2000 Week 9
October 24, 2000
We had another action-packed weekend last week. I really enjoy being able to watch all the games, it's not like the old days when there was only one game televised every weekend.
The commercial breaks back then were awful. First you'd have to get up and stagger to the TV to turn the channel (they didn't have remote control), then you'd change channels and all you'd see was Curt Gowdy on "American Sportsman", chasing some rabbit in the woods.
Now I used to hang out with Curt, and he couldn't chase a rabbit, heck, he'd have trouble chasing a drunken turtle.
I know this for a fact because one time we fed a turtle a gin and tonic and set Curt out chasing after him. Curt tripped and fell flat on his face and passed out, and his toupee went flying. The wig crossed the finish line before the turtle did, so Curt actually won the race. We called it "The Tortoise and the Hair".
We saw another great overtime classic this last weekend, with Purdue knocking off Wisconsin. I'm finally getting the hang of this OT thing. Wisconsin tried a 57-yard FG in overtime, because the longest kick wins, so they backed themselves up 15 yards to try it (they must have had a lot of confidence in their kicker).
The Badgers' confidence was misplaced because Purdue blocked the kick and ran it back for a TD. Apparently this was a sudden death game, because even though Purdue scored, Wisconsin didn't get a chance to tie it up. I listened to Corso afterward to find out why that happened, but he started mumbling about Dru Breeze's porn films, so I turned it off.
Speaking of games on TV, I've noticed that some schools have made it much easier to spot whether someone has made a first down. They put a yellow line across the field at the first down marker, so the crowd and the TV audience (if the game is televised) can see for themselves how close a team is to the first down.
I saw this in several games over the weekend. A team would have a first and ten and the camera would pan back to show the defense, and you could see a brand new yellow line 10 yards up the field.
At first I thought they painted this line, but then I realized it would take much too long, and would take forever to remove the old painted lines. They must actually use some really wide yellow electrical tape, then they stretch it out over the field. That takes some time, so that's probably why they stop the clock on first downs now.
There are still some kinks in the system, because in one of the games this weekend I saw the yellow line moving around a bit. The tape probably got loose from the field and must have started to blow around in the wind. They need to handle that tape better, because otherwise someone might trip on the tape at some point and get hurt. But I have to say I'm glad to see this advance both for the fans at home and the ones in the stadium who may not have a good angle on whether a ballcarrier made the first down.
Now if they'd only take the next step to improve things for the fans and use that electrical tape to cover up Brent Musberger's mouth whenever he says "A-Train". If he keeps this up, he's going to get the only real A-Train mad. I know I'd pay to see Brent get slammed to the ground by legendary DB Dick "A-Train" Lane.
Finally, I have to say that I am still trying to figure out how the BS national champion system works. The last couple years they matched the #1 vs. #2 teams in the BS rankings in a bowel game and decided things that way.
This week they released the BS ratings for college football teams and Nebraska and Oklahoma are #1 and #2. Apparently they're not going to wait until the bowl games this year, because the Nebraska/Oklahoma championship matchup is this weekend--and it's not even November yet.
It seems kind of strange to me to have the title game so early, but I never much liked this BS system anyway. Once we have this national title thing out of the way we can get on with all the important stuff like conference championships, the Heisman, and who will play the Big 8 champion in the Orange Bowl.