USC 43, Washington State 16, final!

Virginia Tech 31, Miami 0, 10:39 to go.

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE: The USC radio announcers pointed out that today was a “perfect day” — the Trojans won, UCLA lost, and Notre Dame lost, all on the same day. The announcers said this is the first “perfect day” since Nov. 3, 2001, and the 35th in history.

What made the day really perfect, though, was Virginia Tech’s 31-7 blowout upset of previously undefeated Miami. (Did I call it or what?) That’s right — a Sugar Bowl spot is now officially open to a one-loss team! And like I said below, USC is now a bona fide national-championship contender!

So what now? The USC radio announcer had this opinion: “If this holds up, the Trojans and Florida State are the only real threats to go to the Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma.” Um, hello — there’s at least one other one-loss team you’re forgetting about: Miami.

Yeah, they lost today, but the Hurricanes are not out of it. As I explained below, I think it’s even possible they could stay #2 in next week’s BCS standings. But now that we know the final score of the Miami-VT game, I think probably not. Yeah, the ‘Canes beat Florida State on Oct. 11, but I don’t think there’s any way the poll voters are going to keep Miami as high as #3 after that embarassing blowout loss. So, fair or not, I predict Miami falls below Florida State — and one or two others — in the polls. Here is my new predicted poll order:

1. Oklahoma
2. USC
3. Florida State
4. LSU
5. Miami
6. Michigan
7. Virginia Tech
8. Ohio State (”Not fair!” cry the Buckeye fans. “You suck!” cries the nation in reply.)
9. Iowa
10. Texas

The Hurricanes still have the quality-win points from their victory over the Seminoles, and they have a strong strength-of-schedule to boot, but after the blowout loss, it’s at least possible they’ll be third or fourth in the BCS, rather than second as I initially feared. The math will be very complicated, so this time I’ll have to rely on Rich Tellshow to figure out it. :) My instinct, though, says it will be very close between USC, Florida State, and Miami. LSU and Ohio State may also be players, but I suspect they won’t be on the same level. I think the Trojans, ‘Noles, and ‘Canes are now the chief contenders.

ANOTHER UPDATE: I just thought of something. Looking really far ahead, if USC wins out but finishes behind another one-loss team in the BCS, and if the Trojans win the Rose Bowl and that “other” one-loss team upsets Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl, there will be a split championship: the Sugar Bowl victor wins the coaches’ poll, the Trojans win the AP poll. Wait, isn’t that precisely what the BCS was supposed to prevent? Yeah, well, it could happen.

Georgia lost, Miami’s losing, and the Trojans are winning. If this keeps up, USC could be a bona fide national-championship contender a couple of hours from now.

UPDATE: USC just scored a touchdown!!! (I’m listening to the game over Internet radio.) It’s 22-10!

Okay, let’s say the current scores hold. Trojans win, ‘Canes lose. USC jumps from #3 to #2 in both polls… but do we jump from #4 to #2 in the BCS? Or do we only jump to #3? Or, horror of horrors, do we stay #4?!?

Currently, both polls go #1 Oklahoma, #2 Miami, #3 USC, #4 Georgia, #5 Florida State. Clearly Georgia will fall out of the picture. And clearly, Miami would fall too… but how far? I’m guessing the poll voters might want to keep them ahead of Florida State, since the Hurricanes beat the Seminoles head-to-head earlier in the season. In that case, it would be #1 Oklahoma, #2 USC, #3 Miami, #4 Florida State in the polls.

That means Florida State improves by one poll point, from 5 to 4, and USC improves by a poll point too, from 3 to 2. So that’s awash — the polls would effect no change between the Trojans and ‘Noles in the BCS standings. But USC will gain on Florida State in strength of schedule, and presumably in the computer rankings, since we played Washington State while they played Notre Dame. We were .73 behind Florida State last week, so we might gain enough to overtake them, or we might not. It would probably be close.

Regardless of whether we overtake Florida State, here’s a question: would we even overtake the newly once-beaten Miami? It’s impossible to predict without seeing the new computer standings, but my instinct is, probably not. Miami’s point total will inevitably be substantially boosted by quality-win points because of the Hurricanes’ win over Florida State, so it seems entirely plausible that if Miami is #3 in the polls, as I predicted above, they will remain #2 in the BCS.

In other words, even with a Miami loss, it’s possible that the BCS Top Four could remain exactly the same: #1 Oklahoma, #2 Miami, #3 Florida State, #4 USC. Or the Trojans and ‘Noles could switch places, with Miami still #2. Or my poll predictions could be totally off, and who knows what the BCS might look like?

Of course, first, Miami needs to lose, and USC needs to win. Go Trojans! Go Hokies!

USC just scored again, while I was typing the above. It’s 28-10 Trojans!!! Woohoo!!!

