2005 Week 8
October 26, 2005
The middle of October is one of my favorite times of year. It's fun to watch the leaves start to turn funny colors (the rest of the year that only happens when I eat some of my good friend Chris Fowler's brownies).
The temperature starts to drop so I have to switch my wardrobe. So I've hauled out the parka and put away my collection of thongs.
And a bunch of college football games that one would expect to be exciting end up being boring blowouts.
Virginia Tech routed Coach Fridge and new conference foe Maryland to take the lead in the Big East race.
The Michigan State Chippewas had a rough outing against NU. I'd like to congratulate NU for returning to the greatness of 1995 in their big win. What a fine job by NU coach Osbourne and the Huskers!!!
The biggest showdown of the week was in Austin, where Texas blew out Texas Tech. The Aggies now have a stranglehold on the Southwest Conference race. Speaking of stranglers, it's back to the drawing board for Coach Knight.
Notre Dame, behind new coach Charles White, put the BYU Morons back on the short bus.
While I was upset with all the non-competitive games, some of the other games went down to the wire, in fact several of them went to overtime.
Now I'm still a bit confused about these overtime rules.
This year there's been a lot of publicity about how that strange Canadian game of hockey has gone to breaking ties with shootouts. How they let those guys try to stick that round thing between the poles and see if they score.
My good friend Lee Corso says he likes to stick round things between poles too.
I don't understand Lee at times.
Anyway, based on last weekend's action, it appears that some college football games are being decided with these hockey type "stick it between the poles" shootouts.
The first example was the Arkansas vs. Florida Atlantic game. Neither team could score, so they had a field goal shootout, and Arkansas made one and won 3-0.
Louisiana State and Auburn had their own field goal shootout, but the kicking was so horrible that I changed channels and lowered myself to watching baseball!
Most notable was the big 4th Saturday in October showdown in Montgomery. Once again neither team could put the ball in the end zone, at least not while holding onto it. So 'Bama and Tennessee had a shootout, and the Red Tide won 6-3.
The strangest shootout was in Chapel Hill, where the Tar Heels knocked off Virginia 7-5. I guess Carolina kicked an extra point in the shootout while the Hokies must have gone for two.
This isn't the first time the NCAA allowed teams to decide tie games with shootouts. There was a brief experiment with shootouts some 30 years ago.
That experiment didn't turn out that well, as Army blew away its shootout foe, Kent State.
One of the survivors, future NFL QB Young Neal Lomax, paid tribute to his fallen teammates by writing the Kent State fight song "Four Dead in O-Hi-O".