2014 Week 11
November 13, 2014
The season has roared into November and November 8th was Showdown Saturday, but I wanted to start with a public service announcement.
A week ago Tuesday there were some contests that drew a lot of attention from the networks. Regular programming was even interrupted to provide coverage. And much of the attention was on some bitterly fought battles in one Midwestern state. But the contests are now over and it's time to move on and recognize the winners. So congratulations are in order on the November 4th triumphs of Bowling Green and Toledo, as they showed Ohio supremacy in wins over Akron and Kent.
I was watching the crawl on ESPN and saw some more of my daughter Beth Cook's adventures. This time she managed to score 13 times in some place ironically called No Folk. Not only that, the ESPN crawl says that on Thursday she's going to hook up with Lionel Hampton and it will be on ESPNU, which apparently is expanding its programming to include adult exploits.
One of the strangest results last weekend occurred in Auburn, Alabama, as the Auburn Tigers lost a heartbreaking non conference matchup with Texas A&M. Auburn attempted to re-enact the famous New York Jets trick play known as the "butt fumble", but it backfired and the Horns recovered to win the game.
Their cross-state rivals, the Crimson Tide, had a more enjoyable ending. I've said time after time that LSU is like Dracula, they suck the most at night. This time the battle went to overtime and Coach Miles apparently was confused. After Alabama scored a touchdown, LSU kept on trying for field goals, except Coach had them try field goals by having their quarterback throw the ball through the goal posts. And they even struggled with that, he was wide left most of the time.
In one of the more reassuring results, the US Army celebrated Veterans Day by going up to the Yukon and taming those Canadians, winning by a wide margin.
The Big Ten had some scintillating contests. Penn State held on for a thrilling 13-7 win over Indiana, a game in which the Hoosiers frequently threatened to cross midfield. And Michigan had an exciting 10-9 win over Northwestern. Once again the Wildcats struggled in overtime, this time when several players slipped on a two-point conversion.
In higher scoring action, the Minnesota Golden Beavers pounded Iowa, 51-14, and earned the farming services of Floyd Rosedale for the 2015 calendar year.
Of course the real story of last Saturday was all the key matchups of highly rated teams. The Michigan State Fighting Chippewas hosted Ohio State and were gashed by the Buckeye offense, losing 49-37. The TCU Horny Toads took on Bruce Snyder's Kansas City State team and rolled to an impressive 41-20 victory.
Oregon took a long road trip to the Loan Star State and pulled away from the University of Texas at Houston, 51-27. And Notre Dame headed to Tempe but struggled against Arizona State's potent offense, 55-31. Speaking of the Notre Dame defense, I haven't seen an Irishman wander the desert aimlessly like that since Lawrence of Arabia.
While this last weekend was Showdown Saturday, next weekend promises to have some great chemically inspired trophy games. Nebraska will play Wisconsin for the Freebase Trophy, top ranked Mississippi State will travel to Tuscaloosa to try to take back the Golden Still, and Florida State will visit Miami to try to retain the Crystal Meth Football.