Allen Bored
Check Sports on Your Television for this week’s full national schedule.
Week 15 Featured Games
Thursday
#19 Louisville at Cincinnati, 7:30/4:30 PM, ESPN
Spread: Louisville -3.5
Announcers: Rece Davis, Jesse Palmer, David Pollack
All-Time Series: Cincinnati leads 22-21-1
Last Meeting: 10/26/2012 Louisville 34, Cincinnati 31
Reason to Watch: Believe it or not Cincinnati comes into this game with an outside shot at a BCS bowl. This is a team that lost by 28 to Illinois and lost to a two win South Florida team. They’ll need the upset here and UCF to lose at SMU on Saturday to win the AAC. It seems unlikely but UCF has looked terrible the last couple of weeks by having to eke out wins over Temple and South Florida. Louisville has nothing to play for as best they can do is get a share of the conference title but they’ll lose the head-to-head tiebreak to UCF.
Friday
MAC Championship: Bowling Green vs. #14 Northern Illinois, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN2
Spread: Northern Illinois -4
Announcers: Carter Blackburn, Danny Kannell
All-Time Series: Bowling Green leads 9-7
Last Meeting: 11/8/2011 Northern Illinois 45, Bowling Green 14
Reason to Watch: With a win here Northern Illinois will lock up an unlikely second straight trip to a BCS bowl. This time around they do have a better case as they are actually undefeated with a good road win over Iowa. Objectively they don’t deserve to go to a BCS bowl but the bowl system doesn’t give them a more appropriate alternative, which is a problem that isn’t going to go away with the new bowl playoff system. Sure they may not be worthy of a Fiesta Bowl bid but they sure as hell should be allowed to do better than the GoDaddy.com Bowl. Bowling Green ranks fifth in the nation in points against but that’s probably more of a product of their competition. They were burned for 42 points by Indiana earlier in the year.
Early Saturday
#17 Oklahoma at #6 Oklahoma State, Noon/9:00 AM, ABC
Spread: Oklahoma State -9.5
Announcers: Sean McDonough, Chris Spielman
All-Time Series: Oklahoma leads 75-17-7
Last Meeting: 11/24/2012 Oklahoma 51, Oklahoma State 48
Reason to Watch: Oklahoma State has been lost in the shuffle in the BCS title talk. They currently sit at #6 but even if total chaos happens on Saturday they have no shot at jumping to #2. They’re playing as well as anyone in the country as of late but that inexplicable loss to West Virginia earlier this year has been too much to overcome. They do have to win here to lock up the Big XII title and a Fiesta Bowl bid to play whatever team the Orange and Sugar don’t want. Even with a good amount of success in recent years, the Cowboys have still not been able to consistently beat their rivals form Norman. The Sooners have historically dominated this rivalry; they’ve never lost more than two in a row, and have won nine of the last ten in the Bedlam series.
Back Up Game: Conference USA Championship, Marshall at Rice, Noon/9:00 AM, ESPN2
Mid-day Saturday
SEC Championship: #5 Missouri vs. #3 Auburn, 4:00/1:00 PM, CBS
Spread: Auburn -2
Announcers: Vern Lundquist, Gary Danielson
All-Time Series: Missouri leads 1-0
Last Meeting: 11/29/1973 Missouri 34, Auburn 17
Reason to Watch: In my quasi College Football Preview at the beginning of the year the consensus projection for these two teams was for Missouri to finish sixth in the SEC East and Auburn to finish dead last in the SEC West. Only Kentucky winning the SEC East would have produced a more unlikely championship game in the SEC this year. It is amazing to think that the winner of this game is an Ohio State loss away from playing for the final Mythical National Championship. It’s also kind of fun that this is a conference championship game that has two teams who haven’t played each other since the 1973 Sun Bowl so it’s also as fresh of a match up as you could get.
Back Up Game: #25 Texas at #9 Baylor, 3:30/12:30 PM, FOX
Primetime Saturday
Big Ten Championship: #2 Ohio State vs. #10 Michigan State, 8:00/5:00 PM, FOX
Spread: Ohio State -5.5
Announcers: GUS JOHNSON, Charles Davis
All-Time Series: Ohio State leads 28-12
Last Meeting: 9/29/2012 Ohio State 17, Michigan State 16
Reason to Watch: I have the Pac-12 Championship ranked higher but this game has much more national importance so it gets the featured spot. Ohio State is the undefeated team that seemingly no one wants to see play for the BCS title and the skin of their teeth win over Michigan did not help their cause. But as much as ESPN wants to troll for controversy, reality is the Buckeyes will advance to the title game if they win here regardless of what happens in the SEC Championship game. Michigan State’s defense is a sight to behold in its brutality and their match up against Oho State’s spread offense is going to be very entertaining.
Back Up Game: Pac-12 Championship, #7 Stanford at #11 Arizona State, 7:45/4:45 PM, ESPN
Late Night Saturday
Mountain West Championship: Utah State at #23 Fresno State, 10:00/7:00 PM, CBS
Spread: Fresno State -3.5
Announcers: Andrew Catalon, Aaron Taylor
All-Time Series: Fresno State leads 14-8-1
Last Meeting: 10/15/2011 Fresno State 31, Utah State 21
Reason to Watch: The Mountain West gets the network treatment for their title game and it’s unfortunate for them that game is now largely irrelevant nationally. Fresno State’s fleeting BCS chances crashed and burned at San Jose State last week and now find themselves fighting over a Las Vegas Bowl bid which is probably what they deserve. Utah State’s season seemed doomed when star quarterback Chuckie Keeton blew out his knee in early October but they’ve survived on the backs of an excellent defense.
Week 15 Game Rankings
1. Missouri vs. Auburn
2. Stanford at Arizona State
3. Ohio State vs. Michigan State
4. Oklahoma at Oklahoma State
5. Texas at Baylor
6. Duke vs. Florida State
7. Bowling Green vs. Northern Illinois (Fri.)
8. Utah State at Fresno State
9. Louisville at Cincinnati (Thur.)
10. Marshall at Rice
11. UCF at SMU
12. Louisiana-Lafayette at South Alabama
13. Memphis at Connecticut
14. South Florida at Rutgers
