2009 Week 12
November 24, 2009
I'd like to apologize for my statement last week that the University of Cincinnati had beaten my alma mater Pitt. Apparently it was an NFL game against the Steelers. I wondered why my TV tint seemed a bit off.
The NFL has slowly expanded its reach from the traditional Sunday games into other parts of the week, such as Mondays and Thursdays. So I guess I shouldn't have been surprised a few days ago to watch the Bills battle the Dolphins on a Wednesday night. Buffalo won over Miami 42-17.
While one would expect this to be the prime season for conference showdowns, we're still seeing some very strange non-conference matchups. The University of Florida beat Florida International 62-3. I haven't seen a foreigner get drilled like that since Emanuelle IV.
This sort of cupcake scheduling against European teams has become a sorry trend. I remember being shocked when JoePa and Penn State took on those French guys from La Tech. And now Florida is playing a bunch of exchange students. Shameful.
Not all the non-conference tilts were blowouts. Notre Dame played an exciting overtime game. And Pac-8 leader Oregon had a scintillating overtime game against the WAC's Arizona.
Now I'm still a bit confused about these overtime rules. In both games each team scored a touchdown in the first overtime, then in the second overtime one team opted to go for field goals while the other one played regular football, scored, and won. We don't need any of that wussy NFL field goal type overtime stuff in college football. Just dump the kickers and line up to play real football.
I was also confused by Notre Dame's game, as they went up against Yukon. Canadian football has some weird provisions, like being able to kick the ball through the end zone for a 1-point rouge. Their game also features 13 men, all of whom may go in motion. These rules would appear to give a school like Yukon a major advantage, though I guess having to go ten more yards may help even things out some.
Lots of people wondered about the Cal/Stanford game. Stanford went for it on a 4th and 11 in its own territory, trailing by 3, then Cal took a knee to set up a field goal to take a 6 point lead rather than trying to score to get a bigger lead. Stanford Indian coach Jack Harbaugh at least has the excuse of being old and perhaps a bit addled. I'm still not sure what the problem is with Cal coach Ted Ford.
The most controversial finish of the weekend occurred in Oxford. No, not that prissy soccer-playing school in Great Britain. We're talking the real Oxford, in Mississippi.
As the game closed down, LSU had pulled to within two points of Ole Southern Miss. LSU raced up there to make sure they didn't lose the game and the quarterback, in a panic, spiked the ball. Now spiking the ball makes sense some of the time, but not when you're trying a game-tying two-point conversion.
Coaching decisions can be controversial and so can coaching performances. Two storied programs, Notre Dame with Charles White and Michigan with Rich Rodriguez, are facing a lot of scrutiny due to their struggles. This is nothing new--describing coaches as being on the "hot seat" is a long-standing tradition in college football.
Nowadays, teams use the big fans and big heaters to make things comfortable on the bench. Back in 1926, the University of Chicago was playing Georgia Tech. Back then, these were two of the better technical schools. Since Georgia Tech had to travel to Chicago in November, coach John T Theisman was worried about his players getting cold while they waited to enter the game.
A young Rambling Wreck electrical engineer came up with a method to heat the bench. He developed a device that would heat the steel support brackets and thus warm up the wood.
Unfortunately, one of Georgia Tech's players sat on one of the device's 4-inch bolts. And that's how we got the cup.
The sad part was that the injured player was Georgia Tech's star quarterback, who was out for the season due to the burning sensation in his crotch. Tech lost in a blowout and also dropped their two remaining games. Since coach John T Theisman was behind the move to heat the bench, he was quickly forced out of his job. And that's how the term "hot seat" came to be associated with coaches at risk of getting fired.