2020 Week 1
September 29, 2020
Whoo boy, this has been the strangest year of college football since the previous pandemic over 100 years ago. That was my senior year at Pitt and the Panthers, led by the legendary Pop Warner, played a shortened schedule which really picked up after we all got back from the Great War. Our guys even knocked off Coach John T Heisman and the Georgia Tech engineers, then, in our rivalry game, we took out Penn State as most of the Nittany Lion lineup was out with the flu. JoePa never lived down that loss. I'd still kid him about it if I knew where he was, but nobody up here seems to know.
Now. to answer a couple of your questions: No, we are beyond the mortal coil so we can't catch this darned virus. We are pretty much immune to all disease, though hangovers can still be a problem (my guess is that the Big Guy sees that as a deterrent to us overimbibing). And, no, we don't have to wear masks. In fact, we have a pretty stern no mask policy enforced by Coach Hayes. It's one of a number of rules from Woody, who serves as our enforcer. We can't wear masks, we have to stay clean-cut, we can't mention Charlie Bauman, and Song Girl calendars are banned (gives Woody too many Rose Bowel flashbacks). The latter is very distressing to me.
The virus has caused quite a few games to be canceled as there have been outbreaks among several schools. Notre Dame's game at Wake Forest was canceled due to a number of Irish players getting the virus. Coach B Kelly just stated that the culprit was a pregame meal featuring a vomiting player. Now, given the ND dorm delicacies of Moose Cock on Bun and Carrot Nut Casserole and, now, Barf on a Plate, I'd like to suggest that Notre Dame remove genitalia and puke from the football players' menu. Not only will the virus be less likely to spread but there are tastier parts of moose to eat, like the tongue and the anal glands.
Now I know the alleged college football season got underway almost four weeks ago, but I'm still trying to sort all that out. Some of those games looked like NFL replacement player games from the mid-80's. Coach Walsh even came over to me and demanded to know why the Texans didn't install the wishbone the way he did with the Niners during the replacement player era.
I told Coach Walsh about the time Coach Corso talked to me about installing the wishbone and pretty soon he started talking about all the other things he tried to install, including a hammer and a light bulb, and how he spent several weeks in the hospital after the latter. I don't understand Coach Corso at times, especially on Gameday these days.
So at least we are mostly back into the action, though the Big Ten, Pac-12, and MAC are still waiting to get started. Maybe they're just waiting for the NBA and NHL to get done. That's the only advantage of most years, the only sport we usually are waiting on to end is baseball (and I just noticed that baseball is just getting started with their playoffs). The NHL finally finished and the NBA will soon be done, so maybe we can get back to our favorite October pastime, mocking major league baseball.
As for the games themselves, you could tell teams were getting off to slow starts. The weekend started Thursday when Nick Satan's JV squad, Alabama B, clobbered the alleged all-American team USA 42-10.
There was some decent action for the ACC schools. Boston College came from behind to beat the Longhorns' JV squad, Texas State, 24-21. My Pitt Panthers continued their fine start, clubbing the St. Louisville Cardinals 23-20. Guess the steroids didn't help the so-called sluggers this time.
Perhaps the wildest finish was in Lubbock, as Texas came from behind thanks to some classic Southwest Conference defense to beat Texas Tech 63-56 in overtime. Now I'm still a bit confused about these overtime rules. When overtime started Texas was down 15 points, yet they were given the ball three straight times and scored three times. Not only that, on the second possession they went for two points even though the rules state that two point conversions are only for the third overtime onward. Meanwhile Tech only got one shot at scoring and failed.
Speaking of scoring, I'm a bit relieved to have not yet seen my daughter Beth Cook's name on the ESPN crawl this season. Usually she's letting guys named Howard score 53 times on her, but apparently she's shutting everyone out this year. She must have finally gotten worn out.
There was quite the upset in Norman as Kansas City State scored the game's final 24 points and upended the highly rated Sooners, 38-35. It's clear that KCSU benefited from that opening game loss against bitter rival R Kansas State.
As usual, a lot of the excitement was in the SEC. Tennessee held on to beat South Carolina after the Cocks fumbled a punt late in the game. In other SEC action, Florida ran away from Ole Southern Miss, 51-35 and cross-state rival Florida State got pounded by Miami.
The most shocking result of the day occurred in Baton Rouge, with Mississippi State defeated LSU 44-34, as Bulldog QB AJ "Lou" Costello threw for 623 yards and, in the coaching matchup, the Pirate upended the Ogre.
So, we're off and running on the 2020 season (finally). Be sure to come back next week as we have more excitement: Auburn vs. Georgia, A&M at Bama, and Wake Forest hosting Campbell High School.