5 biggest winners from conference championship week

I’ll be honest—I had trouble picking five winners for this week since (1) there weren’t as many games and (2) most of them were kind of lame. Alabama won, Clemson won, Ohio State won, etc. Yawn.

I’ll try not to doze off from boredom (or talk about shoes like last time) as I get into the 5 biggest winners from champ week.

5. Mississippi State

They finally woke up. After putting 44 points on LSU to beat the Tigers in the opener, we found out that LSU gives up 44 points to just about everybody. Then the Air Raid crashed and crawled like a caterpillar for eight games, squeezing out just a handful of points in every game (and losing all of them except the one against Vanderbilt). But last Saturday the Bulldogs took flight again, putting 51 points on Missouri! That’s a huge victory for a team whose bandwagon never left the station and looks to repeat the feat against Tulsa.

4. Nebraska

“Good game Nebraska. Thanks for bringing back B1G football.” Those were the parting words of most of Nebraska’s opponents after beating the ‘Huskers. In their season finale, however, they got to thank themselves for bringing back enough B1G football to get a third victory over Rutgers.

3. Oregon

“Oh, no! Our division champion can’t play! What shall we do?”

“I know,” says Oregon. “Pick me!”

“Oh, Oregon! However can we thank you—hey wait you aren’t going to win the game are you...”

That about sums it up, and now a 4-2 Pac-12 that lost to Cal is in the Fiesta Bowl with an 8-3 Iowa State team that lost to Louisiana while 6-1 Indiana shares the crumbs with Ole Miss “out back” in the Outback Bowl. But let’s give credit where it’s due: congrats Oregon you saw a chance and took it. Enjoy eating in 1st class.

2. Wisconsin

The rivalry games haven’t been the same (or existent) in 2020 really, but this one happened and it delivered as Wisconsin kept Paul Bunyan’s axe and won in overtime over Minnesota. Now they get to play in the Duke’s Mayo Bowl, which sounds like a very messy bowl to play in (and coincidentally is served in the first course of the Oregon vs Iowa State banquet mentioned above). I’m not making much sense right now am I? Good!

1. Stanford

The biggest winner of champ week wasn’t a champion and won’t even go bowling. It was the Stanford Cardinal because they won the most thrilling game of the week in 2OT after thwarting a UCLA 2-point attempt. Congrats on a season well played. Maybe the duke will have some leftover mayo for you after Wisconsin quits rolling around in it.

Stay tuned for the 5 biggest winners of bowl season, and have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!