2021 Week 2
September 17, 2021
I'd like to apologize for not sharing my observations until late in the week. I've had a bit of a rough time around here.
It started when my good friend Bronko Nagurski was pretty bored watching Monday Night Football so challenged me to do shots of Cuervo. Now I'm never one to pass up a drinking challenge, but I had just eaten dinner and, having been told I should eat more vegetables, loaded up on beans and peppers. You can probably see where this was going, the tequila sent me over the edge, Bronko got up to run out of the room and bowled over me. I ended up with a broken ankle and have been laid up for a couple days. So I'm moving around with a scooter and they're still trying to fumigate our TV room.
As for the action, there's nothing like some of these early season matchups of teams from different levels. It all started with mighty Alabama playing that high school team from Mercer. The Tide definitely were confident about the matchup, because they sent some of their Alabama State JV players to take on Auburn. Nothing like Iron Bowel action early in the season, though this was more like Iron Colonoscopy as Auburn rolled.
The Bama reserve team went to Birmingham and took on Georgia and they got bombed by the Bulldogs about as badly as the JVs lost to Auburn.
Meanwhile Nebraska proved they're putting it together by knocking off Buffalo 28-3. I figured they'd be the underdog against Josh Allen and company.
The most interesting game and the wildest finish occurred in Tallahassee as Jacksonville hit a miraculous Hail Mary to knock off the Seminoles, 20-17. U Ban Meyer had a magnificent debut for the Jags, reliving his Florida glory days.
Speaking of Coach Meyer, the biggest game of the weekend occurred in Columbus, where the Ohio State Huckeyes were shocked by Oregon 35-28. OSU fell behind by a couple scores twice then made a roaring comeback to fall just short. At Monday's press conference Coach Day seemed a bit distressed at the poor performance, or maybe it was the tar and feathers.
Iowa won a scintillating turnover fest against archrival Iowa State, 27-17. In intersectional action, Bring 'Em Young invited the University of Texas at Houston to Provo then shut down U.T.A.H., 26-17.
The Todd Helton era is over in Los Angeles as USC fired their coach following an ugly loss to Stanford. Virginia stomped all over Illinois, winning 42-21. New Illini Coach Butthead's lard diet approach seems to have made a difference for his team as several of his smaller players are now in elliptical orbits around Coach.
My Pitt Panthers went down to Knoxville and held off the Vols, 41-34. Now some of you have wondered who my good friend Coach Majors was rooting for in the contest. I can assure you that he was passed out drunk all weekend and didn't even know the teams were playing.
There was a fine public vs. parochial battle in New England, as Boston College knocked off UMass, likely disappointing all the clergy on the UMass side of the field.
Foreign teams had an interesting time. Yukon got walloped again. La Tech played host to their fellow funny French-style talking friends from Southeast Louisiana and won a tight one, 45-42. And I'm very glad to see college football spreading south of the border. The two most prominent programs down there played over the weekend and New Mexico took out New Mexico State.
One of the disappointments of the weekend was having to watch the Fighting Irish take on the Mud Rockets on the some weird network you could only watch on your phone. Given that my phone is a landline, that's not practical, though I tried it and kept on conking myself on the head. My good friend Dave Diles told me it's a new thing called streaming. Streaming may be why they call it the Peecock network. Anyway, the Irish pulled it out and also came back to win the game.
Wish me well as I heal up and I'll promise to forego the peppers this time.