Tournament #1: Quarterfinals

Quarterfinals is just a more impressive way of saying "second round." Here are the results:

(8) West Virginia 38 (1) Ohio State 31. Ding dong, the witch is dead. The top-seeded Buckeyes were ousted in stunning fashion at the Horseshoe when a late turnover by Ohio State sealed a 38-31 win for the Mountaineers. Patrick White continued has fabulous play and has to be a leading candidate for the tournament's Most Outstanding Player award should West Virginia keep winning. Despite once again throwing with the wrong hand, White completed 16-of-22 passes for 356 yards and a touchdown, while also rushing for another score. He now has 670 yards and six TD's through the air in two games. Steve Slaton was able to shake off a rough opener to carry 12 times for 66 yards and three scores and the powerful West Virginia offense was able to score just enough points to keep Ohio State at bay. On defense, the Mountaineers adopted a unique strategy, as they focused on shutting down Antonio Pittman and forcing Troy Smith to beat them through the air. Smith did this quite easily, throwing for 389 yards and two scores (both of them to Ted Guinn Jr., who caught eight passes for 265 yards). Without the ground game, however, the Buckeyes were unable to mount a game-tying drive in the final moments. And the tournament lost its top seed.

(4) USC 42 (5) LSU 21. This was billed as a battle of heavyweights, but it turned out to be a real yawner. JaMarcus Russell was under constant pressure from USC's front seven, while the Trojans got plenty of offense from C.J. Gable (three touchdowns, giving him six in the tourney), Dwayne Jarrett (six catches for 136 yards and a score), and the quarterback duo of John David Booty and Mark Sanchez (combined 319 yards passing). Now USC gets a home game against West Virginia and no longer has either Ohio State or Floria on the horizon. No doubt, Pete Carroll is pretty pumped up about the whole thing.

(14) Virginia Tech 35 (11) Notre Dame 2. The tournament's most surprising team continued its terrific play by belting Notre Dame in South Bend. The Hokies' vaunted defense bounced back from a bad second half against Michigan to force Brady Quinn into his worst game ever - an abysmal 15-for-30 performance that included five interceptions. Virginia Tech returned two of the picks for touchdowns and also got a punt return for a touchdown from silent hero Eddie Royal. What little offense the Hokies needed came from efficient quarterback Sean Glennon (8-for-11 with 116 yards and a touchdown) and tailback Brandon Ore (19 carries for 122 yards and a score). The lone bright spot for Notre Dame was the play of Chicago Cubs' pitcher Jeff Samardja, who had seven catches for 134 yards in the losing effort.

(7) Oklahoma 30 (2) Florida 27 (OT). With aplogies to Virginia Tech and West Virginia, the Sooners' wild win over the Gators has to rank as the upset of the tournament to this point. It was a game that featured four lead changes in the final two and a half minutes alone and ended when OU's Travis Wilson hauled in yet another huge catch in traffic. On the heels of his game-winning catch against Auburn, Wilson actually got off to a rough start in this one, taking a big hit early and dropping the first two passes that came his way. However, he shook that off to make several monster catches for the Sooners and finished with 97 yards receiving and two touchdowns. Wilson's play was key as it enabled bad boy quarterback Rhett Bomar to find the range to the tune of 305 yards and four touchdowns. Florida's decision to focus on Adrian Peterson (104 total yards and a score, but just 56 rushing yards) wound up costing them when Bomar found the hot hand. On the Florida side of the ball, the Gators shook off a rough start and a 14-3 halftime defecit and moved the chains with ease in the second half. Florida was led by freshman tailback Percy Harvin, who had 180 yards rushing, 224 total yards, and two scores ... although there was some controversy surrounding the fact that he was wearing the number 31 instead of his usual #4. Head coach Urban Meyer blamed the BCS for this mishap but then caught himself when he realized that he had just lost in the tournament format he had long recommended. He then became flustered and asked if they could please turn the focus of the questions to his top-ranked recruiting class.