Wild Weekends: Thanksgiving Weekend

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This year I give thanks for football.

Millions upon millions spent this past weekend devouring spectacular Thanksgiving dinners over the course of three days. And during those three days came one spectacular weekend of football capped off by a potential Super Bowl preview on Monday night. The weekend saw the usual Thanksgiving weekend games and some of the unused rivalries from rivalry week. The weekend saw some upsets that weren’t quite upsets within the context of being a rivalry game (Baltimore over Pittsburgh, Georgia over Georgia Tech, Stanford over Notre Dame, South Carolina over Clemson). The weekend saw some big teams have problems, but pull through (LSU over Arkansas, Bama over Auburn, Boise St. over Nevada). The weekend saw some legit upsets despite the rivalry game context (Oklahoma over OK State, NC St. over North Carolina, Mississippi St. over Ole Miss). As a whole, it was a more eventful Thanksgiving weekend than has been the case in recent years without being a Thanksgiving weekend that burnt down the football world, a few of which we’ve seen in this decade.

Saints beat up Pats in Superdome showdown

Respect has been earned by the now 11-0 New Orleans Saints.

In one of those rare regular season games with post-season build, the Saints crushed the New England Patriots 38-17 with Drew Brees leading the way with five touchdown passes while the Saints’ defense kept Tom Brady out of the end-zone.

Brees spread the love around completing passes to seven different receivers, and throwing each of his five touchdowns to different receivers. Saints touchdowns were caught by Pierre Thomas in dazzling fashion, Devery Henderson, Robert Meachum, Darnell Dinkins, and Marques Colston.

Colston ended with 121 yards and a touchdown on four catches. Henderson caught three for 116 yards with a touchdown, and Meachum caught five passes for 69 yards with a touchdown.

Brady for his credit kept up with Brees statistically going 21/36 for 237 yards through the air, but Brady’s two interception and inability to get a touchdown pass is what ended up making the difference for New Orleans.

Darren Sharper and Mike McKenzie made the interceptions for the Saints.

McCoy delivers in Thanksgiving shootout with A&M

Colt McCoy finished his regular season career at Texas in grand style Thanksgiving night accounting for five of Texas’ seven touchdowns and rushing for a career high 175 yards in the process.

McCoy threw for touchdowns and ran in another while going 24/40 for 304 yards through the air.

Jerrod Johnson and Jeff Fuller were the two-man tandem that made this game something different for the Aggies than recent games in this rivalry have. Johnson and Fuller connected for three touchdown passes, one from 70 yards a little over a minute into the game, one halfway through the second quarter, and one from 20 yards with 7:10 to play.

Johnson ended the day with 342 yards passing, four touchdowns, and one interception off of 26/33 passing. Fuller ended with three touchdowns and 132 yards on six catches.

The game itself was first an explosion and then a great car chase with four lead changes in the first half and the teams trading scores the entire way. The second half turned into A&M playing catchup after falling behind by 14 early in the third quarter.

Marquise Goodwin’s 95-yard kickoff return for the Longhorns with 6:57 to play finished the day’s scoring.

Tide survives Iron Bowl on way to showdown with Florida

Once again Nick Saban and Alabama stare the end of their unbeaten season in the face and once again come away clean as a sheet.

This past Friday saw the 2009 installment of the “Iron Bowl” turn into another classic in the rivalry’s history.

The game itself was the defensive masterpiece the rivalry is used to seeing with enough offensive movement and enough scoring not to be shootout and not to be considered low-scoring.

The Tigers lead 14-0 through one with Terrell Zachery scoring from 67 yards on his only rush of the game and Eric Smith catching a one-yard pass from quarterback Chris Todd.

The Tide was able to make the game 14-14 at half with two TD’s of their own, both in the second quarter as Trent Richardson ran in from two yards and Greg McElroy connected with Collin Peek from 33 yards.

The second half saw Alabama inch their way back into the game on Leigh Tiffin’s leg and then take the lead when Roy Upchurch pulled in a four-yard touchdown with 1:24 to play.

Young’s last second TD pass gives Titans fifth straight win

Vince Young managed to break Matt Leinart’s heart again.

Just under four years since the two last met on the field—Young’s Texas beat Leinart’s USC in the ’06 Rose Bowl to win the national title—a Vince Young-led football team beat a Matt Leinart-led team in the final seconds when Young found Kenny Britt in the end-zone as time expired to lift the Titans over the Cardinals 20-17.

In a rare start, Matt Leinart fared pretty well going 21/31 for 220 yards.

In his fifth straight start (and fifth straight win) of the season, Young threw for 387 yards and that last second touchdown on 27/43 passing.

Britt finished with 128 yards on seven catches.

Gehart, Stanford send Weis packing with comeback win over Irish

In what turned out to be Charlie Weis’ last game as head coach of Notre Dame, his Irish played the game the way it had been played since the day Weis took over as Irish coach: with great offensive production and no defensive support.

