Well… how did we do? Green means the game went the way we wanted it to; red means it didn’t. (Oh, and Merry Christmas. Hehe.)

DIRECT MATCHUPS:
#2 USC at #85 Arizona
#11 Purdue at #3 Ohio State

QUALITY WIN POINTS:
#73 Arizona State at #10 Washington State
#33 Auburn at #9 Georgia
#8 Michigan at #44 Northwestern
#96 Mississippi State at #7 Tennessee

POLL BUFFER:
#4 LSU at #48 Alabama

COMPUTER BUFFER:
#78 Cincinatti at #6 TCU

STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE:
#93 North Carolina at #46 Georgia Tech
#22 Minnesota at #20 Iowa
#50 Colorado at #83 Iowa State
#71 BYU at #49 Notre Dame
#38 Air Force at #55 New Mexico
#75 San Diego State at #60 Colorado State
#57 Hawaii at #84 Nevada
#113 UTEP at #26 Boise State
#29 NC State at #13 Florida State
#30 Kansas State at #17 Nebraska
#33 Auburn at #9 Georgia
#40 Oregon at #41 UCLA
#63 Washington at #59 California
#45 Stanford at #37 Oregon State
#92 Kent State at #23 Bowling Green
#19 Pittsburgh at #43 West Virginia

OH, AND JUST FOR KICKS:
#95 Baylor at #1 Oklahoma

Bottom line: the status quo prevails. Today’s results were neither a devastating blow nor a tremendous boon to USC’s title hopes. Next week, it seems, will be the pivotal one.

Although the strength-of-schedule games were split 8-8, one team or another may have benefitted, since each of those games had a different level of importance. I’m too lazy to even try sort that out right now, and anyway, Rich Tellshow will have numbers on it soon enough.

USC has jumped out to an early 14-0 lead over Arizona. Go Trojans!

UPDATE: The halftime score was 35-0, and Reggie “The President” Bush just opened the second half with a 58-yard kickoff return. I think we can safely start saying “Beat the Bruins” when the Band plays Conquest. :)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Some more very good news: LSU is stemming the Crimson Tide (poetic, I know), 17-0

BOOTY CALL: John David Booty just came into the game! Boooooo-ty! Boooooo-ty!

FINAL UPDATE: USC 45, Arizona 0. Well, that ought to impress the pollsters enough to keep USC ranked #2 for now. :)

Ohio State and Purdue are about to kick off. You can follow it live on ESPN GameCast.

UPDATE, 4:47 PM: Purdue, having fallen behind 13-6, just tied the game on a “Statue of Liberty” play resulting in a touchdown. It’s 13-13 with 4:36 to go in the fourth quarter! USC isn’t doing too well in the strength-of-schedule games today, so a Purdue win would be really nice…

UPDATE, 5:09 PM: YESSS!!!!!! Ohio State was on the verge of winning on a last-second field goal, but Purdue blocked it!!!! To overtime we go!

UPDATE, 5:13 PM: Ohio State has taken a 16-13 lead in overtime. Now Purdue has the ball, and must score at least a field goal to tie the game. A touchdown would win it.

UPDATE, 5:20 PM: Wide left. Game over. Ohio State wins. Dammit.

Don’t forget, USC fans (and Ohio State fans, I suppose…freaks), my viewer’s guide for today’s college-football action tells you who to root for and against. Check it out!

Unfortunately I got one rather major detail wrong: the USC-Arizona game is at 7:00 PM Eastern time, not 6:00. I blame Yahoo! Sports, which has 6:00 listed on their schedule page.

Also, the Arizona State-Washington State game is at 3:30 PM Eastern, not 5:00. Alas, this means it’s at the same time as the Purdue-Ohio State game, which means the local ABC affiliate here in Phoenix will not be carrying the Purdue-Ohio State game, because they have the ASU game. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

I have high hopes for the CatCam, but I think it will be much better once the tripod and some miscellaneous wires arrive via UPS, thus allowing me to use my Sony camcorder instead of the dinky Logitech webcam. But then it occurred to me: the Logitech webcam would be perfect for a FishCam:

So, here you have it… a webcam trained on Becky’s pet betta fish, Capone:

The FishCam updates once every 10 to 20 seconds. (There’s also a version that should update instantaneously, but I’m not sure if it’s working right — please take a look and let me know!)

The image is rather grainy right now, at 12:36 AM (and it’s going to become completely dark when I turn the kitchen light off and go to bed), but hopefully in the morning, when the light of day fills the room, it’ll look good. We shall see.

Of course, if only I had one of these, this would all be much simpler. Hey, what if all my loyal BrendanLoy.com readers pooled their money… :)