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 ...

Michigan State 25, Wisconsin 24. I wrote about this game in its immediate aftermath Saturday, because Wisconsin dominated the trenches in classic Badger fashion -- they had two 100-yard rushers and outgained the Spartans 281 to 25 on the ground, six yards per carry to one -- and held a two-score lead for virtually the entire second half. The game should have been over with Wisconsin up 24-19, facing 3rd-and-1 from the MSU 25 with 2:39 to go; the clock runs out with a first down, and even if the Spartans managed a short-yardage stop, a field goal would put the Badgers up eight.

But necessity is the mother of invention, and needing to come up with a cruel, creative way to both miss the first down and take a field goal opportunity away, the Badgers came up with a holding call on John Clay's icing run inside the MSU 10-yard line, backing the offense to the edge of field goal range, then jumped offsides, forcing a fairly lousy punt after a short run on 3rd-and-16. From whence Brian Hoyer hit 20 and 32-yard passes to Blair White to set up Bret Swenson's fourth field goal of the afternoon, a game-winner from 44 yards out. The wisdom of Bret Bielema's timeout to give MSU's disorganized, timeout-less field goal team a chance to set on fourth down --

-- is debatable, to say the least, but Swenson made the kick, anyway. The back-to-back penalties on the other end (not to mention the busted coverages against White) were the difference. (For Mark Dantonio's sake, thank goodness the panicked Spartans didn't follow Pam Ward's advice to spike the ball.)

For all the "wasted" Badger yards that ended in zero points on the board, Wisconsin only had one other obviously blown opportunity for points before the late penalties, when it missed a field goal from inside the MSU 30 early in the third quarter. Though it surely didn't help that they punted from inside the Spartan 40 early in the fourth quarter, either, after taking over near midfield. Michigan State drove into or took over in Wisconsin territory six times, and scored on all six.

Arkansas 30, Tulsa 23. Arkansas led 17 just a few minutes into the game, having racked up almost 200 yards, a couple touchdowns and a field goal on its first three possessions. Tulsa's ridiculous offense took over from there: after punting on its first two drives, eight of the Hurricane's final ten possessions covered at least 40 yards, and only one ended in a punt. On one exceptions, TU only had 15 yards to go for a touchdown after an 80-yard kickoff return. So Arkansas didn't exactly shut them down.

By Tulsa's standards, though, 23 points is anemic, and the direct result of blown opportunity after blown opportunity, especially in the second half. How does a team gain 289 yards and only score three points? In the Hurricane's case, it was by blowing a 54-yard march with an interception; a 42-yard drive by failing on downs; settling for a field goal inside the Razorback 10 at the end of a 79-yard drive; punting on Arkansas' side on midfield following a 52-yard drive; and failing on the decisive fourth down after moving 73 yards to the Arkansas 7. Allowing a kickoff return for touchdown doesn't help, either, though it does save us from "Tulsa for BCS" chatter down the stretch.