College Football week 12 preview: | 98Bones's Blog

A slow week for a change on the college gridiron front. Most of the more interesting games are involving teams in the lower area of the top 25.

The only obvious threats to higher ranked teams are of course Stanford hosting USC and South Carolina at Florida.

Stanford has been playing pretty well this year but the real threat of course is the fact that they upset the Trojans last season. Other than a first game upset over Oregon State the Cardinal have played a predictable season of winning the games they should (except against Notre Dame) and losing to the better teams. Unfortunately this doesn't seem to make a case for an upset prediction against USC. Jim Harbaugh has the Stanford fans and team believing but the Trojan defense will probably shut them down like they have against the last 6 teams they played. Not this year Stanford, but then again that's what I said to Oregon State when they played USC in September.

Florida plays a South Carolina team that has already clinched a bowl bid. However the Gamecocks have a lot in common with Stanford. Namely, beating the bad - losing to the good. Florida will have to avoid another misstep like they had against Mississippi but they look like a different team these days. One stat to worry about though, in the 'glorious' SEC South Carolina has the most yardage per game. Florida owns both best scoring offense and scoring defense in the conference. I look for another big Gator win.

Other games of interest:

Texas visits Kansas and should cruise considering what the Jayhawks have done against ranked opponents lately.

California is in Corvallis to play Oregon State. I see OSU winning by a fair margin unless Bears QB Riley got corrective glasses during the week. Some of his passes are still in the air after his overthrows against USC.

The game of the week could actually be Boston College visiting Florida State. The Eagles have quietly been playing a pretty good season losing to some better grade ACC teams, much like Florida State. The Seminoles running game is good and Boston College has a good running D. No prediction, I'll just be interested to see who comes out on top.

Another gem will be North Carolina at Maryland. The Terps have been giant killers this season and North Carolina is 8 points away from being undefeated, losing two 3 point games to Virginia Tech and Virginia. The Tar Heels have the stats on their side but Maryland is at home and the ACC has become a shootout, fun matchup.

Anyhow, that's it for this lukewarm schedule, happy watching Bones