to want to see others get in trouble and want to get away with the same things. But really, I think people just want attention, and someone who follows all rules and doesn't stir up any controversy won't get much attention, even though he probably deserves more attention/praise.

Rankings after Week 6

It still looks a bit strange with Missouri and Michigan State cracking the top 5 while being 21 and 13 in the AP poll.  And my game predictions haven't been so good either. Against the spread I am 38%. But it was a good weekend for Georgia residents with Tech, UGA, and the Falcons winning. Georgia Tech comes in this time at #41 and Georgia #82 in this week's ranking.

Just as interesting as the team ranking at this point is the conference ranking, which places teh Big 12 as the best conference with a rating of 126.46. The SEC is 121.29, the Big 10 119.13, Pac 10 116.03. Then there is a huge drop off to the ACC at 92.22, Big East at 79.86, and MWC at 73.22, all the way down to the Sunbelt at 21.11.

For next week's games, my computer is anticipating:
Ohio State 32, Wisconsin 24
Nebraska 27, Texas 16
Auburn 28, Arkansas 24
Georgia Tech 35, Middle Tennessee 20
Georgia 26, Vanderbilt 23
Virginia Tech 41, Wake Forest 17

Rank	Prev	AP rank	W	L		Team	Total Rtg.
1	1		5	0		Okla	99.988
2	8		6	0		LSU	91.128
3	3		5	0		Mizzou	91.112
4	16		6	0		michst	88.737
5	15		5	0		Boise	86.461
6	9		6	0		TCU	86.361
7	4		6	0		Oregon	84.120
8	2		5	1		Alabama	83.452
9	11		7	0		OhioSt	82.696
10	10		6	0		Auburn	82.664
11	17		5	1		Stan	80.095
12	7		5	0		OkSt	80.035
13	24		4	1		SC	79.873
14	20		7	0		nevada	77.071
15	19		5	1		NCST	74.509
16	21		5	1		FSU	74.010
17	5		4	1		Ariz	73.597
18	13		4	1		Iowa	73.374
19	38		3	2		OreSt	72.939
20	6		4	2		UF	71.375
21	12		4	1		ksu	70.940
22	14		5	1		Mich	70.871
23	18		4	0		Neb	69.098
24	36		3	2		Cal	68.012
25	23		5	1		af	67.998

Friday nights lameness is not allowed

I think I have learned to accept that Friday nights and Saturday nights in Warner Robins may be and frequently are boring and lonely. I still cannot accept spending a Friday or Saturday night away from home be as lame as it is at home. Actually, not just Friday and Saturday, but any day. Tonight I had sort of thought I would spend the evening calmly in my hotel room relaxing and sleeping early, for I have a 7:45am flight back to Atlanta. The last 4 nights here in Philadelphia for the World Bridge Series have been long and fun-filled, mingling with many different people including but not limited to Sean, Dana, Meg, Alli, Capp Jr, Minimeck, Sam Nystrom, Laura Ginnan, Man Henbest, and other bridge players I have been introduced to and forgotten names already.

But I guess the adrenaline will get me through tomorrow since I am going to the homecoming game at Georgia Tech, after what will wind up being about 2.5 hours of sleep. So, in theory Sunday and Monday will be the relaxing days for me. I kind of wish that I could go on a trip and come back not totally exhausted, and I often think it will end that way, but it never does.