Another unbeaten team falls in Ohio

They’re going to be talking about the game for quite some time in Ohio.

It’s the one that knocked a previously unbeaten conference rival out of the national championship hunt.

No, not that game.

Cincinnati stunned previously unbeaten Rutgers, 30-11, sending the No. 7 Scarlet Knights tumbling out of the national title race on the same day, and in the same state, that Ohio State was pulling a similar trick on Michigan.

Only a month ago, the Big East had three unbeaten teams -- Rutgers, West Virginia and Louisville -- and conference supporters were dreaming of a Big East representative in the national title game.

Now, Big East naysayers are grinning ear to ear as all three have lost and none is in the national title chase.

“It seems like it’s happened to every team in the Big East,” Rutgers fullback Brian Leonard said. “It happened to West Virginia, it happened to Louisville, and now it’s happened to us. We know we won’t make the national championship, but we can still win the Big East.”

Rutgers was playing as a top 10 team for the first time in its 137-year history, the Scarlet Knights gave by far their worst performance of the season.

Ray Rice, the nation’s third-leading rusher, had 54 yards in 18 carries and four of Mike Teel’s passes were intercepted.

“It’s so hard to be at your best each week, and we weren’t at our best tonight,” Rutgers Coach Greg Schiano said.

Big-time celebration

Boise State clinched at least a share of the Western Athletic Conference title with a 49-10 victory over Utah State that left it as one of only two undefeated Division I-A teams.

The Broncos (11-0) are in position to become the second team from a non-BCS conference to automatically qualify for a big-money bowl game.

They were apparently caught up in the moment Saturday, getting penalized twice for excessive celebrations during the game.

Hey, it’s not as if they know how to act because they’ve been there before.

“I know where they’re coming from,” Boise State Coach Chris Petersen said. “All the blood and sweat that have come on that turf, they think ‘I’m going to do something I’m not supposed to do.’ ”

Seeing green

Notre Dame normally saves its green jerseys for highly ranked opponents, but the Fighting Irish donned them Saturday for their 41-9 victory over unranked Army.

The reason? Coach Charlie Weis’ 13-year-old son suggested it.

The victory was Notre Dame’s eighth in a row entering Saturday’s showdown at USC, where a win would give Notre Dame a chance of playing Ohio State in the BCS national title game on Jan. 8.

It also ended a four-game losing streak for the green jerseys. The Irish lost, 34-31, to USC last October; 14-7 to Boston College in 2002; 35-28 to Georgia Tech in the 1999 Gator Bowl; and 41-24 to Colorado in the 1995 Fiesta Bowl.

Notre Dame’s last victory in green had been in 1985, when it came out in the first half wearing blue against USC and at halftime switched to green in a 37-3 victory.

Nervous Nellie

Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt said his team’s game against Mississippi State had him worried, even though the fifth-ranked Razorbacks were favored by more than two touchdowns over the last-place Bulldogs.

Arkansas won, 28-14, and clinched the Southeastern Conference Western Division title and a spot in the conference championship game against Florida Dec. 2 in Atlanta.

“This was the most important one,” Nutt said of a game many thought might be overlooked with No. 9 Louisiana State next up.

“Everybody was talking about the BCS, about Atlanta, about all these other things. This is why coaches get gray hair. This is why you get nervous -- Mississippi State.”

Arkansas has won 10 consecutive games since a season-opening 50-14 loss to USC. It is the team’s longest winning streak since 1988.

One for the thumb

Auburn’s 22-15 victory over Alabama in the annual “Iron Bowl” was its fifth straight in the in-state rivalry game, the first time the Tigers have had such a winning span since 1958, Paul “Bear” Bryant’s first year with the Crimson Tide.

Running back Kenny Irons had 85 yards rushing and a touchdown and his brother, David, had an interception that secured the victory with 1 minute 17 seconds to play.

It was only fitting, David Irons said, that the brothers would play a significant role in this game.

“My last name is Irons,” he noted, “and this is the Iron Bowl.”

Winless woes

Duke extended its nation’s longest losing streak to 19 with a 49-21 loss to No. 18 Georgia Tech. The Blue Devils, who have lost 23 consecutive Atlantic Coast Conference games and 29 straight conference road games, must beat North Carolina next week to avoid their first winless season since 2001.

Quotable

Tennessee receiver Robert Meachem remembered how Vanderbilt commemorated its victory over the Volunteers last season -- their first since 1982 -- with a special DVD.

The No. 22 Volunteers used that as motivation to beat the Commodores, 39-10.

“They made videos about us last year,” Meachem said. “That stuck in our mind. They beat other teams, but the only video they made was us.

“We’re not going to make any videos.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

peter.yoon@latimes.com