The Cynic’s Guide to College Football: Week 10

In the time it takes you to read this, Les Miles will make another insane decision that will inexplicably work, Oregon will score some more, some new allegations against Cam Newton will come out and Michigan’s defense will give up another touchdown.

OK, now that those are out of the way, let’s move on to this week in bad football.

Texas: It’s Like a Whole Other Planet
In the last month, the Texas Rangers made it to the World Series, Baylor cracked the Top 25, George W. Bush wrote (not read, WROTE) a book and the Longhorns were beaten soundly by the likes of Iowa State, Baylor and Kansas State.

Now entering Bizarro World.

Who Needs StubHub When You’re Heavily Armed?
Seeing extra security or even military personnel at big college football games isn’t really a surprise. So I guess that’s why a guy in fatigues and a machine gun was recently spotted on the sidelines of the Big House during the Michigan-Michigan State game. That is, until, the members of the color guard alerted UM officials that the guy was an impostor. Come to find out, the dude was a member of the Michigan National Guard. But he only used his uniform and two (unloaded) M-16 automatic rifles as his backstage pass when he couldn’t get a ticket. He was ultimately escorted out of the stadium by police.

Now THIS is how a real military man gets into a Michigan game.

Firepower
Speaking of football and the military, Navy’s football team outscored it’s basketball team 76-52 this week.

For the Navy, the best defense is a good offense.

Why the BCS Stinks: Reason #326
While we can all debate whether or not TCU and Boise State deserve a title shot, you’d have to be a pretty big anti-AQ conference homer not to admit that they’re two of the best 10 teams in the country. Yet odds are that, at most, one will end up in the BCS. Meanwhile, we’re 10 weeks into the season . . . and no one from the Big East is even eligible for the conference’s automatic BCS spot.

Halloween, Sooner Style
Speaking of costumes, an Oklahoma man was recently arrested for trying to shoplift what was described as a “sexy referee” costume by shoving it down his pants. This of course raises the age-old question, “How do you make a referee sexy?”

“Hey, baby. Got your tickets to the GUN SHOW?”

Brian Kelly’s New Distinction
Say what you want about Charlie Weis, Tyrone Willingham or Bob Davie—at least they never killed anyone.

Making it Too Easy
In the “only coming two years too late” category, Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn announced on Tuesday the firing of Buffs head coach Dan Hawkins. That decision got a whole lot easier on Saturday when the Buffs gave up 35 unanswered points in less than 12 minutes in a 52-47 loss to Kansas. The comeback marked KU’s first Big 12 win this year and Colorado’s biggest collapse in program history. Hawkins then proceeded to walk out on an interview with CU’s flagship radio station after the reporter had the audacity to ask why the Buffs were trying to throw the ball all over the field instead of milking the clock. Admittedly, it wasn’t a tough decision to start with, what with Hawkins’ career 19-39 record at CU. But Hawkins is lucky Bohn even let him make the trip back home to Colorado.

Buffs QB Cody Hawkins now gets to enjoy the world’s most awkward Senior Day.

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The Cynic’s Guide to College Football: Week 5

Today marks the anniversary of one of the most infamous days in college football history (more below). So, I thought it might be a good time to do a now-and-then theme for this week’s Cynic’s Guide.

A Long Time Coming
Today is the 20th anniversary of arguably the all-time worst officiating job in the history of college football. In the waning seconds of their game at Missouri, Colorado was not only given an extra down, but replays clearly showed that the Colorado QB carrying the ball on 5th down never got the ball across the goal line but was awarded a touchdown anyway. CU went on to win a share of the national championship, becoming not the first, nor the last, but certainly one of the most obvious beneficiaries of bad officiating. But football karma always catches up with you. And how far has CU fallen in the last 20 years? Instead of competing for national championships, this last weekend their fans rushed the field . . . after beating Georgia . . . who is 1-4.

“Gotta get pumped to help tear down the goal posts when we play Baylor in a couple weeks.”

