2001 Week 10
November 20, 2001
I have to start off by apologizing for an error I made last week. I stated that Florida State is a member of the Southeastern Conference. That is incorrect, as many of you were kind enough to point out (and, no, I've taken measurements, and my head certainly cannot fit into that particular orifice).
So, to correct my previous error, FSU is a proud member of the Atlantic 10 Conference.
It is strange, though, that there are only nine teams in that league. Maybe they eliminated one team so they wouldn't get confused with that other great 10-team league, the Big 10 or B-10.
Of course the league was excited when FSU joined, because they brought a lot of football prestige, and got the league a BS series berth every year, due to FSU's great teams and even better TV ratings.
But the Seminoles are struggling some this year and so the league is in danger of not getting any team into a BS bowl berth. With the A-10 being a fairly-new league (much like the Mountain West, or the MW), they don't get an automatic BS berth and Maryland is in the same boat as BYU. Not getting into the BS would cost the A-10 a lot of money, and I hear that FSU might have to make up the difference.
Personally, I hope that FSU is cut some slack by the A-10. Maybe they can get the slot designated for the Pac-10 (or P-10). A-10, B-10, B-8, P-10? It sounds a lot like what happens when my good friend Lee Corso and I drink some mint juleps and try to play Bingo. Except Corso always talks about drawing "UI-69" and pulls down his pants even though I never have that number on my Bingo card.
In other news, I see Bob Davis has finished the final show of his farewell tour in South Bend. Bob hasn't said what he will do in his next job, but I have an idea: He was able to sell an inferior product to a full house week after week, so I'd suggest he work for Amway.
This time of year also features some of the better rivalry games. This weekend we have classic rivalries like Texas vs. Texas A&M, Ohio State vs. Michigan, Georgia vs. Georgia Tech, and Wyoming vs. Kansas.
Last weekend was highlighted by one of the great bitter rivalries, Auburn vs. Alabama. They play every year in a stadium that's known as "The Iron Bowel" (my good friend Keith Jackson once told me that the new Ferric Metamucil would give me an iron bowel in no time. I sometimes don't quite understand what Keith is talking about).
Rivalries sometimes go too far, though. Things get so bitter that teams either end the series or take a break. After some unfortunate incidents that's what happened in the great Keystone Beer State rivalry between Pittsburgh and Penn State.
It was only recently that a couple of incidents led to the demise of the Pitt/Penn State series.
Before the last matchup at Penn State, there was a vicious fight between the mascots of the two schools, the Penn State Nittany Lion and the Pitt Panther.
The Nittany Lion walked over on his hind legs to the Panther, and started taunting him. I'd never seen a Lion actually taunt someone before, never seen anything like it on "Wild Kingdom". Then again, I'd never seen a Lion with blue fur before either, but I figured that might have been the tint on my TV set.
Anyway, the Lion kept on mocking the Panther. Someone had miked the Lion and over the PA system in Happy Valley you could hear strange growling noises that sounded like one of those annoying low-flow toilets being flushed.
Finally the Panther mascot reacted. It wasn't much of a battle. A couple quick swipes of the claw, a couple chomps of the teeth, and the Lion mascot was down, bleeding. Right after that the Panther actually mounted the poor Lion. It took 5 minutes to get the Panther off the Lion.
By then they had to skin part of the Lion's blue outer layer to get to the injured areas and then he apparently was quickly rushed to a veterinary clinic for emergency surgery. I never heard what happened to the Lion mascot, but I hope they found a nice safe zoo for him to live in after that.
Penn State vowed revenge. Later in the 2nd quarter they got it, when star linebacker Lavar Arrington sacked the Pitt punter for a loss. Fortunately, Lavar was wearing a mouthpiece and gloves, so the punter didn't get mauled nearly as badly as the Nittany Lion had. But Lavar did celebrate by mounting the punter in the same way that the Pitt Panther mounted the Penn State Lion. I just hope that poor punter kept that diaphragm in place.
After the two very unfortunate incidents, the athletic directors of the two schools decided that they should take a break from playing each other in football. The two schools are, however, promoting a steel-cage match between the Pitt Panther and Lavar to see who is the true alpha male in Pennsylvania. I for one can't wait.