College Football

(Newser) - A Florida congressman asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to postpone certifying the election of Barack Obama and other business so the Florida and Oklahoma delegations can attend the Gators and Sooners BCS championship game tomorrow, AP reports. "Madam Speaker, kindly consider," Republican Cliff Stearns pleaded in a handwritten note. More »

(AP) - Utah is the best of the BCS busters, the AP reports. Brian Johnson threw for 336 yards and three touchdowns, and the No. 7 Utes upset fourth-ranked Alabama 31-17 in the Sugar Bowl on tonight to finish 13-0. With the victory, Utah became the first team from a non-BCS conference to win two BCS bowls. More »

(AP) - Ole Miss isn't just the team that handed Florida its only loss. These Rebels are seriously on the rise. Behind Jevan Snead's passing, Dexter McCluster's squirming runs, and some big returns by Marshay Green, No. 20 Mississippi overcame an early deficit and beat No. 7 Texas Tech 47-34 today in the final Cotton Bowl played in the stadium of the same name. More »

(Newser) - Yesterday’s hiring of Ron English by Eastern Michigan brings the total number of African-American head coaches in major college football to five—out of 119. That miniscule number underscores the barriers black coaches face, and, Michael Rosenberg writes for Fox Sports, the need for a black coach to dissolve those barriers by winning big, like Georgetown’s John Thompson did in college hoops. More »

(Newser) - The cultural disconnect between conservative college football programs and America’s liberalizing culture in the late 1960s and early ‘70s is the theme of War as They Knew It , a book by Detroit Free Press columnist Michael Rosenberg. The survey of the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry (which continues tomorrow) through the prism of their iconic coaches is “an absorbing account,” Jonathan Chait writes in the New York Times Book Review . More »

(Newser) - The 40th anniversary of a classic game in the football rivalry between Harvard and Yale has inspired a documentary, Mark Feeney writes in the Boston Globe . The contest is as notable for “its time-capsule aspect” and rising-star participants (future Oscar winner Tommy Lee Jones) as for the underdog Crimson's miraculous comeback, which occasioned the headline, and movie title, Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 . More »

(Newser) - Facing the possibility of a two-game losing streak to Navy, unthinkable for at least a half-century at Notre Dame, coach Charlie Weis has to pull a rabbit out of the hat tomorrow if he’s going to save his job, Jason Kelly writes in the South Bend Tribune . “Who out there thought it would come to this for Weis?” he asks. More »

(Newser) - Iowa shocked third-ranked Penn State with a last-second field goal, all but eliminating Joe Paterno's hopes for a third national title, the Des Moines Register reports. Backup kicker Daniel Murray booted a 31-yarder to defeat the Nittany Lions 24-23. Elsewhere, No. 1 Alabama needed overtime to beat LSU 27-21, giving coach Nick Saban an emotional win at his former school, the AP notes. No. 2 Texas Tech crushed Oklahoma State, 56-20. More »

(AP) - Graham Ha