It should come as no surprise that LSU beat Ohio St. for the BCS title.
The Big-10 and the SEC have both preached the same kind of football since their inceptions: defense and running. While each conference goes about this type of game differently—SEC=more defense, Big-10=more running—they have become rivals of a sort mainly due to the fact that they have two and sometimes three New Year’s Day bowl games against each other. In this year’s edition, SEC wins 2-1 with Tennessee and LSU getting wins over Wisconsin and Ohio St. respectively with Michigan coming away with the Big-10’s only bowl win against the SEC. Needless to say, bowl season isn’t always what people think it will be.
In the case of the national title game, it was exactly what people thought it would be and was very nearly déjá vu with Ohio St. striking first (OSU scored the game’s first 10 points) and then the SEC team (LSU here) obliterating them with an unanswered onslaught of points (LSU scored 31 before Ohio St. struck again). Luckily for the Buckeyes, they were able to make the game close at 38-24 and were able to hang their heads higher than last year in the desert.
For a sport that saw 2007 turn into the year of the upset, it’s both ironic and fitting that the final game of the year would seem to be business as usual between Ohio St. and the SEC.
Favre, Grant Turn in Superb Performances in Snow Riddled Green Bay
After two early fumbles one would think that Ryan Grant was heading for a spot in Green Bay’s playoff Wall-of-Shame, but 201 yards (a Packer playoff record) and three touchdowns later, and Grant is now a hero in Green Bay. It was that kind of day for Green Bay.
Ryan Grant fumbled on two of his first touches setting up Seattle’s only touchdowns of the day as Seattle would score only six points that didn’t come from Grant turnovers in a 42-20 beating at Lambeau Field this past Saturday.
Brett Favre barely missed a beat going 18/23 passing for 173 yards and three touchdowns. Two of his scores went to Greg Jennings who ended the day with 6 catches for 71 yards. Favre’s other touchdown pass went to Brandon Jackson, which made the game 35-17 Green Bay early in the third quarter.
Of course Favre made two plays that both demonstrated exactly what Brett Favre is all about: a shovel pass on a second quarter third down not only saved Green Bay from having to settle for a field-goal, but resulted in a Packer touchdown a few plays later from Ryan Grant, and in the third quarter after his touchdown to Jackson, Favre hit teammate Donald Driver with a snowball; Driver responded in kind on the sideline soon after.
Matt Hasselback once again found it next to impossible to get into a groove in Green Bay. Hasselback went 19/33 for 194 yards and a touchdown, but was sacked twice and hurried almost 15 times during the game resulting in many poor decisions and Seattle going 3/11 on third down.
The day was truly Green Bay’s in all ways as a snowstorm hit Green Bay Saturday morning and stuck around through the game eventually covering the field in inches of fresh snow.
Brady Breaks Even More Records in Patriots Win
Going into their Saturday meeting, the consensus was that the Jaguars’ two-man running attack of Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew would hold Jacksonville’s destiny in their hands. On the contrary, as sixteen previous opponents came to know, it was Tom Brady that was holding all the cards all along.
Brady set NFL records for consecutive completions in a post-season game (16) and highest completion percentage in a post-season game (92.7%) while going 26/28 for 262 yards and three touchdowns leading New England to a 31-20 win.
The win made New England the only team since the 1972 Miami Dolphins to start a season 17-0 (there were only 14 regular season games in Miami’s undefeated season).
David Garrard made his first playoff appearance count going 22/33 for 278 yards and two touchdowns with a late interception to Rodney Harrison being the only blemish on a great night. Garrard’s first touchdown pass (to Matt Jones) came virtually on his knees and under pressure to put Jacksonville up 7-0. After New England tied, Garrard followed his first score up with another, this one coming at the end of a 95-yard drive that spellbound the New England defense.
In the end, it would be Brady and the eight different receivers who caught passes from him that proved too much for Jacksonville’s defense as their inability to stop the Patriots from scoring on any of their second half drives into Jacksonville territory built a mountain too big for their offense to climb. In the end, Donte Stallworth, Kyle Brady, Wes Welker, Randy Moss, Jabar Gaffney, Laurence Maroney, Ben Watson, and Kevin Faulk all caught passes from Brady.
Maroney caught two passes for 40 yards, but did most of his work on the ground running for 122 yards and a touchdown on 22 attempts.