Les Miles: The New Homer.
In 1991, there was an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer saved the Springfield nuclear plant from a meltdown when he just happened to push the right button by playing Eenie Meenie Miny Moe. Later, the term “pull a Homer” was added to the dictionary with the definition “to succeed despite idiocy.” As such, I propose that LSU replace its mascot Mike the Tiger with Homer Simpson. I mean, what better representation of the term “pulling a Homer” is there than Les Miles? The man makes more boneheaded decisions and clock management blunders (see Exhibit A: the last minute of last week’s LSU/Tennessee game) by Week 5 every year than most coaches do in a career. And yet he still manages to pull out wins. It’s uncanny.

Previous mascot experience? Check.

Keep Your Friends Close . . .
Earlier this week, North Carolina head coach Butch Davis said, “I’m sorry that I trusted John Blake.” Funny. That’s the same thing Oklahoma fans were saying in 1998.

“Remember that time when I was just a 12-22 coach, instead of a crook?”

Too Early to Pull the Plug?
In 1983, Turner Gill was the triggerman for one of the most prolific offenses in college history. Gill, Heisman winner Mike Rozier and #1 overall draft pick Irving Fryar were the cornerstones of the "scoring explosion" that dominated football that year, but came up one play short in the national championship game. My, how things have changed. I’m usually a firm believer in giving new coaches at least 3-4 years to get their own players and systems in place before making any drastic moves. But I’ve gotta say that rule may be getting more flexible all the time in Lawrence, KS. Turner Gill’s tenure as the Jayhawks' head coach started off rough with a home loss to FCS North Dakota State. And, aside from an upset of Georgia Tech, has kept going downhill, most recently getting blown out, 55-7, by Baylor. (Yes, Baylor.) Gill has made more news for his “no cell phones the night before games and no girls after 10 pm” rules than anything the Jayhawks have done on the field.

Don’t worry, Jayhawks. Basketball season is almost here.

A Simpler Time
Amazing fact of the day, courtesy of ESPN’s Ivan Maisel: Before this week, the last time Texas was unranked was October 15, 2000. Today, more coaches of ranked teams in that poll (Mike Bellotti at Oregon, Dennis Franchione at TCU, Lou Holtz at South Carolina and Bob Davie at Notre Dame) work for ESPN than are still at the same schools (Frank Beamer at Virginia Tech, Bob Stoops at Oklahoma and Bill Snyder—who left but has now returned—at Kansas State).

The last time UT was unranked, Meet the Parents was the #1 movie in America, the economy was good and most people had ever heard of BALCO, hanging chads, Al Queda or Justin Bieber. Ah, the good ol’ days.

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Colorado Buffaloes Backup Long Snapper Austin (Paul) Bisnow's AI Audtion Video

"Nobody believes in their own abilities more than this guy."

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Colorado Buff/Homoerotic Singing Long Snapper Gets Boot from Idol

UPDATE: Audition video here.

Channeling his inner Finn Hudson, Colorado Buffalo long snapper Austin Bisnow (calling himself "Austin Paul") stopped just short of flashing jazz hands and breaking into a Glee mashup in front of judges on American Idol.

From his CUBuffs.com profile:

PERSONAL-Born June 9, 1987 in Washington, D.C. Hobbies include writing music, producing CDs of his songs, singing, performing and playing the piano and drums. He has released three CDs on ITunes, many more songs on MySpace, and has videos on YouTube. Upon graduation, he hopes to be a pop star and a professional long snapper.

After an abysmal audition, what's more amazing than him trying to pawn himself off as an entertainer is him trying to pawn himself off as a D-1 football player.


He's the BACKUP long snapper:

AT COLORADO: This Season (Jr.)-A special teams performer, he enters the fall as the backup snap specialist, both for short (placements) and long (punts) kicks.

