After all the hype is gone all you have is the game.
In the case of the NFL, Sunday couldn’t have come soon enough with the Colts/Patriots matchup setting the football world on fire and making almost everything that happened Saturday and in the first installment of games Sunday irrelevant.
The game itself seemed to live up to the hype in that we saw two teams at the top of their game switch halves in playing as such. In the first half, Manning and the Colts played nearly perfect football, the nearly being that they blew three opportunities to score touchdowns in New England territory settling for two and a Vinatieri miss from 50.
In the second half, Brady and the Patriots finally found their groove offensively with touchdown drives of 73 and 51 yards in the fourth quarter. And it was the Patriots defense that shut down Manning in the second half and set him up for yet another fall.
It is fitting that a Manning turnover is what sealed another Patriot win over Indianapolis. Whether it’s in Foxboro or in the dome, the Patriots always seal the Colts’ fate with a Manning turnover. In this case, it was a turnover of the weird and seemingly one time only variety. With just over two minutes to go Manning was being brought down for a sack when the ball fell out of his hands, through the air, and into Roosevelt Colvin’s waiting arms enabling Brady to take a few kneel downs and reap the rewards of a 9-0 record.
28 Unanswered Propels Buckeyes
It’s interesting that a 28-point burst saved Ohio St. from a possible upset at the hands of a P.J. Hill-less Wisconsin Badger team; the interesting part is that the Buckeyes needed saving. Without Hill, the Badgers were without their biggest offensive weapon and looked defenseless on the road against a Buckeye team that hasn’t lost a regular season game since 2005.
However, it would be Chris Wells who would do the saving. Wells, a good running back with relatively little hype to his name made a name for himself in a big game with 169 yards on the ground off of twenty-one carries, but his three second half touchdowns—totaling 84 yards—were his biggest. Those three iced what had been a close game as they provided the Buckeyes with the breathing room they needed to preserve a 38-17 win.
Until the fourth, the Badgers actually had the lead at 17-10 off of six and eight play drives to start the second half. Both of those drives ended in touchdowns off of Tyler Donovan passes, the first to Travis Beckum and the second to Chris Pressley.
It would be two turnovers inside their own thirty that did the Badgers in as both resulted in Buckeye touchdowns sealing the game and almost guaranteeing that Wisconsin won’t be playing on January 1.
Dixon Schools Sun Devils Before Suffering Injury
Dennis Dixon’s Heisman bid gained and lost momentum within the same game. The gain came in the form of a four-touchdown performance that gave Oregon its potentially biggest win of the season 35-23 over Arizona St. giving the Ducks the lead in the Pac-10 and the ability to control their own destiny in the final weeks of the regular season. The loss came when Dixon injured his knee forcing him to miss the final quarter of play. It already has been reported that the injury is not serious, but in terms of the Heisman voting, we’ll have to see how he fares next week against Arizona.
Oregon’s defense stepped up in a large way protecting the 35-16 lead Dixon left them after the third quarter by only giving up seven points in the final quarter without their offensive leader on the field. Not only that, but they avoided potentially dangerous situations in the final quarter by forcing two Arizona St. turnovers within the Oregon 30 to preserve the win. That and nine sacks on Sun Devil quarterback Rudy Carpenter guaranteed that the momentum was going to be and was one-sided the whole game.
All of the Ducks’ scoring drives that ended in Dixon touchdown passes lasted under three minutes with the first coming 1:17 into the game. Dixon ended with 189 yards passing on 13/22 through three quarters. Drew Davis, Jaison Williams (two), and Michael Jones caught touchdown passes from Dixon.
LSU Can Pull Miracles Too
It was a game that saw both teams blow double-digit leads and may be the crystallized example of why LSU may end up in New Orleans for the national title come January. Scoring twice in the final three minutes, the Tigers escaped against an Alabama team that looked as though they were going to hand LSU their second loss of the year after coming back from a 14-point deficit to take a lead into halftime and built it to a ten-point lead at one point in the game.
The Tigers did not bring their A-game to Tuscaloosa on Saturday as was evident by fourteen penalties totaling 130 yards and three interceptions thrown by Matt Flynn.
Resilience was LSU’s name on this day as Flynn directed a scoring drive late to bring the Tigers within three and then their defense did the rest forcing two sacks, the last of which caused an Alabama fumble that was recovered by Curtis Taylor at the Tide 3 yard-line. Two plays later and the game was history.
While the game itself proved to be climatic and exciting, it was overshadowed by the fact that this was Nick Saban’s first game against LSU since leaving the Tigers for the Miami Dolphins a few years ago. Emotions were running high and while Saban did trust to douse the emotional flames after the game playing off the animosity that LSU faithful have towards him, he and we have to realize that college football is a game of emotion; grudges last as long as rivalries and both sometimes go into the hundreds of years.
While this won’t be the case, the LSU/Alabama rivalry shouldn’t and likely won’t be built around Nick Saban for years to come. That fact is more than likely to be correct as the Tigers and their fans gained whatever retribution they were looking for on the road this past weekend.
Current BCS Standings
1. Ohio St.
2. LSU
3. Oregon
4. Kansas
5. Oklahoma
6. Missouri
7. West Virginia
8. Boston College
9. Arizona St.
10. Georgia
FINAL THOUGHTS
Now that the Pats have gotten past Indy, everyone is wondering if they’ll go 16-0 or not. I still think it’s too early to tell. Yes, they’re 9-0, yes it’s probably the best start in NFL history, and yes they did show that they can come back when it counts. However, the NFL has become just as screwed up as college football when it comes to parody. The “on any given Sunday†mentality that seemed like it should’ve been replaced by the day of the week preceding it now not only seems fitting, but may be the only thing that will allow those members of the ’72 Dolphins to toast another year.
While the Pats did make it count when it needed to count, they didn’t play a perfect game and may have been exposed as they’re offense took nearly forty minutes to get into gear and showed that a good defensive line could penetrate them as was evident by Dwight Freeney who played a great game and Robert Mathis’ two sacks. The drive in particular that showed that the Pats offense is human came early in the third quarter after Rodney Harrison’s interception of Peyton Manning putting the Pats at the Indianapolis 30. Three plays, -10 yards, and a punt later spelled a good opportunity lost.
The Pats are not bulletproof (they never were) and the rest of their schedule will show whether they are good enough to do the impossible with games at New York (Giants), at Baltimore, and against Pittsburgh giving them the biggest tests.
For the Colts, this shouldn’t affect them as much as it would any other team that lost a game of this caliber. The Colts have been here before; they’ve lost two trips to the Super Bowl to this team, a regular season loss shouldn’t sting as much. The main reason the Colts shouldn’t feel the burn from this loss is because they did everything right, except one thing: close. They had New England outplayed and outclassed on the field for the better part of three quarters and let it slip away in the fourth. This has been the Colts story for years and was the reason that Peyton Manning missed out on so many playoff wins and Super Bowl berths.
You must remember, the Colts did break through last year and took it all. What’s to say history can’t repeat itself?
