2013 Week 1
September 5, 2013
It's been a very long off-season here in the Great Beyond, so I'm glad to be back talking some college football with you. As I mentioned last year, I have been privileged to be reunited with family and old friends, especially the ones from the college football world.
There's nothing quite like having Bronko Nagurski give me an arm noogie, followed by a wedgie from Colonel Bob Neyland. It was just like the old days when I was a young SID visiting with all the legendary players and coaches.
But one of the great pleasures occurred in April when my good friend Pat Summerall arrived. We've been catching up for several months now. We're having a blast because one of the great things about the afterlife is that liver cells immediately regenerate.
We all gathered a week ago for the opening of the season, but I have to say I was disappointed at the quality of the games. You saw a bunch of top programs beating up on weak sisters, like Georgia Tech destroying something called Elon, Oregon pounding St. Nicholls, and powerhouse McNeese State blowing out new program South Florida by several touchdowns.
One of the biggest stories of the week was the return of Johnny Fussball to the pitch for the second half against Rice. He spun one way, then the other way, and ripped the ball past the goal. Then he signed some autographs, removed his pantaloons, and took an extra point on the sideline. That will help prepare Johnny for this weekend's game against the Sam Houston Institute of Technology.
R Ban Meyer's Ohio State Buckeyes had a solid debut, doubling up Buffalo 40-20. It's going to be another long year for the Bills.
One of the more impressive results was NIU's 28-20 win at Iowa State. What made it all the more exciting was they split their squad, as Northern Iowa also beat the Iowa Huckeyes 30-27. Guess the Panthers will have full state bragging rights, as long as they also get past Drake.
In another split squad game, ND State won at Kansas City State. The Fighting Irish look to have a very good JV squad this year.
Regular Notre Dame also had a big win, 28-6 over Temple. I'm just glad that we live in such a pluralistic society, where Catholics and Jews can get together and smack the hell out of each other for 60 minutes at a time. I do think that the ND band should be reprimanded for offending its opponents by playing that Wagner song, the 1812 Overture. Why play something that commemorates a Wehrmacht vs. Tsar battle anyway?
In another religious battle, Wake Forest knocked off the Southern Babtist boys from Presbyterian.
Alabama opened their annual national title defense with a blowout win over VPI. The Tide's defensive speed probably caused Coach Beaner to spin his head, or maybe that's just another spell by Nick Satan requiring an excorcism.
Bobby Petrino celebrated his return to SEC football with a big Western Kentucky win over Kentucky.
While I'm glad to see the SEC expanding to add more states, this expansion state business has gotten way out of hand. I saw last week that parts of Colorado and California are looking to split.
I've said this numerous times: I love college football as much as anyone, but there's no reason to start creating new states just so we can have more colleges and more college football teams. It got out of hand when we created the expansion states of East Carolina, North Texas, and South Alabama just so there'd be more teams. What's next? Splitting up the Thomas Jefferson State into regular Virginia and West Virginia?
Regardless of all that, it's great to have college football back again. I'm looking forward to the big showdowns like Notre Dame at Michigan and USC at Georgia. Will the Song Girls put on a special halftime show with UGA?