Eastern Carolina has done it again. Last week, it was Virginia Tech. This week, it's #8 West Virginia. Skip Holtz' Pirates didn't even allow the Mountaineers to make it close, beating them 24-3. ECU's schedule isn't that tough from here on out, so maybe they'll be the next non-BCS team to crash the party. Is it possible?

Joe Paterno got his 374th win, passing Bobby Bowden for #1 all time. At least until Bowden's Seminoles blow out Western Carolina. The Nittany Lions looked great, dominating Oregon State 45-14.

#2 Georgia 56, Central Michigan 17 - The Bulldogs may have been upset about losing their #1 spot, but they did their part this week. Unfortunately, they'll need a loss by USC to regain the top spot, especially if the Trojans beat OSU next week.

#4 Oklahoma 52, Cincinnati 26 - The Bearcats were simply outmatched against the Sooners. This one was never really close, after OU jumped out to a 14-0 1st quarter lead.

#15 Brigham Young 28, Washington 27 - BYU looks eerily similar to last year's Hawaii team, who barely beat Washington, and then got blown out in the Sugar Bowl. BYU is everyone's pick for the non-BCS conference team to crash a BCS bowl, but if they win against Washington by a missed PAT, it looks like they've got a lot of work to do.

#18 Oregon 66, Utah State 24 - Nothing to see, here. Just a top-25 team doing what it's supposed to do.

#20 Wake Forest 30, Mississippi 28 - The Demon Deacons won, but this is just one more example of why the ACC sucks. Ole Miss isn't a "good" SEC team, by any stretch.

Virginia Tech 24, Furman 7 - Frank Beemer and his crew rebounded against Furman, but it still wasn't exactly convincing. It could get real ugly once the Hokies hit the "tough" part of their schedule.

----- Other Games -----
Notre Dame 21, San Diego State 13
Colorado State 23, Sacramento State 20
Akron 42, Syracuse 28
Louisville 51, Tennessee Tech 10
Florida Atlantic 49, UAB 34
Virginia 16, Richmond 0

Heading into UFC 88 Breakthrough, my predictions have gone 21-6. Lets see if I can keep the momentum going. Live Results for UFC 88 Breakthrough begin at 8pm ET.

Tim Boetsch vs Michael Patt
-This is the only fight on the card that appears easy to pick. Patt is a virtual unknown to mainstream MMA fans. He has some nice submission skills, but his strength is lacking. Against a powerful fighter like Boetsch, I can't see him winning. Boetsch Wins By Second Round TKO.

Roan Carneiro vs Ryo Chonan
-I am giddy about this fight. They first fought in 2005, with Chonan taking it following a stoppage by the ref because of a cut on Carneiro. The stoppage was controversial and it was clear a rematch would happen in the future. It is finally happening at UFC 88, after an aborted attempt at UFC 85 when Chonan pulled out with a rib injury. Chonan is best known for his victory over Anderson Silva. In my opinion, it is the best end to a fight in MMA history. Carneiro has the edge on the ground, but Chonan is the better stand-up fighter. It should be a battle from the opening bell. The fact this match is listed last on the fight card is mind boggling to me. It could very easily be the Fight of the Night or at least contain the Submission of the Night. I think Chonan Wins By Unanimous Decision.

Jason Lambert vs Jason MacDonald
-Jason MacDonald is a busy man. He fought less than a month ago against Demian Maia at UFC 87. In that fight he looked good, but in the end got caught with a rear naked choke. No shame to losing to Maia by submission. Lambert seemed destined for big things in the UFC after starting out 3-0 in the Octagon. Since then he has gone 1-3 and lost his last two fights by KO and TKO. I do not see him getting things back on track against MacDonald. MacDonald Wins By Second Round Submission.

