OU Who? and the BCS. It's Week 8

World Series World Series World Series! Sorry, but it’s better than any of the other Fall holidays. Forget Spring Break, it’s the Fall Classic that should get kids out of school. Well, at least me anyway. I’ve been downloading and watching as you’ll see later in this post.

But, you didn’t come here to hear me ramble about baseball you’re here for our beloved College Football. And what a week it was; oh, we’ve got games to discuss this week fans. The BCS is back and now we can debate who had what kind of win and how computers will score it. Say what you want, it’s the system we have.

But before I get on with that there are two other items that I need to let you in on. My College has, after 100+ years, decided to start a football program in D-III by 2013. Not only will this tarnish our undefeated record (never played, never lost) it will give the students something to do on Saturday. Everybody knows that Saturdays at Berry are for either going home, or spending all day catching up on all the work you didn’t do during the week. Not watching football on campus! But seriously, I am happy for them and I hope they do well. Maybe they can make an appearance in our Pillow Fight of the Week in a few years.

Second, I would be a bad person if I didn’t use some space here to say Happy Birthday to my most loyal reader, my Mom. Happy Birthday Mom!

Anyway, let’s flip a coin, choose sides and get on with this week…

GAMES OF THE WEEK:
#16 Michigan State over #6 Wisconsin 37-31
What a game! Anytime two top 25 teams play and the game ends on a Hail Mary, it’s going to be the top game of the week. Awesome. We learned this past Sunday that the computers hate Wisconsin and we learned on Saturday that now it really doesn’t matter. The Badgers took a 14-0 lead early and it looked as if that offense was going to roll over MSU. But, the second quarter belonged to Sparta and Michigan State ended up taking a 23-14 lead into halftime thanks to a safety and a blocked punt in the end zone for a score. With a 1:26 left in the game Wisconsin finally tied it back up with two good drives. But, it all came down to a wing and prayer! I don’t think I would do it justice to describe it to you so you’ll have to go look it up on the highlights, but that was an awesome pass that bounced around and had to go to replay to be confirmed (or overturned as was the case here). They guy was called down short and I can’t say that I saw enough to overturn the call, but I could understand them doing so. If MSU can get by Nebraska next week they can cruise to the finish line and if it weren’t for that Notre Dame game we’d be talking about them fighting for a National Championship.

Texas Tech UPSETS #3 Oklahoma 41-38
The Sooners may have blown by the Red River Rivalry but they just got ROCKED by the Red Raiders! “OOOOOOO-klahoma where the winds come sweeping down the plains, and the football defeat, sure smells sweet, when standings come out on Sundaaaay!” (Sorry, that was uncalled for and my musical references will stop from here on out). But seriously, how did Oklahoma let this one sneak up on them? They looked awful in the first half! Texas Tech was up 24-7 at half and 31-7 early in the 3rd. However, from about half way through the 3rd to the end Oklahoma outscored TT 31-10. A tale of two halves football fans. The only problem is, Oklahoma can’t afford to play that way this or any other year when they’re sitting in the Top 5 and just waiting on November 5th for either LSU or Alabama to knock the other out of title contention. It was there! All you had to do was take it! Tommy Tuberville (TT coach) tried to give it to Oklahoma with some suspect calls in the second half, as is his style, but even he couldn’t save Oklahoma’s 39 game home winning streak.
I’m thinking this game is going to be with the Oklahoma program for a while and may even come back to bite them later in the year. (See: Next week at still undefeated K-State, Nov. 5 vs. Texas A&M and oh yeah, December 3rd AT Oklahoma State.)

Honorable Mentions go to:
#9 Arkansas clawing back to beat Ol’ Miss 29-24
Purdue pretty much knocking #23 Illinois out of this and any conversation with a 21-14 win.

UPSETS OF THE WEEK:
Unranked Syracuse over #15 West Virginia 49-23
Um, yeah the score is not indicative of the beat down that Syracuse put on West Virginia. Up 35-16 Syracuse called a halfback pass in before going into the end zone 2 plays later. The Orangemen’s defense put all kinds of pressure on the W. Virginia QB and never allowed them to run the ball. Syracuse may have made a huge step with this win and I’m by no means getting on the Orange bandwagon (even though they did win 8 games last year), but they played a physical game and made a statement this week. On the flip side of this, the West Virginia loss is really bad for the BigEast. The Mountaineers were the conference’s only top 25 team and their biggest game before this was a loss to LSU where they “played well.” And this conference STILL gets an automatic BCS bid.

