2003 Week 13
December 2, 2003
Well, this past week has featured a lot of college football excitement.
First off, I would like to congratulate Nebraska's coach as he heads off into the distance, beyond that silo. I always thought it would be a bit tough for Tom Osborne to be in Congress and coach Nebraska football at the same time, so it's good that he's going to concentrate on the government job from now on. Hey, Tom, instead of working with the Nebraska Cornholio during your spare time, how about forming a barnstorming music revue with your kids, Joan, Kelly, and Oswald Osborne?
In action before, during, and after Turkey Day, we saw TCU narrowly beat archrival SMU to clinch the Southwest Conference title. I also managed to tune in the last moments of Stanford's game and was shocked to see Ty Willingham wearing a Notre Dame hat. Hey, Ty, what happened, did you lose a bet? I don't think the Stanford administration will be amused by that.
The biggest controversy was in the Florida State win over Florida at the Florida Gator's Bowel. There were quite a few missed calls on fumbles in that game, all to Florida's detriment. Turns out the officials were from FSU's new conference. Apparently these Big East refs wanted to help out their league's newest powerhouse a year in advance.
Having some spare time over the weekend after downing my usual 24-pound turkey and case of Rolling Rock, I checked out the results from some of the lower divisional play in the NCAA.
What I saw shocked me--the scourge of foreign teams had extended beyond La Tech and Yukon and has invaded the lower divisions of the NCAA as well. Good old Lou Tepper is back coaching a D-2 team from Edinborough, the Edinborough Fighting Irish. Fortunately they got eliminated pretty quickly.
But there was another D-2 result that was even more shocking--Pittsburg lost to ND. I thought those two teams had already played, and here they were in the D-2 playoffs. Pittsburg tried to be clever by changing the spelling of their name and changing their nickname to the "Guerrillas" and hiring a mascot who looked like Jimmy The Geek Schneider, but they didn't fool me. Both Pitt and ND should be ashamed of themselves for trying to put one over on the other D-2 teams.
The same goes for Texas A&M, which also apparently has decided to stop playing D-1 football. The 'Horns are still alive in the D-2 playoffs, and should be fine at least until they meet up with a school like Southern Northwest Oklahoma and promptly bow and submit.
I also scanned the Division 1-AA results. At least there were no former D-1 schools playing, but I was upset yet again when I saw that a team from Colgate was playing.
There is no excuse for allowing semi-pro athletes to compete in college football. Just because these guys got jobs at the toothpaste factory doesn't mean they're a legitimate college football team.
Now pro football is different. Few of you know that the National Football League got its start as a semi-pro league, where players were brought in to work various jobs, then played pro football during the fall.
In fact, some of the franchises were named for their players' off-season occupations. For instance, the Green Bay team got their nickname apparently because they worked in a chocolate factory making fudge. So they became known as the Packers.
The Detroit franchise's players worked at the local casino doing magic tricks with trained lions, at least until that tragic incident involving Bobby Layne, a bottle of tequila, and one very thirsty feline.
The New York team worked the off-season at the Giant supermarket.
But the most unusual occupation involved another Great Lakes team that worked day after day collecting cow patties from local farms and dead fish from the fiery local river, then using them at the team owner's fertilizer plant. The hard, messy, and smelly work left the players with a certain tinge, and that's how the Cleveland Browns got their name.
And now you know the rest of the story.