2000 Week 5
September 26, 2000
The college football season is roaring into high gear, with a lot of great conference action all over this great land.
I've always said that LSU is like Dracula, they do the most damage at night. So I was kind of stunned at how Nick Satan's boys laid down in the casket last Saturday, as if the game was played at sunrise and they were about to melt just like that Barnaby Jones Collins guy did on "The White Shadow".
It's no shame in LSU losing to a great program like Alabama. I was glad to see the Tide turn things around after their rough start, and there's nothing finer than winning a tight game in Baton Rouge, with the crowd all a-stirred and the mosquitoes swarming. Coach DuBose apparently offered to resign after the game, probably because he'll never have a finer victory.
Meanwhile, the tendency of SEC teams to play cupcake non-conference games continued as Arkansas won a nail-biter over Alabama-Birmingham. I didn't even know that UAB had a football team and here they are being dragged out to play the Hogs and the Hogs put together a pathetic, struggling victory.
Any coach who comes that close to losing to UAB (or, heaven forbid, actually losing) is probably going to be strung up above his campus. SEC coaches should be more like Nick Satan, you saw what LSU did to Western Kentucky in the opener. That's the way to treat a cupcake. Coach Satan will teach the SEC a lot about beating these weak non-conference foes.
I just hope Nick stops getting upset about all the press coverage that U-Louisiana Monroe gets. You know the rules, Nick, the "U of" school always gets more press than the "State U" school. If you wanted to get more press you should have taken that job at a "U of" school like Ohio U.
Meanwhile, Lou Holtz has turned the USC program around, with yet another sellout. If he'd done that in South Bend he might still be coaching there, instead of leaving that legacy of all those empty seats his last couple of years. I do wonder how Lou feels about coaching SC after all those years at Notre Dame, it must be weird to watch Mr. Ed running around that track and seeing that 300-pound Stevie Nicks hoisted up by a crane to sing "Tusc-aloosa" with the USC band.
The other interesting tale was the Godsey story on Thursday and Saturday, with losses resulting for both Georgia Tech and Notre Dame. I was kind of surprised to see a mid-season trade by these two schools, especially a trade of a starting quarterback. That poor Godsey kid was worn out, playing 2 games in 3 days, no wonder why he had trouble up in East Lansing.
Apparently this deal goes back a long time, to the "Rudy" story that was immortalized in the movie "Out of Africa". That's the one where Notre Dame's water boy ran onto the field and tripped some Georgia Tech player. Georgia Tech demanded compensation, so there was some sort of deal worked out where Georgia Tech got some money and Notre Dame got a player to be named later. Unfortunately for the Irish, they didn't specify when later was, so it took over 20 years before Georgia Tech shipped Godsey to Notre Dame.
The Godsey trade wasn't the first trade of a major player between two colleges. One of the most famous attempted trades involved two traditional powers that are now in the Big East conference, Maryland and Syracuse. The Twerps were looking for a power running back and Syracuse, being loaded at that position, was willing to trade.
So Maryland proposed a swap for Orangeman fullback Larry Csonka, while sending a couple of reserve defensive linemen and a used bus to Syracuse. Syracuse turned down this deal; they apparently wanted a number of sheep from the Maryland agricultural research station, because Syracuse said their football team "had some holes to fill". Maryland activists from the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals, knowing of some of the bizarre research methods used by Syracuse scientists, baaalked at the deal and it fell through.
Nowadays trades are limited to actual players. No inanimate objects or cute little lambs are allowed to be traded, which has led to a lot of long-term frustration on the Syracuse campus.