2007 Week 1
September 6, 2007
I'm very glad to return to share my thoughts about college football. It was a very long off-season. I know that you folks are wondering just what I was up to since January.
I actually got back on the air at ESPN last June. They had started this new segment called "Who's Now?" where we'd debate who was the biggest name in sports.
On my first appearance I think I made a very good case for Johnny Lujack and Bobby Layne. I gave specifics from one of Layne's great performances for the Aggies in the 1948 season, including descriptions of each of his touchdown passes.
My good friend Sean Salisbury then interrupted by saying "uh, Beeno, Bobby can't be now because he's dead". I noted that his liver was still on display at the Ripley's Museum, so at least part of him was alive. Sean then said individual organs didn't count.
He said "speaking of organs" then he held up his cell phone to the camera to show off something he called "art photos" even though the looked like stills from one of those special brown bag videos that Ma had me rent for her. Right about then the camera's red light went off and we were ushered out of the studio and that was the end of my summer appearances on ESPN.
The big news of the week came from Michigan. It was truly an exciting game. Who ever would have expected those Mountaineer boys from the Appalachians to come into Anne Arbor and stick it to the Wolverines? Even more impressively, the school's B squad knocked off Western Michigan back home in Morgantown. So the Western Virginia Mountaineers have started off the year 2-0. Congratulations to Coach Nehlen.
There was another big intersectional matchup played in the Midwest last Saturday, as the Michigan State fighting Chippewas blew out Alabama. It was a bittersweet return for former MSU coach Nick Satan.
This is a kind of confusing time of year, what with all the NFL exhibition games. I swear you can turn on the TV and get a game any night of the week. I can't wait for the start of the NFL season so I only need to wear my Depends on Saturdays and Sundays. Thank God the NCAA hasn't messed around with their schedules.
I hear the NFL is expanding again, though they still don't have a pro football team in Los Angeles, unless you count Mr. Diahnne Carroll's Trojans. So it was interesting to watch the Redskins go in to play the newest NFL team, Syracuse. Ty Dillingham is doing a fine job with Washington this year and he sure looks healthy with that nice new tan.
After touchdowns I make use of my remote to check on other games. It seemed like every time I came back to a game the team that scored had gotten penalized because they were kicking off from their 30. I was surprised that so many 10-yard holding penalties were called on kickoffs, thus pushing teams back from kicking off from their 40 to their 30.
The final game of the week was the showdown between Clemson and F$U, where the Bowden brothers face off. This relatively recent grudge match finally has a trophy, thanks to Bobby's recent colostomy, the Bowden Bowel.
It was an exciting opening to the season and I'm looking forward to some of next week's battles, especially the game of the century up there in State College Station between Penn State and Notre Dame. I'm curious to see how the UT transfer does in his first start at ND. See you next week.