It was the same old story for Notre Dame who produced 447 yards of offense, only to give up 496 to Stanford.

Cardinal running back and potential Heisman candidate Toby Gehart passed 200 yards rushing in another big game, rushing for 205 against ND on 29 carries. Gehart scored three touchdowns, his first started the day’s scoring, his third ended the day’s scoring, and his second began Stanford’s comeback.

Gehart also threw a touchdown pass in the fourth quarter.

The Irish took the lead early and hung onto it for nearly the whole game. The biggest the lead got was at 31-20 Irish early in the third quarter. The Irish’s only score in the final 27 minutes of the game was a Golden Tate 28-yard catch in the fourth making the game 38-30. Enter Toby Gehart. Aside from a Nate Whitaker field goal early in the final quarter, Gehart was responsible for all three Cardinal touchdowns in the second half.

Looking at the facts—447 yards of offense and 38 points on offense while giving up 496 yards and 45 points—and it was typical typical Notre Dame football in recent time.

Ravens edge Steelers in OT with Big Ben sitting things out

It was close, it was defensive, and it was hard-hitting. It was everything you’d expect from a Steelers/Ravens game, except that it was Dennis Dixon and not Ben Roethlisberger who lead the Steelers on the field Sunday.

Roethlisberger didn’t play because of complications from the shot to the head he took last Sunday and the fact that doctors wouldn’t let him play.

Dixon made the most of his start going 12/26 for 145 yards with a TD and an interception.

Joe Flacco was able to get past the Steelers defense to the tune of 289 yards passing and a touchdown on 23/35 passing.

Flacco’s favorite target in this game was Mark Clayton who, despite not scoring, still pulled in seven passes for 129 yards.

Billy Condiff inadvertently became the hero for Baltimore in this one finishing off what Baltimore’s offense started on the team’s final two drives. The first Condiff field goal sent the game into overtime, the second won it for Baltimore.

Mountaineers take Backyard Brawl with field goal as time expires

This year’s installment of the “Backyard Brawl” lived up to the rivalry’s name with a low-scoring, defensive battle that ended with West Virginia returning the favor from 2007 and upsetting Pitt while Pitt was positioned in the top ten coming into the game.

Mountaineer kicker Tyler Bitancurt was the man most responsible for the upset connecting on four field goals, including the game winner from 43 yards as time expired.

Noel Devine provided the West Virginia with its only touchdown of the game on an 88-yard run late in the third quarter. Devine finished with 134 yards on 17 carries.

Dion Lewis provided the running for Pitt with 155 yards on 26 carries.

Pitt had their own supply of kicking, courtesy of Dan Hutchins who kicked three field goals in the game.

Pitt’s only touchdown of the game came when Bill Stull hooked up with Jonathan Baldwin for a 50-yard score. The touchdown tied the game at 16 with 2:54 to play.

BYU gets to 10-win mark with overtime win over Utah

It was a thriller, but this year BYU quarterback Max Hall got his redemption. After throwing five interceptions in last year’s loss to Utah, Hall threw the game-winning touchdown pass on the Cougar’s second play of overtime.

Hall finished with 134 yards and a touchdown on 12/32 passing.

The Utes stayed in the game with an efficient run/pass combination. Quarterback Jordan Wynn threw for 198 yards and threw an interception on 21/41. Running back Eddie Wide ran for 114 yards on 21 carries and scored Utah’s only touchdown of the game; that score came on a one-yard run around the halfway mark of the fourth quarter making the game 20-17 BYU.

Harvey Unga ran for 116 yards and touchdown on 23 carries for BYU.

FINAL THOUGHTS
The curtain is nearly falling on the college football regular season and the countdown to the NFL regular season has officially begun. The three expected to be the top three of college football are still there and there are still two undefeated pro football teams, each with five games left to play. With TCU waiting and Cincinnati playing this week, one has to wonder whether Nebraska will provide a potential shakeup withing the BCS rankings, or whether college football will revisit 2003 where a team loses championship weekend, but still plays for the title. As for the Saints and Colts, every game becomes bigger and bigger while either team remains unbeaten, making yours truly ponder whether in a league that has only seen two teams go unbeaten through a regular season ever that two could do it in the same season. While the hidden meaning of a season in sport is to answer the questions that all fans, analysts, and viewers have about teams, players, etc. this season still has plenty of questions left at both levels. While things change every week, there are still several key things that have stayed the same through this season. December is the month of answers in football as by the end of the month we should know whether the Saints or Colts will pose a threat to the ’72 Dolphins in the playoffs, but for this week, we’ll just have to settle for knowing who is better this year between Florida and Bama, if Texas can win the Big-12 having had nothing keeping them from the game, and knowing what the biggest bowl games will be.