2000 Week 12
November 21, 2000
I apologize for not sharing my thoughts with you last week, but I was very busy and unable to meet my deadline (more on that later). I thought about just hiring a secretary and having her take notes while I rambled on about football for a while, but then I realized that wouldn't be much different from what I do on ESPN every Saturday.
I did greatly enjoy what we at ESPN call "Rivalry Weekend" last Saturday. A lot of important rivalry games were played, such as Alabama/Auburn, Yale/Harvard, USC/UCLA, and Notre Dame/Rutgers. That latter game sure gets exciting some years, I remember one time when Rutgers actually was within 10 points in the fourth quarter.
The Michigan/Ohio State game was memorable too, because the Buckeyes put on one of the wilder post-game riots I've ever seen, with 130 fires and dozens of arrests. I just don't understand this trend in the Big 10 toward rioting after defeats. It didn't bother me in the past, because it was riots after defeats for Michigan, Purdue, and Michigan State in that wussy sport of basketball.
Now it's spreading to football and that concerns me. You'd think that OSU fans would react better to a loss to Michigan, they should be about as used to losing to Michigan as I am to my bimonthly colonoscopy. Although losing to Michigan probably doesn't feel as good.
But the best of the rivalry games was the Clemson vs. South Carolina thriller, which was won by Clemson 16-14 on a last-second field goal. In spite of the bitter defeat, South Carolina has gone from 0-11 to 7-4 this year. Coach Holtz has achieved a turnaround that almost matches what he accomplished at Minnesota State.
Let's hope when they make the TV show this time the moguls hire someone who looks more like Lou than that Greg Nelson fella. I have the perfect candidate, Irene Ryan, but unfortunately she's dead. Those TV folks can do some miracles with makeup (they manage to hide at least 5 of my chins), but making Granny's corpse into Lou Holtz might be too much even for them.
But the Clemson/South Carolina game was merely a brief interlude to my truly important work of the past couple of weeks. You see, due to my reputation for being totally unbiased, at least as long as the issue doesn't involve JoePa, I was called in to help out in the current controversy in Florida.
The eyes of the nation have been focused on the Sunshine State for some time now, as the two major candidates have traded charges and accusations while see-sawing back and forth in one of the closest races we've ever seen. I've seen advocates for both sides getting into nasty arguments, whether up in Tallahassee or along the south coast in Miami.
Some insist that we need to have a new contest, or at least we need to recount to determine the correct totals. Some claim that the use of machines to determine the winner is ridiculous. Others point out that there already was a head-to-head result that was noted across the nation and one side came out ahead, so shouldn't that be used to determine who truly is more worthy.
I'm speaking, of course, of the greatest controversy to hit Florida in modern times: the fact that Florida State surpassed the University of Miami in the recently-released BS rankings.
Hoo-doggie, you'd think the second Civil War had broken out here in Florida, the way the two sides are going at it. There are even Miami people threatening to go out and take a sledgehammer to the TRS-80 computer used to generate the BS rankings.
FSU people are stating that the FSU/Miami game result was faulty because FSU quarterback Chris Weinke was too old and confused to read Miami's defenses properly. FSU is arguing for another chance for Weinke to throw his passes against a more understandable Miami defense, in the hopes that this will reverse the result of the Miami game and render the whole issue moot.
Ever since the announcement came out last night on "Monday Night Football" that FSU had slipped ahead of Miami the newscasts down here have been talking about nothing else. They've got all the people standing around on the streets of Tallahassee and Miami, interviewing people and so on. It's been one hell of a mess and those of us involved in recounting the computer rankings haven't had a moment's rest.
Those of you who think this recount is an easy process should try doing it sometime. Just going through all the machinations to determine whether the Sagarin rankings are accurate is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. It's an ugly process with a lot of arbitrary issues involved.
Did you know that Sagarin actually uses data on cheerleader hip to waist ratios in his ratings? We had to go out to all the top 25 schools, line up their young vivacious cheerleaders, and make the measurements ourselves. It was sheer torture, I could have been back in my hotel room mixing up another mint julep and here I was running my hands over the rear end of some 20-year-old named "Kandi". I hate this job sometimes.
When I finally did escape the clutches of the evil Kandi, I stopped by a local tavern for a quick drink or six, and saw further coverage of the Florida crisis.
This time all the networks could talk about was a "pregnant Chad" and how that would affect things. That seemed pretty confusing to me, but when I got back to my room I looked at my FSU/UF game program, and saw that FSU has a reserve fullback (#39) named Chad Maeder.
I guess some people are claiming Chad is pregnant, which would mean Chad is a she, which I guess isn't allowed anymore since that Duke lawsuit. And if that's the case, FSU would probably have to forfeit some of their victories.
So my conclusion, which I want to share with you fans, is that if the pregnant Chad is considered and verified, FSU will lose out and Miami will get the slot in the BS.
See Beeno's 2000 Bowel Preview