Rugby, turkey and other foot and ball based sports

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving I know I did. This year was so much better than last year simply because I got to spend it in the company of my friends here in Georgia. My toast was, “When you can’t be with your family, friends are the next best thing.” I went a couple of towns over and spent a great evening with 4 other volunteers and had some good food and tequila! Yes, tequila. It was great, but like every tequila night, I ended up with a black eye. Not a big deal, but let’s just say it was entertaining.

So this week is Rivalry Week in college football and you know I can’t keep my two cents out of that. But, on Saturday the U.S. National Rugby Team (#15 in the world) came to Georgia to play the 16th ranked Georgian squad. A friend of mine got us tickets and so we went into a hostile stadium to cheer on the boys in blue. By the time we got in and sat down the US was down 6-0. Not a problem, they ended up taking a 17-12 second half lead into the final minute of the game. Then, on some kind of fumble and miscue, the Georgians were able to pick it up and score to win 19-17. The place went nuts! It was a really cool game and it was fun to watch. The US team missed four kicks though and it got me wondering, with a nation full of High School kickers, we couldn’t find one that could make a 25 yard field goal? Really?

One of my favorite parts was the translation from the female announcer. Whenever Georgia took the lead she was all excited and upbeat in her announcements. Whenever America went up she just sounded all dead pan and depressed. You’ll notice in the videos below.

Anyway, on to the real foot and ball based sport. College Football’s Rivalry Week! I’m not even going to break it down by games of the week, just show you some scores that I enjoyed.

#2 Auburn over #11 Alabama 28-27
Wow. Alabama was up big early and then Cam Newton despite all the controversy came back and played one hell of a game. But the real story was the often questioned Auburn defense that just shut down Alabama in the second half. What a game. Auburn should be able to cruse next week against South Carolina in the SEC Championship and right into the National Title Game.

#19 Nevada upsets #4 Boise State 34-31 in Overtime
Ahhh. BSU had to play a decent opponent on the road and lost. Anyone surprised by this? Not me. Now, there is no way they should have lost this game and I’m pretty sure their kicker will never be able to live safely in the state of Idaho, but no big loss there in my opinion. Missing two kicks that were virtual chip shots at the end of the game to lose it is bad bad bad. No BCS Bowl for you Boise State. Better luck next year.

Who loves the Boise State loss more? #7 Wisconsin who blew out Northwestern 70-23; #8 Ohio State who beat Michigan 37-7 or maybe #10 Michigan State who beat Penn State 28-22. Certainly not #9 Oklahoma State who lost to #13 Oklahoma 47-41. And Definitely not #5 LSU who got tripped up by #12 Arkansas 31-23.

The point I’m trying to make here is that with the #4 team dropping out the Big-10 has a huge play at grabbing 2 BCS spots. The Big-12 is on the outside looking in and the SEC now only has one major contender since LSU isn’t headed to a BCS Bowl this year. Good for #3 TCU though who beat New Mexico 66-17 and should be headed to a major BCS spot.

Other great rivalries that I think deserve a mention here are:
#16 Virginia Tech over Virginia 37-7 gaining their 10th straight win in the rivalry.
#17 Texas A&M over Texas 24-17. Normally I don’t care about this game because Texas normally wins, but this is their first losing season since 1997. Wow.
#18 South Carolina over Clemson 29-7. Thank God. Clemson fans suck and are so obnoxious and I’d rather hear the redneck fans of USC have bragging rights over the redneck fans of Clemson.
#20 Utah over BYU 17-16. Ahhh Mormons.
#22 Florida State over Florida 31-7. YES! Man I hate Florida and with the win FSU gets to go play for the ACC Championship.
Notre Dame over USC 20-16. It’s the Irish’s first win in the series since 2001 and USC can’t go to a bowl game due to their cheating past.
Georgia over Georgia Tech 42-34. Glory! Glory! to ol’ Georgia! I never thought they’d make bowl eligibility this year after they way they started but low and behold a win over hated GT and we’re in.

Oh football. I love you.
Peace everybody!