2012 Week 2
September 13, 2012
I've been astounded at the decline in quality of non-conference games over the past few seasons. You used to get great early season intersectional showdowns like Oklahoma vs. Miami, Alabama vs. USC, and Clemson vs. Wofford.
Now, for the most part, we're seeing powerhouse teams beating the snot out of weak opponents, games like Va Tech 42, Austin Peay 7, Georgia Tech 59, Presbyterian 3, LSU 41, Washington U of St Louis 3, and Alabama 41, Michigan 14. That being said, there was one pretty good intersectional game last Friday as Utah State upset the University of Texas at Houston.
There were some conference games played. Mississippi State opened up SEC South play by knocking off Auburn 28-10. Cincinnati blew out Pittsburgh to take the lead in the AFC Central. One of the most impressive conference wins was the KSU 52, Miami 13 result. Kent State must have really turned things around, and what happened to Miami? Woody, Ara, and Bo Schnellenberger must be turning over in their graves.
Penn State had its first road game of the post-JoePa era, losing a tight one to Virginia after a late missed field goal. Now I'm still a bit confused about these overtime rules. Virginia went first, scored, and kicked the extra point to lead 17-10. Then Penn State scored a TD then was allowed to try a game-winning field goal, which was no good. That seems very unfair to the Hokies.
Speaking of the Thomas Jefferson State, last week I forgot to mention one of the biggest conference shifts: Western Virginia going from the Big East to the Southwest Conference. Whoa doggie, the Mountain Men taking on TCU, Houston, Rice, and the UT Aggies. That should be something to watch.
Southern Cal took its NFL-ready and NFL-salaried squad to the New York Giants football stadium and crushed the Syracuse Orange Testicles. Florida welcomed Texas A&M to the SEC with a comeback win. Northwestern upended Vanderbilt in game 2 of the Nerd Round Robin.
The expanded Pac-8 had their showdown with the expanded Big 10 and did quite well: Oregon State upended Wisconsin, UCLA knocked off Nebraska, and Arizona beat Oklahoma State.
The biggest upset of the week happened to the Razorbacks, as Louisiana State's JV team beat the Hogs in overtime, 34-31. Coach Petrino was so embarrassed by the loss that he changed his name to the more anonymous "John Smith".
Finally, we have the adventures of one of my favorite teams, Notre Dame. The Irish came through with a late drive and got a field goal to beat Purdue 20-17. It was interesting, I'd never seen a team have their quarterback come out and throw with his other hand on the final drive. Usually ambidextrous athletes are limited to the freak shows on the county fair circuit.
I still remember this one county fair I went to in my youth. They had this "Wild Man" whom they said couldn't speak. So I went in there and the Wild Man grunted and jumped up and down. I told him "I can make you speak". He just kept on grunting. Unfortunately for him, I had downed some baked beans, but this was before I invented my product, Beeno. A few seconds later the Wild Man started screaming "get me out of here". Then he started going into convulsions and passed out, so I took that as a sign that I should get back to my wagon train and get home.
But I digress. Back to football. The big news this week was the Notre Dame Fighting Irish joining a conference. So I looked it up, and the news was right. Notre Dame College is a new member of the Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Apparently Coach B Kelly liked his old league so much that he's guiding the Irish into regular meetings with Ashland College and Indiana University. I should note that this IU is in Pennsylvania and thus is tougher competition than the Hoosiers.
In any event, it's great that ND has gotten with the swing of things and has joined a league. And I'm gonna get with the swing of things too, and join my bottle of Stoli. See you next week.