2001 Week 11
November 30, 2001
The regular season is starting to wind down. Thanksgiving weekend is always entertaining because we all can just sit back, chow down on the football and the Rolling Rock, and watch wall-to-wall turkeys, like Nebraska's defense.
Heck, those five Husker fans who went barhopping in Boulder that night and beat up that UC cheerleader were tougher than any of the vaunted Nebraska brownshirts.
Colorado made some good moves this year, especially that big trade. You usually don't see too many trades in college football, but there was this big three-way trade.
Northwestern sent Chris Brown and coach Gary Barnett to Colorado. Brown of course had a great game against Nebraska, and coach Barnett finally beat a top team after losing a heartbreaker to powerhouse FSU in the season opener. So Colorado upgraded their running back position and head coaching position.
In return for sending the coach and running back to Boulder, Northwestern got quarterback Zak Kustok from Notre Dame, who did a lot to return Northwestern to prominence. So Northwestern upgraded their quarterback position.
Notre Dame coach Bob Davis wisely asked for and received Ralphie XIV, the Colorado Buffalo mascot. So the Irish upgraded their mascot position by getting a mascot who doesn't leave nearly as many on-field droppings as the current Notre Dame mascot.
That's allowed Notre Dame to lay off one custodian, saving $20,000, which will be spent on a big going-away party for Coach Davis next week. Apparently they've already purchased the tar and the feathers.
In other action, it was sure nice to see Ohio State turn things around and beat Michigan. Sometimes it just takes a few simple changes, and Coach Cooper's decision to ditch the windbreaker and go for that sharp-looking little red vest sure seemed to do wonders as far as inspiring his Buckeyes.
One of the interest aspects of this part of the season are all the trophy games being played. You have teams battling for "The Old Oaken Bucket" and "Floyd of Rosedale" (I thought coach Carr was from Detroit), not to mention the famous Minnesota/Wisconsin contest for "Paul Bunyan's Ass".
Last weekend featured some of those rivalry games, highlighted by the Stanford vs. Notre Dame matchup, also known as the "Battle for the #2 Pencil" due to both schools' frequent triple-digit SAT scores.
The stories behind these trophies are often more fascinating than the games themselves.
Army and Navy never had a trophy for their game until recently. Former Navy great Roger Staubach went into business with some partners in Columbia. No, Roger wasn't the Cowboy who got caught carting around that wacky tobacky and nose candy, that was Nate Newton. And Michael Irvin. And Bob Hayes. And "Neon Leon" Lett.
Anyway, Staubach started buying coffee from Columbia and opened up his own coffee shop in Dallas. Pretty soon he started selling franchises, but he soon learned that nobody in Washington would buy "Staubach's" coffee (I don't know what UW fans have against a former Navy quarterback). So he renamed his store, and Army plays Navy every year for the Starbucks Trophy.
Another rivalry that languished for years without a trophy was the Southern Cal vs. UCLA matchup. Fortunately, 3M came through with a trophy for what is often referred to as the "Cheerleader Bowl", and now the winner of the Silicone Valley Classic receives a bust.
My favorite trophy story comes from the deep South. The inventor of the "iron lung", Philip Drinker, was a graduate of Auburn University. During his research on dysentery, he came up with a similar life-saving device for the digestive tract. The device never quite "panned" out, so, having nowhere to put it, he donated the prototype to his alma mater. That's why, every year, Alabama and Auburn play for the Iron Bowel.
Well, I'm about to embark on another weekend of Rolling Rock and squinting my eyes at the subtitles that translate what my good friend Keith Jackson is mumbling about. See you next week.