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THE GAME:

  President E. Gordon Gee of Ohio State is opposed to college football playoffs because it adds to, "...the professionalization of college football." Yet, he has no qualms about giving New Mexico State $850,000 to get the crap beat out of them so Ohio State can bring in another seven million dollars for a seventh home game.

  This team was bad. Out of 120 division one teams, New Mexico State was ranked #120 in total offense. You put that against perhaps the best defense in college football and you get a dog and pony show without the pony. They were so bad that our inept offense scored 45 points and we emptied the bench at halftime. An actual line in their fight song goes, "And when we win this game, We'll buy a keg of booze, And we'll drink it to the Aggies till we wobble in our shoes." How can you not cheer for them?

  It was not something you would want to pay $64 to see live but it was pretty much what we needed to get guys healed and ready for maybe the toughest November in the Tressel era. Pryor could have been intercepted four times in that game. I think his problem is that he was so big and so athletic in high school that there was no play he couldn't make work. He continues to throw passes into coverage, he stares down his receiver and just can't seem to complete that little ten yarded over the middle. He's probably been playing football since the sixth grade. If, after several years of Pop Warner football, four years of high school football and twenty-two games at the highest level of college football he still hasn't figured those things out, I doubt he will figure it all out this week.

  We got our easy win and we were able to get some guys healthy but we lost our kicker. Jim Tressel losing his kicker is like Marie Osmond losing her front teeth. In "big" games like this week at Happy Valley, Tressel's primary game plan on offense is to get in good position to kick a field goal. You run a delay handoff to the tailback on first down for one yard. On second down you do a quarterback draw for another yard. On third down and eight you throw a four yard pass. THEN you kick the field goal. If you remember last year's game against Penn State it was late in the fourth quarter and the score was 6-3 or 9-6 or some such group of field goals when Pryor fumbled the game away. I'm sorry, I bleed scarlet and gray but I just don't see this offense with this quarterback and no kicker finding a way to win in Crappy Valley. If we win it will be because the defense plays the best game of their lives.

THAT WHICH WAS:

  Florida, Alabama, Texas, Iowa, Boise State, Cincinnati and TCU all remained undefeated for yet another week. If you missed the USC/Oregon game or fell asleep at halftime, shame on you. Seeing USC get throttled 47-20 is almost as good as seeing meeeshitagin lose to the worst team in the Big Ten 38-13. Yes, other than losing our kicker it was a pretty good weekend in college football.

  Cal beat Arizona State to somewhat stay alive for a second tier bowl.

  Auburn actually won an SEC game beating Ole Miss 33-20.

  Boise State beat San Jose State 45-7. They finish out with La. Tech, Idaho, Utah State, Nevada and New Mexico State. Makes you shiver in your boots doesn't it?

  Cincinnati downed Suckacuse 28-7. Sorry Suckacuse, you can't catch an Akron every week.

  Duke is now 5-3 and continues to make a liar out of me. They are one game away from a bowl invite but they still have to play N. Carolina, Georgia Tech, Criami and Wake Forest.

  The East Carolina Pirates keel-hauled the Memphis Tigers 38-19. Arrrgh, bring on ye Hokies.

  Florida beat Georgia 41-17 and Tebow broke some kind of SEC record for TD's. What will college football be next year without him? What will ESPN talk about? Who will save the villages? It would be just my luck that he will be drafted by the Browns.

  In a pretty wild game, Georgia Tech out scored Vanderbilt 56-36. There are only two teams I would really not like to see Ohio State play in a bowl game, Georgia Tech and Oregon. Both are very good at moving the ball and have the momentum of a freight train on greasy tracks.

  meeeshitagin was up 13-7 and marched to the one yard line where Illinois held them for four downs and stopped them on fourth down at the half yard line. Illinois then drove 99 1/2 yards to go up 14-13 and meeeshitagin imploded like a Russian nuclear reactor.

  Oklahoma stayed in the top 25 by beating Kansas State 42-30.

  Wake Forest had Miami down with their foot on Miami's throat and couldn't stomp. Miami marched the length of the field getting first downs on third and ten and fourth and ten and scored with seconds left to steal the win. Even Halloween couldn't help the Deacon Demons.

  Miami of Ohio moved to 1-8 with a stunning victory over the Toledo Rockets.

  Michigan State lost to Minni-soso 42-34. How on earth could that happen?

  North Carolina upset the Virginia Tech Hokies 20-17 in Blacksburg. Wow, every year VT starts out ranked high and loses three games. They are becoming the Syracuse and Cal of the AP poll.

  $Notre Dame beat Washington State 40-14 to become bowl eligible. Is that an automatic contract extension for the big guy?

  Texas creamed Oklahoma State 41-14 in a game most figured to be a LOT closer. It is shaping up to be Texas in the championship game against the winner of the Florida/Alabama game. I would prefer to see Boise State and TCU in the game to put added heat on the BCS.

  Penn State moved to 8-1 with a 34-13 win over Northwestern and is drooling over the thought of getting to Terrelle Pryor in a whiteout next week. He snubbed his home state to be a Buckeye and no one in Pennsylvania has forgotten that for one second.

