1999 Week 9
November 3, 1999
Last weekend wasn't quite up to the usual standards for college football. There were just too darn many lousy games out there. If I have to watch one more pathetic Pac-10 blowout I'm going to start using my satellite dish as a salad bowl. What in the (Sun) devil is wrong with that league anyway? I'd suggest sending someone else to the Rose Bowl and sending the PAC-10 champ to Detroit to play the MAC champion in the Motor City Bowl. Except Marshall would probably hang 40 on them like everyone else does.
In other action, Floyd Carr tried that patented U-M Hail Mary 3-man rush defense against Indiana and their star QB Antoine L. Randall (anyone know if Antoine is Tony Randall's son? I bet Oscar is jealous, he covers all the sports and his prissy roommate fathers the star athlete). I thought Coach Carr would have learned from that Colorado game 5 years ago and not bother rushing the QB and put 11 guys back in coverage.
Notre Dame's long winning streak against Navy came within an inch of ending. Within an inch of ending? Sounds like that radio guy Isaac Stern's marital problems. The Irish got the win though, plopping themselves right back in the top 25 and just in time for their trip to Knoxville to play the Tennessee Vols. If they'd joined the Big Ten the Irish could have avoided Tennessee and play a nice weak sister like Iowa or Ohio State.
Besides, the Big Ten still has massive scheduling problems and needs a 12th team. I just figured out last week that with 11 teams the Big Ten can't all play conference games the same weekend.
That means that every weekend at least one Big Ten team has the weekend off. Last weekend it was Nick Satan's Michigan State squad, who got the weekend off in honor of Coach Satan's darkest holy day (which also happens to be his birthday), Halloween. I wonder what odd rituals were going on in East Lansing that weekend and whether they took advantage of Kroger's sale on male virgins ready for sacrifice.
The idea of having a weekend off during the football season actually started back in the 1930's at Cal-Berkley. The Golden Bears were always pretty worn out after a rough September, so the coaches started to make sure that the first weekend in October was free, so their players could take their minds off football for a while.
On the free weekend, the team took the ferry across the bay to downtown San Francisco what became known as the annual team "outing". The guys on the team visited the many interesting shops, Fisherman's Wharf, then would end their day with a gala dinner and drinks at the Pogo Stick bar. While there they'd meet many lovely young ladies and commence to have a wonderful time.
It was only later in the evening, when enough drinks had flowed, that the players learned that many of the ladies actually possessed wicket sets. And I don't the ones you use to play croquet with (though some had some pretty creative uses for those mallets).
Due to the gender confusion that was created among the Cal team, the off weekend acquired its own special nickname. And that's why, even today, when a team doesn't have a game on a given weekend, it's known as the "bi" week.