This is the time of year when every week could be Judgment Week for a team. The matchup’s begin to get tougher, the rivalries begin to be played out for another year, and the teams that will be heading to postseason play are beginning to distance themselves from the rest of the pack. While for some teams, the sand in the hourglass may be running out as we speak. For an example, the Philadelphia Eagles blew another lead this past weekend to fall to 3-6 and almost completely out of playoff contention.

The big showdown between Andrew Luck & Stanford and LaMichael James & Oregon turned into a repeat of last year’s meeting. Luck may have had homefield advantage this time around, but it didn’t matter as a 31-14 second half for Oregon saw them distance themselves once again from their main Pac-12 competition. James scored two of his three touchdowns in the second half and would finish with almost 150 yards on the ground. For Duck quarterback Derron Thomas, this turned out to be the game where he really flexed his passing muscles. Always seen as a running quarterback and the man who runs Oregon’s splendid offense, Thomas started the second half barrage by collaborating with receiver Josh Huff on a 59-yard scoring play just under two minutes into the half. That gave the Ducks some distance from the 22-16 halftime margin, and James’ touchdown later in the quarter almost ensured (even with so much time left to play) that the Cardinal wouldn’t be catching up. Sure they still had Luck, who gamely kept Stanford scoring during most of the second half, but they didn’t have the defense to stop James & Thomas from continuing to run wild in the final thirty minutes. Ironically, it was the Duck defense that put the final stamp on this win as Boseko Lokombo’s 40-yard interception return touchdown with four and a half minutes to play sealed the Ducks return to the top five and likely ended Andrew Luck and Stanford’s national championship dreams.

The national title dreams of the Boise St. Broncos once again died thanks to a missed field-goal. Last year it was Kyle Brotzman’s misses in regulation and overtime that helped doom Boise against Nevada. This year it was Dan Goodale missing a 39-yard straight up field-goal wide right that once again put to bed the possibility of Boise playing for the national title or getting left out of the mix with an undefeated team. This was a game that many believed would be the Mountain West’s game of the year. It did turn out that way, but there was no reason that it should have turned out that way considering the play of Boise’s defense and the fact that TCU’s defense this year has been a far, far cry from last year’s D that was one of the top defenses in the country.

The game was a shootout as TCU quarterback Casey Pachall played the game and got the win that has now allowed him to step out of the shadow that Andy Dalton had created with his years at TCU. Pachall threw for five touchdowns and nearly 500 yards on a defense that hadn’t allowed a quarterback near those numbers yet this year all the while getting fabulous play out of his receivers who seemed hellbent on making sure they caught every ball they could, including the ones they had to fight for with a Boise defender (such was the case on the game’s final touchdown). The game was a back-and-forth affair with plenty of lead changes and the intrigue that can be added to a game by a poor kicker, and I’m not talking about Dan Goodale. In this case it was TCU kicker Ross Evans that may have set this whole thing in motion with possibly the worst missed extra-point I’ve ever seen. After TCU took a lead that they would take into halftime, Evans missed an extra point so badly that not only did TCU have to go for two after a touchdown at some point to tie the game, but it made the question of going for the tie or the win if the situation came up very easy. TCU stayed in the game and had an opportunity to tie or take the lead late. One breathtaking touchdown grab by Brandon Carter later and the stage was set for the ultimate gamble in college football: two-point conversion for the win. Josh Boyce, who caught three touchdowns on the day, had to work for it, but he turned a short outside pass into a successful conversion that gave TCU a one-point lead. Goodale’s miss was then partially set up by a kickoff out-of-bounds starting Boise at their 40 and a close pass interference against TCU on 4^th & 10 for the Broncos. In short, they ran out of miracles and put it in the hands of a kicker instead of winning it with their offense. For this they paid the same price they paid last year.

Not too many would’ve bought Giants/49ers as a game of the week before the beginning of this season. But in the NFL, that in fact was the game of the week heading into this week with both teams not only ahead in their divisions, but also in the running for a first-round bye in the playoffs. For three quarters the game was a very close one, but one without any of the scoring that people expected going in as defense hasn’t been either team’s strongest suit this season. But it was on this day with the only scoring being field-goals for the first forty-two and a half minutes before the offenses finally came awake. Eli Manning and the Giants scored the first and last touchdown’s of the game, but in between the 49ers won the game. Alex Smith found Vernon Davis early in the fourth quarter for a big touchdown play that put the 49ers up. An interception set up a rushing touchdown a minute later giving them a lead they would not relinquish and Jim Harbuagh’s coach of the year résumé was given another boost.

There were no shakeup’s in the SEC this week as the top dogs of the nation’s top conference conducted business as usual with plenty of beatings to go around. Mississippi State gave Alabama a little trouble early on, but Bama eventually rolled over the Bulldogs. Top-ranked LSU actually got resistance from Western Kentucky before LSU realized they were LSU and played accordingly, routing the Hilltoppers 42-9. And Georgia and Arkansas almost mirrored each other with 45-7 and 49-7 wins against Auburn and Tennessee respectively. These wins paint the picture for the rest of the month in the SEC: Georgia wins next week and they clinch the SEC East and a spot in the conference title game, Alabama is still waiting for LSU to go down, and LSU & Arkansas both still control their own destiny in the SEC West and national title pictures. Those two meet in Baton Rouge November 25.

Never count out Virginia Tech. I think we all make that mistake each season as the moment the Hokies are eliminated from any national title contention, people simply forget about them. Last season is a fantastic example: the Hokies started the year losing to Boise St. and then James Madison in a six-day span before going undefeated in the ACC and winning the conference. This year the Hokies were decimated by Clemson 23-3 early in the season and now may earn their rematch in the ACC title game. Last Thursday’s meeting between the Hokies and Georgia Tech, riding high from their win against Clemson, many believed would decide the ACC’s Coastal division. The game was close for three quarters before quarterback Logan Thomas helped the Hokies pull away in the final sixteen minutes for a win that was harder than the 37-26 score may indicate. The Hokies still haven’t won the ACC Coastal division, but at this moment are the hottest team in the ACC and if I had to pick right now in the VT/Virginia game (a game that still could be for the division), I would take Beamer’s boys in a heartbeat.

Several of the NFL’s divisions got a dose of instant reality Sunday, and their eventual playoff representatives may have shown themselves in some key games.

Falcons coach Mike Smith may have given his team a fatal blow this past Sunday when he decided to go for it on a 4^th & 1 inside his own 35 in overtime against division rival New Orleans. The Falcons only trailed by a ½ game for the division lead coming in, thus this was a crucial game in that division race. Michael Turner was given the ball, the Saints got great penetration, and the play had no chance. The Saints kicked the game winner soon after and now have a bit of breathing room in the NFC South, though the two have a December 26 meeting that could be a division title game. But if the Saints were to gain more room or even clinch the division before the two meet again, I’m sure many people in and out of the Falcons organization will be looking at this game and that play in particular and wonder what Smith believed there was to gain by going for it that deep in your own territory.

The Cincinnati Bengals have gotten a lot of positive talk about their team this year, and none of it has to do with Chad Ochocinco not being there anymore. Instead it has been about the rookie quarterback & receiver tandem of Andy Dalton and A.J. Green making the Bengals a legit contender for a playoff spot and the AFC North title. The Bengals still have to play Houston, Baltimore twice, and Pittsburgh a second time, so a division title is going to be far from easy, but a wild card spot may not be as tough or as hard to get. If anything else, the Bengals proved on Sunday, in their first meeting with Pittsburgh, that they can hang with the top dogs in the AFC North. Despite trailing 14-0 early, the Bengals hung with Pittsburgh for the rest of the game falling only 24-17 as their rookies showed the heart that rookies need to show, but were still rookies and had the same problems against NFL veterans that rookies have. It’s about baby steps and for a team that nobody expected anything from, the Cincinnati Bengals could still be the NFL’s biggest surprise this year when all is said and done.

The AFC East’s two powers met for the second time this season and, fitting for a Patriots/Jets meeting, it was in primetime. So does the game’s result mean that Jets still aren’t ready for primetime? Maybe. But this was more of a case of Tom Brady getting his groove back in the second half of this game. Through the first thirty minutes, this game resembled the 49ers/Giants game with the field-goals and the defensive dominance of the action. However, Brady transformed (maybe in a phone booth) back into the Tom Brady that we’re all used to seeing: a man completing passes to different men so smoothly it’s like he’s playing a pick-up game somewhere. And that’s how Brady’s (and the Patriots’) second half went as once they got going, they didn’t stop until the Jets were beaten and beaten into the ground. Rex Ryan was virtually speechless after the game praising Brady and blaming himself for “the worst play in football history” when the Jets called a pointless timeout in the second quarter. That play had nothing to do with the final score, but was indicative of a less than disciplined Jets offense that played Sunday Night. The win gives New England a season-sweep of their hated foes and a one-game lead over them in the AFC East. Even though it’s a one-game lead, that one game could really mean something six weeks from now as the Patriots final seven games are far more favorable than the Jets final seven, which include three games (two on the road) against the NFC East.

And of course there is Penn St. As for the scandal and everything that’s happened: I’m going to address the scandal another day (I’m thinking next week) because it’s a separate issue from football and deserves to be told separately from football. I will note that for a week where things were anything but normal, the game on Saturday between Penn St. and Nebraska offered some normalcy to State College, PA. It didn’t offer this just because there was football and some kind of momentary distraction from the horror that has ripped through the university, but because the game wasn’t that much different from any other Penn St. game this season. Yes the most obvious thing missing about this game was Joe Paterno from the Penn St. sidelines, but aside from that the game resembled many of Penn St.’s games this season: close, defensive, low-scoring, decided by less than seven points. The only difference between this past Saturday’s game and all but one of Penn St.’s games this season is that Penn St. lost this close game after losing so much more during the week that preceded it.
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Yes it was another week where football fans had no shortage of excitement and intrigue as weather and human error combined with it being that time of the year to produce a weekend that saw many teams dodge bullets and others begin to countdown the days until the season ends. Joe Flacco and Eli Manning were heroes in games against quarterbacks who have a more profound hero reputation with Flacco’s 26-yard touchdown pass—matched with an equally great catch—putting a stake in rival Pittsburgh and Manning’s late TD pass putting the Giants over the Patriots in their first meeting since Super Bowl XLII. Quick sidenote: there were a lot of people who wanted to point out the similarities between Sunday’s game and that Super Sunday years ago. So I’d like to point out how this game wasn’t even close to being like the Super Bowl these two played against each other despite a few big plays that re-created those images in people’s heads: the teams are both very different, the stakes were MUCH smaller in this one, they weren’t at a neutral location, and one of the Giants receivers from that game is playing for the other team in New York now. There was chaos all around the Big-10 with Nebraska getting shocked at home, Michigan St. barely pulling out a win against Minnesota (who took Iowa down last week), Iowa upsetting Michigan thanks to four incomplete passes by Denard Robinson inside the Iowa 5-yard line in the final moments (with a missed pass interference call on the final play), Wisconsin getting back on its feet with a blowout of Purdue, and Indiana hanging with Ohio St. until the final quarter when the Buckeyes finally pulled away. And yet there were some very familiar things this weekend with the most familiar being great offenses playing great offense and bad defenses playing bad defense while playing good defense. Confusing? I know, but the defense comment is the only reasonable way to describe the Green Bay Packers on Sunday. Aaron Rodgers doing his thing and putting up a lot of points has become commonplace. But the Packer D making the big plays? You’d think the last two seasons for Green Bay had merged together, but that’s what took place as Phillip Rivers may have lead a great fourth quarter comeback, but it came up short due to a late INT to Charlie Peprah. But Peprah also returned an earlier interception for a touchdown and Tramon Williams also got a return touchdown early to keep the Chargers far enough behind throughout. And of course there was plenty of bad defense to go around when Oklahoma State and Kansas State butted heads. However, in this case the only good play would be on the offensive side, as the game’s 52-45 score would indicate. The Cowboys got the win as Bill Snyder’s group lost their best chance at an earthshaking upset for this season. With OK-State at #2 in the BCS, it’s very likely that Bedlam will decide the fate of the Big-12 as the in-state Sooners still have an outside shot at getting to the title game.

And sandwiched between all of that was the only kind of game where the moniker “Game of the Century” can be used each time due to the expectations.

A one versus two regular season college football game is quite the rarity. In the 75 years of the AP poll, this past Saturday marked the 25^th time this game has taken place. History is written with the help of these games as the eventual national champion has won 13 of these games, including two of the last three national champions. So many great players, great teams, great rivalries, and great moments have come in this game. It was the “Mr. Outside/Mr. Inside” tandem of Doc Blanchard (Inside) and Glenn Davis (Outside) that first dominated this game winning three and tying one in their four one versus two games. Johnny Rodgers would help clinch Nebraska’s second straight national championship with a punt return in the 1972 Orange Bowl (itself a #1 Vs. #2 game), but it was his return in the one versus two game that preceded it that would make his legend. On Thanksgiving Day 1971, Rodgers took an Oklahoma punt for the game’s first touchdown in one of college football’s most legendary moments. And then there was Melvin Bratton & Co. and their early morning phone calls to Brian Bodsworth and Jamelle Holieway that set the tone hours before Miami and Oklahoma met in 1986, not to mention the most badass coin toss in football history. With The U in mind, I couldn’t forget Wide Right I. Miami and Florida St. both came into their November 1991 meeting undefeated with aspirations of a national title (FSU coach Bobby Bowden still hunting his first). Miami had pulled ahead 17-16 and it all ended up coming down to a single play: Gerry Thomas’ 34-yard field-goal attempt. The name the game has received should let you know how the play went. Bowden would eventually get his national title, but would also have to suffer two more losses to Miami via wide right field-goals, and a wide-left loss to Miami as well. When you think college football rivalries, there are some games that instantly come to mind. Interestingly enough, the rivalries that seem to stand the highest all have one thing in common: at least one of their meetings have been an AP one versus two game. Such rivalries are: Oklahoma/Texas, Notre Dame/Michigan, Florida/Florida St., Oklahoma/Nebraska, Notre Dame/USC, Florida/Alabama, and of course Michigan/Ohio St.