Here's footage of Bisnow in action at CU:

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The Cynic’s Guide to College Football: Week Two

With most of the I-AA game silliness behind us, we finally start getting into some interesting games next weekend. We have a couple featuring ranked teams (#14 Georgia Tech at #20 Miami; #19 Nebraska at #13 Virginia Tech) and a couple more conference games with some bad blood to settle (Texas Tech at Texas; Tennessee at Florida). So we're starting to get to the fun part--it's like when you're just reaching the top of the hill on your first roller coaster ride. You are still going slow and not much has happened yet, but you can see over the hill and eagerly anticipate the craziness in front of you. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's deal with some of last week's debacles.

Maybe He Was Too Hard on Intramurals

Let me be the latest to pile on Colorado's Dan Hawkins for the Buffs 0-2 start. Losing your season opener at home to your in-state rival is bad enough. But going on the road and getting beaten down by a MAC team? Well, that won't do wonders for confidence in your coaching ability. Toledo beat CU 54-38 and, frankly, the game wasn't that close. In CU's first two games, they have been outscored 43-6 in the first halves. Throw in a rough upcoming schedule and, congratulations Coach Hawkins, you're the first contestant on Coach's Hot Seat.

After last season, Coach Hawkins promised "ten wins and no excuses." But between now and the end of October, CU plays Wyoming this Saturday (Buffaloes are favored, but remember Wyoming gave Texas a game for a half last week) before games @ West Virginia, @ Texas, vs. Kansas, @ Kansas State and vs. Missouri. Barring a turnaround of near-biblical proportions, Colorado will be doing well to have two wins by Halloween. Throw in season-ending games @ Oklahoma State and vs. Nebraska, and Colorado looks to be closer to ten losses than wins. While there is some speculation that CU might not be able to afford Hawkins' buyout, don't think CU boosters aren't already crunching the numbers.

Hawkins feeling the burn. And that’s just on his backside.

Christians vs. Lions Was the Undercard

Last Saturday night, some friends who are big Oklahoma Sooners fans got the OU vs. Idaho State game on pay-per-view and invited us over to have a cookout and watch the game. While the game certainly wasn’t much of a draw, it was still fun to hang out with them and let our kids play. While I’m certainly no fan of I-A teams playing I-AA teams, even by those weak standards, this one was completely unforgiveable.

First, let’s be honest here—doesn’t matter what state you live in, your best high school football team right now would be a three touchdown favorite over Idaho State. The Bengals (yes, the Idaho State Bengals—I have no idea why) are that bad. Over the last five years, Idaho State has gone 1-11 (with a season-ending overtime upset of Sacramento State as their only win), 3-8, 2-9, 5-6 and 3-8. So we’re not even dealing with a good I-AA team (a la Appalachian State, Richmond, William & Mary, etc.) who can at least compete on a larger stage. We’re dealing with someone who is lousy, even at the I-AA level. So does their athletic department do something to help, like scheduling a couple of D-II opponents? No. Instead, they offer the poor Bengals up as sacrificial lambs to the likes of Arizona State and Oklahoma. So, through two games, Idaho State has a combined 81 total yards, -27 rushing yards, 7 turnovers, 16 punts and 3
points to show for it. In 30 possessions and 120 minutes of play, they have crossed midfield one time.

While I’m not going to defend ASU and OU for scheduling these games, I’m putting the blame for these games squarely on Idaho State athletic director Jeff Tingey. Sure, you rake in lots of bucks for your athletic department. But at what cost? A downtrodden and demoralized team? No prospect for hope? Idaho State players know their talent levels and don’t hold any illusions about being better than they are. All they want is to play the game the love and have a chance to compete. By scheduling games like these, Idaho State has made that impossible.

But on the plus side, at least the athletic department can see the bright side of things: following the ASU loss, the headline on the school website read, “First Team Defense Hangs Tough in 50-3 Loss to Arizona State.”

“It is all lies. The infidels from Oklahoma can never defeat the mighty Bengals of most glorious Idaho State.”

