Week In Review

A late post of last week’s action due to travel.

Misnomer of the Week: Football commentary, like other sports, has acquired a large number of phrases that have meanings apart from the words that comprise them.

On occasion you will hear broadcasters praise a receiver or defensive back’s well-timed leap for a ball, saying “he catches the ball at its highest point.”

The ball’s highest point is far higher than any human can jump. What they really mean is catching the ball at HIS highest point, so the ball is in the air for the least amount of time and another player doesn’t have a play on it.

It was a big day in the city of Seattle. First, Washington ended Boise State’s 14-game winning streak, forcing four turnovers and shutting out the visitor in the second half in a 24-10 win.

You didn’t hear it here first, but Jake locker is a stud. He’s Marques Tuiasosopo all over again – he can run, throw, and will the offense into the end zone. More than one coach has said he’s the best of the many fine quarterback prospects to ever come out of the state of Washington. Assuming he stays healthy, he’s going to be making a lot of noise. Fans that had marked their Washington game as a win had better break out the white-out.

To paraphrase Glenn Frey, the heat is off. After a split-personality 5-7 season last year that had fans clamoring for his ouster, Tyrone Willingham is 2-0 with a home battle against an enigmatic Ohio State team. If the Huskies go to 3-0, it’s hard to imagine a better candidate for Pac-10 Coach of the Year.

Now the bad: UW may still be a one-man team. Last year, Isaiah Stanback’s dual-threat quarterback hijinks lifted Washington to a 4-2 start. When he broke his foot against Oregon State and was lost for the season, UW took a decided nosedive and won just one more game all year. The team that beat UCLA was wholly different from the one that lost to Stanford at home for the first time in 30 years. Willingham elected to keep Locker’s redshirt on for the future of the program. The future is now, and he’s delivering.

The man who replaced Tyrone in South Bend has yet to score an offensive touchdown. Willingham was 2-0 in his first season at Notre Dame with a team that didn’t score an offensive touchdown until its win against Michigan that pushed it to 3-0.

Washington State held its annual Qwest Field game following the Husky game, in a contest that gives western Washington-area Cougar fans a chance to see their team live without braving the frosty passes of the Cascades.

Against San Diego State, WSU continued to improve from its impressive opening loss at Wisconsin. Cougar quarterback Alex Brink, a brilliant passer and the most experienced quarterback in the Pac-10, moved up the WSU record ladder for touchdown passes.

The Cougs were hit with massive attrition over the summer but seem to be holding it together. They will be very injury-sensitive, but they’ve got the first-string talent to scare anyone in the conference.

Meanwhile, the state of Oregon went on the road to the midwest and went a long way towards determining who will be coaching Michigan football next year. Duck quarterback Dennis Dixon looked sharp – make that all-American – in Michigan Stadium, the second coming of Wolverine nemesis Vince Young. It’s difficult to dispute the allegation that Michigan players packed it in once the 32-7 lead was built.

Whether the game has passed him by, he has lost passion for the job, or he’s delegated responsibilities to assistants who have failed, Lloyd Carr cannot be credibly imagined as Michigan’s coach in 2008.

Around the nation…

Navy lost to a better team in Rutgers, but if you haven’t seen the Academy play, make an appointment with ESPN – the Midshipmen’s offense is so much fun to watch. Between an awesome athlete at quarterback, option pitches to slotbacks with wide running lanes, a bruising fullback dive and play-action passing, Navy can move the football despite having the smallest recruiting pool in Division I-A.

They also play hard on every play. No loafers there.

Even against a superiorly talented defense, Navy kept the opponent on its heels (ill-advised interceptions kept Rutgers ahead). Navy coach Paul Johnson is in his sixth year in Annapolis, and it’s almost certain he’s not going anywhere.

LSU blew out Virginia Tech in Baton Rogue, completely dominating the game in the most predictable rollover since the midterm elections. ESPN pumped this thing up all week as a matchup of top-ten teams. Apparently the folks at the WWL didn’t watch the VT game they broadcast last week, where the Hokies struggled at home against East Carolina, particularly when it came to moving the football.

Hmm…questionable quarterbacking, going into a hostile road environment against an immensely talented defense…well, it doesn’t take a Cajun fortune teller to imagine what was going to happen.

(And who decided Virginia Tech was “America’s Team”?)

Stalingrad redux: In 1942 the yet-undefeated German war machine (only called to a draw at the edge of Moscow) went for a knockout stroke on the Russian city of Stalingrad, on the Volga river. Facing a hastily-organized Soviet resistance, the Wehrmacht occupied the city in fierce street fighting and all but accepted victory. A Soviet counterattack in the bitter Russian winter enveloped 200,000 men of the Sixth Panzer Army and other units, who began to starve to death. Less than 10,000 would return to Germany. One of the most horrifying battles in the history of warfare left the German Army mortally broken and the Soviet Union on its way to a superpower status it would hold for nearly fifty years.

Not to compare these teams to the despicable empires, but I can’t help but detect the same feeling of epic showdown is coming to Ann Arbor this weekend. The winner gets a chance at a decent, possibly respectable season, the kind that Stanford and Duke would kill for right now. More importantly, the loser becomes the purveyor of a lost season, the Worst Best Team in college football – the latest to take a turn in the morbid carousel of failure that has afflicted Alabama, USC, Texas, Nebraska and Florida State in recent times. (Or in Notre Dame’s case, it’s a free repeat of 2004, 2003, 2001, 1999…Returning to Glory since 1993.)