Week 9 wrapup

Week 9 was a pretty relevant week considering the two big games in the Pac10 and the Big12. Because of that a few teams dropped from national relevance. Unfortunately both Texas and Florida won meaning that we are almost the whole way there to the national title being Texas/SEC. Florida's already won the SEC East thanks to South Carolina losing. Barring absolute mania in the SEC West the game between Alabama and LSU should decide that division. Texas doesn't really have any . . . ANY games left that could trip them up. If they can beat OK State by 27 on the road Texas A&M has a big job ahead of them. The Big12 title game is even less scary. The best Big12 North team in the Sagarin rankings is #43 Nebraska and that's at a neutral site. Who's still left out there even if a team in the top 3 loses. Well, lets just point out the teams that are no longer available:

-West Virginia is a 2 loss team in the Big East, nope.
-Oklahoma St isn't even the top 2 loss team in the country. Too many teams would have to lose too many games, and even then it seems unlikely. No way Oklahoma St. gets back to the top 5 this season.
-USC is out. They're actually ranked ahead of still alive Pittsburgh, but the difficulty will be advancing past the chain of losses. Oregon beat USC and Boise St beat Oregon. USC will continue to have great numbers all year but won't have the resume to make it back to #1 or #2, especially because the SEC has likely locked up a spot.
-South Carolina lost 3. They're out.

Getting down to the back end of the season. Few teams will likely drop out with a loss the rest of the year. More teams will be eliminated by winning opponents, which brings up a good question: If Florida and Texas end up in the title game did any of Iowa's games count? Ask Auburn how they feel about it.

Here are the games that no longer matter this season:
USC @ Arizona St
USC v Stanford
USC v UCLA
USC v Arizona
Oklahoma St @ Iowa St
Oklahoma St v Texas Tech
Oklahoma St v Colorado
Oklahoma St @ Oklahoma
South Carolina @ Arkansas
South Carolina v Clemson
West Virginia v Louisville
West Virginia @ Rutgers

Only 12 more games that don't matter.