2005 Week 11
November 16, 2005
First off, I'd like to congratulate former Notre Dame coach Ty Dillingham for that big win by Washington over Arizona last weekend. Arizona is weak this year and anyone can beat the Cardinals, but, still, hail to the Redskins!
One of the highest scoring games was in the SEC, where Kentucky topped Vanderbilt 48-43. I guess one of Coach Jon B Hall's boys put the game out of reach with a late 3-pointer.
We got an early start on bowel season last weekend. USC beat Florida to win the Superior Bowel. Then Bobby helped his son Terry pull his way out of the Bowden Bowel.
My TV has been a bit on the fritz of late and I was adjusting the tint Saturday night when I suddenly realized I was watching another of those blasted NFL exhibition games against a college team!
The opponent was wearing these helmets with a big "G" logo on them--believe it or not, the Green Bay Packers were paying a visit to Jordan-Denny Stadium to take on the Auburn Tigers. Auburn did manage to eke out a win, and Western Virginia took it to the Bengals, so I guess the college teams did okay this time.
Louisiana State faced off against Alabama in a thrilling top 5 showdown. The Bayou Bangles pulled off a tight overtime win.
Now I think I'm finally beginning to understand these overtime rules. Alabama kicked a field goal to take the lead, and it was clear to me that this wasn't sudden death or else the game would have been over. Then LSU scored a touchdown to take a 16-13 lead.
But then CBS switched away before LSU could try the extra point and I was stuck watching some infomercial for a pimple cream endorsed by OJ Simpson's daughter Jessica. I guess LSU missed the extra point, then nobody else scored in the last 10 or so minutes of overtime, preserving the 16-13 LSU win.
Some of you have asked me about the equipment all the players wear on the field. As many have noted, at one time players didn't have nearly the protection they do today.
Of course I think everyone knows what the most vulnerable part of a player in a hard-hitting game like football is. That's why the first piece of football equipment developed was created in the late 1870s by a German scientist, Dr. Krank.
He outfitted the Rutgers team and it prevented a lot of painful serious life-threatening injuries, not to mention the harm done by gouging or kicks.
Medical experts knew that there was nothing as damaging like taking a direct shot to the head, so having some "coverage" was important. One of the incidents that led to Dr. Krank's work was a situation where a player flew out of bounds and crash landed amongst several cheerleaders. While lying there prone on the turf beneath the cheerleaders, he experienced a great deal of swelling that the good Doktor sought to alleviate.
Eventually Dr. Krank's work was improved upon. The leather was replaced with plastic, padding was added (which really impressed the ladies), there were even complicated straps used to center the covering.
So let us all pay our compliments to the Teutonic genius who protected the big man as well as the "little man", the inventor of football's first head protection, Dr. Schieldt D. Krank, inventor of the athletic cup.
And now you know the rest of the story.