2017 Week 13
November 28, 2017
Rivalry week was chock full of excitement. And I'm not even talking about the action on the field. We had plenty of fun up here watching with all the old coaches gathered around. There's nothing like Woody and Bo hurling chairs at each other, though one chair flew off course and knocked off Bear's hat. He was pretty sore about that and both of the Big Ten fellas were very apologetic.
You don't want to get on the wrong side of Coach Bryant, he's pretty popular with the bigwigs up here. Cross him one too many times and your mint juleps will start tasting like castor oil and your TV will only be standard definition. Because we're pretty spoiled here the latter can be a bit upsetting.
Most of the games were pretty competitive. Well, Clemson destroyed cross-state rival South Carolina in an ACC showdown, 34-10. And Wisconsin shut out Minnesota 31-0 to retain possession of Paul Bunyan's Ass.
Actually, now that I think of it, there were quite a few non-competitive games. Oklahoma pounded Western Virginia 59-31. And Penn State annihilated Maryland, 66-3. I haven't seen a group of terrapins get squashed like that since my cousin Jimmy's drunken drive to the turtle hatchery.
In the biggest game of the weekend host Auburn upended #1 ranked Alabama 26-14 at Jordan-Denny Stadium. I was really impressed with the Tigers and their effort against the Tide. It seems that the black magic may be fading some for Nick Satan.
Ohio State came from behind to beat upset-minded Michigan for the Buckeyes' 15th win in the last 13 meetings between these two foes. R Ban Meyer seems to have Jack Harbaugh's number these days.
In the battle for the #2 pencil, Stanford came from behind with three late touchdowns to beat Notre Dame, 38-20. I guess you could say Coach R Shaw took Coach B Kelly to the house in the freestyle rap.
My Pitt Panthers pulled one of the biggest upsets of the season, completely shutting down the Miami Hurricanes en route to a 24-14 victory. I hope Coach Majors was able to crawl out of his bottle to watch the affair.
There were two really exciting games on Friday. Mississippi State's Fighting Cowbells made a valiant effort but came up just short against Ole Southern Miss, losing 31-28.
Expansion state school Central Florida had the most exciting win of the day. South Florida scored on an 83-yard pass and got a two point conversion to tie the game at 42 apiece. Central Florida won on a long kickoff return.
Now I'm still a bit confused about these overtime rules. Instead of each team starting on the 35, each team got to receive a kickoff. UCF ran theirs back and USF did not, so UCF won the game. It was an exciting win for Coach Frost and I'm sure he did fine with the distraction of all the Nebraska fans with shirts over their heads yelling "ARE YOU THREATENING ME" on behalf of the Cornholio.
I've been thinking some about these overtime rules. Last week I watched some college basketball and I think they have a better approach. Alabama was playing Minnesota and they had some overtime provision where they kept on taking players away from Alabama. They could do that in football too, take one player away from each team until one team scores and the other one doesn't.
On the coaching change front, it certainly sounds like Coach Frost is on his way back to Nebraska, now that it's safe with Lawrence Phillips no longer being around (no, Lawrence Phillips is not up here either, unlike with JoePa we were told Lawrence's whereabouts and it isn't pleasant). There are going to be a ridiculous number of openings and I look forward to this year's coaching carousel.
So far we have Coach Mullen going from Mississippi State to Florida. Coach C Kelly is returning to the college ranks at UCLA. Coach Schiano going to Knoxville until they realized that he wasn't ethical enough for the Volunteers but still is apparently ethical enough for the Buckeyes.
Coach Sumlin being forced out of State College Station and perhaps going to hang out in Tempe. Coach Jimbo perhaps leaving Tallahassee to go to replace Coach Sumlin. Coach Taggart from Oregon to replace Coach Jimbo.
It's all looking like the world's biggest game of musical chairs and the only thing I'm sure of is that when the music stops, someone will get stuck with Coach Kiffin.
Conference championship weekend is coming up, I'm sure we'll all have a great time watching the MAC, the Big East, the WAC, and the Cactus League determine their champions. Talk to you soon!