Top-ranked Florida's biggest challenge Saturday against Florida State may be making sure it doesn't get lost in the emotion of Senior Day. Drum roll, please.
UF's senior class, headlined by quarterback Tim Tebow, has won more games than any other in SEC history at 46-6. It is 27-5 in the SEC, 25-2 at Florida Field, 14-3 against ranked teams and 11-1 vs. Tennessee, Georgia, FSU and Miami. The class includes a Heisman Trophy winner and a national Defensive Player of the Year.
Let's not forget it has also helped win two national championships and crafted a nation-best 21-game winning streak. That's the beauty of this class -- it's also well aware of what's at stake. The Gators promise, cross their hearts, they are wary of heavy underdog FSU.
Can Cretin-Derham Hall keep its aerial circus and powerful ground game going for one last game? Seantrel Henderson thinks so.
Henderson, the massive senior offensive lineman and top-ranked recruit in the country, ends his stellar Raiders football career on Minnesota's brightest stage Friday. That's when No. 2 Cretin-Derham (11-1) faces No. 1 Eden Prairie (12-0) in the Class 5A state championship at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
All eyes have been on Henderson, who has been very deliberative in his college selection process and is not expected to announce his decision until February's National Signing Day.
Urban Meyer almost cried at the mention of Notre Dame the other day. His heart and future is at Florida, and nothing short of a papal encyclical is going to change that.
Sorry, Irish fans. Such a thing is not on Pope Benedict's calendar.
If only Notre Dame had a bit more divine wisdom 10 years ago, it wouldn't be in this mess. The Fighting Irish had Meyer and let him go. Now, there's just a trail of tears that altered the college football universe.
How different would this decade have been if Notre Dame had locked up its former receivers coach in 2000?
Florida's last two wins over rival Florida State have been the most lopsided in the series in nearly four decades. Seminoles coach Bobby Bowden tipped his cap and admitted last year the Gators simply had better players at many positions.
Bowden cites his team's youth this year and believes FSU has closed the gap on UF.
"We're getting closer," Bowden said Sunday. "Next year, we should be neck-and-neck."
Midway through the Ole Miss-Tennessee game on Saturday, a highlight package of Archie Manning's playing days at Ole Miss came on the jumbotron. Ole Miss fans, up to that point cheering their biggest win of the season, went quiet. The man behind me muttered softy to himself, "Them were the days."
As Archie ran around on the field making play after play, it occurred to me, not for the first time, how amazing it is that he sired not one, but two, Super Bowl winning quarterbacks. By the time the cameras found his youngest son, Eli, in a suite, I was still attempting to contemplate how amazing the fact was. By Sunday, after Peyton Manning led his Colts to 21 points in the final 12 minutes of a victory over the Patriots, there could be no doubt: Archie Manning's sperm is one of the greatest national treasures in our country.
Right up there with Abraham Lincoln, the flag outside Fort McHenry that inspired Francis Scott Key to jot down "The Star Spangled Banner" and Dorothy's ruby red slippers. That's why I'm making a humble suggestion to the Smithsonian Museum of American History, Archie's sperm should be an exhibit. (Lets see you do that, exhibit on late 19th century wheat threshers.) Otherwise, the museum is worth nothing.
That said, please do not think for a second that I ravenously slurp the Kool-Aid that the BCS is attempting to serve. I don't want to see a playoff because I love the idea that you have to show up every Saturday, that each week the stakes get higher and the opponent, no matter what their record, gets tougher for an undefeated team. And I hate the idea of neutral-site playoff games in NFL cities in December and January (there's a reason that the SEC and Big 12 title games never have any juice).
It would not be a panacea, but the most effective step toward improving the current system would be to compel teams who are seriously interested in playing for the national championship to play 12 meaningful games. Which brings us to Saturday's slate.
It's that silly time of year again. There are so many significant teams among the big boys of college football, but there are just two slots on Jan. 7 in Pasadena, Calif., for that title game of the Bowl Championship Series. So the voice of the older Jim Mora is screaming in my subconscious.
I've heard your Tebow talk and your McCoy blather, I've even read your outlandish suggestions that Alabama running back Mark Ingram should win the award. Please, Ingram isn't even as good as Temple's Bernard Pierce and Stanford's Toby Gerhart statistically, and I haven't heard a single one of you mention him. Already, we've made Case's case, and I don't agree with that either.
There is still one player is lurking out there without much national recognition despite the fact that he has the best profile of any Heisman contender.
Why is he being ignored? Because he plays for Boise State and because, you might have noticed, Boise State is off the national radar despite being undefeated. That means most of us have missed what Kellen Moore has managed so far this fall. Thus far,Moore has completed over 67 percent of his passes with many more touchdowns than interceptions. Along the way he's led his team to a 9-0 record, kicked a huge dent in the BCS superiority, and burnished his Heisman credentials. Don't believe me, please step inside for a discussion.
It doesn't get any better, or older, than this for these two schools. Known as the Deep South's Oldest Rivalry, the series began in 1892 and is the seventh-most played in the country. The mutual disdain has been passed down through the generations, and the 113th meeting Saturday isn't expected to be any different.
"Everybody has their team," Georgia coach Mark Richt said.
Top-ranked Florida's biggest challenge Saturday against Florida State may be making sure it doesn't get lost in the emotion of Senior Day. Drum roll, please. 
Can Cretin-Derham Hall keep its aerial circus and powerful ground game going for one last game? 
Midway through the Ole Miss-
A playoff? No, thank you.
I've heard your Tebow talk and your McCoy blather, I've even read your outlandish suggestions that Alabama running back 
Georgia vs. 
