BYU’s strength of schedule took a moderate hit when Florida State struggled to a narrow victory over Jacksonville State. To put it another way, the JSU Gamecocks revealed a lack of Seminole fluid in the FSU bandwagon. A victory over FSU in Provo this Saturday has changed from a challenge game and an SoS builder to a must-win over a weak, but potentially dangerous opponent.
Also not helping BYU:
- Colorado State barely sneaks by Weber State by a field goal. But maybe Weber State is actually kind of good. They hung tight against Wyoming too a week ago
- UNLV lost a close game to Oregon State, and Air Force lost at Minnesota. Too bad–either one would have been a nice addition to the Mountain West’s non-conference record. New Mexico also got hammered by what’s looking like a good Tulsa team.
Helping BYU:
- The cream of the MWC crop remained undefeated with victories in must-wins over Virginia (TCU) and San Jose State (The Crimson Suck).
- USC outlasted #8 Ohio State in the Horseshoe, and #5 Oklahoma State got routed by Houston, likely sending BYU to #7 in next week’s polls and knocking out two barriers to a possible BYU title-shot.
- Oklahoma rebounded to completely dominate a sadly outmatched Idaho State squad. Anything less than the 63–0 beatdown it was, and this game probably wouldn’t have made any difference to BYU. As it is, the country has seen that Oklahoma is still a very good team and Landry Jones is a pretty good quarterback. This is what BYU needed.
- Notre Dame lost in a close one to Michigan. A one-loss Notre Dame team is a much smaller threat to BYU’s BCS hopes than an undefeated one. Maybe now Lou Holtz will pick BYU to slobber about every week.
