Nearly all of the teams (44) in the CS360 top-50 Composite National Rankings (CNR; see blog post below) will be in action on Sunday, Oct. 11 (the six idle teams include North Carolina, Portland, Wake Forest, BYU, Washington and Indiana). Nine of Sunday's games will feature matchups between top-50 CNR teams, most notably: #9 Virginia Tech at #19 Maryland and #25 Arizona State at #5 UCLA. Here's the list of Sunday's eight "big games" (results to be posted throughout Sunday via the CS360 Twitter feed, text-message service and on-site scoreboard – which is temporarily moved to the main body content of the CS360 main page):
SUNDAY'S BIG GAMES (Oct. 11, 2009)
• #33 Virginia at #6 Boston College (1 ET)
• #27 St. John's at #42 West Virginia (1 ET)
• #37 Minnesota at #21 Purdue (1 ET)
• #49 Colorado at #34 Kansas (1 CT)
• #26 California at #31 Oregon State (12 PT)
• #1 Stanford at #28 Oregon (1 PT)
• #25 Arizona State at #5 UCLA (1 PT)
• #17 Santa Clara at #47 San Diego (1 PT)
• #9 Virginia Tech at #19 Maryland (5 ET)
Six other games of interest involve current CNR top-50 teams vs. opponents that were listed in the CNR earlier this season:
• Colorado College at #18 CENTRAL FLORIDA (12 ET)
• Auburn at #23 FLORIDA (1 ET)
• DePaul at #16 RUTGERS (1 ET)
• #10 LSU at Vanderbilt (1 ET)
• #32 MISSISSIPPI at Tennessee (2 ET)
• #50 LOYOLA MARYMOUNT at Pepperdine (1 PT)
Several teams listed in the above 14 games are desperate for a big win – with those teams including the likes of Virginia, West Virginia, Colorado, San Diego and Auburn. Virginia (now 6-3-3) was a CNR top-10 team a couple weeks ago, before going 1-2-1 in its past four games (2-1 losses to N.C. State and Virginia Tech; 2-2 tie with Maryland) ... West Virginia (now 6-4-4) similarly was in the CNR top-15 but is 4-3-1 since winning at UVa in mid-Sept. During the past month, the Mountaineers (favored to win their BIG EAST division) have lost to Dartmouth (1-0), tied Pittsburgh (1-1), lost 2-1 vs. South Florida and come close to upsetting Notre Dame (led 2-1, but lost 3-2 in OT).
Colorado (7-7-0) also was a CNR top-20 squad early in the season, but the Buffs have managed only a 4-6-0 record in their past 10 games (including a 2-1 loss to then-unranked Oregon, a 2-1 defeat at Baylor, and Friday's 1-0 OT loss at Big 12 co-favorite Missouri). San Diego (6-4-2) tied UCLA early in the season but now finds itself on the verge of falling out of the CNR top-50. The Toreros could use an upset win over Santa Clara to help upset a 2-1 loss to Cal State Bakersfield and a scoreless tie at Long Beach State (USD had the chance to post big wins several times in recent weeks but ended up losing to the likes of Ohio State, Kansas and USC).
Finally, Auburn (5-5-3) survived a UNC onslaught for a scoreless tie on Sept. 20, but the Tigers are only 2-3-0 in their past five games (after being a CNR top-25 team earlier in the season) – including SEC losses to current top-tier teams Mississippi (3-2/2 OT), LSU (2-0) and South Carolina (1-0/OT).