While it may seem obvious to note that a game with a 9-6 final score came down to field-goals, but LSU’s victory last Saturday wasn’t because of converted field-goals, but because of missed field-goals. Alabama had no answer early on for its failure to convert field-goals, missing their first three attempts of the game and giving LSU hope in the first half that their offense’s ineffectiveness hadn’t done them in. The first miss was the worst of the three. Cade Foster’s first attempt was a 44-yard kick to the right; it went wide right. The next attempt was a 50-yard kick, which had me scratching my head as to why you would go for a longer kick on the possession following a miss. Foster had the distance, but not the direction on his first kick and repeated things the second time around as try #2 had the distance (just barely), but not the direction. Jeremy Shelley was brought into handle the Tide’s kicking duties after Foster’s first quarter misses, but his first try barely got off the ground as it was blocked by LSU. Shelley would make his next attempt, but by then LSU knew that their defense would bail them out of this one. Foster would return in overtime, but would miss another long one (this time from 52 yards) as the Bama offense once again failed to give its kicker less distance to have to cover.

A 9-6 final does indicate a defensive game, and while this one was defensive, Trent Richardson’s performance for Bama shows that the offenses were still working somewhat in this game. Richardson had 169 total yards on 28 touches helping Bama with his runs and catches equally. It was sophomore QB A.J. McCarron’s swing pass to Richardson that LSU decided to just let happen throughout the night. Whether it was running or receiving, it was Richardson who helped Bama get into LSU territory far more often than vice versa. But that’s always when things ran cold for that offense. It was always when LSU’s defense had their backs closer to the wall that they stiffened up and made the necessary stops to force field-goal attempt after field-goal attempt from Bama.

And it had to be LSU’s defense that made the team’s biggest plays because for the majority of the game, LSU couldn’t figure out what to do on offense. They tried Jarrett Lee at quarterback and more passing; he was intercepted twice, once in each half. They tried Jordan Jefferson at the same position and a more running approach; it helped get them their points during the game, but also did nothing to help them distance themselves from the opposition.

The game itself was both compelling and disappointing at the same time. I think the opinion of the game is likely split among people feeling those two very different feelings while all of them watched the same game. Any time you have this kind of game you are going to get extravagant hype building up to it. In this case, both teams had their bye weeks at the same time, and right before their meeting. So when they fell one and two in the polls, that meant there was two weeks instead of just one to get people into a fury over this game. In Louisiana, Alabama, and probably the entire southern United States, no motivation was needed for football fans to get pumped for this one. Football, specifically SEC football, is part of the social fabric of each state that houses a member of that conference. And in case you don’t believe me, watch the Auburn/Alabama documentary and see how that game has divided an entire state because the SEC has two teams from Alabama within the conference. Games like LSU/Bama and Bama/Auburn and Florida/Georgia are almost holidays to fans and general observers alike because the rivalries stretch back generations and also house championship memories for those who cheer for a team that may not be in the running this year, but was at a time before. Plus, when you add the magic words (number one versus number two), the game does become a holiday if its being played in the SEC. Stubhub had tickets ranging from $350-$1200 dollars for the game. Weddings all over Alabama and Louisiana had to be moved around to coincide with the start of the game due to CBS’ moving of the game from afternoon to primetime during both team’s bye weeks. The game may come once every three years by average, but in reality it is rarer than that. If you cancel out the two SEC title games in the last three years that have been one versus two, the last regular season game like this was the Michigan/Ohio St. game five years ago. Before that and OSU/Texas the same year, it had been ten years since a one versus two game took place in the regular season. That’s why people get into an uproar over this game, that’s why the game receives the extra hype it does: because it is a treat for college football fans that has never been spoiled due to its rarity and because the games usually match up college football’s most iconic.

When it comes to southern football, the two most iconic met this past Saturday in the most iconic type of game. They would put on a game that was at the same time a tribute to the defensive struggles this game has produced in the past and an example of what SEC football used to see more of.

And one final treat…

TOP FIVE #1 VS. #2 REGULAR SEASON GAMES EVER

1. Ohio St./Michigan, November 19, 2006

2. Nebraska/Oklahoma, November 25, 1971

3. Miami (Fla.)/Florida St., November 16, 1991

4. Florida/Alabama, December 6, 2008

5. Texas/Arkansas, December 6, 1969

TOP FIVE #1 VS. #2 BOWL GAMES EVER

1. Texas/USC, 2006 Rose Bowl

2. Ohio St./Miami (Fla.), 2003 Fiesta Bowl

3. Penn St./Miami (Fla.), 1987 Fiesta Bowl

4. Penn St./Alabama, 1979 Sugar Bowl

5. Florida St./Virginia Tech, 2000 Sugar bowl

 
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At the beginning of the season, TCU/Baylor seemed to me to be a college football game that would be around in November as a legit game of the year candidate. It almost made it to November. However, Stanford’s multiple overtime win over USC at the Coliseum this past Saturday has now overtaken that position as the two teams put on what is right now college football’s game of the year. I had to note that as of now it’s the game of the year in college football because, well, it’s November and with all the craziness that usually takes place in this month there are also plenty of great games that come out of it. Back to Saturday in L.A.: Andrew Luck finally faced a tougher brand of competition and finally looked mortal as the pick-six he gave to USC late in the game nearly gave them the game as well. But Luck, showing why it’s basically unanimous that he’ll be next year’s #1 draft pick in the NFL, lead the Cardinal to a game-saving touchdown drive following the INT, with the tying touchdown coming with less than forty seconds to play. The Cardinal’s triple overtime win has kept their national title hopes alive for the moment, but with a showdown with Oregon looming, Stanford’s defense couldn’t have afforded a game where they were exposed as being a team who can give up large amounts of yardage and points. Still, it was mostly about Luck, as his leadership late in the game helped Stanford from suffering the kind of upset that Oklahoma had to go through last week. If there is a silver lining to this wild and crazy shootout for the Cardinal going forward (besides the win), it’s that they are able to keep their offense moving fairly comfortably through an entire game, even as the score continues to go up and up and up. Remember, not being able to produce points for a full sixty minutes was what did Stanford in against Oregon last year. Also remember that if it weren’t for Curtis McNeal’s fumble into the end-zone that ended the game, who knows how long this game would’ve gone and how high the score would’ve gotten.

The NFL’s marquee matchup this past Sunday turned into a showcase game for the Pittsburgh Steelers. A deceiving 25-17 victory (it wasn’t even that close) helped the Steelers erase the demons of past meetings with Brady and Patriots from their minds as they held Brady to under 200 passing yards, never let Brady get comfortable, and forced Brady into an uphill climb the entire game as the Steelers never trailed. I mention all of those things as ways Pittsburgh stopped Brady from being Brady in this one because it was a collaborative effort. Keeping Brady uncomfortable and unproductive is key to beating New England, but keeping Brady off the field is the best way to get him uncomfortable and unproductive. And with that, it was probably Pittsburgh’s offense more than their defense that beat Brady on this day. Not to take a single thing away from the Steeler defense, but Big Ben and the Steeler offense keeping the ball for just under forty minutes in this game may have done more damage to Brady’s ability to lead his team than anything that was forced upon him by the Pittsburgh D. With a rematch (and one they’ve wanted since opening day) with Baltimore now taking center stage next week, this game should offer more than a few lessons for Pittsburgh on how to meticulously wear down a team they hate/have trouble with. For Pittsburgh, Baltimore provides both as Pittsburgh’s wins over Baltimore in recent years haven’t exactly been runaway’s or even easy.

Two more fell from the ranks of the unbeaten in college football this past weekend. One was a bit of a shock and one really wasn’t.

The Clemson Tigers surprise start to this season has been stopped in its tracks by an inconsistent triple option attack. The Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets’ claim to fame in recent years has been their triple option running attack that has been beautiful to watch at times and incredibly disappointing at others. Consistency has been lacking in this running attack, but a big enough game has generally been able to bring out its best, and Saturday was that game with an undefeated conference opponent coming into their house. As for Tajh Boyd and the Tigers, they fell behind early and never came back. The Yellow Jackets worked at the Tigers relentlessly with their running attack and just overwhelmed them; remember the Tigers’ D has been one to let up a lot of points and rushing yards, but also make the key turnovers. Well, they did force G-Tech to fumble the ball away once and intercepted Yellow Jacket quarterback Tevin Washington once, but Washington balanced out those turnovers by directing that already mentioned rushing attack to nearly 400 yards while contributing nearly half of that himself.

Last week I did mention how Bill Snyder had once again put Kansas State football on the national radar, and this past weekend they slipped off of it in game one of their four game nightmare. With Oklahoma State, Texas, and Texas A&M still to come, the Wildcats were run out of their own stadium (ironic in this case since it’s named after Bill Snyder) by over 40 points eliminating any chance they had at a BCS bowl game. Landry Jones had his way with the already vulnerable Wildcat defense throwing for over 500 yards (setting a school record in the process) and five touchdowns (setting a school record for career TD passes). And all the Wildcats (and maybe even Bill Snyder) could do was sit there and marvel at the force of nature known as the Oklahoma offense that had come into their house and made itself at home.

As for upsets, the biggest one came in the pro ranks this weekend with the St. Louis Rams gaining their first win of the season with a major upset over Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints. Call it hangover, call it look-ahead for the Saints with Tampa Bay next week, call it whatever you want, but the fact is the Saints were outplayed by the St. Louis Rams in every phase of the game for the better part of three and a half quarters and lost. To me this upset was particularly noteworthy due to not just who it came against, but when it happened. You may recall me singing the Saints’ praises after they abused the winless Colts at home last Sunday. So the instant reaction from such a huge and easy win, apparently, was to play exactly opposite the way they played against Indy. And what happened? They were slammed by St. Louis in a manner that might have made some think they had fallen into a time machine somehow and it was 2001 again.

The NFL’s most stunning results came this weekend, not so much in upset form, but in comeback form. The Baltimore Ravens and New York Giants both played against teams they were heavily favored to beat, but both had to make double-digit comebacks to avoid the sting that would come from losing to a winless team (Giants against Dolphins) or a one win team (Ravens against Cardinals). The Ravens were down by 18 at halftime only for Ray Rice to make a one-man, thirty minute charge that resulted in him scoring three times and the Ravens edging Arizona via a short Billy Cunduff field-goal as time expired. As for the Giants, it was all about Eli. Maybe if New York had to settle for a field-goal at the end of the first half things would’ve been different, but Manning found Mario Manningham in the end-zone for a 25-yard score that put the Giants within four to end the half and in better position to make up for next to thirty minutes of poor play. Down by only four, the Giants were able to will their way past Miami thanks to Eli, doing the scoring in the fourth, but also keeping themselves and Miami from letting the game get away in the third as Miami could only muster a field-goal in that quarter. Eli and the Giants had their opening (a one score game with one quarter to play) and used it to eventually gain a win and keep Miami among those in the Andrew Luck Sweepstakes.

The Big-10 got more exciting and more confusing over the weekend as Wisconsin once again fell thanks to a late touchdown pass, and Michigan State followed up their last-second win over Wisconsin by not scoring a touchdown in a dominating loss to Nebraska. Russell Wilson did what he could to bring Wisconsin back in a game they had control of, then lost (sound familiar?). The Badgers took a 7-3 lead into halftime, but the defenses took the second half off with the Buckeye offense in particular doing what it pleased while building a 12-point lead in the fourth. Wilson guided the Badgers back into the lead with two touchdown passes to Jared Abbrederis in the final three and a half minutes. But after letting up a near fifty yard kickoff return, the Buckeyes had plenty of time and fabulous field position to work with. While the field position helped set up what happened next, they didn’t need a lot of time to do it. On the fourth play following the kickoff, Buckeye freshman quarterback Braxton Miller rolled right under pressure, nearly ran out-of-bounds to stop the clock, stopped, and heaved a pass to the end-zone. That pass found a wide open Devin Smith for the score and the win. And when I mean wide open, I mean WIDE OPEN. The Wisconsin secondary appeared to have forgotten rule #1 of playing in the secondary: you follow the receivers. It appeared that Wisconsin’s defensive line and linebackers weren’t the only ones watching Miller roll right as Smith snuck right past the Wisconsin defenders making the touchdown that much more painful for everyone watching in Madison.

With Michigan St.’s poor showing in Lincoln, the Big-10 is now guaranteed not to send a team to play for the national title. What is still guaranteed is that they’ll send their champion to play in the Rose Bowl, but who that champion will be couldn’t be more of a mystery. Both divisions as of now have at least three teams that could be playing in the conference’s first championship game. In the Legends division it’s really about Michigan, Michigan St., or Nebraska, with Iowa looming as a possible spoiler or possible team that sneaks in amid the madness of November. These four still play at least one of the others during the final month of the season, so the possibilities are endless. Just as endless are the possibilities in the Leaders division with Purdue being the potential (but less likely) spoiler/team that sneaks in. I doubt that Purdue will somehow sneak away with the division, but I don’t discount the possibility that they could provide a crushing blow to a team by beating them this late in the season. The division has Purdue, Ohio St., and Wisconsin tied for second, with Penn St.—the only Big-10 team still unbeaten in conference play—leading the way despite making no waves this season. In fact, the biggest waves Penn St. has made this season have been about whether Joe Paterno will be coaching on the sidelines or not. They are unbeaten in conference, but the victories haven’t been impressive and with Nebraska, Ohio St., and Wisconsin to finish the season, it’s highly unlikely that the Nittany Lions are going to finish unbeaten in conference. So you have six (maybe eight) teams that could win the conference’s two divisions and play for the title. And with some teams playing inter-division conference games in November, there are a few possibilities (no matter how slim) that the first Big-10 championship game could not only be a rematch of a regular season Big-10 conference game, but the rematch could come quickly after the initial meeting.

