2018 Week 4
September 26, 2018
We are finally getting into some serious conference action. One of the surprises of the day was Kentucky's 28-7 win over undefeated Mississippi State. Benny Snell had a great game for the Wildcats, running for 165 yards and all four touchdowns. My good friend Weeb Eubank wandered in while we were watching that game and started talking about how great Snell was for his Super Bowl champion Jets team. I finally had to tell him that Matt Snell had retired years ago and this was some distant relative. Ole Weeb gets confused at times, that even happens up here occasionally.
The SEC fined Kentucky $100,000 because their fans ran onto the field. Apparently this was a serious fine because it was their second offense. The first offense was in 2002 when the fans ran onto the field to celebrate an upset win over LSU just as the Bayou Bengals hit on a tipped TD pass to take the victory away. I remember Nick Satan's head doing a full 720 degree spin upon that bit of dark magic.
In the Big Ten the Michigan State Fighting Chippewas beat Indiana 35-21 to maintain possession of the Old Brass Spittoon. I'm sure they had an exciting post-game distance expectoration contest.
Most of the rest of the Big Ten simply played more non-conference patsies. Ohio State welcomed back coach R Ban Meyer with a 49-6 win over Tulane. Purdue had no trouble with the newly reconstituted Boston University program, winning 30-13.
New Big Ten member Rutgers had a tougher time, losing 42-13 to Buffalo. I guess that scotches the Scarlet Knights' chances in the AFC East. Meanwhile Michigan feasted on another cupcake, defeating satellite campus Nebraska-Lincoln 56-10.
The mighty Sooners had a rough go of it against Army, winning 28-21 with a late touchdown. The trash talking here between Red Blaik and Bud Wilkinson was almost as exciting as the game.
Texas had a fairly easy time with the Horny Toads of TCU, winning 31-16. Elsewhere in the SWC, Texas Tech pulled off a non-conference win over Oklahoma State.
Florida had little trouble with Tennessee, winning 47-21. Coach Superior was famous for saying "you can't spell Citrus without 'UT'" but I'd also note that you can't spell "Nola Home Loans Arizona Bowel" without "VOL".
The biggest upset of the day occurred in No'folka Virginia as Virginia Tech lost to Old Dominion 49-35. I haven't heard much about Old Dominion's football program before now, I'm guessing OD "U" is just a offshoot of "the U".
We had several exciting overtime games this week. Now I'm still a bit confused about these overtime rules. Stanford beat Oregon 38-31 by scoring then stopping Oregon. I get that one. Southern Methodist beat Navy 31-30 - SMU went for two after scoring in overtime. What I don't get is why Navy then scored and went for one point. You'd think Midshipmen would be better at math. And the Eastern Michigan EMUs came up short in overtime on the road, as they lost a field goal shootout 1-0 against SDSU. That's a big win for South Dakota State.
Apparently the ACC is now experimenting with a different kind of overtime rule, requiring teams to put in their backup quarterbacks. Notre Dame actually did so at the start of the game while host Wake Forest put theirs in during the 4th quarter. The overtime was anticlimactic as Notre Dame already led 55-27.
There have been some stories about schools signing identical twins to their football programs. Notre Dame features the Ademilola twins, Justin and Jayson. Michigan has the Green twins, Gemon and German.
The use of twins on the field goes back a long way. Over a century ago Yale coach Walter Camp debuted two twins who truly changed the game, Albert and Elvin Johnson. They manned the defensive line and made the Bulldogs a very tough team to run on. They did have a big advantage - people often said that Albert and Elvin were joined at the hip and they were being literal. The Johnsons were famous conjoined twins from PT Barnum's circus who took advantage of their large shared girth to singlehandedly destroy the effectiveness of the old Flying Wedge formation. Coach Camp recently told me about the one time they came out of the shower room and Coach Camp said "wow, that's one big Johnson!". Even though they were quite a crowd draw, their circus income meant the NCAA ruled them ineligible.
That ruling soon expanded to all potential athletes who spent the summer touring with circuses. Thus ended the football career of the Elephant Man, who went on to be the mascot for the Alabama Crimson Tide. And now you know the rest of the story.