2015 Week 1
September 10, 2015
The incredibly long off-season is finally over and we're back watching the excitement of college football.
Even here in the Great Beyond we spend the entire spring and summer anxiously awaiting the start of the new season. It was great to see my good friend Frank Gifford again, we've had a lot of time to catch up on the past few years. He says he spent a lot of time in the garden but got a bit tired of his lovely wife Kathie Lee always planting zucchini.
One thing I haven't liked of late with college football has been this whole playoff thing. It was bad enough when they instituted a four team playoff last December, but at least that was after the regular season had ended. This year we're seeing a pre-season playoff. And who in the world thought Virginia Tech was worthy of the #4 seed and a matchup with Ohio State? At least #3 seed Wisconsin was considered a top 20 team before they got beaten by Alabama.
I was glad that the tradition of having a week 1 big neutral site game continued. Veteran coach Jack Harbaugh made his debut with Michigan, but the Wolverines came up short against the University of Texas at Houston, in a neutral site game played in Salt Lake City.
Speaking of the Beehive State, one of the most exciting finishes occurred in Lincoln, as Bring'Em Young University beat the Nebraska Cornholio in Lincoln on a last-second pass. I think the nickname for such a desperation play in Provo is "Hail Angel Moron".
The ACC had some very easy non-conference games. Wake Forest defeated something called Elon. Georgia Tech scored 69 on Alcorn State. Syracuse shut out Rhode Island. Pitt won a relatively close one against Youngstown State. And, in the ultimate cupcake game, ancillary ACC member Notre Dame whomped on Texas. It was nice to see the return of Aggie coach John Mackovic Brown. I'm a bit surprised that he shaved off those lovely locks, but he did have a nice tan.
Not every ACC team played, some had exhibitions. The Miami Hurricanes scored 45 times on my daughter, Beth Cook. But she wasn't the biggest scorer of the weekend; Savannah was pounded for 65 against Colorado State's fine roster.
The TCU Horny Toads went up to the land of Paul Bunion and held off Minnesota, 23-17. Even further north, Villanova went to the Klondike and lost to Yukon. Baylor opened its SWC title defense with a bit win over SMU. Northwestern beat Stanford in the Battle for the #2 Pencil.
There were some really high scoring games. Marshall beat Purdue 41-31. Cross-state rival Indiana won a tight one over Southern Illinois, 48-47. And Texas Tech burned S.H.I.T. 59-45.
Probably the biggest controversy of the weekend occurred in Manhattan. No, not the fun Manhattan with the leather ladies in Times Square. I'm talking about the one in Kansas, where the Kansas State marching band had an interesting halftime show.
You'll recall a couple years ago when the Ohio State band did a tribute to Michael Jackson, complete with a marching Moonwalk. KSU did something similar, with one part of the band forming a weird looking little kid with a huge hairlip and the other part of the band forming Little Michael and the latter part of the band marched into the hairlip kid's mouth, re-enacting that famous scene from "Home Alone".
The most unfortunate incident of the weekend occurred in UCLA's game, when a big lineman, Eddie Vanderdoes, caught a TD pass, picked up a teammate to celebrate, and tore his ACL. Football has a long history of foolish self-inflicted injuries.
My good friend Johnny Majors had a bad experience during the 1955 Tennessee vs. Kentucky game. Johnny scored a touchdown then, due to the fact that he'd downed a bottle of Jim Beam before the game, he tripped on his way back to the sideline and broke his ankle. Then he fell onto the bench and knocked out half his teeth, which helped him blend in with the Vols crowd at "Sergent" Neyland Stadium.
Finally he vomited all over coach Wyatt Bowden, infecting him with e coli, leading Wyatt to step down after the season in favor of his son Bobby. So all I can say to Mr Vanderdoes is you're going to have to try harder to match up to one of the all-time greats like Johnny.
It's great to be back! There are a handful of great matchups this coming weekend, headlined by Michigan State vs. Oregon. It should be a fine battle, Chippewas vs Beavers, just like the old west. Or the casino strip joint.