2014 Week 1
September 3, 2014
Thankfully we're finally done with this godawful season known as summer, best known for starting with the NBA playoffs and being chock full of baseball games. Give me the fall any day.
Speaking of the summer sports dearth, we had a new arrival up here a couple weeks ago, this Mork guy. He headed over to where all us football types like to hang out, saying he was so despondent once the football world cup was over that he hung himself.
This actually got me excited, though a bit frustrated, a world tournament in football and I didn't get to see it? I asked for more details. He said the Germans won it, which I guess makes a bit of sense due to their strategic acumen. I asked how the good old USA had done, he said "pretty good", how the Americans had made it to the round of 16.
I was appalled and said "Round of 16 in football? That's not pretty good, that's horrible". He then said "oh, I didn't mean American football, I meant real football". Getting me all excited about summer football only to find out that it was that Eurotrash kickball game made me pretty livid. I took advantage of the burn marks just over his shoulders to wring his neck once again, then I threw him over with all the soccer ninnies.
The best thing is that the football drought is over and we had a weekend full of action. Not great action. And, in some cases, like Florida Field, no action at all. That's what you get for scheduling Idaho, Coach Zook.
One of the most exciting games of the weekend was a neutral site clash in Houston, at the University of Texas at Houston's Enron Field. The LSU Fighting Tigers came from behind to upend the Wisconsin Badgers in front of a mixed crowd of drunken Cajuns, drunken Cheeseheads, and sober U.T.A.H. fans.
The SEC powers had a fairly good weekend against fellow southern schools. Alabama and Nick Satan pulled away from Western Virginia. Georgia opened conference play by plowing Clemson 45-21. Texas A&M proved there's life after Johnny Fussball by beating independent power South Carolina. And Tennessee destroyed the U.T.A.H.'s sister Lone Star State school, U.T.A.H. State.
I was watching the score crawl on ESPN and saw that my daughter, Beth Cook, scored twice on Florida International. She always did like those exchange students.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish went a step further than most split squad schools, taking on three opponents. The regular Irish had an easier win over Rhode Island Continuing Education. Notre Dame backup QB Mark Zaire is their best quarterback named for a country since Joe Montana. The JV squad, ND State, eye-gouged the Iowa State Cyclops. But the third string squad lost as Stan Jose State beat ND 42-10.
Stan Jose is just another of those expansion states. When there's an interest in adding new college football teams, you need to build the schools to support the teams -- and we've run out of states, so the nation has wisely chosen to create some expansion states to help out college football.
So you end up with all sorts of new states and expansion schools, most of which don't do very well. Jacksonville State lost to the Michigan State Fighting Chippewas. Boise State got clobbered by Ole Southern Miss. They even carved out part of the eastern mountains to create a state called Appalachian, whose team promptly lost to Michigan. I'm not sure how long this expansion state craze will last with all these crappy states and teams being formed, they even carved out part of Tennessee and some porn star's hometown to set up a Middle Tennessee State vs. Savannah State showdown.
There were some other interesting clashes. The St. Louisville Cardinals celebrated the return of steroid freak Bob Petrino by sticking it to Miami 31-13.
And one of the most exciting games of the weekend took place on the Emerald Isle, as Penn State kicked a late field goal to upset Central Florida, 26-24. It was nice to see UCF coach George O Leary finally getting the chance to lead a team wearing a shamrock on the helmet. I know a few of you asked me how Coach Paterno enjoyed the game. I have to say I've been up here beyond the Pearly Gates almost two years and haven't seen JoePa yet. He's missing in action, kind of like the Pony. Has anybody seen the Pony lately?