Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Then, there was football failure

Upon arriving home, I looked to my Minnesota Gophers to whip Wisconsin and get me in a good mood last weekend.

Whip them they did. Everywhere except the final score. In one of the great collapses in Big 10 history, the Gophers went from a 34-24 lead with three minutes left to a 38-34 come-from-ahead defeat thanks to a soft prevent defense, (The "prevent" only prevents one thing: victory) and a freshman punter who dropped a perfect snap and gave up a touchdown with :35 seconds left.

The Gophers rushed for 400+ yards against proud Barry Alvarez and his proud Badgers...and lost. How in the h-e-double hockey sticks do you do that? The better team did not win that game, only the luckier one.

Another annoying item from that loss:

Laurence Maroney went for a career high 258 yards, yet the pundits say he lost ground in the Heisman race, because the Gophers lost to Wisconsin on a fluke.

Note to Heisman voters: This is not an "MVP" of college football, it's about the best player. How a freshman punter can affect a premier running back's Heisman chances is beyond me. Unlike the NFL or NBA, where it is supposed to be the "Most Valuable", the Heisman is about the "best" player, regardless of team quality. And I see no better this year than Maroney.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

BJ, I feel your pain. I watched my Irish dominate USC (and yes, when you can force a team as good as USC to react to what you do rather than do what they planned, you are dominating), only to lose it in the last second. I guess our letdown wasn't nearly as passive as yours -- we were playing good defense, Leinart made an incredible pass, and then there was "The Push". But, man, what a football game.

BJ Stone said...

College football completely destroys the No Fun League for excitement.

Northwestern-Wisconsin,
Notre Dame-USC,
Minnesota-Wisconsin,
Michigan-Penn State,
Ohio State-Penn State,
and that's just the last two weeks in only one part of the country.

Compare that to:

A sex party on a boat and trades involving Tim Rattay and A.J. Feeley being the biggest news of the week in the NFL.

The NFL bores me to tears. My least favorite...by far...of the major pro sports in this country behind Hockey, Baseball, Stock Car Racing, and pro hoops.

As a matter of fact, I'll go further and list some more things I'd rather watch than the NFL (in order of preference):

Golf
Bowling
Tennis
paint drying
fishing
Re-runs of that afro-haired dude with a pipe painting
Bill O'Rielly
MLS soccer
then the NFL.

Okay, I lied, move soccer below the NFL and then the order is correct.