How To Football: Week 11

...the drum marches on! We are quickly running though our reserves of college football at an alarming rate, so dust yourself off and get ready to enjoy another jam packed week of college football.

All rankings S&P+.

Geaux Vote Shift

The run of 27 straight days of football rolls on with Kent State at Buffalo. This one shouldn’t be too great, be sure your civic duties are taken care of first!

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Parenthesis Shift

The Ohio University of Ohio (OH) need a win against Miami (OH) to set up a winner-take all meeting with Buffalo next week. Miami needs a win and a some help along the way so it’s do or die time.

One hour later conference leader NIU hosts not conference leader Toledo, although the Rockets have an offense to hang in there and make something happen.

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Perfectly Balanced Shift

Sadly, Wake Forest appears to be back to the same ole same ole Wake Forest and NC State appears to be back to same ole NC State, the most forgettable average team in college football. Too good to warrant a firing of David Doeren, too bad to be really noticeable. At least their uniforms don’t look like they were pulled from a State Farm or Enterprise commercial from 2006!

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Sad Pizza Shift

The only interesting thing about Louisville-Syracuse is the fact that Bobby Petrino may actually get left upstate. That’s not an euphemism.

Brawl On The Blue Turf Shift

Luckily, we get a G5 BANGER to wade us into college football Saturday. #8 Fresno State heads for the smurf turf, a notoriously difficult place to play, especially in cold weather. The Broncos are having a down-ish year, sitting at 10-2 and #34 overall, but they still can force their way into the Mountain West championship geme with a win.

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Our The Defend Shift

Three weeks ago, Purdue defeated an Ohio State and created the third ripple of The Travelling The, stripping the Buckeyes of their Holy Definite Article. Unfortunately, this may be the shortest wave yet as an Ohio State can win it back this week by beating Michigan State, who promptly jacked it from Purdue. We must remain strong and steadfast in our commitment to getting The Travelling The out of the Big Ten by any and all costs.

And yeah, if you’re expecting the nooners to be relatively low-stakes and largely unimportant, then you’re right! South Carolina-Florida has usually been a bankable “good defensive game” but that doesn’t even ring true this year on account of the fact that the Gamecock’s offense and defense traded places.

Wisconsin can still make up the ground in the Big Ten West race, but they’ll need help. Stick a pin in that for a second, but they’ll have their hands full with Penn State first.

Rounding out the shift: Navy at your defending national champions and Ole Miss at Texas A&M.

#goacc Shift

Oklahoma State lost to Baylor last week, something that generally is not advisable. As such, they are for sure out of the Big 12 Championship Game race. But all is not all lost for the Cowboys, as they can ruin archrival Oklahoma’s season by beating them in Bedlam and dropping them out of position for the championship game, Texas result pending, and for sure out of the playoffs. That’s what Bedlam is about right?

Speaking of conference race implications: for the second week in a row, Pitt is playing for a position in the ACC Championship Game. Last week it was against Virginia, this time it’s the Cavs archrivals challenging for the right to be absolutely mauled by Clemson.

One more on the docket: Northwestern can virtually lock up the Big Ten West with a win over Iowa. Should the Wildcats defeat the Hawkeyes, all they would have left are Minnesota and Illinois, two extremely winnable games that they definitely will not blow. Absolutely not, that’s preposterous.

Speaking of things that are assured not to happen, do not even think about the possibility of Wazzu faceplanting against a Colorado team in freefall. That would be unheard of.

Glory, Glory Shift

Thirty minutes before the LSU-Arkansas game kicks off, we get an ultimately meaningless but potentially dope game between Auburn and Georgia. I doubt Auburn will win to knock Georgia out of playoff contention (before Alabama does, at least) and I don’t think losing to Georgia is obscene enough to justify firing Gus.

Losing to Georgia and Alabama to run up the loss total to five though, that changes things.

Texas tries to remain in the running for the Big 12 Championship with a difficult hurdle of Texas Tech in Lubbock. The Red Raiders are favored by a little more than a field goal, but the Longhorns can keep pace with them in a shootout and have a better defense (duh), so I’d be wary of that.

Clemson should crush and Boston College and as should Notre Dame with Florida State (I so hope I am wrong here).

Bonfire Shift

Uh, yeah. Nothing much to say about the night cap. You’ll do fine to go out and do something social Saturday night. If Utah loses to Oregon (not appearing in this article because it airs on The Forbidden Network) then USC can assume command of the PAC-12 South with a win over Cal...with three losses.

Hawaii is on a bye this week, so we aren’t even grated that luxury.