2022 Blog Poll Week 12 — Narrow escapes and officiating gifts define a weekend of upsets

What a messy weekend. On the eve of rivalry week, the top contenders decided to either play with their food (Georgia, OSU), fall spectacularly on their face (Tennessee among others), or do a combination of these things and have to rely on officiating to bail them out (Michigan).

And then some teams just put together an absolute clinic on how to close a ballgame out with no time on the clock and their season on the line.

I have been high on the Frogs since Week One. And things like that are the reason why: they make their own breaks in do-or-die moments, even on the road against a quality rival in a stadium they historically struggle at. Is TCU the most talented playoff contender? Not by a long shot. But when you see enough “miracles” play out over the course of a season, you may not call it fate, but you can certainly call it a remarkably well-coached team.

And in this season of unpredictability, that may be just enough to win the whole thing. Let’s just say that I wouldn’t want to be in a nail-biter against HYPNOTOAD in the waning moments — they know how to seal the deal.

Without further ado, here is the Week 12 Blog Poll; a few very brief remarks follow. Usual caveats: The criteria are nebulous, far-ranging, and capricious — strength of schedule, bad and good coaching, injuries, exigent circumstances, home/away results, defense or lack thereof, offense or lack thereof, line play, power poll-ishness, can you cover a spread (Vegas is pretty smart about how good a team is), head-to-head where possible or prudent, and my own lying eyeballs.

Remember to address all poorly-spelled death threats, crayon-scrawled imprecations against my mother, anatomically-questionable propositions, and grammatically-disastrous emails to: rbr.erik@gmail.com. Just remember that the public library closes at 7:00.

SEC — Alabama is better than LSU or Tennessee. Let’s play those games at home, without 28 generous road flags and non-calls and test the hypothesis, shall we? Ole Miss’s hangover loss was the single most predictable thing this week. Georgia slept-walked against a bad Kentucky team. This team has basically shut it down until Atlanta. They best not sleep on the Jackets; that is a dangerous defense. Hey Vols, I hear Orlando is nice. Good luck being the third or fourth pick in the bowl lottery.

P12 — USC is still a fraud. I’m not sure that Washington is any good, well, at least better than Oregon and Utah. These are all remarkably mortal teams that will get mudstomped should they make the playoffs. Oregon State is probably the best top to bottom team for my money. They’ve had some tough breaks and a tougher road schedule. Still, just a bit ball security would have the Beavers in the race for the P12CG.

TIRED: Caleb Williams For Heisman
WIRED: Bo Nix for Heisman
INSPIRED: Michael Penix Jr. for Heisman

The ACC — Clemson moves up a bit because the wins over Luhvl and FSU are a bit better, while everything else is significantly worse. UL and FSU are the only other ones worthy of mention. Drake Maye is wasted on Mack Brown.

Indies / G5 — Move over AAC, with another clown loss by UCF, and a weak Cincy as your standard bearer, I’ll take South Alabama, Troy, or Coastal in a weiner-measuring contest.

B12 — HYPNOTOAD. Though, there are some quality teams in Austin and Manhattan. This has been the most brutal conference this year, and not because everyone sucks: they’re just remarkably competitive top to bottom. The top isn’t the best in the country, but I’d lay some money on their quality lower class teams.

B1G — Don’t think we didn’t see that shit you did to BERT, Big Ten Conference. That was actually despicable. The Wolverines were gifted a win. And, hey, why not? It was the first good defense Corum and Co. have seen all year. And OSU can say the same next week when they host Michigan.