Thiago Tavares vs Kurt Pellegrino
-Thiago Tavares was the golden boy of the UFC and was being molded into a future champion before two losses in three fights stopped his momentum. At 23, he still has many years ahead of him and should continue to improve. Losses are not the worst thing for a young fighter. All the top guys (other than Fedor) have dealt with defeat and come back with renewed determination. It is time to see if Tavares has the championship gene or not. It will not be easy for Tavares, as he faces UFC veteran Kurt Pellegrino. Pellegrino is not exceptional in any one area, but he is an extremely tough fighter. He does not have the natural athleticism of Tavares, so he will need to impose his will from the start on the younger fighter. When people have pressed Tavares in the past, he has had trouble. I think we are in for a good fight that will feature several momentum shifts. Tavares Wins By Split Decision.

Dong Hyun Kim vs Matt Brown
-The UFC must think highly of Matt Brown because they shifted this fight to the televised card. Brown was a fan favorite on The Ultimate Fighter 7 due to his toughness and straight ahead attacking style. This is his chance to make a name for himself and prove he is more than an engaging TV character. His opponent is a former DEEP fighter, who sports an impressive record of 10-0-1. It is hard to pick against Kim. I believe Brown will put up a fight and maybe even hurt Kim at times, but it will not be enough. When he tires, Kim will take over. Kim Wins By Second Round TKO.

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Thank you to everyone who voted in the FanIQ Prediction System.  Last week, you saw what my team ratings predicted, and now we'll look at what your ratings predicted.

The interesting thing about this system is how much the schedule makes an impact on it.  In fact, in the NFC, a team with the 11th highest overall score in the conference made the playoffs, and the team with the 6th highest conference score made it to the NFC final.  Remember, this is just for a bit of fun and speculation, none of us know what will truly happen.  So here is what FanIQ's ratings predicted through the system.

NFC North			NFC South
Bears	9-7		Saints	10-6
Vikings	8-8		Panthers	9-7
Packers	8-8		Bucs	8-8
Lions	4-12		Falcons	3-13
NFC East			NFC West
Cowboys	13-3		Seahawks	8-8
Eagles	10-6		Cardinals	7-9
Redskins	9-7		Rams	7-9
Giants	7-9		49ers	5-11
AFC North			AFC South
Steelers	8-8		Colts	14-2
Ravens	8-8		Jaguars	11-5
Browns	6-10		Titans	7-9
Bengals	5-11		Texans	6-10
AFC East			AFC West
Patriots	14-2		Chargers	14-2
Jets	8-8		Broncos	8-8
Bills	7-9		Raiders	6-10
Dolphins	3-13		Chiefs	6-10

Obviously, the Bears once again make little sense being a playoff team.  The Packers and Vikings both have higher overall scores over the Bears, but the schedule helped them.   Obviously, even the most biased Bears fans probably don't think they'll win the division, but who knows?

The Ravens, surprisngly, had the 8th highest AFC score, which with a weak schedule, was just able to get them the tiebreaker over the Jets and Broncos.  The Chargers beat the Patriots and Colts since they host them both, leading to them with the 1 seed.  Here are the playoff results.

1	Cowboys
		Cowboys
3	Bears	Bears
6	Redskins		Cowboys
			Saints
4	Seahawks			Cowboys
5	Eagles	Seahawks
		Saints
2	Saints
Playoffs					Colts
1	Chargers
		Chargers
3	Patriots	Patriots
6	Ravens			Colts
			Colts
4	Steelers		Patriots
5	Jaguars	Steelers
		Colts
2	Colts

Because the home-field bonus is two instead of four, the Chargers ended up being upset.  So according to FanIQ's rankings in the system, the Colts will win the Super Bowl over the Cowboys.

Thanks to everyone who participated.  We'll look at how accurate (or wrong) this was at seasons' end.

Here's a quick recap of the early games:

#3 Ohio State 26, Ohio 14 - The Beanie Wells-less Buckeyes struggled against Ohio, in a game that they should have been able to win easily regardless. If Beanie isn't 100% healthy against USC, then the Buckeyes better hope they go undefeated the rest of the way, because there's no way they'll beat the Trojans.

#9 Auburn 27, Southern Miss 13 - This game wasn't as close as the score indicates, but a couple late scores by So. Miss made it look a little more civil.

#11 Wisconsin 51, Marshall 14 - Certainly not a tough game for the Badgers, but they looked better than OSU, that's for sure.

