2016 Week 6
October 11, 2016
We had a fun weekend filled with a variety of games.
Perhaps the most exciting matchup was Tennessee's visit to State College Station to take on Texas A&M. The home team built a solid lead but Tennessee made yet another wild comeback, even punching the ball from a Longhorn running back to set up a game-tying touchdown.
I'm still trying to figure out these overtime rules. Apparently they started with a field goal contest, and since that was tied they went back to regular football, whereupon A&M won the game to stay undefeated.
Alabama made a visit to SWC country too, pulling away from R Kansas 49-30. Coach Nick Satan took another one from Coach Butt-head.
Texas and Oklahoma met up in the Red River Shootout and the Sooners held on late to take out the Aggies at the AT&T Cotton Bowel. I just wish they'd stop showing that plastic surgery freak who bought the Cotton Bowel and the Cowboys, always hated that Jenny Jones show.
TCU survived a close call up at Manhattan Kansas thanks to a missed field goal. In a matchup of teams from Texas and Missouri, Texas Tech fell to Kansas City State, 44-38.
Probably the biggest upset of the day occurred in Annapolis, as Navy won an exciting high scoring battle against previously undefeated Houston, 46-40. Houston's trying to return to the glory days, but until they restore the powder blue uniforms and find the next Errol Campbell it won't be happening.
In the Big Ten Purdue beat Illinois in a field goal shootout 34-31. Normally you'd think it would have been 33-30 given that field goals are worth 3 points. I'm guessing one of the field goals was like the power ball in those NBA 3-point competitions, worth 4 points.
Bring 'Em Young apparently finally found themselves a conference as they went to East Lansing and defeated the Michigan State Fighting Chippewas, 31-14.
One of the other shockers occurred in the Great White North. Cincinnati made the long trip to Whitehorse and came up short against the Yukon Huskies 20-9. You have to be careful with those whacky Canadian football rules, they end up with extra backs, guys going forward at the snap, and cheerleaders who guzzle beer faster than Joe Namath on a bender.
A bit further south along the coast, Washington pretty much annihilated Oregon 70-21. I haven't seen a Beaver get penetrated like that since Linda Lovelace.
The ugliest game took place in New Jersey as Michigan annihilated Rutgers 78-0. It got so bad that at one point 70-something Wolverine coach Jack Harbaugh took a turn at fullback and scored.
The Michigan/Rutgers tilt of course wasn't the worst blowout in college football history, but, ironically enough, last weekend was the 100th anniversary of Georgia Tech's win over Cumberland College, 222-0.
The nice thing about the afterlife is that I've gotten to see some old-time figures for the first time since I was in my first mid-life crisis. I talked to old-time Tech coach John Heisman about that game. He told me running up the score was in retaliation for something the Cumberland band did before the game: they re-enacted Sherman's March to the Sea, including the burning of Atlanta, which resulted in half the grandstand going up in flames.
The big story of the week was the weather. Hurricane Matthew went slicing up the eastern coast. It led to a couple postponements, including the LSU at Florida game. Now it turned out that the weather in Gainesville by Saturday was fine, but they're very sensitive about hurricanes at UF given what happened years ago in a story I shared quite a while back about Florida Field.
The Georgia vs. USC game was postponed, but the Bulldogs played on Sunday and took care of the Trojans 28-14. Meanwhile Florida State's SEC South game at Miami went on as scheduled on Saturday. FSU held on to win 20-19 on a blocked extra point, another devastating "wide left" loss for the Hurricanes to their rivals in Tallahassee.
The worst conditions were in Raleigh, as North Carolina State got a late blocked punt to beat Notre Dame 10-3 in a truly ugly fumble-filled slop-fest of a game. I'd call it a cripple fight but the putrid mess more resembled the time I went to chili night at the IBS club.