Once again the Arkansas Razorbacks stay in the top ten by avoiding an upset. For the second week in a row, the Razorbacks fell behind early to an unranked conference foe only to come back for a close win. Down 21-7 in the second quarter against Vanderbilt, the Razorbacks once again kept calm and played their game. The result was a thrilling fourth quarter of football with Arkansas within a score at the beginning of it. They tied the game as Vanderbilt seemed to be putting distance between themselves and the Razorbacks. On second and goal from the Arkansas six yard-line, Zac Stacy of Vanderbilt fumble the ball and it was recovered by Razorback Jerry Franklin who returned it 94 yards for a touchdown. The ensuing two-point conversion tied the game and Arkansas took the lead with around six minutes to play via field-goal. But Vandy had a chance late. It was up to kicker Carey Spear from 27 yards, but it was not to be. Spear’s nervous energy may have gotten the best of him as his kick had the distance, but being on a right hash, it had to have a little hook to the left to go through. Instead, Spear kicked it straight and thus wide right to give Arkansas another close victory against a team they weren’t supposed to have a close victory against.

The comeback and all the excitement of the game would all be overshadowed by a single play. Marquel Wade of Arkansas brutalized Jonathan Krause of Vanderbilt on a third quarter punt with a hit that will surely go on many, many people’s big hit highlight reels. It will also be an example of why the two-yard “Halo Rule” is in place. Wade’s hit may not have even been what got him ejected as he did celebrate while still on the field, and that more than the hit was likely what got him kicked out of the game. Wade claims he believed Krause had the ball when he hit him and “screwed up.” Since Krause not only got up, but returned another punt later, that apology should be good enough.

But no matter what, shouldn’t the halo rule be basically jammed into the skulls of every special teams player on every college football team? Wade usually plays receiver, but was on special teams here. So what if he doesn’t play special teams every play? If he’s on the punt team, that should be something he’s aware of because it could cost your team fifteen yards in a pointless manner. I know people love to hit (this is football after all), but any time a team gets called for this it shows lack of discipline from the player and maybe even the coaching staff by proxy because it’s a simple rule to follow: keep two yards distance from a returner on a punt until he touches the ball. Simple enough. But time and time again we see players looking to make that big hit—maybe because they want somebody back home to see it, maybe because they want to get on SportsCenter, maybe just because they want to hit the guy—lose focus and clock a returner who’s called for a fair catch or is just in their path, like Krause was on Saturday. Last year, Roger Goodell painted a picture of helmet-to-helmet shots as basically a plague in pro football. He may be right, but what’s a plague in college football is players not obeying that two-yard rule. This has been something that has been occurring more and more over the years and unlike helmet-to-helmet shots, which can vary in speed and force, the shots committed on punt returners like Krause are always going to be full speed hits with as much force attached to them as the man trying to hit him can put into it. That is something that needs to be looked at within college football, and maybe football in general.
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Unless it is a season completely full of upsets, it is around late-October that the football world is plagued with upset wins and shocking losses. Neither level of competition is ever spared from this fate as it just comes, like the passing of the seasons, and is now simply something that all teams in a position to play for a championship or contend for one have to accept and deal with.

And this weekend certainly gave fans the usual introduction to the rash of upsets that will likely fill November and then December. The NFL season is around the halfway point and the schedules only get tougher for top teams in college football. So looking back it probably shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that at least one top five college football team went down this past weekend and the week of football was finished with the Jaguars upsetting the Ravens at home on Monday Night in a game that wasn’t offensive in any way, but wasn’t really defensive; it was more about mistakes and inactivity and maybe some ineptitude too. Top teams weren’t the only ones to fall this weekend as West Virginia was nearly ousted from the top 25 after a 26-point road loss to Syracuse that few (if any) saw coming. And one top team survived what was looking like an upset: Arkansas. The Razorbacks dug themselves into a seventeen-point hole early against Ole Miss, but turned it around ending up with a close 29-24 win to stay in the hunt for the national title.

The biggest victim of this first batch of upsets was easily formerly third-ranked Oklahoma. Playing at home against a Texas Tech team with a great offense, but absolutely no defense shouldn’t have been a huge test. All the Sooners really needed to do was stay one step ahead on offense. A rain delay and two missed field-goals later, and Boomer Sooner now needs to win out to even have a shot at playing for the national title. The misses were from 39 and 28 yards respectively and while I can grudgingly see a college kicker, even a freshman as Sooner kicker Michael Hunnicutt is, missing from 39, the second miss (with less than three minutes to play) was completely unacceptable. The Sooners were positioned on the left hash mark, so all Hunnicutt had to do was kick the ball diagonally with a little bit of a curve to it and the ball goes through no problem. Hunnicutt kicked the ball diagonally, but forgot the second part as the ball bounced off the right upright, no good. And while the Sooners rallied to within three with a quick touchdown drive, it was already too late.

In Madison, all memories of that two-point conversion try in Pasadena against TCU have been erased and then replaced by Kirk Cousins’ Hail Mary Saturday night.

While the deciding play in Wisconsin’s 37-31 loss was that last, climactic play, the Badgers had sealed their fate over the course of the game and were forced into making a comeback to even set up Cousins’ play. The Badgers watched a fourteen-point lead slip away due to a number of offensive line mistakes and the Spartan defense as a whole waking up and playing to their usual level. It was a 23-point second quarter for the Spartans that flipped the game a complete 180 degrees and forced Wisconsin to go into the second half in comeback mode, something they hadn’t been in since their game last year in East Lansing against the Spartans. Quick note: that game ended up with the same winner as this year’s meeting. The second quarter saw the Spartans force Russell Wilson into a safety, score a touchdown on the ensuing possession, block a punt & return it for a touchdown, block a field goal, and then score a touchdown on the ensuing possession. It was a back-and-forth fourth quarter that saw the Badgers claw their way back to a tie before what will likely become known on the Michigan State campus (depending on how well they end their season) as The Play.

As for The Play: I do believe that Keith Nicol got into the end-zone and that the play should have been a touchdown. And while I don’t agree with the initial call (Nichol down at the one-yard line), I don’t believe that there was indisputable evidence on any of the replays that would’ve reversed any call, whether they initially said Nichol got in or not. So Michigan State does deserve the win because Nichol did score the game-winning touchdown, but they didn’t deserve to win the game that way on Saturday night because the referees flubbed the initial call and didn’t have enough to overturn it. Controversy does help create chaos and in the college football world the timing couldn’t have been too much better for this one controversial play that settled a pivotal Big-10 game to partially be the catalyst for another crazy November.

And speaking of crazy: the first starts of the year for Tim Tebow and Christian Ponder turned out not to be the complete disasters that most people were preparing for. Though Carson Palmer’s first appearance of the season, replacing Kyle Boler in the second half for Oakland, was.

Ponder’s was easily the most complete performance of the three as he tossed a 72-yard touchdown on the game’s first play and despite the inconsistent play you’d expect from someone making his first career NFL start, Ponder was able to keep the Vikings from getting slaughtered and even put pressure on the Green Bay offense late by getting Minnesota to within six. But that’s as close as they’d get as Green Bay moved to 7-0 and Ponder’s first day at the helm was a mixed one: good for him personally, but the team still lost. Lesson learned.

Carson Palmer, signed earlier in the week by Oakland after Jason Campbell broke his collar bone, came in to relieve Kyle Boler in the third quarter of what would turn out to be a 28-0 loss at home to the hated Kansas City Chiefs. All Palmer was able to do was add to the interception total that Boler started in the first half—the total would get to six thrown by the Raiders in the game. The worst probably was Brandon Flowers’ 58-yard pick six off of Palmer on the opening play of the final quarter. It was probably Palmer’s worst throw of the day not just because of the play’s result, but because of how much of a lob to Flowers (and not his receiver) Palmer’s pass was.

But Tebow was the one who shined brightest, if for only one reason: his team won. Tebow’s performance through the first fifty-five minutes vindicated everything his critics have said so far (he can’t make the transition, he can’t throw right, all he can do is run, he can’t read blitzes right, etc.) whereas the final five minutes vindicated everything his supporters have said so far (he’s a winner, he can lead a team, he has the competitiveness needed on this level, etc.). As for me: I’ve been somewhere in-between from the beginning. Tebow’s college career seems like a whole lifetime ago when you look at his struggles to learn how to become an NFL quarterback. The only reason I haven’t been able to write him off as just an amazing college football quarterback who couldn’t make the transition is that every time he’s been on the field in the NFL he’s shown little bits of greatness and of improvement. Those bits have been few and far between so far, but those signs that he is learning are there and have been there. On Sunday, Tebow apparently packed everything he’s learned as far as being a pro into a ball and threw it out there during those final few drives. He helped Denver break through and get on the scoreboard with back-to-back touchdown drives in a game they were sure to lose as their eventual win was the only time since the merger (1970) where a team has been down by at least 15 with three minutes to go and come back to win the game. And how did Denver make that two-point conversion that sent the game to overtime: Tebow sneaking it in of course.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how much of a surprise the Clemson Tigers are this year. One of college football’s big surprises, they appeared to be on the way to defeat last week in what would’ve been the first major upset of the year, against unranked Maryland. The Tigers offense ended up scoring 39 in the second half and the Tigers willed their way to a comeback win. This week it was their defense that put out a potential fire. Holding on to a 24-17 lead at half against North Carolina this past Saturday, the Tigers looked to be in another close shootout. By the end of the third quarter all of those thoughts were put to rest after a thirty-five point quarter put this one out of reach. The Tigers scored on every drive of the quarter, and while Tajh Boyd’s three touchdown passes (out of five) and one touchdown run during the quarter were what people talked about, it was the Clemson defense that was the real talk of the town in Death Valley. In this quarter it was nothing but punts for NC, unless Clemson was forcing them to turn the ball over. Two third quarter turnovers (both fumbles) by NC resulted in two of Clemson’s five touchdowns during those fifteen minutes. First there was a fumble on a kickoff following Clemson’s first score of the quarter that ended up setting the tone for what was to come, and then Clem Kourtnei scored his second defensive touchdown of the day (with an interception return) when a near-sack turned into a fumble and once Kourtnei scooped the ball up, he did the rest. The Tigers ended up forcing six turnovers on North Carolina as the game was a runaway fifteen minutes after it had been hanging in the balance.

A college football team that has not only been a surprise but is now on the radar, is the eighth-ranked Kansas Sate Wildcats. It is simply amazing how easy it appears for Bill Snyder to turn Kansas State into a winner after years of being anything but. During the last couple of years of Snyder’s first run as K-State head coach and the seasons in-between his two runs with the team, the Wildcats have been a sub .500 football team with a few slightly above .500 seasons and two bowl appearances in the last seven seasons. Snyder’s first run with the Wildcats has been called by many as the greatest rebuilding job by a coach in the history of college football, and it’s tough to argue when he took this team from being one of the worst in college football to #1 in the country in a decade. With the Wildcats in the top ten for the first time in nearly a decade, it comes as no surprise to me that it’s been done with Snyder coaching the team. Quite simply: this is his team and has been his team for a long time. While Snyder’s final two seasons of his first run were two of his worst, the program did absolutely nothing to rebuild in his absence. They went to one bowl game during the three seasons Snyder was gone (and that was a 7-6 team that lost the bowl game) and when his replacement Ron Prince wasn’t working out, the Wildcats went back to the well and brought Snyder back. And while I usually would say that bringing Snyder back wreaks of desperation and not being able to move on (and it is), but this is one of those instances where I will agree with going back to the well after giving it a try without. As Snyder’s twentieth season as Wildcats’ head coach continues to play itself out, Snyder already has his team bowl eligible (second in three seasons of his return) and has already clinched a winning record for the season (only five sub-.500 seasons as K-State head coach) and it’s a good thing all of that is out-of-the-way because a fall could be coming. With all of the rivalry games, upset alert games, and just plain tough games remaining for basically every team in the top-15, I don’t believe there is any finishing stretch tougher for any team in college football than the final five games this regular season for Kansas State. Check it out: they finish this season playing Oklahoma (6-1, #9 in BCS), at Oklahoma State (7-0, #3 in BCS), Texas A&M (5-2, #16 in BCS), at Texas (4-2, #24 in BCS), and Iowa State (3-4, NR in BCS). Just about every other top program in college football has at least two could-lose games down the stretch, but just about all of those teams also has a game or two against a much lesser foe whereas that game for Kansas State doesn’t come until their regular season finale, and by then the damage could be done to a season that so far could be called magical.

I’m going to finish this week with two stories: one of success and one of failure.

The success story is of DeMarco Murray who will go down as having the biggest rushing game in Dallas Cowboy history, rushing for 253 yards against the powerless St. Louis Rams this past weekend in Dallas. Not Emmitt Smith, not Tony Dorsett, but DeMarco Murray. The tone was set literally from the beginning as Murray’s first run of the day was a 91-yard touchdown scamper. After that, Murray would not quit (being the Cowboys’ main source of offense in this game) until the game was far, far out of reach.

