The Ups and Downs that Were Week 12 in NCAA Football

Week number 12 in the world of NCAA football was a heartbreaker for so many teams with high hopes in the 2011 season. Three teams that had their raging fires of hope roaring towards a possible national championship game saw their chances dwindle to a dull flame. Let's recap the 3 teams that had their seasons come down a notch this past weekend.

Oklahoma State only had the rivalry matchup with Oklahoma left on the schedule as a test, before being able to breeze into the national championship game. The OSU family was suffering from a horrible tragedy that hit less than 24-hours before taking the field on Thursday night against Iowa State. Maybe that was the main reason for their loss, or maybe Oklahoma State was looking past Iowa State and on to the rivalry game against Oklahoma. No matter what it was, Iowa State's running game proved to be the kryptonite to OSU's superman run at the national championship game. Iowa State being able to run the ball opened up the pass, which lead to the overtime loss at Jack Trice Stadium in Ames.

Oregon hosted the USC Trojans on Saturday night. Right out of the gate USC took the lead and stayed ahead of the Ducks until the fourth quarter. In the fourth quarter Oregon scored 15 points while shutting out the Trojans. Oregon's downfall in the loss was the fact that they did not come out in their usual fast paced high-scoring offensive ways. Fumbles and a lack of getting first downs in the first half proved too much for the Oregon ducks to come back from. The ducks tried their hardest to come back in the second half and pulled within three points of the Trojans in the fourth quarter. On the last drive of the game Oregon marched down the field appearing to be unstoppable to take the win but with 5 seconds left the game came down to a 37-yard field goal which was missed and ended the likelihood of a national championship with the ducks in it.

Oklahoma rolled into Waco, Texas Saturday night to face a Baylor team which had already given TCU its first loss of the season on opening day. Baylor, lead by its dynamic and highly explosive quarterback Robert Griffin III, pulled out all the stops to give the crowd in Floyd Casey Stadium a show they will be able to tell their grandchildren about. Oklahoma's defense allowed Griffin to carve through them with ease to 479 passing yards while also rushing for 72 yards. The main problem that Oklahoma ran into was that Griffin was at the top of his game and when a player as explosive as Griffin is playing at such a high level there is very little you can do to come away with a victory, besides keeping him off the field as much as possible.

All three of these teams falling has made every sports follower see the BCS standing as being in shambles, but to me this happening has made it a little clearer. Instead of so many teams being a "possible contender," now we have three realistic contenders left. Oregon and Oklahoma are out of the race leaving Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech, and Stanford in the front running assuming Arkansas loses to LSU in week 13. Out of these three my opinion of who should be in the national championship game would be LSU and Stanford. LSU will be undefeated and Stanford's only loss was to a very good Oregon team. No matter what ends up happening, this year will be a good national championship game for the entire family.