From Big Winner to The Biggest Loser

Kudos to Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen for dropping 105+ pounds in the last year. Unfortunately, the Terrapins outlook is season is dropping just as fast. After getting waxed 52-13 at California in Week One, the Terps thought this week’s home game against James Madison would be the cupcake that has been lacking from Friedgen’s diet. Unfortunately, this appetizer was tougher than my grandmother’s meatloaf. Maryland got the win, but only after rallying in the fourth quarter to force overtime and JMU missed an OT field goal. While I don’t know that it’s time for Maryland fans to hit the panic button just yet, another loss in the next couple of weeks and look for UM boosters to start sending truckloads of fried crabcakes to Friedgen’s door in an effort to bring the old coach back.

Terps Fans Will Take Whichever One Gets Them to the Best Bowl

And for my ray of freaking sunshine this week,

Welcome to the Party

Congratulations to Steve Sarkisian on getting not just his first career win as a head coach (42-23 over Idaho), but Washington’s first win since November 17, 2007. Much to the dismay of Seattle police. The Huskies’ 15-game losing streak was tied for the longest in Pac-10 history. We’ll check back Washington State week when the Huskies are going for two.

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The Cynic's Guide to College Football, Week 14

Random thoughts from a holiday and football weekend:

• Football games just feel better when you’re wearing long underwear.
• Is there some way to amend the Geneva Convention to allow us to bring human rights violations charges against the NFL and TV network gurus who were cruel enough to subject us to Tennessee at Detroit on Thanksgiving Day?
• At what point did our society become so degraded that we are willing to trample someone to death (literally) to get to Wal-Mart?!?!
• Someone will have to let me know if anything interesting happens in the world of sports radio. This is the time of year when I turn it off as three out of every four callers, who apparently really like to hear themselves talk, just gripe about the BCS and/or lack of a playoff system. It’s about as productive as me calling in to complain about the law of gravity being biased against us fat guys.

Anyway, on with the countdown.

1. Somewhere, Bob Stoops Has Some Incriminating Photos of Bill Gates

Oklahoma fans have now and forever lost the right to bitch about the BCS. Or their computer tech support. This is the third time in six years that the system, for right or wrong, has given the Sooners a controversial shot at the national championship game. Following the 2003 season, OU was given a title game berth despite being blown out by Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship game (the human voters dropped OU to #3, but they stayed #1 in the computers). The next year, OU was given the nod over an undefeated Auburn to play USC in the title game. And now this year, thanks to some, um, creativity by the Big 12 brain trust, the BCS rankings put OU one win away from another title game, getting the nod over Texas, which beat Oklahoma on a neutral field in October.

I’m not saying that any of these breaks wasn’t necessarily warranted. OU is certainly playing some of the best ball in country right now. But after three times of being the beneficiary of BCS computers, OU fans will have to find something new to gripe about from now until eternity or college football has a playoff (my money’s on eternity).

Texas fans, address your complaints to this guy.

2. Genuine Faux Rivalry Games

Most college football rivalries I get. Sure, the in-state rivalries are a natural. But beyond that, inter-state rivalries that result as being the two biggest kids on a respective block (e.g. Ohio State/Michigan, Florida/Georgia, Oklahoma/Texas, etc.) generally have one thing in common—for the most part they are relatively a battle of equals. Sure, one school may go through a bad stretch and lose a few in a row. But, over the long haul, you don’t often see a one-sided interstate rivalry. That’s why I always find the Colorado/Nebraska game so interesting.

Nebraska leads the all-time series 47-18-2. CU has never won more than two in a row against the Huskers and has just 8 wins in the series since 1962, when Bob Devaney was hired at Nebraska. (Devaney and Tom Osborne were a combined 31-4-1 against CU.) It got so bad that one of America’s great novelists, James A. Michener, went so far as to write about it (see below). Nevertheless, in the 1980’s, then-CU coach Bill McCartney declared it a “rivalry” and went so far as to decree that CU athletic department staff wouldn’t be allowed to wear red or drive red cars. (Check out the Husker blog Double Extra Point for a good history of the series.) And while the rivalry talk hasn’t necessarily translated on the field (NU is 19-7-1 since McCartney was hired in 1982), it definitely brings out something in the CU players. Colorado easily played their best and most physical game of the season last Friday, pushing the Huskers to the limit and only falling when Alex Henery’s school record 57-yard field goal cleared the crossbar.

