November 21, 1999

This part of the season features all the great rivalries that make college football so special. I especially enjoy the really bitter games, like Alabama/Auburn, Michigan/Ohio State, Yale/Harvard, Florida/Florida State, and Notre Dame/Boston College.

I really think the Irish have a valid complaint about the bigotry of the officials in Saturday's game. There looked to be a couple of key missed calls. Catholic schools like Notre Dame sometimes have difficulty getting their fair share of close calls when the officials are anti-Catholic and end up favoring opponents like Boston College.

I must take back my prediction that Penn State would win the national title. After this week's loss to Nick Satan's Michigan State Chippewas, it's beginning to look like the Nittany Lions might not get a bid to the Sugar Bowl. And that new kid at Michigan State, Tico J. Duckett, wow. I haven't seen a load like that since the last time I mixed Kaopectate and Ex-Lax. I predict he'll win at least two Heisman Trophies, as well as at least one "Superstars" refrigerator race.

In other action, I enjoyed watching Visor Boy get drowned at the Swamp. I couldn't quite figure out what he was doing, shuffling those quarterbacks in and out of the game.

We've seen a lot of publicity about two-quarterback systems this year, with teams like Florida, Ohio State, Michigan, and Penn State trying the approach. Some think it's a good idea, others (like me) think it's about as wise as a rousing game of "I dare you to touch the third rail". I think history is on my side, but, as a wise man once said, "history shows that mankind learns nothing in history class, especially when they're talking about the Poly-polynesian War".

Back in the early 1950's, when the single wing started becoming passe, the University of Western Virginia was one of many teams to shift back to the T formation. But they still wanted to keep some of the unpredictability of that wacky single wing, so they tried something a little different.

Western Virginia would try a primitive version of the "I" formation. They'd have one flanker out on the side, one tailback, and then would line up two guys at quarterback, one right behind the other one.

Both of them would stick their hands under the center. The guy with the longer arms was put in back, and he reached under the first quarterback as well as under the center, while the guy with the shorter arms was in front and he'd just line up like a regular T formation quarterback.

The center could snap the ball to either player, and both would act like they had the ball, and so the fakery began right with the snap, rather than on the handoffs, the way it did in the wing-T that was so popular at the time.

Western Virginia had some success with this formation, it often fooled opponents and they'd be chasing one QB after he faked and rolled left, while the other QB would then hand the ball off on a draw play to the tailback, who would romp for a 30-yard gain.

But then came the infamous day known in Morgantown as "Bloody Saturday". The Moutain Men were facing their cross-state archrivals, the Virginia Hokies. The fans were all in the stands, drinking their moonshine and squealing like pigs. And the Western Virginia fans were even rowdier than that.

Late in the fourth quarter, with UVA holding a narrow 4-point lead, the Mountain Men began a desperation drive that soon crossed midfield. The center prepared for the next snap, which was to go to "front" quarterback Willis Tom Peter, while the "rear" quarterback, Adam West (future actor and basketball star Jerry's brother) would fake dropping back to throw the ball.

Unfortunately, there was a mishandling of the snap, which can happen in those center-QB exchanges, even today. Adam thought he was supposed to get the snap and reached under and, as soon as the snap was mishandled by Willis, Adam bent over to get the ball, the center stepped back to block, and the combination of the center's feet and Adam's hands tripped both legs of Willis, and he fell and the tragedy ensued.

Many of you have seen the famous medical journal article with a list of things found at the lower end of various folks' digestive tracts, such as tool boxes, hammers, rodents, knives, and broken light bulbs. I know I've tried many of these myself.

But you may not have noticed footnote #201, which mentions the one time a pigskin was so lodged. As Adam West's best friend on the team, Burt Ward, cried out, "Holy anal insertion, Batman!"

Due to the tragic demise of Willis Tom Peter, the NCAA banned the "one QB lined up behind the other one" system, and Western Virginia had to go back to a more normal offensive set, and few teams have tried a two-QB system since then.

Hope you enjoy stuffing your Thanksgiving turkey.

See next Beeno post