College Football: The Big XII fires it's shot (and misses badly)

So it turns out that the Big XII could neither produce "One True Champion" or (so far) a competitive product on the field. 

Three bowl games, three losses. In none of the games was there a realistic chance that the Big Twen representative was going to win.

West Virginia looked like a contender for one half, but then blew it in the 3rd quarter and ultimately fell to Texas A&M 45-37 in a game now known more for video images of an aTm assistant going rogue than compelling football.  I'm sure this season will be enough for Mountaineer head coach Dana Holgorson to keep his job, but I'm not all that sure it should be.  The team has regressed since he took over.

What followed was even worse. Not only did OU look inept in a 40-6 shellacking at the hands of Clemson but they looked bad against a team playing a backup QB who has a cheerleader for a coach. There have already been calls by many Sooner opinion makers and alumni for Stoops to go. I'm sure he survives but it's pretty safe to say that this is a team that is heading in the wrong direction.

The night closed with, quite possibly, on of the worst offensive performances ever by the UT-Austin Longhorns as they were demolished 31-7 by an Arkansas team who was not as good this year as the ESPN analysis team made them out to be. How bad were the Longhorns? CultureMap Houston sic'd their resident troll on them to write an intentionally inflammatory hatchet job. You know things are not going well when this happens.

Amazingly however, Baldwin (probably unintentionally) got it right this time.  What happened last night in the Advocare V100 Texas Bowl was historically bad. 59 yards of total offense bad.  It was bad enough that the College Football Playoff arguments of both TCU and Baylor were 100% shot down, especially when you consider both of them held up as a signature win beating OU.

And now, for some quick Bowl picks:

Notre Dame vs. LSU (-8) Franklin American Mortgage Music City Bowl. If nothing else, LSU should win comfortably because Notre Dame is 1. overrated and 2. more resembling of a M.A.S.H. unit right now.  LSU 27 ND 10

Georgia(-7) vs. Louisville Belk Bowl.  I really think that the game is going to come down to whether or not Louisville can stop UGA's running attack.  My bet is they don't. UGA 34 UL 13

Maryland vs. Stanford (-14) Foster Farms Bowl. While Pat Forde has already been proven wrong on his 0-10 B1G prediction I think this is another chance for there to be fuel on the fire.  Yes, Maryland is not that good of a team, but there's some evidence that this year's Stanford team is not all that good either, despite coming from the PAC12, which I consider to be one of the strongest conferences this year. Yes, even better than the SEC (as a whole).  Maryland 24 Stanford 21.