As for the failure, let’s just say it’s more of a rock bottom and (surprise, surprise) it involves the Indianapolis Colts. Truly this has been a freakshow of the ugliest kind as all of us knew the team as a whole would take a dip without the services of Peyton Manning. But I doubt too many people believed that the Colts would stand right now at 0-7 and look like a team that will have no problem getting to 0-16. For their sake I’m hoping they at least get one (I was even hoping the Lions would get just one a few years back—just not against Green Bay) because this past Sunday was rock bottom for the Colts. A 62-7 road defeat on national television is the perfect illustration for this team’s season as the Saints barely had to try to win this football game. The first three Saints drives went the same way: touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. Two of those touchdowns would be off of Colt fumbles and the turnover brigade wasn’t done giving the Saints gifts as Leigh Torrence added the cherry on top to this game for the Saints with a 42-yard interception return touchdown late. And while 21 points off of three turnovers may seem impressive enough, Drew Brees didn’t even need the turnovers to turn this game into a slaughter. The Colts defense might as well have been the practice squad for Brees as he only threw four incomplete passes (to go with five touchdowns) and had a passer rating of nearly 145. So let’s put all the facts out there: 62-7 win for the Saints, Brees has one of the best regular season games by a quarterback in NFL history, the Colts commit sloppy turnovers and all of them are converted by New Orleans, the points scored by the Saints was tied for the most in a regular season game since 1970, and the differential was tied for second since the same year. Truly a historic night for both teams as the Saints got to flex their still working muscles in historic fashion, and the Colts’ historic collapse got to take center stage, and that’s exactly where they wish it wasn’t.
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That might as well have been the mantra of this past off-season. No off-season in recent memory has been filled with the kind of bad press and turmoil that filled the football landscape from January through August. But then, the game began to be played again and all those bad memories were washed away so quickly that even some fans must have been surprised at the speed with which they were able to ditch those bad vibes, images, and headlines. Of course what helped speed up this exorcising of bad memories and visions within the minds of football fans everywhere is that there has been no more exciting and compelling first six weeks to a football season in recent memory. And with the season over a month in, I figured it was time to get my ass off the couch and back into the computer chair.

These first six weeks of the football season have also been six weeks of sports euphoria in my home state of Wisconsin. The Brewers are currently playing for a spot in the World Series after their first playoff series win in 29 years and the Packers are defending their world championship and doing it in effective fashion with win after win. But easily the most impressive bit of this euphoria is a college football team located in Madison.

Russell Wilson’s arrival in Madison over the summer immediately vaulted the Wisconsin Badgers from just a Big-10 championship contender into a national championship contender. It did this because Wisconsin has never had an athletic quarterback the caliber of Wilson. He basically adds a third man to the incredible running attack lead by Montee Ball and supported by James White while also having passing ability and accuracy that have already had some Badger fans (I expect) saying, “Who is Tolzien?” While beating the snot out of four cream puffs was a nice way to show off the flashy aspects of this not-so-new, but very quick Badger offense, but it was the Nebraska game that opened a lot of people’s eyes to what this team was capable of.

First off, the Badger defense over the last two seasons has been overshadowed by the team’s offense, but with the hype surrounding Nebraska’s introduction into the Big-10 was on the Badger offense and the QB matchup between Wilson and Nebraska’s Taylor Martinez, the Badger defense decided to put on a show of their own. After letting up two touchdowns in the first third of the game, the Badger defense shut down Nebraska to the point where Wilson could do as he pleased (and did) without worry. In the final forty minutes of their October 1 win, the Badgers outscored Nebraska 41-3 with Ball doing the majority of the scoring and Wilson leading the way each time. For the Cornhuskers, it may be a taste of what is to come for them in this new conference, but being able to come back from 21 down against Ohio St. this past weekend is a definite sign of hope that this team won’t be smashed their first year in this new world. As for the Badgers, four of their final six (minus a potential conference title game) being on the road is anything but easy, especially with back-to-back road games coming up against Michigan St. (the Badgers’ only loss last year) and Ohio St., but there is no more complete and better looking team in the Big-10 as of now, and to many Badger faithful a conference title shouldn’t be a possibility, but a runaway.

Housing the NFL’s final two unbeaten teams, the NFC North can claim the spot as the best division in pro football. Yes the AFC East is just as viable a candidate for that position, but as of now it’s the NFC North hands down. But it is somewhat eerie that six weeks into the season and both of these divisions seem almost like mirror images of one another. Both divisions have one of the top quarterbacks in pro football playing within (Brady & Rodgers), they both have amazing turnaround stories in motion (Bills & Lions), both house teams that play in major cities (Jets & Bears), and both have brand-new doormats (Dolphins & Vikings). Amazing isn’t it?

While the Packers & Patriots sit high above all others in their respective divisions, it has been the Lions & Bills that have stolen many headlines from those top teams with their own top-level play.

This Detroit Lions team, through five games, has already played better than any Lions team post-Barry Sanders. Calvin Johnson has vaulted all the way to the top of the NFL’s best receivers list with his incredible play though these first five games with two touchdown catches in every game of the season so far except this past Monday’s win against Chicago. But that win may best provide a visual aid to this transformation of the Lions from perennial loser into possible big winner as it was the first Monday Night home game for Detroit in years. And even with the hometown Tigers—a more consistent winner than the Lions by far—playing in a series for the American League pennant, the city’s attention seemed to be focused on Ford Field and this game the same way New Orleans celebrated a Monday Night return to the Superdome years ago.

For the Bills’ incredible start, it’s all about the game against the Patriots. The Lions may have the comeback against Romo and the Cowboys a few weeks ago, but the Bills’ wrecking of Tom Brady in late-September is the moment for this Bills season. If the season goes downhill from here they will always have that game, if the season only gets better this game could be looked at as the catalyst. Going into the Patriots game, the Bills had a convincing win against an unconvincing Chiefs team and then a squeaker against the Raiders; needless to stay, it wasn’t the most impressive start going into a game against Brady & The Pats. But four interceptions and a three-point comeback win later, and the Bills were for real. While two of those interceptions were on wild deflections, the fact still remains that they picked Brady off as many times in this game as he had been picked all of last season. But more important, they converted those turnovers and that is what beat the Patriots that day. Those four turnovers were converted into 24 points for Buffalo, with the final INT being returned 27 yards by Drayton Florence. Without those turnovers, it’s almost a given that the Patriots’ early 21-0 lead would’ve stuck. Instead, the Bills had not only motivation to win, but validation that they could win. Their unbeaten season would die the next week with a last-second field-goal from Cincinnati, but they would rebound with a 31-24 win over the Eagles that wasn’t even that close.

The Dream Team’s dream season has turned into a brutal nightmare so quickly that most people have already been able to forget how much they were singing the Eagles’ praises at the beginning of the season. Four straight losses and bad play all around have erased all of those thoughts and the memories of the hoopla surrounding the formation of this team during those hectic days following the end of the lockout. Is it all on Vick? Of course not. Where’s that stacked defense that this Eagles’ team was supposed to have, and with a new and improved secondary at that? Nowhere to be found. Vince Young hasn’t played a second of regular season football yet this year due to injury so that pickup has yet to pay dividends for Philly. Turnovers, specifically stupid and unnecessary turnovers, tell the tale as Philly dug themselves into holes against Buffalo and the Giants that they couldn’t dig themselves out of primarily because of stupid turnovers. And of course there is the frustration that comes with blowing leads. This has added to the Eagles’ sinking psyche as getting beaten up and coming up short is one thing, but having a lead (maybe a big lead) and then losing it will eat away at a team even more. And with the Eagles, and the microscope they’ve been under since late-August, blowing leads against Atlanta (on national TV) and San Francisco have dealt them probably their two biggest blows of this early part of the season. In the end, I believe it’s simply a matter of trying too hard to fulfill expectations. None of the main players for this team have ever dealt that well with having the focus of a team and the expectations & pressure that go along with that all on them. Even with Vick, who handled everything well last season, this is only his second season back and the first since his time in jail where people have gone into the season expecting great things out of him. Last year he was able to fly under the radar and ease his way back into the public consciousness, but now people know what he’s still capable of and want to see more and more and more of it. So far that hasn’t happened, but it hasn’t happened with anyone on the Eagles team minus LeSean McCoy and Mike Kafka. The fact that Andy Reid hasn’t panicked yet is a good sign as this season isn’t over yet and isn’t worth giving up on yet. However, if the losing streak gets to five or six, then that time will have arrived.

Many including myself believed that LSU would be good this year. But when they lost Jordan Jefferson for the opening non-conference games, most including myself believed that they would only be so good with Jarrett Lee as starter. Instead LSU has become so good that they deserve their current ranking of #1 team in college football. The start of the year provided the perfect barometer for what this team could be this season. Starting the year against Oregon (another team with national title hype at the beginning of this season) in Dallas Stadium, then play an up-and-coming Mississippi State team on the road—with a home game against Northwestern State sandwiched in there—followed by their Road Test Saturday meeting in Morgantown with West Virginia, all three games showed different aspects of LSU’s game that not only looked good, but have continued to be good since conference play officially began for all of college football. Against Oregon and Mississippi State it was about creating turnovers and keeping the opponent’s offense completely grounded. Mississippi State didn’t score a touchdown, and to this day LaMichael James has not looked as powerless in a game while running the ball as he did that night in Dallas against LSU. All three of those opening road games allowed LSU’s apparently very underrated running attack to show itself as LSU’s running provided a lot of the scoring for the Tigers and was what primarily allowed them to control these games. The West Virginia game was the game where everything seemed to come together for LSU offensively. Their defense dominated the Mountaineers for the entire first half helping LSU to build a three touchdown lead, wasn’t very spectacular in the third quarter when the Mountaineers made their run, but made up for it in shutting the Mountaineers down in the fourth as LSU cruised to victory. And while LSU’s running attack was what finished off the Mountaineers on that night, the night really became Jarrett Lee’s coming out party as any negative talk about him and any doubts as to whether he could fill Jordan Jefferson’s shoes were put to rest. I initially had my doubts about Lee as his only experience as a reoccurring starter for LSU came in 2008 and the results weren’t that great. Plus, Jefferson is the more athletic quarterback and has more experience and success in the starter role. But what I, and all those who thought similarly, forgot about was that rushing attack. Since conference play has begun for everyone, Jefferson is back on the team after being cleared of charges stemming from a bar brawl prior to the beginning of the season, but the way LSU has continued to roll, you really wouldn’t have noticed any kind of change unless it was someone going down for the season with injury.

Tony Romo’s real name might as well be Dr. Henry Jekyll based on how the beginning of his season has gone. It has been a month full of differing headlines and head scratching among Cowboy fans, players, and personnel as to what has been up with their quarterback. Opening night against the Jets saw three beautiful quarters of football from Romo. Then in the fourth Romo fumbled the ball back to the Jets while attempting to run in a touchdown in a situation where Dallas could’ve settled for a field-goal. Then with the game tied, Romo threw an interception on probably his worst throw of the game, and that pick ended up leading to the Jets taking the lead and winning the game on a late field-goal of fifty yards by Nick Folk. The next week against San Francisco started even worse as Romo had to leave the game early with what later was reported as a punctured lung and a broken rib. The images alone of Romo angry and stalking the sidelines wanting to get back into the game was something Cowboy fans were glad to see, but what brought Romo back to their good graces was when he got back into the game. Romo finally re-entered the game with under a minute left in the third and was on fire from that moment on leading a ten-point comeback to send the game into overtime. And on the first play of OT for the Cowboys, Romo hit Jesse Holley, a football journeyman who won a Michael Irvin reality show to get a tryout with the Cowboys, for a 77-yard gain that was nearly a touchdown and nearly a fumble as Holley was not only holding the ball far too high and loose as he ran towards the end-zone, but he tried to slam the ball into the end-zone for the score as he was being pulled down. The play was down at the one and Dallas won on the next play via field-goal. The score: 27-24, just like the previous week against the Jets. Then after suffering through a Monday Night with the Redskins and still healing from his San Francisco wounds (a decision I still think Dallas shouldn’t have made) while gaining a victory, we got part three of Romo’s Jekyll & Hyde act. At home against the Lions, Romo again threw his team to a big lead, this time with two touchdowns to Dez Bryant and another to Jason Whitten. Then everything went haywire. Two Romo passes were intercepted and returned for touchdowns in the third quarter and another set up the game-winning touchdown for Detroit as the Cowboys blew a 24-point lead (all in the second half) to lose another last minute heartbreaker. In the great, great majority of games you can blame the quarterback or the quarterback will take blame because of his role as leader, but in Romo’s case, both of these losses are on him. Despite playing fabulous football for the majority of both losses, it was Romo’s turnovers specifically that allowed Dallas’ opponents back into the game. In the Detroit game, those two INT’s in the third directly equaled fourteen points for Detroit and the Dallas lead was cut slightly more than in half with still a whole quarter to play. And with the Jets, it was those two fourth quarter turnovers that cost Dallas the game as they had the lead and the game, but Romo gave the Jets two chances to make the game theirs and unlike Romo (in those games), the Jets made the most of that opportunity and won.

The new kickoff rule—all kickoffs from the 35-yard line instead of five yards back—didn’t sit well with many NFL players and even more fans when it was voted on by owners back in March. The belief was that it was going to make the kickoff next to meaningless due to touchbacks, so why not eliminate the kickoff and just start every team at their 20 after a score, right? Not so fast. While it appears to have been one of those very weird things, the opening week of NFL football saw many return touchdowns including Randall Cobb’s 108-yard return in the first game of the NFL season. As more return touchdowns were scored on that first Sunday, the discussion turned from the games themselves to the kickoff rule and whether it really meant anything at all. Those in favor of the new rule, as well as the owners who voted to make the change, believed that having kickoffs five yards closer would help eliminate injuries. Those against the rule, players and fans alike, believed that the change would kill the kickoff in general and eliminate the need for returners and thus force some players who have made their name, money, and reputation on return touchdowns to rethink their position on their respective teams. After week one, those in favor of the rule had some ammunition as all those touchdowns did show that the kickoff return touchdown was far from dead in pro football. And the fact that there have been kickoff return touchdowns in pro football (and near ones) since has proven that week one was not an anomaly. However, the part about making the kickoff safer has never stuck with me and is something I don’t believe can be accomplished by simply moving the ball five more yards forward before kicking it. What happened to Eric LeGrand last year around this time was as horrible as just about anything that can happen to a player on the football field. And it was LeGrand becoming paralyzed from the neck down during a kickoff that lead the charge toward the rule change. What everyone apparently forgets is that LeGrand’s injury illustrates one of the harshest realities of the game of football—a point I tried to make earlier in the year when I commented on the head shot issue in the NFL: these types of hits sometimes just happen. Even with the ball being kicked from the 35 these players, weighing between 200 and 300 pounds, are still running down the field full speed looking to hit whoever gets in their way of tackling the man with the ball. And when they tackle the man with the ball, they still lay into him with all their might if possible because that insures he will be tackled or go to the ground or even fumble the ball away. I don’t believe the rule change has made kickoffs any safer and I don’t believe anything really can make kickoffs any safer. A kickoff has two sides running headstrong across a football field at each other, all involved coming with bad intentions intent on laying the hardest hit on their opposing counterpart, all the while the man with the ball is trying to wiggle his way through all of this going as fast as he is able. And since every single kickoff can’t be a touchback, how do you make that completely safe?