  After losing big to Cincinnati and Pitt, South Florida put it to the West Virginia Mountaineers to the tune of 30-19. No possum on the grill tonight.

  Wisconsin pounded Purdue 37-0. From we of six turnovers and unbelievably bad calls, we Buckeyes thank you.

  Oregon beat USC 47-20 in what was clearly the best game of the weekend. Oregon had these little gnomes at quarterback and running back that kind of hid behind the line and then popped out of nowhere for a twenty yard gain. USC was totally lost and was grabbing at air on every play. They were so frustrated their running backs were getting stuffed and their receivers were dropping balls all over the field. Yeah, life is good.

  Mount Union beat John Carroll and the whole Carroll family 56-7. Larry Kehres is in his 24th season as a head coach and has a 281-21-3 record. That's 93% winning. He has won 10 of the last 16 national titles in a playoff format and since 2000 is 134-4. This is the best college football program ever assembled at any level of play, and you can go sit on the 40 yard line of any game for under ten dollars a ticket.

THAT WHICH WILL BE:

  Army at Air Force. Its a shame one of these teams has to lose the game because there will be no losers on that field in Colorado Springs, home of The Air Force Academy, this Saturday.

  The Kent State Golden Flashes travel to Akron to take on the Zips. I attended both of these schools back when the bullets flew and my name is still carved in the stall walls of the women's restrooms.

  USC travels to Arizona State to get the bad taste of duck feathers out of their mouths.

  UConn goes to Cincinnati to try to pull off the upset after losing to Rutgers in the last seconds.

  Bobby Bowden takes a four game winning streak to Death Valley to play 5-3 Clems-son which hasn't lost a home game this year. We'll try to help Bobby out this week with that whole geezer race thing he has going on with JoePa. If he wins and we win it will be a double dip.

  Duke at N. Carolina. Okay, enough is enough. If Duke wins I will get on their band wagon. But only for football. I wouldn't root for them in basketball if they were playing France.

  Virginia Tech at E. Carolina. Hey Pirates, its time to step up. Win and its free grog for a week.

  Northwestern at Iowa. Iowa finally gets a home game against a team they shouldn't have to come from behind in the fourth quarter to beat.

  Kansas travels to Kansas State for a little redundancy. Winner gets a week off to harvest the crop.

  LSU goes to Alabama. Bama is 8-0 and LSU is 7-1. LSU's only loss was a ten pointer to Flori-duh and Alabama had to block two field goals to beat Tennessee. It should be a good one and ESPN will absolutely slobber all over themselves about southern speed and the great coaching in the SEC. And probably won't even mention the refs that cheat more than drunk husbands in Amsterdam.

  Purdue at meeeshitagin. This could well be DickRod's last chance to get to a bowl as they end the season at Wisconsin and at home with Ohio State. By the way, meeeshitagin is now officially being investigated for "major rules violations" by the NCAA. The NCAA must have finally cleared up that whole Reggie Bush thing at USC? Not that it upsets me that they are investigating meeeshitagin but how do they have the time?

  Navy at $Notre Dame. This is a should win for the Irish but Navy runs the triple option pretty well and have you seen $Notre Dame tackle lately? Speaking of $Notre Dame, Lou Holtz, man of a thousand one-liners, was on Fox News this week. When they asked him why he didn't exercise more he said, "If there is going to be any heavy breathing its going to be in the bedroom with my wife." Ya just gotta love that little guy.

  Oklahoma at Nebraska. This was THE game in the Big 12 for several decades but Nebraska took the new millennium off. They still hate each other but its been a one sided fight for a while.

  Oregon at Stanford. The only question is how flat the Ducks will be. Stanford has won five games and is capable of the upset if the Ducks are still living in last week's euphoria. Chip Kelly, at Oregon, beat USC this week by 27 points. Charlie Weis ALMOST beat USC and got a ten year contract extension worth 40 million dollars. What do you suppose Chip Kelly is worth?

  Wake Forest goes to Georgia Tech to try their hand at stopping Tech's veer read option wildcat pistol offense. Probably not going to happen.

  Otterbein travels to Mount Union to play for the conference championship. Mount is 8-0 and Otterbein is 7-1 so Otterbein can share the conference crown with Mount if they win. This is a good Otterbein team and should be a stiff test for Mount before it gets to the playoffs.

  Ohio State travels to Crappy Valley to take on JoePa and the Nittany Lions. The crowd will be fired up and Terrelle Pryor will feel like he was attacked by a swarm of killer bees by the end of this one. Penn State will throw everything they have at Pryor to force him to pass, and they will have a guy on each end spying him to keep him from getting to the outside. Watching our offense in this game will make your eyes bleed. We have no kicker so look for a fake field goal and look for us to go for it inside of the 40 on fourth downs. The only chance we have is for the defense to score some points.

The Coach

Tags: college football, jim tressel, ncaa football, ohio state football, penn state football, terrelle pryor