Arizona's slide continued, with the Wildcats losing at home to Cal 45-27 in a game that wasn't as close as the score. New UA offensive coordinator Sonny Dykes has not worked out in the desert, and neither has the vaunted defense, surrendering 94 points in three games against I-A competition.
Washington State held serve with USC for, oh, about a quarter, and then the Trojan scoring machine took over en route to a 47-14 win. With four underclassmen on its line to go with a seasoned defense and a as-good-as-he-has-to-be quarterback, USC is the ultimate "don't rebuild, just reload" program.
UCLA held off several Washington rally attempts in a 44-31 game that featured 41 fourth-quarter points. Jake Locker went nuts again for the Huskies, but UW observers are finding out that it's going to take more that a quarterback to win this season. I thought the Huskies were going to expose the Bruins the way Utah did last week. Now they get USC at home, in a game that's not a must-win but certainly a must-perform-well if Tyrone Willingham's rebuilding is to continue. The past two trips to Seattle for Southern California have been Reggie Bush highlight films.
Arizona State spotted visiting Oregon State a 19-0 lead, then reeled off a 44-32 win aided by six Beaver turnovers. Two more teams I can't figure out. Arizona State will know a lot more about itself after visiting a very injured Stanford team this weekend.
In a game I broadcast for KZSU, Stanford went on a 28-0 scoring binge to take a second-quarter 31-21 lead on a stunned Oregon team, who promptly returned the kickoff inside the 40 and kicked a field goal before the end of the half. Before it was over, the Ducks rolled up 34 unanswered points and waltzed out of Palo Alto with a 55-31 win. Despite numerous injuries, Stanford showed it could pick at the faults of a very good team and that its new stadium could rock and roll when the team was playing well. An enormous number of Cardinal players left the field with injuries in this game, and special teams kick coverage was terrible for both squads.
A key sequence took place in the third quarter. With Oregon taking a 38-31 lead on two straight touchdowns, Stanford had yet to get a first down in two drives. A Cardinal receiver bobbled a second-down reception at the first down marker, leading to a 3rd and 1 instead of moving the sticks.
A QB sneak went nowhere, and then Stanford became USC of the 2006 Rose Bowl. With the game on the line, the Cardinal lined up in an I formation and handed off to a tailback. The play was swarmed for no gain and Oregon got the ball back. A quick touchdown all but buried Stanford.
Southern California pulled a similar move, from a similar part of the field, against Texas. In that case, a first down would have ended the game. Instead, the ball went over on downs, and a few snaps later Vince Young pulled off the most exciting fourth-down play in college football since Barry Krauss' tackle of Penn State running back Matt Guman all but clinched the 1978 national championship for Alabama.
AROUND THE NATION...
The first coach to be penciled in as fired this season is Dennis Franchione. Texas A&M was simply terrible at Miami on Thursday, against a Miami team that got blown apart by Big XII divisionmate Oklahoma. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy - Coach Fran, who ditched the players who stuck by him at Alabama (because of previous sanctions, they were offered free transfers out of the SEC - Fran convinced them all to stay), has been putting a non-competitive product on Kyle Field for too long. The reputed third-year turnaround that Franchione teams supposedly exhibited didn't materialize for the Aggies, and he's only beaten Texas once in four seasons.
Speaking of third-year turnarounds, Notre Dame executed a different kind of failure in its 31-14 home loss to Michigan State, simply looking overmatched instead of lifeless, outcoached and awful. With this inching up of progress, Weis' team might be ready to win a game by the time they go to Stanford after Thanksgiving.
Kentucky (beat Arkansas 41-26 with a wild comeback) can play ball, and may be the best team in the SEC not named the Gators. They have a big-time quarterback, they can play catchup and they have a coach who konws success in former Oregon skipper Rich Brooks. If favorite Florida wins the SEC title, Kentucky (as second-place team in UF's division, in the biggest BCS fudge-factored conference since the system was established) could be looking at an Orange Bowl bid. Wouldn't that be something for the basketball school?
Iowa State lost to Toledo, the latest high-variance event for a team that lost to Kent State and I-AA Northern Iowa (a powerhouse in its classification), then beat cross-state rival Iowa with five field goals.
Wake Forest scored 28 unanswered points, blowing away a 21-point Maryland lead and winning in overtime. With the Demon Deacons' star quarterback back in the lineup, the Other Other Basketball School in North Carolina (with the smallest student body in Division I-A) still shows tremendous heart, moxie, and coaching. I can't imagine what the Blue Devils think about all this from their fellow satanic-mascot private school. Wake Forest is everything Duke should be - should want to be - in football.