It’s rare that opening weekend gives you a legitimate game of the year candidate. There are usually plenty of fun and exciting games with some upsets all packed into those beginning few days, but few games ever on the opening weekend of football have touched TCU/Baylor. With all of the attention toward TCU focused on their move to the Big-12 after previously agreeing to move to the Big East, it is still nice to go back to this game and this moment and see what a difference six weeks can really make.

The game was played in the 100 degree heat of Waco (so figure about 120 degrees for the players on the field) on a beautiful Friday night that would soon be transformed into a wild thrill-ride. Robert Griffin III got the attention of the country with a spectacular performance with an equal on the ground and through the air assault of a TCU defense that was one of the best in all of college football last season. But that was last season, and Griffin III’s five touchdown passes nailed the point home that this was a new year and that this was what TCU was going to have to deal with as far as defense this year. But it wasn’t only Griffin III leading the Baylor charge as Kendall Wright threw a 40-yard (and wide, wide open) touchdown to Terrence Williams on a flea-flicker to get things going on Baylor’s first possession. More trickery from Baylor would come, but the Williams/Wright connection wouldn’t be halted on this night as the two combined for four of Griffin III’s five touchdowns with the other coming on Lanear Simpson’s only catch of the night and from 64 yards. Before TCU made their comeback it was only their kickoff returners who kept them in the game. If it weren’t for several very long returns, Baylor may have run away with this game in even more impressive fashion than it appeared they were going to. TCU did benefit directly from those returns as they set up a couple of TCU scores during the first half, but it was the final quarter when everything finally starting working on all cylinders for the Horned Frogs. While more and more Baylor players were cramping up, TCU was mounting a major comeback almost gliding past the Baylor defense to the tune of 22 points on three straight possessions making this a competitive game again. The final seven minutes provided football fans with a battle of wills to withstand the heat (still simmering despite it being well into night by this point) and finish this game with the win. TCU would actually take the lead on a field-goal with four and a half minutes to play, but Baylor would leave Waco not with a spectacular collapse, but a last-second win. The deed was Aaron Jones’ first field-goal of the night after having a PAT blocked and missing one earlier in the night, something that would’ve cost his team had he not been on target as time expired.

The NFL got its version of TCU/Baylor on its very first game of its season. The last two Super Bowl champions, the Green Bay Packers (SB XLV) and the New Orleans Saints (SB XLIV), met in Lambeau Field to put all the ugliness of the lockout behind and start another season, and start it they did. What became one of the most offensive first month’s in NFL history was started with a shootout between two teams whose defenses were either at the top or near the top of the NFL last year. On this night, there was no room for defense. Aaron Rodgers lit up the Saints for nearly 200 yards and three touchdowns in the opening quarter while only throwing only one incomplete pass. The Saints would finally get their offense into gear and mount a comeback, getting to within four late in the first half, but would be fighting from behind the entire game. Still, they never gave up. And that is what made this game so sensational as both offenses were pressured to continue putting points on the board and both defenses struggled to find an answer on how to stop the other from putting those points on the board. Cobb’s kick return TD, Rodgers’ brilliance, Drew Brees throwing for massive amounts of yardage, and plenty of fabulous plays all around comprised this game, but the final minutes would be about New Orleans’ final assault. Jimmy Graham’s five-yard touchdown catch with over two minutes to go put the Saints within striking distance at 42-34 and somehow the Saints would get the ball back with one final chance. Brees lead his team all the way down to the goal line when time expired. However, there had been a penalty on what was thought to be the last play of the game and the Saints were given another shot. From the one, Mark Ingram took his dive toward a storybook beginning to his NFL career, only to be stopped by a determined Packer defense who got great penetration with Clay Matthews and Morgan Burnett both making the jumping stop. I cannot find a better “welcome to the pros” than this: a former Heisman Trophy winner in his first pro football game with a chance to win on a one-yard run on the game’s final play, and is held back. It was an incredible way to start the season—easily the best start since the NFL went to the Thursday night beginning—and foreshadowed what the rest of September would feature: offense.

And yet, with all the offense being displayed in the NFL this season, it’s nice to step back and note that defense still plays a part in the outcome. No game better showcased this than the Ravens/Jets Sunday Night game two weeks ago. Despite the 34-17 score, this game was all about defense, and most of it was the Ravens’. The Ravens defense has always been a tough, physical, and effective one. But this night was something different. The teams combined for four defensive touchdowns, tying an NFL record for a game, with three of those four coming from the Ravens (a team record). Ed Reed’s hit on Mark Sanchez caused the fumble that resulted in Jameel McClain’s six-yard return touchdown early in the opening quarter. Jarret Johnson would come next with a 26-yard return of another Jet fumble, and then Lardarius Webb’s untouched 73-yard interception return in the third would give the game its final score as the final twenty-three minutes was all defense, primarily the Ravens’ defense continuing to frustrate Sanchez and the Jets’ offense.

When Cam Newton was drafted #1 in this year’s NFL draft I did believe it was a mistake by Carolina. Not because Newton doesn’t possess talent or isn’t physical enough or anything like that, but because I believed Carolina needed a more pro ready quarterback as they have been suffering, you could say, more than any team in pro football at that position over the last few years. So to take a quarterback that was a mostly rushing quarterback in college—a kind of quarterback (see Tebow) that usually needs a lot of work to transition to the pro game properly—was something I didn’t understand as I figured it would take Newton much longer than the other main quarterbacks in this year’s draft (Christian Ponder, Jake Locker, Andy Dalton, Blaine Gabbert) to make the transition. But oh how I was wrong. Despite not performing all that well in the pre-season, Newton showed up to play week one and hasn’t stopped showing up to play since. With a 400+ yard passing performance in his debut, Newton had everyone’s attention. But everyone (myself again included) believed that in game two against the defending champion Packers Newton would be put in his place and shut down. Wrong again. Another 400+ yard passing performance had many people wanting to give this guy rookie of the year already. His numbers have gone down since then, though he did throw for nearly 400 in a loss to Chicago a few weeks back, but Newton’s overall performance hasn’t. And as of this moment, despite his team’s 1-4 record, Newton is a shoo-in to win rookie of the year.

Taking the Lions and Bills and Cam Newton into account, I believe there has been no bigger surprise in football (college or pro) so far this season than the Clemson Tigers. Through most of last season and the entire off-season all of the hype, headlines, and hoopla regarding the ACC focused around four teams: Florida St., Virginia Tech, Miami (Fla.), and North Carolina. Whether for good or bad, these four schools were the most covered in the conference. For Clemson, there was no C.J. Spiller last year and there isn’t one this year. Maybe that’s part of why the Tigers’ being the only unbeaten remaining in the ACC other than Georgia Tech is all the more stunning: no star player to fly them into the stratosphere. But Dabo Sweeny’s coaching, Tajh Boyd’s work at quarterback, and a defense playing tough-as-nails as well as forcing & converting turnovers, have all added up to a 6-0 start for Clemson with wins against three straight ranked teams (Auburn, Florida St., and Wake Forest) for the first time in school history. The end of the road will be much bumpier for the Tigers as they have their biggest test of the year on the road against Georgia Tech in what could end up being a preview of the ACC title game, and then they finish out the season on the road against NC State and then South Carolina. And with November being what it is in the world of college football, those last two aren’t forgone conclusion games. But we all must remember that the last time Clemson finished unbeaten was 1981, the year they won their school’s only football national championship.

I would be incredibly remiss if I did not mention the death of Al Davis this past weekend. There are few owners, if any, in professional sports that were as identifiable with the team they owned than Al. Since entering the Raider organization in the early-1960′s, Al has not only done everything in his power to help the Raiders win, but to become part of the Raider mystique that became so legendary amongst football fans and historians. In reality my memories of Al are of his final (and not best) years. They are of the Lane Kiffin fiasco and JaMarcus Russell’s plunge, and all the ugliness and poor play in-between. But those memories also house Rich Gannon and a Super Bowl appearance still within the last decade; and for some teams who have never even been to a Super Bowl it’s amazing to think that despite being one of the worst teams in football over the past decade, the Raiders have also been to a Super Bowl during that time. The real impact of Al’s time with the Raiders was made before I became a football fan. It was made with Super Bowl wins, Al’s work for the AFL during its battles with the NFL, and in bringing in supposedly washed up players and rejects from other teams to build a nucleus of talent with the one key ingredient that all truly great Raiders have had in some form: a chip on their shoulder. Because Al had that chip too, and as one former Raider said, “About what? Who knows.” Whatever it was that pushed Al, it was unrelenting and helped him build a franchise that nearly went out of business during its early days into a consistent winner and its logo become one of the symbols of pro football globally. I won’t be able to paint a proper picture of what Al meant to the Raiders despite mentioning the Super Bowls and the winning and the second chances this team gave to players and the mystique and the cultural impact. In reality, the best indication of what Al Davis meant to the Oakland Raiders, right up until the end, can be seen in current head coach Hue Jackson’s post-game speech to his team after their 25-20 victory over the Texans a day after Al’s passing.

I’ve never hidden my love of Michigan football, even in this column I have played favoritism toward my Wolverines on a few occasions. So it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that the ultimate moment for me during these first six weeks was the first night game in the history of Michigan Stadium. I felt incredibly stupid not realizing that there had never been a night game at The Big House before; I naturally assumed that through all those years of football in that stadiumm there was a night game snuck in. The fact that it was against Notre Dame made the night all the more important and historically relevant. Let alone the stadium’s history and now to be playing under the lights, but in one of the school’s two most intense football rivalries made the game’s setting all the more fitting. At the time I compared this night to the night Wrigley Field finally had its first night game back in the 1980′s, and I stand by that comparison today. These are two of the most historically important stadiums in their respective sports as both have housed so much history, so many great players and games, and both house teams that themselves are iconic (their uniforms, their colors, their logos, their histories) within their respective sports. So for the game to go the route it did through the first three quarters was a complete nightmare for me. But then Denard went wild. Down by seventeen with one quarter to play, Denard Robinson exploited the suddenly and very pitifully poor secondary play by Notre Dame as well as their inability to tackle him as he ran with the ball, and turned it all into four straight scoring possessions with the last culminating in his 16-yard touchdown throw to Roy Roundtree with only two seconds to play. The score put Michigan up and gave them a 35-31 victory. That last touchdown wasn’t as much of a gamble as initially thought to be as Michigan was down by a field-goal, had timeouts, and could afford to take a shot at the end-zone and still have time to tie the game if they missed. However, none of that would’ve been possible had it not been for Jeremy Gallon’s 64-yard reception the play before. Denard’s pass covered less than half of that, but there was nobody being within nearly ten yards of Gallon, so he had open field once he caught the ball and ended up nearly scoring on the play. The quarter itself was non-stop action and offense as even Notre Dame managed to get into the spirit, nearly winning the game late. After Michigan had scored their third straight touchdown and taken a four-point lead, Notre Dame went down the field in a frantic but focused manner landing some big passing gains of their own due to equally bad secondary play from the Wolverines. They went back up when Theo Riddick completed a 29-yard touchdown play. Only one problem: there was still 30 seconds left. And that was all Denard needed on this night. A fitting evening deserved a fitting finish, and though a big comeback was needed, this night got its fitting finish. This is the third straight year that Michigan has beaten Notre Dame with a touchdown in the final thirty seconds of the game as two years ago it was Tate Forcier leading the drive in the final minute and throwing the winning touchdown, and last year it was Denard running free to the end-zone for the win. This year has already featured so much incredible quarterback play that it may be suffocating (if possible) by late-November, but I still believe that there is no more exciting player to watch in college football today than Denard Robinson. Those 28 points in the fourth quarter against those hated Irish provide one more testament to such greatness.

 
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This was an overall great game, not a game marked by one or two defining moments that created an overrated sense of how good it actually was (see the Giants upset of New England in Super Bowl XLIII), but a game that saw twists and turns throughout. This was one that was fought to the end with the result in doubt until that final fourth down pass by Big Ben fell in complete. Simply put, it was the way a championship game is supposed to go.

It didn’t come as a surprise to me that Roger Goodell tried to make the week of the Super Bowl all about him. Two bits of news involving Goodell provided the major news items of game week: his quote to Peter King that was initially misinterpreted by everyone including King, and then the meeting with DeMaurice Smith the day before the Super Bowl.

Let’s start with the quote for King’s SI piece. When the subject of Ben Roethlisberger’s off the field actions during the last off-season came up, here was Goodell’s quote: “I bet two dozen players … Not one, not a single player, went to his defense. It wasn’t personal in a sense, but all kinds of stories like, ‘He won’t sign my jersey.’” Initially it was interpreted by King to be referring to just Steelers players—which would have been a more provocative story if true—where in reality it was referring to NFL players in general, not just teammates of Big Ben’s. The fact that is was misinterpreted doesn’t matter because what Goodell did with that quote, one that he knew would be in a published piece, was throw those cooperating players under the bus. Even if he didn’t name names, the fact is he let loose that quote means that whatever trust the players had when it came to cooperation in league investigations or matters the like had to be damaged, it may not have been broken, but it couldn’t still be in pristine condition.

