The polls came out on Sunday, and the Sooners managed to hold on to the top spot despite not playing. That makes 100 weeks that the Sooners have held the top spot since the AP rankings began in 1936, most all time.
The Michigan-Notre Dame game is required watching every year from here on out, at least as long as Shoelace Robinson is playing QB for the Wolverines. That game was one of the craziest endings we’ve ever seen, and that’s saying something, considering we were personally in attendance for last year’s game at New Rustoleum and the Fiesta Bowl against Boise. We can’t say the outcome could have pleased us more, as well. Not only did the Domers lose, but they lost painfully. Again. To be sure, this was a cripple fight of the first order, but the game was highly entertaining, despite the lack of competence on both sides. Now, the Domers are staring 0-3 straight in the face, a delicious prospect by any measure.
ND’s first two games this season could easily be compared to the 1996 OU-Kansas game – the losers dominating in yardage gained, but losing horribly due to their own incompetence. The marginal difference in competence between John Blake and Brian Kelly is illustrated by the fact that while Blake’s 1996 team got blown out by Kansas, Kelly’s 2011 team managed to keep the games close at the end. Somehow, we don’t think Kelly had in mind being compared to Blake. Ever.
Speaking of Blake, another coach who appeared to have been studying at the feet of Black Santa this weekend was ye olde Mack Brown. Specifically, Mack was subbing QBs on every play, just about, as Cow pulled out all the stops to beat a middling BYU team at home by a point. What’s the old saying? If you have two quarterbacks, you have no quarterbacks. What does it mean when you have three, then? This is a question Mack apparently has to answer now. We wouldn’t be surprised if, regardless of the fact that Garrett Gilbert looked like warmed-over puke against the Mormons, and regardless of the fact that Colt McCoy’s little brother is now listed first on the depth chart, Mack starts Gilbert against UCLA next week. Why? It’s Mack, that’s why.
If Mark Richt’s seat was hot after UGA lost to Boise last week, it’s on fire this week after the Bulldogs played much better, but still lost at home to South Carolina. Richt may not even last the season at this rate. Hell, he might not even last the week.
Gary Pinkel will visit Norman two Saturdays hence. Gary Pinkel is a very confusing man. Pinkel had his team in position to beat Arizona State Friday night (Saturday morning, by that time, we believe) with a last-second field goal. Gary Pinkel then called not one, but two times-out in a row, effectively icing his own kicker, who then promptly hooked the game-winner. The game went to overtime, and ASU was victorious. Pinkel said he was trying to draw an offside penalty from ASU. We’ve never heard of that, and doubt we will hear of it again.
Ice, ice, baby.
We neglected to mention last week that Utah State pulled off a fake that we’ve wanted to see for years. Late in their game against Auburn, they intentionally took a delay penalty, and then ran a fake field goal that they converted to set up the TD that put them up 10 before Auburn’s big comeback. We’ve always thought that a fake kick (although we always conceived of it as a fake punt) after taking an intentional delay of game penalty would be the greatest thing ever – and someone finally did it.
On the fashion watch this week, the main focus was the Michigan-Notre Dame game, where both teams were wearing “throwback” uniforms. We didn’t like either of them when unveiled beforehand, but the Michigan ones actually looked good in the event. Something symmetrical about the stripes on the shoulders and the stripes on the helmets. The big M on the front instead of the number was pretty cool, too. The ND ones looked like ***.
Not bad.
While we are big fans of the new Arizona State pitchfork logo, the all-black duds they wore against Missouri the other night had some fail in them. The blocky ASU on the shoulders didn’t really fit with the rest of the uniform. More egregiously, the numbers on the jerseys were done up with a weird color gradient, fading from yellow at the top to white at the bottom. The gradient area wasn’t very wide, thus basically giving the effect of half-yellow, half-white numbers. Again, looked like ***. The pitchfork goes a long way, though.
Meh.
Arky had a red, white, and blue striped pig on the field and on their helmets for their game against New Mexico Saturday night. Kinda cool.
Patriotic piggies.
On the never-ending realignment front, a late report out of Austin claims that UT president Bill Powers and AD Deloss Dodds flew to Norman Sunday in a last-ditch effort to keep the Sooners in the Big 12-2-1. However, other speculation out of Austin claims that the Sooners, followed by little brother, will apply for admission to the PAC-12 by the end of the month, without regard to anything Texas is doing. All very interesting, and more so considering the complete silence that has fallen on the realignment front since Baylor and the other have-nots of the conference temporarily blocked A&M’s departure for the SEC last week by refusing to waive their rights to sue over the Aggie move. PAC-12 commissioner Larry Scott said publicly over the weekend that he’d prefer to stay at 12 and that his conference wasn’t pursuing anything themselves. This is entirely consistent with everything he’s said all along. Don’t take it to mean that the PAC-12 wouldn’t accept applications from the Sooners and little brother.
See you in Tallahassee on Saturday.
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