#24 Illinois 47, Eastern Illinois 21 - Juice Williams accounted for 298 yards and 3 total TD's.

Georgia Tech 19. Boston College 16 - Welcome to life after Matt Ryan, Eagles fans. This year won't be pretty.

Michigan 16, Miami (OH) 6 - CriticalFanatic probably cried as he watched the end of this one from his seats in the Big House. But the ones who should really be worrying are the Wolverines and their fans. I understand RichRod still doesn't have his system in place, but this is a school with too much talent to be playing this poorly. If your coach can't adjust a LITTLE bit and work with the personnel that he has, then that's a concern.

Other Games:
Michigan State 42, Eastern Michigan 10
Purdue 42, Northern Colorado 10
UConn 12, Temple 9 (2OT)
Iowa 42, Florida International 0
Nebraska 35, San Jose State 12

A few years back, when the Chicago Bears decided to turn Soldier Field into that monstrosity of a UFO that it currently is, they came up with an interesting plan. It was pretty simple. Let's get Illinois taxpayers to pay for the majority of the $587 million upgrades to the stadium, and we'll throw in only about $100 million.

As you can immediately tell, that's an enormous taxpayer ripoff, and a very sweet deal for the NFL.

Yet somehow, the plan worked it's way through Illinois's state government and was approved. 

Naturally, there were immediately people pissed off to no end that the Illinois government had done this, primarily because they, as taxpayers, had absolutely no say in the matter.

Interestingly, a similar move was tried in New York. Mayor Bloomberg was proposing the building of a $1.2 billion stadium that would be used by the Jets and Giants (who no doubt had a hand in this proposal) and could be used as the Olympic Stadium in 2012 (New York was one of the final three cities competing for the 2012 Olympic Games back in 2006, which it lost). the New York stadium was also to be funded primarily by taxpayers.

Luckily, some savvy politicians in upstate New York told Bloomberg he could go to hell and that they'd never let what happened in Illinois happen in New York.

It seemed after the New York episode that politicians had learned from the Chicago Bears screw job and wouldn't let something like that ever happen again. But we all know, there are a lot of stupid people in this country.

The newest stadium deal to piss off an entire state is thanks to the Indianapolis Colts. The brand new Lucas Oil Stadium is being financed with $612 million of state bonds. The team will contribute about $100 million. It's the identical thing that was done for the Chicago Bears, except this time it's slightly more expensive for taxpayers during a horrendously crappy economy.

Sounds fantastic. So what do people think of this lovely plan?


Ok then, anyone else?


And how about we hear from an expert.


This could go on and on. Many Indiana residents are going to get more and more pissed over time. Indiana's government is saying the stadium will generate more jobs - primarily through an adjacent convention center - but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that most of those jobs won't be sustainable. Again, how many times will the stadium be open during the year? Not enough for most people to be working a full-time job.

Now while I could go off on stupid politicians here, the real culprit is the NFL. After all, what's better than having stadiums paid for primarily by unsuspecting taxpayers?

At the end of the day, the NFL is not about the love of the game or any of that crap that all those idiotic commercials hit you with. It's about money, plain and simple. And the NFL is rolling in it. But don't think that a league that wealthy won't try and do its best to screw people over in order to keep themselves well into the black.

That's what the league did through the Chicago Bears and the Indianapolis Colts. After all, having two highly profitable teams only drop a combined $200 million on their stadiums is much better than having them drop a billion plus combined on their stadiums.

This is also the reason why the NFL is so tight with gauranteed contracts, despite the high rate of injury in the sport. They want to save every day damn penny they can. So if you sign a guy to an incentive-laden contract worth upwards of $10 million in a year, and he blows out his knee in Week 3, you only have to pay him $3 million.

In many ways, considering how short the average NFL career is (3 years), this is a true disservice to players. But we could also get into even greater NFL disservices, like how the league treats its retired players.

I do enjoy the NFL a great deal, but it's also important to know that the league doesn't really have your best interest as a fan at heart at all. All they have their interest on is your wallet. And they're not afraid to screw you over to get to it.

Indiana touts "Peyton Manning" bonds as fans boo Colts' deal [Bloomberg]