2001 Week 8
November 8, 2001
The best thing about the college football season moving into November is the intensity of the matchups becomes all the greater.
At ESPN we've taken to calling that first weekend in November "Rivalry Weekend".
We do all sorts of neat promos for it, with my good friend Lee Corso donning that Miami Duck mascot outfit then putting on an Oregon State helmet.
And Herb Street wears that Halloween costume that got all the flak in Michigan.
I just don't understand why when Herb dresses up as a Virginia, and then says it's somehow supposed to represent the Oregon Beavers.
The two of them duke it out (what's with all the ACC references?). And then the ad is finished and we all go back to talking college football. Except Corso keeps on making quacking noises throughout the show and Chris Fowler starts squealing like a pig.
Anyway, we had rivalry weekend last weekend, with truly bitter intrastate matchups like Michigan State vs. Michigan and Texas A&M vs. Texas Tech.
You know that two schools hate each other when one school mentions the other in their fight song, and that's what the Aggie war jingle does, it mentions the orange and white clad Texas Tech Red Raiders, including lots of informative stuff about Texas Tech's Sheep Research program in verse #3.
But even that doesn't hold a candle to the beautiful alma mater of Washington State University, which includes the stanza:
Oh, hail to thee oh Pullman
Treeless land of grass
Let us impale Neuheisel
With a pole to whack his ass
Among the other truly great in-state rivalries this last weekend were Oklahoma vs. Tulsa, Wofford vs. South Carolina, and Southern Mississippi vs. Penn State.
But the best matchup wasn't an in-state game; it was that dogged overtime thriller between Arkansas and Ole Miss. Believe it or not, that one went seven overtimes before Arkansas finally pulled it out by some score that was in the 50's. Wow, both teams scoring almost 60 points, that sounds an NBA score.
I am getting a little bit peeved because they keep on changing those overtime rules. It's gotten really confusing. I finally got it all straightened out last year when they said each team gets an equal number of chances to score in overtime from the opponent's 25 yard line and that they take turns.
So I tune in the overtime with the score tied at 50 and Arkansas scores after starting from the Ole Miss 25, so now it should be Ole Miss's turn. Except they give the ball back to Arkansas to try one more time, and this time they start from inside the 5 yard line, and score in one play. So Arkansas got the ball twice and scored two touchdowns, before Ole Miss had its turn.
Ole Miss and their quarterback Peyton Manning Junior got the ball back and scored, but they only scored once, so Arkansas was the winner because they scored two touchdowns in two possessions while Ole Miss only scored one. Then, even though Arkansas scored only one more TD, for some reason they said Arkansas won by two points instead of six points. Maybe their two touchdowns were only worth four points apiece?
Whatever happened to the good old days, when they settled overtimes with shootouts? You know, like the 1951 Army/Navy game, where the shootout resulted in 1 score for Army, 0 scores for Navy, and 23 wounded. I miss those days. I also miss the Pony. Has anyone seen the Pony?