Pretty nondescript weekend in college
football, eh? Thursday doesn't count
towards the weekend, lads. Yeah, the Big
East may have been decided, the Big Two
had minor scares, and some old guy got
mugged on the Penn State sideline. Oh,
wait. That was Joe Pa. My bad. But I
will say that had to be the most
unintentionally funny moment involving a
senior citizen and a collision since Bob
Dole lost his battle with gravity in
California in 1996.
Granted, it was nice to see a football player in Tennessee not named "Pac
Man" getting arrested for a bar fight, and it's always nice when Butch Davis is
suddenly not the guy who spent four years sucking his thumb in the fetal
position in Cleveland, but Week 10 still seemed like it was missing something.
And it wasn't Jean-Luc Picard.
I don't know. When you find it, let me know. In the meantime, here are a few
leftover thoughts from the World of College Football:
- Memo to Bob Ryan: Georgia isn't the only team in the South that plays
"between the hedges". Auburn comes to mind. The whole idea of his story was to
gather insight into why those Simple Southerners love college football. Instead,
he made himself look like and asshole. Good show.
- Florida managed to hold off a game Vanderbilt club, but they lost DT Marcus
Thomas for the rest of the year. Thomas, who was recently spotted with Puff The
Magic Dragon, is believed to have failed a drug test. What is this world coming
to when college kids are doing drugs?
- Memo to Chase Daniels: There are cameras on you. Lots of them. In fact,
ESPN is only slightly less intrusive than the National Security Agency and a
proctologist. For those of you that don't know, the Missouri quarterback was
caught on the Worldwide Leader picking his nose and eating it. Yup. It's as bad
as it sounds.
- Great weekend for the Bluegrass State. First, Louisville downed West
Virginia in an outstanding and exciting game on Thursday. Next, Kentucky stunned
staggering Georgia on Saturday. Good times, and I'm sure plenty of moonshine was
imbibed throughout the ordeal.
However, I'm still not sure that the best team won that WVU-Louisville game.
I'm not taking anything away from the Cards. They're an outstanding team. Truly
top-notch. But they were playing at home, befitted from six fumbles (three
recovered), and managed both a special teams and defensive touchdown. That stuff
is a little fluky to me.
I still hold to the claim that Louisville will not go undefeated. I said it
last week, and I'll say it again.
- It's a good thing LSU won that game because they got screwed - AGAIN - by
the officials. That ball CLEARLY touched a Tennessee blocker in the second
quarter even though replay upheld the ruling as a touchback. Instead of being up
14-0 and on the way to a blowout, they made me sweat out a stirring
fourth-quarter comeback.
Oh, and DT Glenn Dorsey is a friggin' man-imal.
- Weird, Notre Dame didn't cover again.
And if Brady Quinn wins the Heisman, I'll puke. I know that no one wants to
win the award this year, but there's no way he gets it over Mike Hart. And yes,
I know Troy Smith will win it, but my vote goes to Hart. That guy is carrying
the Wolverines.
- Do you think Iowa State missed Stevie Hicks? Note to self: always bet
against a team that just lost its senior leader and best offensive player.
- How about a round of applause for Buffalo. The Bulls shook off the fact
that they're in Upstate New York in November, and that 41-0 drubbing at B.C., to
hammer visiting Kent State 41-14 as 16-point dogs. It must seem like forever ago
that the Golden Flashes were the Cinderella team atop the MAC.
- Kudos to the Houston defense. All of the focus heading into their showdown
with Tulsa was on the Hurricane secondary against Kevin Kolb. But it was the
Cougars defense that really made the difference by holding Tulsa to a mere 10
points.
Along those same lines, you had to be impressed by San Jose State shutting
out New Mexico State in the second half on Saturday. Say what you will about how
bad the Aggies are, they were playing at home and were completely locked down by
a Spartans defense on a mission.
- So much for a letdown from Oregon State. Good go. They've been hopped up on
adrenaline, amphetamines and anger for two weeks now and absolutely destroyed
the utterly befuddled Arizona State squad. The Beavers are suddenly No. 24 in
the BCS rankings after their fourth straight win.
And poor Stanford. Can you imagine what it must've been like at those
practices last week? It must have felt something like Nagasaki on Aug. 10, right
after those U.S. warning leaflets rained down over them and one day before The
Rapture rained down over them.
- My hated rival, Bob Stoops, had another great weekend. No, the Sooners
didn't cover. But they did score their second straight impressive Big 10 road
win by topping Texas A&M. Stoops showed a lot of stones going for it on
fourth-and-1, from his own 29-yard line, with less than two minutes to go in a
one-point game. Maybe it's luck. Or maybe he's that good. I'll let you decide.
- Those are some huge stones that Stoops showed, but how about Houston's
Nutts? The Arkansas skipper also made a bold maneuver when he yanked golden boy
Mitch Mustain after one pass - ONE PASS - against South Carolina. Yes, that pass
was intercepted. But now Nutt has opened the Pandora's Box of a quarterback
controversy. Sophomore Casey Dick played well, and has been named the starter,
but this is a fine line that Nutt is walking. It's a gamble - and you know we
respect that around here.
