The Sporting Day: NCAA Conference Championship Games

This coming weekend plays host to the most important day of college pigskin action of the season, to date, with five conferences staging conference championship games. These five games will have silverware on the line as well as the post-season bowl games that define college football success. There is also the potential to be written into legend, the stage as big as many on the field will ever see. It is all on the line with the spotlight shining bright.

Two of the most popular conferences, where college ball is the only game that matters, will stage their decider this weekend. The SEC finale takes place in the hallowed Georgiadome in Atlanta Georgia. Two fierce rivals, the number seven LSU Tigers and the number fourteen Tennessee Volunteers, square off in the longest running conference championship game. And in the Big 12 decider, Oklahoma and Missouri travel to the Alamodome in San Antonio to contest the big one. Mizzou are the current number one while the Sooners are ranked number nine.

Three other conferences will also have their deciders played out.  The ACC, more renowned for quality hoops, has number six Virginia Tech squaring off with number eleven Boston College. The MAC championship game will be played in Detroit between Central Michigan and Miami (Ohio). And the Conference USA final, Tulsa meet Central Florida.

The two majors though, undoubtedly, are the SEC and Big 12 games.

In the SEC championship game, LSU are 7 ½ point favourites over the Vols. LSU have been rattled by conjecture all week that head coach Les Miles would move onto Michigan next year and that distraction may prove costly. There is no doubt the Tigers have a talented team. They have a stout defensive unit, Jacob Hester is a quality rusher and Matt Flynn, when on song, can connect with his receivers. The problem in recent times, however, is that Flynn has been playing inconsistent ball and the vaunted run defense was shown to have holes. If the Vols can overcome their tough quadruple overtime victory against Kentucky last week, they can stun the Tigers. Tennessee have won five on the trot and with the right game plan, can exploit the weaknesses glaringly highlighted by Arkansas last week. Dogs have a fairly good record in the SEC finale, having covered six of the last ten times. The Vols lift for big games, with a 5-1 record against the start when playing a team with a winning record this season and tend to do very well when their attack is firing, which it is. The points certainly appear the way to go here.

Missouri may be number one in the country but they will enter the Big 12 title game as an outsider. A 3 point outsider, to be accurate. Missouri has lost only once this season but it is a loss the Tigers will remember as it was to fellow finalists Oklahoma. The Sooners beat up Mizzou that day and if the lessons of defeat were not learned, they will be repeated for the world to see. Favourites have a much better record in Big 12 finals and the Sooners have been running up some big scores. The minus looks the bet here.

These two games will be classic. If you can somehow get vision of these games, watch them. They will be brutal games laced with quality ball movement. You just have to love college ball.

© 2007 Punting Ace.com