And while such a quote has already been virtually forgotten, I would like to take a moment and note how tragic it is if this quote has already been forgotten by players, fans, and media. The fact is that a breach of trust (an accidental one maybe) like this creates a lose-lose situation for players in the future: if they cooperate they have to wonder whether or not it will come out later what they said in regards to a particular investigation—even if they are lumped together, as was the case here—and words like “Not one, not a single player went to his defense” is pretty damning in how it identifies how many of the cooperators shared this opinion of a fellow player on the matter in question. But what can they do? Refuse to Cooperate? That’s not an option because potential fines, suspensions, and any other way Goodell, NFL management, or a team’s owner could lay the hammer down would be used if a player refused to cooperate in a league investigation, even if they fear that what they say won’t be held in confidence. It may seem like I’m reaching a bit, but the main reason this quote didn’t get the play that it deserved is because of the Big Game and the Lockout that followed. Had it not been for the Lockout, who knows how differently that quote would be remembered and perceived today.

As for the Smith/Goodell meeting, it begs the same question as one should have at reading Goodell’s quote: WHY?! What possible good, other than a headline the day before the biggest football game of the season, could this meeting have produced? Nothing was going to be solved in one day—as the later mediation hearings would prove—and how much preliminary work, as far as getting the negotiations between the owners and players off on the right foot, could have gotten done in one day? It was delusional thinking at best for these two to think that a one-day meet was going to solve anything. However I do understand the delusional thinking involved here: just think of how big a story it would’ve been if they had by some miracle come across an olive branch that the owners and players’ association could have used in the post-Super Bowl talks, and found it right before the Big Game. A story like that may have trumped the game itself because of all the implications a lockout would have on the league, its players, and its fans. But again, it was both delusional and unnecessary and only served, in my opinion, as another way for Goodell to get his name in the headlines (with DeMaurice Smith getting a piece in this case) during a week when the only headlines should have been centered around the game itself.

That is why that magic Sunday couldn’t have gotten here soon enough. And when it did, all the bullshit went out the window for a good four hours as two teams battled for football’s biggest prize. For everyone who was watching, it was a brief time to forget about the likelihood of a lockout and a delay from the immanent worries of whether or not pro football would even be played next season. On this day, it was about finishing up this season and hopefully finishing it up in style. Thankfully, the Packers and Steelers indeed finished off the 2010 pro football season in style.

Simply put, persistence was the key in Green Bay’s win.

In making Titletown into Titletown again, the Green Bay Packers showed that persistence may be all that is necessary to complete a championship season. At least that is when that team is loaded with talent to the point where it doesn’t matter how many men you lose.

Everything that Green Bay experienced in the Super Bowl they had been conditioned to expect by having to deal with these same issues throughout the whole season. They suffered injuries to their defense: they were used to it, they suffered a key injury to their receiving core: they were used to it, their offensive line didn’t stop Aaron Rodgers from getting hit often: they were used to it, and Rodgers had to put on a top-level game in a pressure situation in order for Green Bay to pull off a big win: they were used to it.

The injury bug simply wouldn’t stop for Green Bay this season as they entered the playoffs with nearly fifteen men on injured reserve, and had nearly lost Rodgers late in the season when he suffered his second concussion of the year. But like every other time they suffered a major loss—Ryan Grant in the backfield, Nick Barnett and (for a little bit) Clay Matthews on defense, Rodgers for the game against New England—the Packers bounced back and found a way to make due with what they had. Their defense appears to just be that loaded as losing people in all phases of defense (line, linebackers, secondary) couldn’t derail them. Evidence in their title win was almost overwhelming as the defense built the Packers’ early 21-3 almost by themselves with Collins’ spectacular return touchdown and the interceptions on Big Ben. This was followed by the Pack losing Charles Woodson and Sam Shields before the end of the first half, then nearly give the game away before forcing the pivotal fumble by Mendenhall early in the fourth, and finally stopping Big Ben late when it nearly looked like a replay of the ’09 meeting’s final possession was going to take shape.

To Pittsburgh’s credit, they never gave up. Falling behind by nearly three touchdowns early with a route seemingly in the making would be reason for a lot of teams to crumble, and that has been what has happened in many Super Bowls. But Big Ben did rally the troops and in the second & third quarters was able to get his team back into the game. He did so with much needed assistance from Rashard Mendenhall who bum rushed the Packer defense in the third quarter to help swing the momentum in Pittsburgh’s favor. And while it was his fumble that swung that momentum back to Green Bay, he didn’t quit and neither did the Steelers.

And because of that lack of quit from the team constantly having to come back in this game, the fourth quarter became a supercharged back-and-forth chess match with critical plays galore and some gutsy calls along the way. For Rodgers, it was two 3^rd & 10 conversions of over thirty yards that prevented Pittsburgh’s comeback from completing itself. And while the conversion to Greg Jennings wasn’t as much a risk, the earlier conversion to Jordy Nelson certainly was. Nelson had notoriously poor hands in this game dropping several sure catches, but was always able to rebound when given a second chance. And Rodgers never let Nelson wait for his second chance as on more than occasion (including the third down in question) that second chance to make things right came on the very next play. After dropping another sure catch on second down, Rodgers went to Nelson again and, like every other time in the game he was given the opportunity, Nelson came through, pulling in the pass and moving for a near forty-yard gain that set up what turned out to be the game-winning score. Pittsburgh’s gamble wasn’t just going for the two-point conversion after their final touchdown (they had to given the score, but it’s a risk no matter what), but what play they decided to go with in converting the try. How often do you see a triple-option play used in pro football, let alone at your team’s most crucial moment of the biggest game of the year? Considering how he played in college, Antwaan Randle-El was the perfect guy to take the pitch from Big Ben and it worked like a charm.

This game was an absolute joy for me to watch. With booze in my blood for the first half and then anxiety and nervous energy flooding into my brain for the second, it was a pure experience for me as a fan. Being from Wisconsin and a Packer fan there was some bias (that I’m not ashamed nor that I’ll apologize for), but that was part of what made the experience: the journey through this weird season with its final destination being decided right in front of my eyes. I’ve always tried to split my sports viewing into the entertainment/being a fan part of the game and the constant analysis of the game. The two tend to go hand-in-hand, but on this day analysis could wait until the celebration got under way. There was no time to fully and logically analyze what was going on with euphoria and joy rushing up and down my body as the Pack Attack blitzkrieged Pittsburgh in that opening quarter and a half, only to be replaced with intense worry and fear that the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history was going to come at the expense of my beloved Packers. And when that final fourth down pass hit the ground, it was all about letting that emotion and energy out in the company of my family, even my mom who stopped being a full-blown Packer fan once Number Four left. At that moment, it didn’t matter.

Sadly, by the end of the week, things has reascended into hell: Walker’s budget battle had just begun and the NFL’s in-fighting had just gotten under way. From as early as 2009—when some of the key issues in the lockout arguments first came to light—I knew that a lockout was going to happen. And maybe that played a part in my savoring of this year’s Super Sunday. But it was immanent with the one-week extension, a textbook example of pissing in the wind, being powerless to do a damn thing to stop it. And the forced mediation that the NFL finds itself embroiled in isn’t going to do the trick either, mainly because these meetings are taking place virtually against the will of the owners and the players; they all want there to be a football season (too much money at stake), and they know the fans do, but both sides want to come together on their own terms, not because a judge is forcing them to.

The bigger issue at hand in these meetings and talks is that there is simply too big of a gap between the sides on two key issues: the $9 billion in overall revenue and the proposed 18-game schedule. There are other factors at play, but if some kind of an agreement could be reached on these two, the others will likely figure themselves out. I may be naïve in thinking that simply, but it is where I am at after watching this thing unfold over the last few months. The 18-game schedule is an absolute joke and does show, more than the revenue sharing argument, how much money factors into things in the NFL. The revenue sharing argument is basically both sides bitching about what their rightful share is, but an extra two games on the schedule is an argument of T.V. dollars versus player safety. There’s also the matter of how many players who need the last two pre-season games (games that would be eliminated with the addition of two more regular-season games) to give them a better shot at earning spots on the roster. With only two games instead of four for coaches to make their rosters final for the regular-season, a lot of less known, less looked at, or less experienced players looking for their shot are going to be left out in the cold. Focusing back to the players on the rosters of NFL teams, two extra games does put them at more of a risk for injury. Think of how many potentially harmful hits come to a player during the regular-season and add two more games on top of it. This is why I’ve always felt a bit off when I hear this topic brought up after either Goodell or some analyst talks about the need for player safety and less head hits in pro football. The reality is that the head hit “epidemic” in pro football can be traced back to coaches teaching child players the wrong way to hit for the last fifteen to twenty years. What came out of it was a generation of players who would rather launch themselves into their opponent’s head instead of executing tough, but correct ways to hit an opponent. The problem is a lot deeper than the cheap shots that are caught on camera as head hits are going to be commonplace no matter how much or how many times you fine a man. The problem is about what fundamentals these guys were taught when they were first learning the game. Until that changes, the head hits aren’t going away, they may go down in quantity, but they won’t go away and this generation will have to bear the brunt of them so hopefully the generation that follows will have learned the right way to execute a hit, historically the way it’s been, in pro football until recent time.

The sad truth might be that the NFL needs a lockout. I don’t want to get behind that notion, being a football fan, but the truth may be just that. If there is such a disconnect and such a lack of compromise between the owners and players on these major issues and other minor issues (in comparison), then either the players are going to cave (as is usually the case) or there won’t be pro football this fall. I’ve always been more of a college football fan than a pro football fan so my appetite for great football won’t be suppressed if the guys getting paid can’t come to terms with the money men over amount. A lot of people, season ticket holders understandably, won’t agree with me on that point, but what I’m getting at is that not only do I have a football alternative in the event that there is no NFL come September, but that there is one out there for those who still want to watch football. And to be completely honest, if my last image of pro football for 2011 is Aaron Rodgers posing with the Lombardi Trophy and The Big Gold Belt, hey, I can live with that.
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While the Packers may have been a more accurate Super Bowl prediction in the pre-season, the fact that these two teams meet on Sunday for pro football’s biggest prize is not only fitting, but it offers the Pack a shot at some revenge. While this Sunday’s game will in no way resemble last year’s shootout between these two teams, it was that game—with Roethlisberger’s TD pass at the gun winning it for Pittsburgh—that has gotten a lot of play and a lot of attention. Again, it’s fun for taking up time on SportsCenter, but as far as Sunday goes, this game will be the polar opposite of what we get inside Jerry Jones’ one billion dollar baby.

With that out of the way, the indoor element plays to both quarterbacks airing it up. Rodgers is the best indoor QB in pro football and Big Ben’s “sandlot” approach to certain situations is even more dangerous with ideal conditions and 72 degree weather. Unfortunately for both men, their want (and maybe need) to air the ball out could come back to bite them. Both men showed in their respective title games that they are not invincible when letting the ball fly, especially when playing against a talented and capable defense.

And therein lies the rub to this game, and the reason this will not be a shootout: defense. Last year, when these teams met, the word had no meaning and seemed to be almost a joke when uttered in reference to any moment of that game. However, this year these are two of the best defenses in pro football, have the top two defensive players in football (according to the votes), and are the top scoring defenses in pro football—something that hasn’t happened in a Super Bowl with a full regular season behind it in 37 years.

The other defensive factor to consider in this game is that these are the two most physical defenses in pro football. The Jets and Bears and Ravens may try to make a case for themselves, but James Harrison’s fines, Troy Polamalu’s big plays, Clay Matthews’ domination of the NFC, and the fact that a 100-yard rushing game on either of these defenses was rare this season, all point to the better defense providing its team with a path to victory. I am not dismissing the accomplishments, talent, and playmaking ability of either quarterback. And a bad game from either quarterback will mean defeat for his team. But this game will be about which defense is able to make more third down stops, hard hits on the opposing quarterback, and simply making those big plays that defenses tend to make in the big games.

Both QB’s can be described as “tough as nails” and will need to be as both can expect to do a fair amount of scrambling and to be hurried and hit often. The reason for this is because both offensive lines are suspect for differing reasons. While injuries have been prevalent on both sides when it comes to the O-line, that will mainly be a factor for Pittsburgh with their banged up line’s effectiveness under duress will be key to how well Big Ben is protected and how much he will have to deal with Matthews and Co. With the Pack, it’s more about talent on the line, not health. The Packers’ offensive line and its reserves are mostly a group of young guys still making the transition to the pro game. Unnecessary penalties and a large amount of little mistakes through the season and playoffs may not have hurt the Pack irreparably during that period, but could prove problematic on Sunday if the mistakes pile up. And the veterans aren’t immune to this either, by the way. All this adds up to a line that over the last few years has to be one of the worst (if not the worst) among teams that finish with more than five wins every season.

At the end of the day, these two teams are very much alike creating the most similar looking of Super Bowl match-ups in recent time when looking at these teams and how they play side-by-side. There aren’t many differences between the two, but there are a couple.

The main difference in favor of Pittsburgh is Rashard Mendenhall and the fact that Pittsburgh has an effective and reliable running game. James Starks has come on in the playoffs, but failing to gain 100 yards in over 20 carries against Atlanta and Chicago fills me with worry about how he’ll be able to handle Pittsburgh’s D on the biggest stage of them all. And a 20-some carry, eighty yard game would be acceptable under any other circumstance with Rodgers and the passing game behind him. However, and most importantly in regards to Sunday, it would take so much more pressure off of the Packer D—due to the time of possession battle that rushing plays a central role in—as well as Rodgers if Starks or the Packer running game as a whole put up more yards than we’re accustomed to seeing out of them.