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, if Miami gets blown out, maybe the polls will penalize them more, and move them behind Florida State despite the inevitable outcry. And right now, Virginia Tech is leading, 17-0! Go Hokies! Pile it on!

Chris is quite right in pointing out that I have been lax in failing to note UConn’s #1 preseason basketball ranking. Frankly, between solar storms and Survival Saturday and sufferin’ succotash (huh?), I just haven’t been paying much attention to basketball news.

But here’s the link for y’all. UConn is #1 in the coaches’ poll with 25 first-place votes, followed by #2 Duke (3 first-place votes), #3 Michigan State (1 first-place vote), #4 Arizona, #5 Kansas, #6 Missouri, #7 Syracuse (1 first-place vote), #8 Florida, #9 Kentucky, and #10 North Carolina (1 first-place vote). My third-favorite college hoops team (behind USC and UConn), Gonzaga, is ranked #12. Oh, and USC, having finished seventh in the Pac-10 last year, is unranked, duh. :)

In other UConn news, the Husky football team survived Saturday with a 17-point comeback leading to a 41-27 win over Western Michigan. UConn is now officially bowl-eligible.

Check out The One Pumpkin. Hehe. Very cool.

By the way, a new teaser trailer for Return of the King — reportedly one minute, one second long — will debut with The Matrix: Revolutions on Wednesday. Finally, a LOTR trailer with a movie I actually wanted to see anyway!

In other Lord of the Rings news, the official website released some new images yesterday of LOTR’s ugly monsters (no, Becky, Viggo Mortensen is not included in this category), in honor of Halloween.

Countdown update: 17 days till The Two Towers Extended Edition … 45 days till Trilogy Tuesday … 46 days till The Return of the King!!!

“Survival Saturday” is underway, and so far, so bad for Trojan fans. Huh? Well, USC’s game is almost four hours away, but Florida State is easily beating Notre Dame, which simultaneously boosts the standing of the BCS #3 Seminoles and hurts the BCS #4 Trojans’ strength of schedule. Oh, well. There are more important games today.

Like BCS #1 Oklahoma vs. Oklahoma State, about to get underway on ABC. Or BCS #5 Georgia vs. Florida, starting now on CBS. Or later, at 7:45 PM on ESPN, BCS #2 Miami vs. Virginia Tech. The Trojans could really use losses by any (or all!) of those Top 5 teams, especially Oklahoma and/or Miami. (A loss by BCS #6 Ohio State, which is playing Penn State right now, would also be nice.)

Most important, of course, is USC’s 7:00 PM Eastern time showdown with Washington State. Regardless of what happens elsewhere in the country, the winner of this game will at least have the inside track to Pac-10 championship and thus the Rose Bowl. A potential Sugar Bowl berth would just be icing on the cake (so to speak).

But that game isn’t televised on the East Coast!!! Ack!!! So I may be heading over to a sports bar later, if I can find one that has the game. We shall see.

My dad and I thought our aurora borealis view was pretty good, but check out this shot of the Northern lights in LaOtto, Indiana:

Photo by Robert B. Slobins, from SpaceWeather.com

That picture was taken during the previous night’s aurora storm, on Oct. 29, which we couldn’t see here in Connecticut because of the cloudy skies. But this one, from Sherbrooke, Quebec, was taken around the same time that my dad and I were watching auroras in Burlington, CT:

Photo by Remi Boucher, from SpaceWeather.com

Sherbrooke is almost due north of Burlington. It’s about 300 miles away, but because auroras are so high up in the atmosphere, it’s entirely possible that those lights are essentially the same lights that we were seeing on the low horizon from a much greater distance. They even look alike: green lights below, red lights above. Interesting.

There are more great aurora photos were these came from, on SpaceWeather.com’s aurora gallery pages!

Here I am, as a Ringwraith, with fellow trick-or-treater-greeters in Wethersfield, including “Queen” Vicki Huffman, right:

The best part about being a Nazgul was watching the kids’ reactions. Some thought my costume was “cool” (the kid in the Frodo costume thought this), some of the younger ones were a bit scared (they had a tendency to steer a wide berth around me and reach for the candy from the other side), while some kids simply looked at me quizzically, trying to figure out who the tall guy under the costume was!

Occasionally, I did show my face:

Afterward, when I went to the Newington-New Britain football game (which Newington lost, 63-6), I felt rather silly walking around in my frilly Nazgul garb. :) But as Mike Wiser e-mailed me this evening, “I have to say, I admire your nerdiness with the Nazgul costume. However, I may be able to trump you: long brown robe, brown hood, sandals, copy of the Bible, and copy of Experimental Hybridization in Plants. Look out, it’s Gregor Mendel!” Heh. Yup, you win, Mike. :)

Anyway… here is a photo of the Halloween display at our house:

My dad said we got only one group of trick-or-treaters (we rarely get many, since we live on a busy street without many kids), but there were seven of them, and one took two pieces of candy (”one for my aunt!”).