AND IN THE PROS: Bears quarterback Rex Grossman continues his quest to become the Chris Simms of the professional football world, taking an otherwise sterling team down the crapper with his wild inconsistency and penchant for turnovers. Lovie Smith's coaching is officially in question. The window of dominance closes quickly - just ask the St. Louis Rams - and Chicago needs to get serious like now.
Bench Grossman and forget about him. The franchise cannot bank on him improving enough by December to carry the team. Since Byron Leftwich got picked up by Atlanta and Jeff Garcia went to Tampa Bay in the offseason, the only option is to put Brian Griese in the game.
This team is a carbon copy of the 2000 Baltimore Ravens; Griese can be the Trent Dilfer - don't turn the ball over, keep poised, convert third downs and score occasionally. Griese won a national title at Michigan doing just that; the coaching staff needs to ask him to do it again, and join Joe Montana, Joe Namath and a few others with both NCAA and NFL rings on their hands. (Tom Brady is one, but something of an exception; he was Griese's backup in 1997.)
Another ballplayer broke his neck (link) making a tackle. I didn't see it, but this stuff is bad for all levels of football. Pretty soon there's going to be a lawsuit from a player's family about the unsafe work environment created for football players by media praise of big hits, improper coaching of tackling technique and non-officiating of spearing rules.
Lies lies lies! While googling for an appropriate link to Simms' college career, I picked up this story from Slate, published midseason in 2002. Headlined "Why college football is so awful," someone named Stephen Rodrick feels the need to expound on the reasons he "hates" college football, including Boise State's blue turf (it's plastic, for crying out loud - does it have to be green?)
"More than any other major sport, professional or amateur, college football games are decided by the physical incompetence and downright chokery of their players." Yeah, because Mark Wohlers, Peyton Manning, the Buffalo Bills, Mary Decker and and Dan Jansen never "choked."
Is he serious? Football fundamentals have been second-class citizens in the NFL for a long time now. Wide receivers dropping balls, linemen who can't block without holding, and players who exhibit little of the effort and hustle on every play (particularly on special teams) that marks the fun of college ball.
His citations of famous blunders as proof that college ballplayers are terrible are completely without context (Clint Stoerner's fumble against Tennessee was a freak incident, and Vinny Testaverde's five interceptions against Penn State came as the result of an incredible defensive performance rather than Vinny's incompetence - you don't win a Heisman Trophy without being able to throw to your receivers).
Hmm, Vinny - who's still playing pro ball. That's another thing I don't get - if college players suck so much, and pro players come from college, what makes NFL players so much better? Does he think they come from Europe or someplace where college football isn't played?
Maybe the kickers do. Speaking of which...I knew I was in for a maddening read when he put this in his opening paragraph:
Then there's the NCAA's absurd overtime gimmick: Each team gets the ball at their opponent's 25-yard-line, the moral equivalent of asking NBA hoopsters to start OT possessions at half court.Seriously, I don't normally make statements like this, but anyone who thinks the NFL's go-thirty-yards-and-kick-a-field-goal overtime - the one that sounds like it was modeled on the playground "momma says we gotta go home for dinner, next score wins" tiebreaker - is more exciting than the equal-possession college and high school systems has got to get checked out.
You actually get to see both teams take a crack at winning the game, and since touchdowns are incentivized you're much less likely to see a soccer player with one bar across his helmet come out and win the game for a bunch of grunts who've been smacking other people around for an entire game.
What is hilarious is that later in the story, he takes NCAA football to task because a game was decided by a missed placekick:
On Saturday, millions wasted a perfectly good fall afternoon watching Miami and Florida State struggle for football-factory supremacy. In the end, the game wasn't decided by a brilliant run or catch, but by Seminole kicker Xavier Beitia hooking a 43-yard field goal in perfect conditions.Who does this guy think he's kidding? Has he watched NFL football for the past decade? Out in the National Fieldgoal League, they've been deciding games with soccer players for years. We even see sturdy offenses intentionally grind down, surrendering the chance at a touchdown to sweeten the lineup for a kick between hash marks that are already at most five yards apart.
This guy spends three whole paragraphs decrying placekicking woes in college football. I must have missed a new development in football - I didn't realize the quality of kickers was the #1 criterion for the health of your sport. (Full disclosure: I am one who believes that placekickers are not football players.)
He closes with "in college football, fans wallow in a culture of failure" and relates an anecdote involving Furman's two-point conversion going bad and resulting in Appalachian State scoring the game-winning points by returning the ball to Furman's end zone. The only thing that came to my mind at the end of this was "what a negative a**hole."
It appears he owns a set of college blooper videos and that's it. No matter - he can be part of the big-city NFL centric media and watch keekers boot it up and down the field. I'll take my balls-to-the-wall Saturday of real offenses going for touchdowns and a season's worth of elimination games.
