2024 Week 5
September 30, 2024
Oh boy, was that a great game in Tuscaloosa or what? Well, it was a great finish. The Tide rolled all over UGA in the first half, then somehow the Dawgs turned it around behind star QB Carson Beck. UGA hit a long TD pass to take the lead then Bama came right back with a 75-yard pass of their own. The pass defense by both scarlet-clad teams was so bad that for a moment I thought it was a rerun of the Oklahoma spring game. Alabama, after getting the scare of a lifetime, held on for the win.
There's a good chance that the Tide's eventual reward for winning will be to play a bunch of top-notch teams at neutral sites while Georgia could end up with a 5 seed, play whatever high school team comes out of the group of 5 conferences, then play the weakest conference champion at a neutral site. Gotta love the incentives in the new bowel playoff system.
The use of streaming for games is expanding. I was frustrated trying to find Notre Dame's game against the St. Louisvile Cardinals but I finally saw that it was on Pee Cock so I managed to catch most of the Irish victory. Then they had Ohio State's visit to play the Michigan State Fighting Chippewas on Pee Cock as well. Earlier on Gameday my good friend Coach Corso said "I love the Cock" and the other guys on the set started laughing. I was watching with my good friend Dave Diles and I said "I don't know why coach likes streaming so much, it's a pain in the ass". Dave told me that he didn't think Coach was talking about streaming but did agree that Coach may have been talking about a pain in the ass.
Also in the Big Ten Michigan held off Minnesota to grab hold of the Little Brown Jugs. In this day and age I think it's quite insensitive to have such a racist and sexist celebration.
The most controversial finish took place in south Florida as a game winning Hail Mary TD pass by Virginia Tech was ruled incomplete and the Miami Hurricanes held on for a 38-34 win. The review took forever, I think I've had longer lasting colonoscopies with less contentious results.
The biggest upset of the day was in Oxford, as surprising Kentucky came down and shocked top 10 Ole Southern Piss, 20-17. The biggest comeback was in Durham as Duke overcame a 20-0 deficit to score late and upend North Carolina 21-20. You gotta love it when basketball schools play good football. Or at least closely contested mediocre football.
I was glad to see we've moved back into traditional conference matchups as we close out September. Texas A&M held off SWC rival R Kansas 21-17 and Oregon had little trouble with Pac-8 foe UCLA, winning 34-13.
UNLV clobbered Fresno State 59-14. This was in spite of both their starting quarterback and starting running back realizing, after week 4, that they had yet to be paid and quitting. Those guys were doing things the wrong way - in the olden days USC's top players would maximize their leverage by making sure the checks cleared before the first game, not in week 5.
There were some interesting foreign teams playing. The Huskies from the Klondike are doing better this year as Yukon beat Buffalo 47-3. But the best foreign game was New Mexico's 50-40 win over cross-nation rival New Mexico State.
The most disappointing finish was Auburn's loss to Oklahoma - with about 4 minutes to go Auburn, ahead by 5 points, threw a pick six. I'm guessing Peyton Manning was very disappointed in his son Thorne for that play.
Next week we get some fun matchups like Michigan at Washington and Clemson at Florida State, but I'm really looking forward to the game in Columbus when Iowa faces Ohio State in the battle of the Huckeyes. Talk to you soon!