Obsessing over the statistical anomalies and minutiae of close and closer-than-they-looked games that could have gone the other way. Be careful before you judge these games by the final score alone ...

North Carolina 28, Georgia Tech 7. One of the best signs that North Carolina is a better team -- a much, much better team, at 7-2 after winning a total of seven games in John Bunting's last year and Butch Davis' first -- is that the Tar Heels are owning the "margins" categories. They're not vastly improved over last year in any offensive or defensive category, but they are fourth in the nation in turnover margin, and they've won games against bowl-bound foes UConn, Miami, Notre Dame and now Georgia Tech despite being outgained in all of them. They're consistently blocking kicks, recovering fumbles, and generally doing things not-very-good teams need to do to defy the odds.

Saturday, the Heels benefitted both from their own opportunism and the Yellow Jackets' generosity. UNC only led 7-0 entering the fourth quarter, thanks to an opening touchdown drive in the first quarter and a series of Georgia Tech miscues: Turnover on downs, turnover on downs, missed field goal, field goal on consecutive drives ending in Carolina territory in the first half. Completely terrified of their kicking game, the Jackets also punted from the UNC 30 in the third quarter, for a net of 10 yards after a very predictable touchback.

You could say UNC's offense "came alive" from there, scoring on a subsequent 80-yard drive to go ahead 14-0, but it's hard to separate the Heels' success from the circumstances: Carolina added two quick touchdowns in the fourth following a Yellow Jacket fumble, and, after allowing an 85-yard run by Jonathan Dwyer, put the game away on a 39-yard "drive" following the subsequent onside kick.

Georgia Tech's yardage advantage can be explained away by Dwyer's big run and the futile 46 yards it picked up on a final, meaningless drive as the clock expired, but Tech was solid defensively most of the game and missed too many opportunities to keep an otherwise close game within striking distance.

Utah 13, TCU 10. The Horned Frogs had about as many yards (187) at the end of their first three drives as Utah had midway through the fourth quarter (193), and a 10-3 lead to match. But again, the kicking game and missed opportunities were the biggest difference in the Frogs' staying in BCS contention and booking a spot in the New Mexico Bowl.

In a span of five possessions in the second half, TCU had three golden opportunities to extend a four-point lead into a seven-point lead, and failed on all of them: First, by driving to the Utah 23, failing to complete a second down pass inside the Ute 10 when the wide-open receiver took great pains to come down out of bounds, then taking a sack on third down to turn a field goal attempt into a punt; then missing a chip shot 26-yard field goal; then missing a chip shot 35-yard field goal with three minutes to play, the first snap on its highlight reel of doom:

The Frogs picked up another 30 yards on a pair of completions in to Utah territory in the final minute before the final interception sealed it, Utah's second dramatic, last-second, comeback win at home on a Thursday night (the first was over Oregon State on Oct. 2) in a five-game span. Hey, you can't get to 10-0 without them.

Western Michigan 23, Illinois 17. I get the feeling Illinois fans will be surprised by the nearly identical "average starting position" line, because field position played a major role in the Broncos' upset. Though none of WMU's points qualified for the "Swing" category, it did start back-to-back touchdown drives at the Illini 39 and 40, respectively, following Juice Williams interceptions in the first half, and its only scoring drive of the second half, a short, 14-yard possession for a field goal, at the Illinois 41.

The Illini were also bit by field position late, when the Broncos downed a punt at the Illinois 1 with 1:57 to play in the fourth quarter, leaving Juice and Co. 99 yards from the tying/winning touchdown. One more yard on that punt, and the 54-yard pass Williams completed a few plays to A.J. Jenkins might have been the game-winner. Instead, Jenkins was brought down at the WMU 18, and four Juice incompletions later, the Broncos had a Big Ten win to their name for the second straight season (they beat Iowa in less dramatic fashion, 28-19, in '07).

This is the second time the Illini have wound up on the wrong side of this feature following a key red zone failure in a turnover-heavy loss -- the same script led to defeat against Minnesota last month -- and the second half implosion at Wisconsin generally falls at the feet of three Williams' interceptions in that game. Maybe Rashard Mendenhall made that much of a difference, but aside from his barn-burning efforts against Michigan and Indiana, Juice 2008 has looked more like Juice 2006 than Juice 2007 even hinted at down the stretch.