Sunday Hangover: Sharing the Raider Dream

Miss any of Saturday's action? Get the storylines and implications every Sunday morning with a shot of humor, two of vermouth and a pot full of what's suspected to be either coffee or the pureed remnants of Georgia's BCS hopes.

Michael Crabtree's eyes were as wide as the West Texas plains as he stood before an addled crowd and announced to the world that he'd dreamed about exactly this ending.

Michael, after the Red Raiders' 39-33 win over top-ranked Texas, you don't have to convince us.

There's the kooky coach with the body Bowflex forgot and treats the BCS with all the appreciation a kid staring down a plate of broccoli and all the necessity with which Mike Singletary views pants. There's the quarterback with numbers you could call video game stats, but only if you're as good at gaming as Graham Harrell is at dicing a secondary into deli-thin slices. And then there's the eternal younger sibling complex in the shadow of the mighty Longhorns that even Jan Brady might find a little over the top.

Crabtree is right. It does seem kind of like a dream.

It took 500 wins before this program recorded its first over a No. 1, and three weeks ago, when the Red Raiders were struggling to beat downtrodden Nebraska in overtime, you could have fit all the people who picked Tech to knock off Texas in a bumper car, with room for the mascot. It took a little luck, when a tipped pass with eight seconds left cleanly slipped through Blake Gideon's arms. It took a little hurting, too, as Texas lost top receiver Quan Cosby in the first quarter, pass rusher Brian Orakpo early in the the third and the best defensive lineman of the night, Roy Miller, later that half.

But make no mistake about it, Texas Tech ripped this victory from the Longhorns just like Crabtree ripped away the game-winning pass.

So call it a dream. But they're not the only team hitting snooze and hoping this won't end after Saturday night's shocker.Yes, Texas Tech won the battle, but with its upcoming schedule, Florida, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State might have won the war.

So congratulations, Red Raiders, you aced the interview, now you've got the worst job in sports that doesn't involve cleaning up behind UGA VII (or possibly Najeh Davenport). You're in the BCS driver's seat, but the ride is going to get bumpy.

The problem for the Red Raiders is that their upcoming slate is just plain shave-twice-a-day and wear-a-bowling shirt to your wedding tough. In the next three weeks, Texas Tech gets to finish a gauntlet Texas couldn't. First, the Red Raiders have to beat Oklahoma State, the nation's fifth-best running team, on Saturday. Texas Tech will have the advantage of playing at home, but haven't been tested against the kind of ground attack Mike Gundy's team can muster. The Red Raiders have played just two teams ranked in the top 50 in rushing, giving up 224 yards to Nevada, but smothering Texas to the tune of 80 yards on 28 carries, even with the return of Longhorn top back Foswhitt Whitaker.

And if Mike Leach's team survives Saturday, it has to travel to Norman, Okla., two weeks later to do what exactly two teams in the Bob Stoops' era have done in 61 tries, beat the Sooners at home. Texas proved that you can move the ball against the Sooners, particularly without linebacker Ryan Reynolds, but the offense couldn't be more intimidating if they put shoulder pads on the Sooner Schooner. Even in the Red River loss to Texas, Oklahoma finished with 435 yards of offense, including 387 passing yards.

Since last year's loss to the Red Raiders, the Sooners have given the BALCO treatment to their playbook and turned the 40-second clock operator into the Maytag repairmen of the college football world. They ran 97 plays against Kansas and have matched quarterback Sam Bradford's air attack with a best-in-class front five and NFL-bound group of receivers. If last year's offensive line was a brick wall, this year's unit is like a brick wall strapped to a semi, lining up every 20 seconds to throw it in high gear and bowl you over again. And the Red Raiders won't have backup quarterback Joey Halzle to kick around like last year.
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But Texas Tech does have one key advantage the Longhorns didn't, a week off between games. Unlike Texas, which saw its offensive and defensive lines appear fatigued in the first half after weeks of pushing around top-12 opponents, the Red Raiders a full week to recover before their final push to the Big 12 title.

But here's a friendly word of advice for the new residents of college football's top floor. When it comes to real estate at the top of the heap, rent, don't buy.

One slip from the Red Raiders opens the door to Florida, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State.

The Gators, who trounced Georgia in a Mixed Martial Football beating, are racking up style points the way Joe Paterno racks up candles on his birthday cake. Speedy freshman tailbacks Jeffrey Demps and Chris Rainey look like they're on a DVD with the fast forward button stuck, while Heisman quarterback Tim Tebow is again barreling through everyone in sight.

And you don't need a GPS navigator to figure out their road to the BCS title game. After four games in which the Gators will be heavily favored against South Carolina, Vanderbilt, the Citadel and Florida State, they'll likely get Alabama in the SEC title game, a team that smoked Arkansas State on Saturday but has looked wobbly of late.

Oklahoma and Oklahoma State, meanwhile, have a trickier path. One of the Oklahoma teams will likely be eliminated in the regular season Bedlam finale with its second conference loss. Since neither owns the head-to-head tiebreaker over Texas, they'll need to keep Texas Tech around to force a three-way tiebreaker, which would be decided by the highest BCS rank as each of the top three will have beaten the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-place teams. So if both Oklahoma teams beat Texas Tech, the Longhorns will be heading to the title game.

But as Sunday morning dawns, there's a chance for both the Sooners and Cowboys that came within a single second of vanishing Saturday night.