Ben Watson made both of his catches count as they both were touchdowns.
Despite being their biggest playmaker, Randy Moss’ only catch of the game came on New England’s first drive. It took place on a fourth down inside Jacksonville territory. Moss’ 14-yard catch kept the drive going. New England would end up scoring on Ben Watson’s first touchdown catch of the night.
Billy Volek Helps Chargers Dethrone Colts
The Chargers weren’t given much of a shot to dethrone the defending Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts’ in their own building; they even had less of a shot in people’s eyes when backup quarterback Billy Volek had to replace the injured Phillip Rivers entering the fourth quarter.
Almost like in a movie, it would be Volek’s one-yard touchdown plunge with 4:50 to go that would propel the San Diego Chargers to a 28-24 upset and a date in Foxboro for the AFC Championship.
The Chargers win was a full team effort, as it had to be with Rivers’ early exit and star running back LaDainian Tomlinson’s even earlier exit after only eight touches—seven carries for 28 yards, one catch for 20 yards.
Colts quarterback Peyton Manning seemingly did everything in his power to keep Indianapolis’ title reign from ending. Manning completed passes to nine different receivers and ended the day going 33/48 for 402 yards and three touchdowns; a true Manning performance that ended in the fashion most do: a heartbreaking loss in January.
Giants End Dallas’ Season in Big D
When asked which Manning would still be alive following the weekend’s action, a small percentage may have said Eli; they would’ve been right. For the New York Giants, the third time was the charm as they upset the Dallas Cowboys 21-17 in the second NFC divisional playoff game for their ninth straight road win. This was the third meeting between the two this season with Dallas taking both regular season meetings.
Tony Romo couldn’t find a way to shake off the pressure that the post-season brings going 18/36 for 201 yards and touchdown, fairly pedestrian numbers when you look at Romo’s great season.
Romo’s favorite target, Terrell Owens was only able to grab 4 catches for 49 yards, but did add a score. Still, the number were off from Owens’ average against the Giants this year (six for 110).
For Dallas it was running back Marion Barber that did most of the legwork with a 27-carry 129 yard one touchdown day. Barber’s running was instrumental on a 20-play 90-yard drive that ate up 10:48 in the second quarter ending in Barber’s TD run. However in a fashion that fitted Dallas on this day it didn’t eat up enough clock as forty-six seconds after Barber scored New York struck back with Amani Toomer’s second touchdown catch of the day making the game 14-14 at halftime.
Toomer ended the day with 80 yards on four catches to go with his touchdowns.
Brandon Jacobs provided the winning score on a one-yard run with 13:29 to go.
FINAL THOUGHTS
For college football, 2007 was a year that both enhanced and ruined the game at the same time without even knowing it. The barrage of upsets week after week enhanced the game because—like the NFL in recent years—a form of parity was finally evident in college football as some former powers continued a slide and new powers seem to have begun their rise. But with great upsets comes great backlash and the fact that the national title game was played between a one-loss team and a two-loss team fueled the debate and, in a way, the people favoring a playoff in college football. Will a playoff really change anything? At least one person who’s favoring the playoff now will likely be screaming about, “had there been a bowl (only one game) instead of all of this they would’ve had it…” and so on. You can’t please everyone, that’s just a fact of life, why should it be different in sports? The BCS was a disaster from the beginning because it took supreme power out of people’s hands and put it in the hands of a computer and we all know technology is prone to fucking up. That’s the story of the BCS despite the fact that they’ve gotten right more years than they’ve gotten it wrong; the difference is the years they got it wrong resulted in landslide national title games and in one case, a split national title. I’m probably the only person who favors the old system. By the old system I do mean the Big-10 & Pac-10 champions play in the Rose Bowl, the Big-12 (formerly Big-8) champ plays in the Orange Bowl, the SEC champ plays in the Sugar Bowl, etc. However, if one of these conference champs is #1 or #2, they play for the national title in the fifth of the big bowl games and the bowl that loses that conference champ gets a pick of at-large teams, just like now. How can this be achieved? Rather simply as the Bowl Coalition, which lasted from the 1995 season to the end of the 1997 season probably got it closest. Since the coaches and AP usually agree on top spots, keep the polls or you can group them into one poll. It may not be the best idea, but a playoff will take away the one thing that makes college football different from pro football: the bowl season. Personally, I don’t want to see that happen.