Unranked Miami over #22 Georgia Tech 24-7
Can people please stop talking about the triple option like it’s something special? Two weeks in a row now GT has been stuffed by sub-par ACC opponents. If you want to stop the option, attack the backfield. Don’t let them get to or past the line of scrimmage. Play a 4-4 and call it a day. Right Miami and Virginia? Oh and bad news Tech fans, next week you’re going to get your asses kicked by Clemson then you get Virginia Tech. Guess it’s a good thing you racked up all those stats and got bowl eligible off of those studs at Western Carolina, Middle Tennessee, North Carolina, NC State, Kansas and Maryland. God I hate Georgia Tech!

PILLOW FIGHT OF THE WEEK:
Northern Illinois (5-3) Survives Buffalo (2-6) 31-30
The MAC is back!… in our Pillow Fight of the Week. Up 31-10 going into the 4th quarter NIU must have popped the champagne a little early and forgotten that a football game is 4 quarters not 3. Dozens of people were in the stands to see this comeback and it would have been amazing if it weren’t for the Bulls kicker MISSING the extra point to tie it with 14 seconds left. There was no pressure, there was no wind, that guy just shanked it. Ouch.

BEAT DOWN OF THE WEEK:
#10 Oregon over Colorado 45-2
I just like that Colorado’s one highlight was tackling the punter in the end zone for a safety in the third quarter. The only story from this game is that Oregon has depth. They were without their starting QB and RB and still put up 29 points in the first quarter. Colorado on the other hand has so many injuries everywhere I think the male cheerleaders may be on the O-line next week. Oregon now sits at 6-1 (again another LSU victim) and has a chance, unlike Auburn, to make a run. However, they’ll need to get by Washington and Stanford (both games on the road) and get healthy again if they want to make a push for the BCS title.

BIGGEST LOSER: (Soap Box Edition)
Sorry but I’m going to have to step away from college football for a minute and give this week’s biggest loser award to Tim McCarver and the FOX broadcast of the World Series. Now, I get that you want to appeal to the lowest common denominator when you broadcast a sporting event so that everybody can “understand” what’s going on. You want to throw in some humor and human interest from time to time just to spice some stuff up and I get that baseball occasionally needs some spicing up while a pitcher stalks around the mound or we’re waiting on the next batter.
HOWEVER, people who watch the World Series fall into two categories: those who are fans of the teams that are in the Series or, like me, are just avid fans of baseball. Passive fans and those who either don’t like or don’t understand baseball don’t watch the World Series. So, FOX, understand this and tell Tim McCarver to shut the hell up! He has to be one of the worst color men of all times. I can put up with Joe Buck’s smug attitude but I cannot abide McCarver. This guy is the MASTER of the obvious and more likely than not is seconds away from saying something that is just plain dumb. McCarver is that little annoying kid you always just wanted to punch in the mouth every time he said something because it was either about as useful as tits on a nun, or just plain stupid.
FOX should be required to have a crawler at the bottom of the screen that reads “FOX broadcasting and its subsidiaries do not endorse or condone the words spoken by Tim McCarver and accept no responsibility for a loss of IQ suffered by those who listen to him.” Prime example: Game One: "It's a five letter word: S-T-R-I-K-E" –McCarver in the 5th. Dumbass!
Check out some of these nuggets of wisdom from Game Two:
- “There are more right handed pitchers in the game than left handers… so moms don’t let you babies grow up to be righties.” Really Tim? Not only is your cultural reference about 30 years behind your average viewer, you just made a factual statement that EVERY red-blooded American over the age of 6 knows. Where is the guy sitting at home asking his friend, ‘Really Bob? There are more right handed pitchers?’
- “When a batter is facing a pitcher for the first time, usually the advantage goes to the pitcher.” Again, who doesn’t know this? And, why he felt the need to over stress the word ‘usually’ I’ll never know.
There were a few more but I seriously think my brain just rejected them and now I can’t remember. But this guy has made a living of mispronouncing multi-syllable words and just saying things that are just plain stupid. Tim McCarever… SHUT UP!!!