So is CU/NU a real rivalry? Would it be considered a rivalry if the creation of the Big 12’s divisional alignment hadn’t done away with the annual Thanksgiving weekend clash between Nebraska and Oklahoma? Or is this just a case of TV executives needing to shoehorn a “rivalry” game in a Friday afternoon slot? Whatever the answer, the game was definitely worthy of rivalry status.

“Each Year Colorado enthusiasts vowed that this year they would defeat Nebraska, and each year their hopes were dashed.” --James A. Michener, Centennial

3. Les Miles. International Man of Mystery.

Look, I know he has a national championship and a couple of big wins over Bob Stoops to his credit. But can we still say that the jury is still out on Les Miles? Over the last two months, LSU has lost five of eight games. Their only three wins in that stretch have come against South Carolina, Tulane and Troy. Sure, losing guys like Glenn Dorsey and Bo Pelini hurt, but I don’t think anyone expected it to be losing-to-Ole-Miss-on-Senior-Day bad or losing-four-straight-SEC-games bad. Long term, here is what I mean by the jury still being out—Les Miles has virtually never had to play with his own recruits. He was the head coach at Oklahoma State for four years, going 28-21 courtesy of many of the recruits of former OSU coach Bob Simmons. And now he’s been at LSU four years, winning last year’s national title with mostly Nick Saban recruits. Only once in his life has he been in a job more than five years (offensive line coach at Michigan from 1987-94). So it remains to be seen whether he can actually recruit and be successful with his own recruits.

Look, I’m not saying that he can’t or won’t have long-tern success. Or that this season wouldn’t have been different if Ryan Perriloux’s brain hadn’t been the subject of an FDA recall. I’m just saying that, if Les Miles is going to be recognized as an elite coach in the annals of college football history, he’s going to have to prove that he can recruit and coach.

Wonder if Snoop has any eligibili-bizil left?

4. My, How Time Flies

Remember that time when Georgia was the #1 team in the country? When all you heard was about how many starters the Bulldogs returned from a team whose biggest claim to fame a year ago was beating up on Hawaii? Remember? Yeah, me neither. This week, Georgia was up 28-12 at halftime on archrival Georgia Tech. Then they gave up 26 unanswered points in the third quarter and 409 rushing yards en route to a 45-42 loss to the Yellow Jackets. Get this—the Bulldogs defense gave up 45 points in spite of GT completing only one pass. In their last four games, the Bulldogs were destroyed by Florida (49-10), barely managed to eke out wins over Kentucky and Auburn (42-38 and 17-13, respectively) and now lost to Georgia Tech. Calling this season a disappointment for UGA would be a massive understatement, and limping down the homestretch will leave Bulldog fans wishing they were back at the Cocktail Party.

It’s gonna take more than one to forget this season.

5. The (Black) Eye of the Tiger

And speaking of disappointment, let’s examine Missouri’s season.

National title hopes gone? Check.

Heisman hopes for your star QB gone? Check.

Losing in the snow to your archrival? Check.

Being the fifth straight team to give up 60 to Oklahoma? Check back next week.

Mongo only pawn in game of life.

6. Take a Kid to a Game

And for my one positive note, I just wanted to comment on a personal experience I had last weekend. I’ve been fortunate enough to see some really great college football games over the years. I’ve been there when my favorite team and my alma mater (different schools—it’s a long story) each won national championships. I’ve been there to see them beat their biggest rivals. I’ve seen blowouts, I’ve seen nailbiters and I’ve seen losses. I’ve met many of my football heroes and killed more brain cells at tailgate parties than I care to admit. But I learned something this weekend: there is nothing, and I mean NOTHING, that can top the feeling of seeing your son or daughter experience your team’s football game day traditions for the first time. Seeing my daughter high-fiving the mascot, getting her picture taken with the cheerleaders and inhaling her first stadium dog—it just doesn’t get any better than that. Oh, and the game was good, too.