And Penn State, the team that side-stepped Week 10's chaos by taking Saturday off, finds itself exactly where it was last week, just needing to ensure that the SEC and Big 12 don't both produce undefeated champions.

For now, Texas Tech has the inside track to a BCS berth. But as a Saturday win turns into Week 11 practice, the Red Raiders should head a bit of Longhorn advice.

"There's no prize for being 7-0," said Texas' Jordan Shipley after the Longhorns defeated Missouri.

There is, of course, no prize for being 9-0 or 8-1 either. But you don't have to tell that to everybody's favorite Pirate fan, who knows just how dangerous life is on the high sea of college football.

"Oklahoma State," Leach said after beating Texas, "is now the biggest game in the history of this year."

And until then, Texas Tech is still living a dream. But make no mistake, they've got plenty of bed fellows dreaming with them.

The Big 16

Find out who the nation's top teams are each week as we rank the best 16 and set up something heretofore unheard of in college football, a play... wait for it... off. At season's end, the top 16 will compete in two brackets - the Fairburn, Ga. division, ancestral home of Hangover mancrush Eric Berry, and the erstwhile Fort Myers, Fla. division, ancestral home of the pizza bagel.
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• 1. Alabama Crimson Tide: Saturday's win over Arkansas State was more impressive than a run-of-the-mill pasting of a cupcake. And the better news is that mountainous nose tackle Terrence Cody is expected back this week. Good news for anyone that's not in charge of the training table budget, anyway.
• 2. Penn State Nittany Lions: The Lions vault to No. 2 without doing anything. Suddenly the DMV, and not just the greater State College defense attorney coalition, is full of Lion fans.
  
• 3. Texas Tech Red Raiders: Are the Red Raiders better than Penn State? Perhaps, but a home win over a depleted Texas team and a road win over Ohio State are tough comparisons. A win next week all but ensures the would-be 10-0 Red Raiders leap Penn State, and possibly Alabama.
• 4. Texas Longhorns: The Longhorns came within one dropped interception, one dropped touchdown in the first half, or one second within finishing a four-game gauntlet over top-ranked teams that hadn't been done in more than half a century, so you'll excuse us for not walloping Mack Brown's team. But this ranking depends heavily on Orakpo, Cosby and Miller returning from injuries sustained Saturday night.
• 5. Oklahoma Sooners: We still think an Oklahoma team with Ryan Reynolds would be marching to Dolphin Stadium, but the offense Super Tecmo Bowl created might be getting them there anyway.
• 6. Florida Gators: The Gators are in excellent shape for a BCS title berth if they keep racking up style points like they're picking them up at Costco.
• 7. USC Trojans: Nobody loves the Trojan defense more than us, but drubbing the state of Washington and an Arizona State team that's lost five straight is like Renoir painting on a post-it note, it's not exactly the ideal canvas to prove your worth. But the real problem for Southern Cal is that it will struggle to distinguish itself over the final weeks of the season and doesn't deserve to jump ahead of Penn State. The Trojans' best win is the same as Penn State's (albeit with a bucket load of style points) and their lone loss came to a team the Nittany Lions throttled.
• 8. Oklahoma State Cowboys: Is the Cowboys' reliance on Dez Bryant (nine catches Saturday, seven more than anyone else) a testament to how good Bryant is or how much of a problem losing him would be?
  
• 9. TCU Horned Frogs: Next week the Horned Frogs can play the ultimate villain in the Beehive State, should they knock off undefeated Utah after ending BYU's BCS hopes in emphatic fashion. How impressive is Oklahoma's 35-10 win over the Horned Frogs now?
• 10. Utah Utes: The Utes weren't pleasing to watch against New Mexico, but playing at altitude in Albuquerque, which is 1,185 higher than Salt Lake City, is never easy. On the positive side, they're 9-0 for the second time in program history and the first time without Urban Meyer.
• 11. Ohio State Buckeyes: The Buckeyes had a week to forget last Saturday's near miss and could still take a shot at the Rose Bowl, if Penn State makes the national title game.
• 12. Boise State Broncos: Ian Johnson rushed for just 61 yards and the Broncos still shellacked New Mexico State 49-0. Our only concern is that freshman quarterback Kellen Moore has thrown an interception in five of his last six games. Robert Griffin taunts you, sir.
• 13. Missouri Tigers: Griffin's first career interception couldn't have come at a better time for the Tigers, who had to hold on by their claws after blowing an early 14-0 lead. But the defense again held a team under 30, which is a positively Auburn afternoon for a Big 12 offense. (Oklahoma racked up 35 in the first quarter Saturday.)
  
• 14. Georgia Bulldogs: This season may be all over but the shouting for Georgia, but should the Bulldogs somehow convince Knowshon Moreno and Matt Stafford to pass up on the NFL, then that duo combined with an experienced offensive line and A.J. Green might get another crack at holding a preseason No. 1.
  
• 15. Ball State Cardinals: The Cardinals had the week off and hopefully spent very little of the time worrying about their showdown in Mount Pleasant, Mich., in two weeks and plenty of it worrying about stopping human quarterback blender Larry English.
  
• 16. LSU Tigers: Tulane played without leading rusher Andre Anderson, so it's hard to tell if LSU's rush defense improved from two awful games against Georgia and Florida. But now solo-quarterback Jarrett Lee will have to play better than his 8-of-20 performance if the Tigers want to win Saturday's Saban Bowl showdown.