In the Packers favor, and the key to their victory on Sunday, is that they have more playmaking receivers and have an offense that can score quicker than Pittsburgh’s. If it comes down to a last-minute drive to the game-winning score (as is the most likely scenario for Sunday), I’d have to go with the green and gold for that reason; Pittsburgh’s offense can score quick when they want to, but they function more on a much more methodical approach (due to them having a running game) than Green Bay.

And even it weren’t a last-minute finish, the Packers seem to be functioning much better as a unit than Pittsburgh and have only had to rely on turnovers and their opponents’ mistakes in the win over Chicago—a game they were winning the whole time—while Pittsburgh’s defense had to bail them out in both of their playoff wins.

Green Bay 24, Pittsburgh 20


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The Green Bay Packers became the first six-seed in the history of the NFC to make it through three road playoff games in route to the Super Bowl. And at who’s expense that final win came from will be a part of the Packer history and lore for years to come. It happened at Soldier Field and against the Bears. After that sentence, if you’re a Packer fan, not much more needs to be written; for Bears fans it’s still too much to take in.

On that note, I do have one message for any Bears fans (NFL players have the right to bitch) who are still planning their version of the assassination of Jay Cutler: if it weren’t for Cutler’s injury, your boys would’ve never been in the game. That is the simple truth of Jay Cutler’s injury that has been hidden behind a mass of speculation, interviews, and twitter messages. The fact is, Jay Cutler did absolutely nothing on Sunday to put the Bears in a position to win the NFC championship, and neither did Todd Collins. And considering third-string option Caleb Hanie was the only guy left, I and the rest of the Packer Backers in Wisconsin thought that the trip to Dallas was signed, sealed, and delivered to Lambeau. Unfortunately Hanie turned in the Brady Performance in the final quarter and a half of the game very nearly completing a comeback for Chicago. Hanie’s big day ended up turning me into a ball of loose nerves for the final seven minutes of the game. Not even B.J. Raji’s INT return touchdown could seal things up or bring me back to a more comfortable state viewing the game.

Look at Hanie’s numbers and then tell me that Cutler would’ve mimicked them if he’d played the whole second half. If you do this with a straight face and actually mean it, not only are you delusional, but I may want to check into your mental state as a concerned citizen. My advice for Cutler would be to focus more on how you played in the first half than that you didn’t play in the second half because that is what you should be really upset about. Forget about the fans Jay, at least when it comes to his situation. Jay Cutler’s was a scenario that once again showed the “no-win” situation that athletes are put in in regards to fan reaction after the fact. I loved Urlacher’s comments about “guys sitting at home” because he was right. Unfortunately, all of the Bears who rightly came out and defended their quarterback shouldn’t have let these comments get to them the way they did. I will give leeway to the fact that they were likely more incensed at losing a shot at the Super Bowl and this was their way of releasing that anger without having to (for a moment anyway) deal with the reality that they won’t be playing in that billion dollar stadium. When it comes to fans and sports, the “guys sitting at home” are always going to bitch and moan about this or that (at least with Golf the fans seem to have the power to officiate the events themselves from home), but that’s because they have no alternative. These people are not actually on the field or playing or even in the stadium, so there’s no possible way that the two perspectives, fan and player, are going to come to a compromise. My way of thinking about Cutler in terms of Sunday’s game is that if he had come back in, the odds were well past 90% that he would either have gotten hurt worse than he was or would continue to struggle helplessly against the Packer D as he had during the first half.

Of course, the Packers didn’t come out of this one completely smelling like roses. The second half, like the first half of their game against Chicago three weeks before, saw Green Bay completely rely on their defense to finish the job as their offense sputtered home. Aaron Rodgers’ interception throw to Urlacher inside the five during the third was not only avoidable, but inexcusable. And then for Rodgers to even make a joking comment about his “tackle” on Urlacher to end the play did get me a bit pissed; not only because it was a terrible play all around, but it wasn’t even a tackle so much as Rodgers slapping Urlacher in the knee and that being enough to trip up Urlacher before he found daylight. That pick was what did in Rodgers on Sunday and Green Bay suffered a much longer and harder second half than was necessary. Up until Urlacher’s pick, the Pack had dominated the game in every way possible—running, passing, punting, defense, ball control, you name it. After the pick, Chicago had life. If Rodgers takes the sack and Green Bay settles for a field-goal, it’s a three score game and Chicago may have collectively given up hope. And even though they didn’t do anything with the turnover, the fact that they forced it and where they forced it, meant that they weren’t done yet.

Kudos to Packer punter Tim Masthay for his booming punts—including a sixty-five yarder—that neutralized Devin Hester to the tune of only 16 yards on punt returns for the game. And, more importantly, not once did Hester even have a chance to break one of his returns open for a potential big return or score. That in itself gave Green Bay an edge during the course of the game and should’ve earned Masthay a congratulations from everyone on special-teams.

The build to the game almost ended up topping the game itself. You see I am a Wisconsin native and still live in Wisconsin, and this was it as far as the states of Wisconsin and Illinois were concerned for the week leading up to the game. It was more than a spectacle or an event, it was something almost indescribable. It had the feel of a Super Bowl without being the Super Bowl. And when consider the historical significance of this game itself—two most storied teams in NFL history battling for a spot in the Super Bowl, the longest and best rivalry in NFL history, the two teams with the most championships in NFL history, nearly fifty hall-of-famers between the two, and they were meeting in the post-season for only the second time ever—it might as well have been the Super Bowl in Wisconsin and Illinois. The whole week was an unbearable countdown that seemed to never end. I work at a gas station off of I-43 that goes into Illinois, and the entire week was nothing but Packers & Bears merchandise, “Go Pack!” chants, and general talk about the game. From the perspective of Packer fans during game week, the most important question was who we were going to face in Dallas once we got through with the Bears. Yes we were a confident bunch during those days of waiting, but Packer fans have a right to be confident these days. It’s not just what they’ll be playing for in less than two weeks, but just with how the season has gone for Green Bay: injuries piled on top of each other, concussions to Rodgers, a rushing attack that was never seen as the answer to the problem of replacing Ryan Grant for the season, and all those close losses. And yet, here they stand, one win away from immortality, one more win and the trophy that bears the name of the most famous Packer coach will be theirs once again.

There was another game Sunday and it had its own intrigue to it. Ben Roethlisberger and his Steelers won their third AFC title in six years and Big Ben is primed to take his place alongside Manning and Brady as the best QB’s in the game; a win in Dallas would guarantee that standing. It went from suspension to Super Bowl for Big Ben this year, something that nobody realistically believed would happen. And because of that, it was not only fitting, but necessary that Big Ben be the guy to seal the deal for Pittsburgh. And that’s what he did with a roll-out on third and six that netted the final necessary completion to run out the clock. It was quite the gamble as an incompletion would’ve not only given the Jets one more shot (a safe running play would’ve too), but would’ve saved them around forty-five seconds, something crucial when you’re the one battling the clock. It was a moment of redemption for Big Ben who deservedly had to live through two scandals involving the attempted sexual assault of a female that were just under nine months apart. His image took that same turn off the tracks that Tiger Woods’ did for his sexual escapades, but not to the same degree. Quick side note: it’s interesting that Tiger got castrated by the media, sponsors, and fans for his rampant adultery (legal, but morally wrong) and Big Ben gets a much softer treatment by those same people (and I don’t remember any sponsors saying good-bye to him) for two incidents of him nearly raping a woman (not only illegal, but incredibly wrong morally). Anyway, this was a win that Big Ben deserved as a football player, not as a human being. I’ve always believed in the notion that all “the bullshit” leaves the moment the players step onto the field/court/ice. And I am sensitive to a guy legitimately trying to repair his image, as my support of Michael Vick would indicate. Maybe it was the suspension that did the job for Big Ben. Remember, he wasn’t really punished the first time around and while an entire football season passed before the second incident happened, it happened. We’ll have to wait until the off-season to see if Big Ben appears in the headlines for the third straight year for the same deplorable reason. For now it’s going to be two weeks where he is going to hear many questions fashioned around those two incidents as well as his “comeback” from the suspension. He’d better talk straight about everything because being able to face what you’ve done when it’s brought back into your mind after months of not having to hear about it or deal with it would be a real sign that this man isn’t going to be any trouble for his team off the field anymore.

At the beginning of the year, Pittsburgh seemed vulnerable without Big Ben for those first games and there were questions about Pittsburgh’s defense considering its slide last season. As it turns out, Troy Polamalo’s being there was the answer as Pittsburgh’s defense not only recaptured the dominance it had just two seasons ago, but likely surpassed it. And the offense produced without Big Ben and continued to when he came back. Rashard Mendenhall became almost the lynchpin for the offense as his almost workman-like rushing numbers and effectiveness is what took a big chunk out of Big Ben’s load and helped the Steelers become one of the most balanced offenses in football during this past season. It showed in the playoffs as their running built them a lead, and Big Ben’s arm provided the necessary completions to maintain the lead long enough to win.

And as for Mendenhall’s “moment” with Big Ben after one of the final kneel down’s: enough has already been said about it and it was funny to see on T.V., so I’ll just leave it at that.

For the Jets it was a reversal of halves, not a reversal of fortune. This year it was in the first half, not the second, where they gave up 24 unanswered points and sealed their fate.

None of blame should rest on Mark Sanchez’s shoulders. Let’s be honest here: the man played a good game, that’s it. Sanchez wasn’t flashy or remarkable, but he did what he was supposed to do. He didn’t throw an interception and had a passer rating over 100. And the only play that could even be deemed a mistake for Sanchez was William Gay’s fumble return touchdown for Pittsburgh after the ball was knocked out of Sanchez’s hands mid-throw. That shit just happens and I’m not going to fault Sanchez for not avoiding someone he couldn’t see.

The Jets fate may have ended up being in the hands of some higher force, call it fate or destiny or whatever, but when LaDainian Tomlinson couldn’t punch it in on fourth and goal at the Steeler goal-line, it was sealed in stone that the Jets weren’t going to play for the big one this year. There was still half the quarter to play and the Jets managed a safety a few plays later to get the ball back, but if you look back at what led up to that goal-line stand and who had the ball at that all-or-nothing moment, you’ll see that nothing the Jets could’ve done in those final seven and a half minutes would’ve mattered.

The Jets had first and goal at the two—four shots max. to net half as many yards. The play calling on those four plays also showed that maybe the Jets as a whole had finally hit the wall: a run to Greene, a run to L.T., and two passes(!). To be playing against a defense as physical as Pittsburgh’s, to have them backed up against their own end-zone, and to then put the ball in the air couldn’t have seemed dumber to me. I do agree that pushing it up the gut is just as much an uphill battle against this D, but it is the safer play call in that situation with the fourth run up the gut being the charm looking like a more plausible outcome to that series of plays. So, you have two weird calls and then L.T., not Shonn Greene gets the ball on fourth and goal. It was the Jets attempt to create something storybook: the Jets scooped L.T. up when the Chargers made it clear that they didn’t want him anymore, he played very well this season for New York after a few very subpar years in San Diego (and I’m not just talking about stats), so he deserved to be the guy in that position with the ball. I get that, but the reality is that L.T. hasn’t been that guy for years and wasn’t that guy this year. He played very well this year in comparison to his last two in San Diego, but that really was it; he didn’t show any flashes that would make one believe that the L.T. of old was back or that he was going to be of all-pro caliber, so why risk it like that with everything that was on the line for that play?

Finally, I’d like to address one more thing: the generally negative reaction to these two games from some who watched them. This is one mindset that I just don’t get. Were these people expecting two different match-ups than we got on Sunday? It was the Packers vs. the Bears and the Steelers vs. the Jets. These were rematches as both games had already been played at least once during the regular season with Green Bay and Chicago playing twice being in the same division. The Packers lost the first meeting with Chicago on a last-second field goal and aided the Bears with 18 penalties then won the second meeting to clinch a playoff berth on the strength of their defense bashing around Jay Cutler (sound familiar?), and the Jets edged Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh by five—the same margin as Sunday’s game—a little over a month ago. These were going to be wars of attrition and that’s what we got. If you were expecting Cutler and Rodgers to light it up like they did last weekend you were dreaming. If you expected either Big Ben or Sanchez to have a career defining day, you were very unrealistic. It’s almost as if this group of fans completely ignored the hitting power, ability to create takeaways, and overall excellent play of these four defenses entering Sunday. The message was there and those who were able to see it by Saturday night were guaranteed a fun day of hard-hitting football on Sunday. I was one of those people, and I’m not alone in that sentiment.
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This past weekend brought this reality back to life, as happens every football season, with stunning clarity in the form of a few upsets, plenty of close games as well as blowouts, and one noteworthy change in scenery.

A thirty-eight point loss at Lambeau on Sunday night was all Jerry Jones could take apparently. After saying that Wade Phillips was his coach throughout this disaster of a season, the Cowboys owner finally caved and fired “his coach.” The fact that Phillips got fired wasn’t a surprise to many (even if he lasted the season, he’d be gone) but it was how quickly he was fired after Jerry’s “consequences” comment post-game that let everyone know the boss is pissed. As well he should be; the Super Bowl predictions during the preseason were pure bullshit crafted up because of how glamorous Jerry’s stadium is and how big that big-screen over the field is, and while they weren’t based on anything tangible, they were still there and enough people believed them. From day one, this was a team with issues ranging from ego to non-existent team chemistry and it is that second one that has produced the living nightmare that every Cowboy player, coach, employee, and fan are experiencing right now. Did Phillips need to be fired? Probably not right now; I’m doubting that Jason Garrett himself and him getting hired is going to turn this thing around and produce something respectable. The problems that are plaguing this team go a little something like this: they lost Romo and never had faith in anybody except Romo, their defense cannot stop giving up points, and they had a coach that couldn’t motivate anybody. Will Jason Garrett be that motivator? Next season maybe, but despite what Jerry said, this was an admission of defeat as this season is done for Dallas. Want proof? They’re 1-7—one game from being out of playoff contention by most standards—and they’re playing the Giants right off of their bye week. The last time Dallas went 1-15 they won the Super Bowl just a few seasons later, but since that team didn’t have the expectations that this potentially 1-15 team has, I’m not expecting an immediate turnaround as the shell shock might be too much for America’s Team and its supporters.

