Sunday, September 6, 2015

Bonus college coverage of the Weird, Wild, and Wondrous!

Some interesting / amusing / head-scratching / curious notes from the weekend's action...

1. Kansas State marching band apologizes to Univ of Kansas for ramming a Jayhawk with the Star Trek Enterprise in their marching show. So, the marching band wars have begun...

2. After missing 2/3 of the season last year, Heisman candidate Taysom Hill of BYU will miss all but one half of football in 2015 after injuring his foot against Nebraska yesterday. We feel absolutely heartbroken for the young man, who is nothing but impressive when you hear him speak and watch him perform on the field. Having said that, his back-up is a local Idaho boy, Tanner Mangum, who literally got back from his mission just three months ago and is already a hero after the Hail Mary that made the Cougars 1-0 this season.

3. Similarly, the top defensive player in the country, Scoobie Wright of Arizona, also got injured this weekend, but with surgery should be back in a month or so. Wright is a transcendent player, and you wonder whether a repaired knee will maintain his remarkable athleticism, no matter how "minor" the surgery. Prayers.

4. Thanks to a blocked extra point by the Aggies in the first, much of the Southern Utah/Utah State game took place with the scoreboard set at 6-5. Utah State may have been the least impressive winner of the weekend, lucking out with a punt return TD in the last six minutes to win the game. But their offense did nothing, even with "Chuckie" back at the the helm, against an FCS team. A field goal on a short field, the two point XP which was the difference on the scoreboard, and the special teams touchdown were all they could produce against a lower-echelon team from the Big Sky. Hardly the stuff of the potential Mountain West "favorite". 

5. Week One routs were the order of the day in some parts of the world. We understand the theory, the mutual back-scratching that goes on in these games: The powerhouse conference team wants an easy warm-up game to start the season; the lower-level team needs the paycheck from the host team to balance their athletic budget - win/win situation. But it makes for some unwatchable games: Syracuse 47, Rhode Island 0; Wake Forest 41, Elon 3; Georgia Tech 69, Alcorn St 6; Miami-FL 45, Bethune-Cookman 0... and that was just in the ACC! Of course, when you get the really weak teams like Savannah State or Davidson, you get games with more penalties than offensive yards, with more turnovers than first downs, and so forth. Read the play-by-plays of either of the games these two played on Saturday, and imagine what motivation it would take to watch the game (unless you love car wrecks...).

6. Not a funny...New Mexico State not only got robbed on the field by Florida, they got robbed off the field as burglars broke into their busses and stole the athletic staff's bags. 

7. What do you do if you can't get off the field in time? Like, say, when your shoe comes off? If you play for Bowling Green, you play dead. If you play quarterback for Tennessee, you're not too happy about it....

8. Oh! We almost forgot to mention the name font on Louisville's unis yesterday! 

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