As Sam Sees It

This football season could well be remembered as the year of the upset. The 2001 season with the Fresno State Bulldogs (10-2) upsetting highly regarded Colorado (9-2) 24-22. The Bulldogs became everyone’s Cinderella team when they added Sports Illustrated’s pre-season national championship favorite Oregon State’s (5-5) scalp to their belt 44-24. Fresno State wasn’t through surprising yet as they claimed another highly regarded victim to their list, beating the Wisconsin Badgers 5-7) from the Big 10 32-20.

The Bulldogs found out what it is like to be on the other end of an upset later in the season when they fell 35-30 to Boise State and 38-34 to Hawaii on consecutive weekends.

Colorado, after early season disappointments, may have pulled off the biggest upset of them all with a 62-36 drubbing of then top ranked Nebraska. The Huskers were 11-0 before their stumble.

The North Carolina Tar Heels (6-5) lost their first three games before crushing the then national championship contending Florida State Seminoles (6-4) 41-9 for their first victory.

The same week (Thanksgiving) that Colorado burst Nebraska’s bubble, the Oklahoma State Cowboys (4-7) ruined the day for the Oklahoma Sooners (10-2) and knocked them out of national championship contention with a 16-13 win. Just like that, two teams with very legitimate hopes for the national title were eliminated from the race.

Florida (9-1) was another team with title aspirations that fell victim to the upset bug. The Auburn Tigers used a long, last second field goal to hand the Gators their only loss to date 23-20.

Only the Miami Hurricanes (10-0) were left undefeated entering the last week of the regular season. Unless they suffered an upset of their own by Virginia Tech (8-2) on Saturday, the Hurricanes will fill one berth in the BCS Championship Game to be played in the Rose Bowl.

Florida has the inside track to the other Rose Bowl slot, but still had to beat Tennessee (9-1 with a 26-24 loss to Georgia marring their record) on Saturday and win the Southeastern Conference Championship Game against either Auburn or LSU.

Tennessee could possibly reach the title game by the same path, defeating Florida and winning the Southeastern Conference Championship Game.

Texas (10-1) is not out of the race either. The Longhorns could get their by beating Colorado again on Saturday for the Big 12 Championship and having enough teams ranked ahead of the Longhorns lose to pave the path to Pasadena and the Rose Bowl.

Oregon (9-1 with a 42-27 loss to Stanford marring their record) is the final team in the championship picture. The Ducks had to have beaten Oregon State on Saturday and gotten enough other games to go their way to let them sneak into a Rose Bowl and National Championship Game berth.

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