TCU sent its strongest message of the season this past Saturday on why they would be a legit contender if placed in the national championship game. Sadly, just about all of America had to hear about it and see scattered bits of video as third-ranked TCU’s 47-7 annihilation of fifth-ranked Utah in Salt Lake City wasn’t televised nationally or even on cable. A friend of mine who was over for the night games on Saturday noted correctly that it was criminal not to have that game on T.V. in some way; I noted that Versus does have a deal with the Mountain West to air their games, but had Penn/Princeton on at the time. I understand that schedules are made far in advance, but this whole situation brings up two questions that I feel need answers: Did nobody think before the season that TCU/Utah <i>could be</i> a major game when they faced off? And, was there really no way to switch up the scheduling? I understand that this would leave the Penn/Princeton game out in the cold as far as TV coverage is concerned, but the bigger potential audience easily lies with the game featuring two of the top five.

Anyway, none of this mattered on the field as Andy Dalton put his name into the Heisman race by decimating the Utes to the tune of 355 yards and three touchdowns on a spectacular 21/26 passing. While Dalton’s numbers aren’t going to be up to snuff at the end of the year—even if he blows away San Diego St. and New Mexico, which he will—I still am expecting that he will be invited to New York for the Heisman ceremony considering TCU may be in the national title game by that point and depending on how the Cam Newton situation is handled, there might be a spot open.

The LSU Tigers tasted sweet, sweet revenge on Saturday, eliminating Alabama from national title contention with a 24-21 upset win in Baton Rouge. The Tigers broke Bama’s spirit early in the fourth quarter on a fourth and one at the Tide 23. With the whole country believing that the Tigers would run the ball up the gut, they opted for a play straight out of Boise St. executing a handoff only for Deangelo Peterson to get the ball off a quick lateral and have open field not only for the first down, but very nearly a touchdown as Peterson was knocked out at the Tide three yard-line. The Tigers scored a touchdown there and added a field goal before Bama’s shock wore off enough to mount their final offensive. It brought them close, but not enough as Nick Saban and his boys saw their grandest ambitions for this season go up in smoke in the Bayou.

The AFC East had to suffer through a very weird weekend. With the division being called by some as the best in pro football, thanks largely to the success of the Jets and Patriots, it didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary would take place with the two big dogs taking on much lesser foes in the Browns (Patriots) and Lions (Jets). Even Buffalo was given a stumbling Chicago Bears team in the hopes of gaining their first win of the year, and they got them at home nonetheless. Miami was the division’s lone team with a perceived “real” test with their big game in Baltimore. However, everything out of the ordinary happened during the hours of twelve noon and three p.m. (central). The AFC East went 1-3 with one of those wins being classified under the term “miraculous.” The Browns and Ravens ran all over their foes for 34-14 and 26-10 wins respectively while the Bears were able to win by a three-point margin instead of the other way around, which had comprised the Bears’ two losses coming into their game at Buffalo. The beating the Ravens dished out was somewhat expected as Miami is nowhere near as physical a team as Baltimore, but the beating the Browns dished out was almost a mugging in its savagery and unexpectedness. As for the Jets, they had to scratch and claw their way back from ten down in the final few minutes to even force overtime. And this was after being outplayed throughout in a second straight poor outing for the J-E-T-S against an NFC North foe. A 1-3 weekend with two losses via slaughter and their lone win as a division being under circumstances that nobody can realistically expect on a weekly basis sends an interesting message to the AFC East. That message: don’t let this day’s hangover last too long, or you’ll have bigger problems.

The college football equivalent to the AFC East, but with more wins this past weekend, would be the Big-10, which had one of its weirdest weekends in a while. To start things off, let’s look at Iowa and Wisconsin who both barely got by Indiana and Purdue. Don’t let Bucky’s 21-point win fool you: this was a team that was down at half after playing possibly its worst half of the season and did everything they could to make up for it in the final thirty minutes. Iowa was missing Adam Robinson, so the fact that they could only score on field goals before a late Stanzi touchdown pass won them the game is excusable only to the extent that they still found a way to win the game. However, if this is representative of how Iowa plays without Robinson, they better do everything they can to keep that man healthy until their bowl game because they’ll need him. There was the celebration and jubilation in Happy Valley for Joe Paterno becoming the first D-1 (FBS) coach to win 400 games, accomplishing the feat with Penn St.’s 35-21 win over Northwestern Saturday. And while that is noteworthy enough, the fact that Penn St. was down 21-0 just before halftime and shut the Wildcats out for the final thirty puts this win among JoePa’s best only because of the stakes, and the fact that it was just better to get the momentous win out of the way before having to face Ohio St. this coming weekend. A touchdown with three seconds before halftime (on a drive that lasted 53 seconds) combined with a twenty-one point third quarter put the Nittany Lions in front for good and secured Paterno a ride on his player’s shoulders as night replaced day in Pennsylvania. And then there was the shootout to end all shootouts in the Big-10. Michigan’s win over Illinois in triple overtime wasn’t noteworthy just because it made Michigan bowl eligible for the first time under Rich Rodriguez, but also because the 67-65 final was the highest scoring Big-10 conference game in history. Not too big a surprise considering the fact that both teams have poor defenses and Michigan’s secondary being the worst I’ve ever seen in nearly twenty years of watching Michigan football. The addition of Denard Robinson and then Tate Forcier into the equation as quarterback of Michigan and its offense only made me less surprised that the game became a shootout. The fact that neither team could stop the other made it a case where I literally couldn’t get out of my seat.

Finally, it was uplifting to see that with all of the turmoil and soap opera bullshit surrounding the Minnesota Vikings these days that the old gunslinger himself, Brett Favre, could still do what made him a star to so many: make big comebacks and win football games. A loss to the Arizona Cardinals at home would’ve been disastrous to Minnesota and their season, and may have given the league a second major head coaching firing on Monday to talk about. However, it was Favre with the assistance of Adrian Peterson that made it happen in the final four minutes of regulation and then in overtime leading the Vikings to seventeen unanswered points and a 27-24 win. This is not uncommon for Favre, he’s done it his whole career. But what makes this one so special is that he did it at a point in his career when retirement is literally staring him in the face (not like it was the past couple of seasons). The scariest part about how good this comeback was: Favre and the Vikings got stopped on their possession prior to Peterson’s touchdown run—the first TD of the comeback—when Peterson couldn’t punch it one from the Cardinal one on fourth and goal.

CURRENT BCS STANDINGS

1. Oregon

2. Auburn

3. TCU

4. Boise St.

5. LSU

6. Stanford

7. Wisconsin

8. Nebraska

9. Ohio St.

10. Oklahoma St.
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Of course, it’s not as if this was some kind of domination on Minnesota’s part and Dallas made a valiant comeback coming up short, this was a back-and-forth game throughout with Percy Harvin’s kickoff return touchdown to open the second half possibly being the x-factor in the Viking’s win. If anything aided Minnesota towards victory on Sunday it was the Cowboys themselves as penalties all over the place along with sloppy play on both sides of the ball added up to too many mistakes to overcome. The fact that it was a close game and never out of reach should make this loss all the more painful for Romo and Phillips and Jerry Jones to swallow.

Another painful loss took place the night before as Ohio St. was upended from their position as number one team in college football thanks to the Wisconsin Badgers. This was not the game I figured OSU would lose their unbeaten record in (I picked Iowa to be that game before the season started) as Bucky always plays close and plays great against OSU at Camp Randall, but always finds a way to blow it in the fourth quarter with the 2008 meeting in Madison being a fine example. This time around, things were different as John Clay and James White proved a potent 1-2 punch in the backfield while the Buckeyes appeared powerless to stop them. In fact, the only touchdown that Clay or White weren’t responsible for was David Gilreath’s 97-yard kickoff return touchdown to start the game. This proved to be an omen for Tressel and the Buckeyes as they didn’t even seem to be fully into the game until well into the second quarter where they found themselves already down 21-0. To their credit, OSU did fight back (as I expected they would) and got the Badger lead down to 21-18, and it was at this point that I began once again to await the collapse of the Badgers and another climactic OSU triumph in Madison. However, the Badgers didn’t follow the script this time around as White’s lone touchdown of the day knocked all the fight out of OSU and sealed the upset.

It seems that every week in the college football season has offered reason for me to believe that the SEC is slowly turning into the Pac-10, and this week was no exception. Uncharacteristically high scoring games, climactic offensive finishes, not quite as much hard hitting, and a lot more speed and passing all have embodied SEC football so far this season. Those characteristics nine times out of ten would be attributed to the Pac-10 well before they would be attributed to the SEC. But if you were watching the Auburn/Arkansas game on Saturday you should know what I’m talking about. My bad luck when it comes to what games I keep on the tube kicked in for this game as I made the error of heading out for dinner after three quarters and Auburn clinging to a 37-35 lead. Any proof that this game would be an example of the SEC’s slow transformation this year was already given to me, but then all hell broke loose in the fourth quarter. After Arkansas took the lead early in the quarter, the Tigers scored on their next three offensive possessions and added a defensive touchdown along the way for a 65-43 win. The game was the highest scoring SEC conference game in history and stands as the benchmark for future offensive shootouts that we are likely to see this year in a very different SEC. Despite things being so different in the SEC compared to other years, one of the things that best describes SEC football probably more than any other conference still seems to be alive and well: hard hitting football on every play. Ryan Mallett didn’t even get a chance to carve out a career performance as he was knocked silly in the second quarter and didn’t return. There were plenty of other big hits along the way, but the craziness of the fourth quarter and the non-stop offensive barrage that this game ended up being overshadowed all the helmet pops.

And speaking of helmet pops, the NFL finally cracked and decided that a simple fifteen yard penalty and maybe a fine for a helmet-to-helmet hit wasn’t enough, and are instituting a policy where players will be fined and suspended for such hits. The call to action came on the heels of a Sunday crammed with hard head shots with the most noteworthy being Brandon Meriweather’s cheap shot to Todd Heap, James Harrison taking out Josh Cribbs & Mohamed Massaquoi, and DeSean Jackson and Dunta Robinson being laid out by a hit that saw Robinson lead with his head. Myself, I believe this should’ve been instituted years ago, and am actually a bit peeved that the headbutt that Jeremy Jarmon gave to Aaron Rodgers in overtime of the Packers/Redskins game last weekend not only wasn’t called, but didn’t incite any kind of outrage. It wasn’t as big a cheap shot as Meriweather’s hit, but I know a headbutt when I see one. Moving on, the policy itself is a good thing, but the reporting on this—specifically on ESPN—did show in a subtle way how the NFL is once again attempting to pat itself on the back for something they don’t deserve to pat themselves on the back for. First of all, player safety isn’t something you get to make into an accomplishment, it’s something that is necessary and something you’re supposed to do; if you’re in charge of a pro sports league then you have an automatic responsibility to make sure your employees are safe while bashing each other into mush. Second—and this gets more into how ESPN covered things—it sends a very creepy message to talk about and show clips of different coaches, executives, and people involved in the NFL talking about player safety being top priority, and in the next minute talking about how the proposed 18-game schedule is a good thing and probably will go through. In terms of player safety, an 18-game schedule does nothing to help it and everything to hurt it because it is (duh!) two extra games for these guys to go out there and potentially get hurt. Again I love the policy, but please shut up Roger Goodell and please shut up Ray Anderson.

Sunday also marked the unveiling of the first BCS standings and there was a big surprise in this year’s first weekly computer produced rankings. For many posers who hopped on the bandwagon after the Virginia Tech game, Boise St. was not number one as many expected. What was more shocking to me was that Oregon is now the new #1 in both AP and Coach’s polls, but is not number one in the BCS, that honor goes to Oklahoma. Yes the Sooners have been that recognizable college football team that has snuck under the radar during this first month and a half. Because there’s still so much time left in the season, I could really care less who starts number one in the BCS rankings, but I think a lot of people are dismissing Oklahoma as some shock number one, and that simply isn’t true. The Sooners likely got the higher ranking because their out of conference games against Florida St. and Air Force trump Oregon’s games against New Mexico and Portland St. Oregon has already faced formidable opponents in conference play with Arizona St. and Stanford while Oklahoma has had the Red River Shootout with Texas and that’s about it. For both, the real competitive part of their conference schedule begins this week with Oklahoma facing also unbeaten Missouri and the Ducks looking at UCLA before finishing the year with USC, Washington, Arizona, and Oregon St. in the next six weeks. Boise didn’t deserve to be number one because (once again) they play in one of the worst conferences in college football and 59-0 wins against that isn’t going to amount to as much as, say, Oregon’s big win against Stanford or Oklahoma’s stomping of Florida St. back in September.

At the end of the day, this is just the starting line as November is looming and that means that upsets and chaos are coming in a neatly wrapped package that is going to burst into all of our faces like a gag can of beer nuts. Get ready because it’s coming.

Note: for the rest of the season when I give the ranking for a team it will be their BCS ranking and not the Coach’s ranking as the BCS poll decides who plays for the national title

CURRENT BCS STANDINGS (released October 17)

1. Oklahoma

2. Oregon

3. Boise St.

4. Auburn

5. TCU

6. LSU

7. Michigan St.

8. Alabama

9. Utah

10. Ohio St.
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