We're a bit short-staffed for college football coverage this weekend so I'll be putting together a fairly basic open thread for this week. There's a lot of great action this week with plenty of talent on display as we near the halfway point of the 2011 college football season.
The biggest game on the schedule is the Red River Shootout between No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 11 Texas. The chase for the two BCS national title game berths remains fairly wide open, but this week could start to clear things up a bit. While a loss now does not eliminate some teams from the national title picture, Texas would suffer worse with a loss as compared to Oklahoma. It's kind of ridiculous at times but given OU's higher ranking, they have a little bit of wiggle room depending on how the teams in front of them shake out. Ahhhh, the joy of college football's fool proof national title process.
The only other two ranked-versus-ranked matchups feature No. 1 LSU vs. No. 17 Florida and No. 10 Arkansas vs. No. 15 Auburn. For Bay Area fans, Stanford hosts Colorado. In the Heisman race, Andrew Luck has sort of receded to the background as other names have had big games and signature moments. Luck just plugs along putting up solid numbers. If he can guide the Cardinal to an undefeated season, I don't see how he isn't amongst the finalists at the very least.
My knowledge of 2012 draft prospects is relatively limited so I've done some poking around. The folks at NEPatriotsDraft.com put together a quick look at prospects in Oklahoma-Texas and Iowa-Penn State. Rob Rang also put together five prospects he'll be scouting today:
1. DT Kheeston Randall, Texas
2. OT Matt McCants, Alabama-Birmingham
3. RB/WR Chris Rainey, Florida
4. OG Ryan Miller, Colorado
5. DL Jared Crick, Nebraska
Rang also put together ten matchups to watch today.
