Pete Thamel is the national college sports reporter for The Times, where his primary responsibilities are college football and basketball. He is in his sixth season with The Times, witnessing everything from the Bush Push at Notre Dame to Ian Johnson's sideline engagement at the Fiesta Bowl to Mario Chalmers's long 3-pointer to give Kansas the national championship. Before joining The Times, Thamel covered college sports for ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine, The Syracuse Post-Standard and The Daily Orange. A native of Ware, Mass., Thamel graduated from Syracuse University in 1999.
Connor Ennis has been a staff editor in the sports department of The New York Times since November 2006. Before coming to the Times, he worked for The Associated Press, where he was a supervising editor on the national sports desk in New York. While with the AP, he covered the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, and the 2006 World Cup in Germany. A native of Dallas, Pa., he graduated from Syracuse University in 2000.
Ray Glier is a freelance reporter who, in addition to The New York Times, contributes to USA Today, AOL FanHouse, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Miami Herald and Unboundary, a strategy/communications firm based in Atlanta. Glier is a graduate of West Virginia University.View the original article here
The Stanford Cardinal currently sit at No. 4 in the BCS standings and at No. 5 in both of the human polls. They boast an 11 and 1 record, with their only loss coming on the road against top ranked Oregon. From a football standpoint, it seems as if the Cardinal would be a shoe-in for a BCS bowl game as the top four teams in the BCS standings are guaranteed a birth in a BCS bowl. Stanford's position is solidified by the fact that they, and No. 5 Wisconsin, have finished their regular season schedules. It would be very difficult to justify Wisconsin jumping Stanford without either team playing a game this week. It wouldn't even benefit Wisconsin, with the Badgers currently set to play in the Rose Bowl as the winners of the Big Ten tiebreaker. It just wouldn't make sense for Wisconsin to jump Stanford in the final rankings...unt read more 
The Auburn Tigers are poised to reach the BCS National Championship game against Oregon if they can get through South Carolina in the SEC title game and if the Ducks can survive the Civil War in Corvallis. The undefeated Tigers have managed to survive their brutal SEC schedule undaunted and look to become the fifth SEC team in a row to win the national championship. Their strength of schedule should almost guarantee a victory for Auburn in the national championship game, right? I don't think so. Even if they can survive a tough threat in the South Carolina Game Cocks, they will be in for the fight of their lives against Oregon in the title game. The Ducks will bring an offense that puts up an average of 50 read more 
1) SEC 2) Pac 10 3) Big Ten 4) Big 12 5) Mountain West 6) ACC 7) WAC 8) Big East It's really hard to argue against the SEC's dominance this year. The other conferences don't even compare right now. It's just too strong as it currently boasts six top 25 teams. The very top-heavy Pac 10 comes in at the number two spot as it is also extremely competitive claiming the nation's best team in Oregon. The Big Ten takes third with it's three one-loss teams at the top of the standings. After that, the Big 12, Mountain West, and ACC read more 
TCU officially accepted the Big East's invitation to join the conference in 2012 today. This will have a major impact on college football as a whole. While the move solidifies the Big East's AQ status with the BCS and allows TCU the chance to dominate in an AQ conference, it also crushes Boise State's dreams of playing in a respected league. The Mountain West had a solid chance of receiving an automatic BCS bid with TCU and Boise but the new outlook looks bleak for the conference now that TCU has jumped ship. This move almost guarantees that Boise State will always be considered a second-rate team amongst college football elites. With TCU gone, the Mountain West is nothing but a glorified WAC. This was not what Boise expe read more 
The tale of a mother who poses as her son's estranged father in letters, yet eventually has to enlist a stranger to play the role, director Shona Auerbach's intimate indie became a film festival perennial. Given the movie's tearjerker tendencies, its musical score becomes an even more crucial component of its deft, if relatively non-manipulative dramaturgy. Young composer Alex Heffes more than rises to the occasion, providing a delicate score fueled by spare, elegant piano and emotionally-longing string arrangements. Heffes work here mines the same intimately scaled, soulfully resonant vein as Rachel Portman's Oscar-nominated music for Lasse Hallstrom's Ciderhouse Rules and Chocolat, a skillful musical tack that's openly emotional, yet seldom cloying. The contributions of modern rockers Clarksville (the buoyant "Everyone Will Have Their Day" and more intimate ballad "Reprise") and singer-songwriters Obi and Jesse Harris organically mesh with Heffes' score in a way that's all to rare in an era where pop songs often contribute little more than marketing shuck to film projects. --Jerry McCulley