2018 Week 1
September 4, 2018
I'd like to welcome everyone back to the world of college football. Seems like just yesterday we saw Tua Tuiososopo throw the game winning pass for the Crimson Tide in the SEC title game against Georgia. And now we're back at it again.
Things up here have been pretty dull for a while. We're always glad to welcome our new arrivals. We were pretty shocked when former NFL coach Tony Soprano died suddenly in July, though we all showed up to greet him, including the actor who played Coach Soprano on the HBO Hard Knockers show Jimmy Gandoroppolo.
The biggest arrival was long-time head coach Earle Bruce, who joined the heavenly reaches in April. Coach Hayes was the first to greet his Buckeye successor, with a solid punch to the ribs.
As you can probably imagine, it's been a bit of a rough time for Earle given the problems that his grandson has been having in Columbus. Out of respect for his progeny Earle has now ditched his fancy suit and fedora for a white tank top and some special ring he apparently bought for his rooster. I didn't even know he had a poultry farm.
As for the games, we had a lot of fun watching five full days of games, it's a great launching point for the entire season. The aforementioned Buckeyes had little trouble even without R Ban Meyer. They ran up the score on Oregon State, winning 77-31. With that sort of defense it could be a long year for the Ducks.
The defending national champions got off to a fine start, as the Yukon Huskies were sent back to Canada by Central Florida, 56-17.
Marshall beat Miami of Ohio 35-28 in one of those unusual weekend MAC attack games. Here's hoping the MAC reverts back to those Tuesday night games with 3,600 people in attendance, those are far more exciting.
The early part of the season gets a bit confusing as some teams prepare for their conference schedules by putting split squads out there. Northwestern's "A" team went down to West Lafayette and knocked off Purdue, 31-27, while their backups were getting plowed by Texas A&M 59-7.
Elsewhere in the Big Ten the Michigan State Fighting Chippewas came from behind late to upend the southern guys from the University of Texas at Houston State, 38-31. Penn State had a similar close call against Appalachian State, winning 45-38 in overtime.
Now I'm still a bit confused about these overtime rules. Appalachian State went first and missed a long field goal, then Penn State scored, then they let Appalachian State try again even though the game should have been over. I wish they'd just let each team get an equal number of tries and be done with it.
In one of the big-name games, Notre Dame defeated Michigan 24-17 under the lights in South Bend. We had an unusually quiet night among the coaches for that one. Usually Coaches Schembechler and Chrysler start yelling at Coaches Leahy and Rockne, and this time Coach Parseghian was there too. But the game was a night game and it turned out the coaches had been playing something called beer pong and they were pretty much keeled over by kickoff. This beer pong game was kind of odd, they'd bounce ping pong balls into cups, then Coach Bo tripped and kicked the ping pong table over and that knocked over Coach Leahy. You'd think they'd all be mad but instead they just started laughing. Then they passed out and that was that.
The biggest game of the day took place in Atlanta, where Auburn held off Washington in a sloppy game, 21-16. The next night LSU had little trouble with Miami of Florida, winning 33-17 after jumping out to a big lead. Coach Ogre seems to have the Bayou Bengals in good shape for the upcoming season. On Monday night Virginia Tech went into Tallahassee and lacerated Florida State, 24-3. Auburn, LSU, and VPI will definitely be factors in the race in the SEC.
One of the most impressive efforts was by Western Virginia, as the guys from the Thomas Jefferson State played a neutral site game in Charlotte against Tennessee and won going away, 40-14. Quarterback Will Geer III threw for over 400 yards in the contest.
This led to some real excitement up here, as Will's grandpa, actor Will Geer, showed up to watch the game with us. You could tell that the original Will Geer was really touched as he spent so many years playing Grandpa Walton, whose character lived in Virginia not far from Morgantown VA. Though he really didn't have to burst into tears every time Will III led his team to another first down. Finally Coach Frank Kush had had enough and slapped him across the face a few times and he seemed to calm down after that.
So that's it for week 1. Week 2 will feature some more scintillating matchups, such as Stanford vs USC, Georgia vs South Carolina, and Alabama vs. R Kansas State. See you soon!