Monday, September 12, 2005

No Business like Show Business

What an amazing weekend! If you don't like college football then just stop reading, cause this will be a waste of your time. First though, the non-football stuff. It's always a pleasure whenever Biron makes the trip to Columbus to visit, especially since he lives a little over an hour away. But seeing as this was his first trip to visit me in the LAST 4 YEARS, I figured it was appropriate to not hold a grudge for his neglect. But I will tell you this before I get into football; we played a quick game of NHL 2K6 for the PS2 and it was quite possibly the worst hockey game I've ever played. Crap graphics, gameplay, music, controls, mocaps, everything. Now Biron loves it because he's in the stage of his relationship with EA where he's trying to find a reason to breakup. He loves EA, he enjoys playing EA, he even consistently visits EA.com...but he feels like if he doesn't play the field a few more times before marrying EA then he will have missed out on some imaginary girls-gone-wild game...thus, 2K6. Now I for one will tell you straight up, Biron has beer goggles on with 2K6. Not a few drinks at a dark club beer goggles, but full on case of corona in a redneck town beer goggles. He'd take home a garden utensil if he thought it would unseat EA. Tsk Tsk. As for the rest of the time, our significant others hung out, we enjoyed football, and all was good. So now, onto the show!

Texas 25 - Ohio State 22

In the annals of college football, the 2005 showdown between the Longhorns of Texas and the Buckeyes of Ohio State will go down as one for the ages. It was a tightly fought contest whose outcome was unknown until Troy Smith was sacked for a safety in the final seconds. I won't go into the details of the game...if you didn't see it you must've been watching the LSU game, which I'll forgive. But before I go into that, I'm going to attempt to convey the environment.

View from our seats

My girlfriend, Peanut, and I sat in the 'D' section, which for those of you who don't know, is directly underneath the press box. Behind us was a pair of Texas elderly, I'm guessing in their 60s. I'm sure they had no problem getting tickets on eBay, and I'm basing this on the fact that she had on more bling than Nelly could write songs about in a lifetime. Her ring alone had more flashes of light than the hundred thousand cameras that went off simultaneously upon the entrance of The Best Damn Band In The Land. She must have had over $500,000 in diamonds on her person. To our right was a quiet couple from Columbus who went relatively unnoticed throughout the game. To our left was a quaint couple who attended OSU in the mid 80s. They were polite and congenial. The hustband was quiet, but the wife, along with Peanut, asked me many questions throughout the game concerning rules and players. It certainly fed my appetite for passing on inane sports details to the female gender and even though we lost, I felt proud...as if I had passed on the details for curing polio.

The real story though, was the Texas fans who sat in front of us. Mark and Brant made the game much more enjoyable than if Ohio State fans had been there. Mark was more outgoing and Guy much more reserved. This was evident when two drunk-ass OSU students began harassing them late in the 4th quarter. "Who's the better team now, bitch!?" came out with the score 22-16 as a jinxing harbinger. I can't blame OSU's version of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum for the Bucks loss, but they certainly tried their best to ruin a spectacular event.

Me, Peanut, Mark, and Brant (l to r)

So, first things first, why did Texas win? Simple. Vince Young executed when he had to. Well, in all reality, it's not that simple. This game was lost by Ohio State more than it was won by Texas. The real cause of Ohio State's loss was Jim Bollman. For those of you who aren't familiar, Jim Bollman is the current Offensive Coordinator and Offensive Line Coach. In Bollman's tenure Ohio State has gone from "three yards and a cloud of dust" to "three yards if we're lucky". For those of you who watched the 2003 Buckeye season, you'd remember the Bucks' dilapidated line struggling to run for 100 yards a game. What some of you might not know, is that the Ohio State offense that year had Ben Hartsock (Colts), Shane Olivea (Chargers), Alex Stepanovich (Cardinals), Adrien Clarke (Eagles), Rob Sims (OSU), and Nick Mangold (OSU) blocking. Now Sims and Mangold will be in the NFL next year, which effectively means that Ohio State had 6 NFL caliber players blocking. Normally if a coach had that kind of talent and couldn't move the ball, there would be problems involving job security. Not at Ohio State. We give you the keys to the offense!

What is even more confounding, is how good the Defensive assistants are. After Texas went up 10-0, the line switched from 2-gap to 1-gap thus requiring 5 or 6 O-lineman to block 4 D-linemen, effectively freeing the safeties and linebackers to stop the Texas running game. Where was the offensive adjustments? They were in the hands of Jim Bollman.

This year, the fans of Ohio State will get to watch Bollman make coaching moves like he did during this game...benching Troy Smith for the majority of the second half... getting Ted Ginn 3 touches on offense. Now I'm no genius, but anyone who knows anything about football knows that Ohio State's three best offensive weapons are Santonio Holmes, Ted Ginn, and Troy Smith....and Bollman effectively stopped using two of them.

Difficult to watch

Since I've done enough bitching, here are some observations from the game. Vince Young is nearly impossible to tackle. He also made the final play when he had to. If I were drafting an NFL team right now, I'd be hard pressed to take Mike Vick over Young. That may sound like hyperbole, but Vick doesn't throw as well as people think, and Young obviously better than those same people think. And Vick doesn't have Young's size either (6'1" 200 to 6'4" 230). But here's where I stop, because I've heard enough of Young's dick being sucked by the media in the last three days...besides, he wasn't even the best player on the field.

Hawk: "I officially have more yards than Ginn!"

AJ Hawk's stat line read as so: 12 tackles, 3 TFL, 2 sacks, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery, 1 INT, 0 missed tackles, 0 blown coverages, 0 boneheaded plays. So why does that make him the best? Because Vince Young made one bad play after another in the second and third quarters? No, it was because Hawk was unstoppable and played flawlessly. He did everything he could to put the Bucks in a position to win. His interception and fumble recovery both led to OSU field goals, and he refused to allow VY to run on him. If Bollman didn't have his head up his ass, OSU might have turned those figgies into touchdowns and the media would be all up on Hawk's nuts instead of Young's.

As for the rest of my picks. Well, the Big Ten laid an egg and left me in the lurch. However, both players that I said must have big games in order for their teams to win...got hurt. Drew Tate (Iowa) and Mike Hart (Michigan) both exited in the first half of their respective losses. As for the Georgia one? I just hate Georgia. On the converse, LSU pulled a W out of their asses in an amazingly exciting game (God I love Tivo). Wisconsin killed Temple...which was to be expected. But most importantly, my NCAA Online boys at Vanderbilt began their pursuit of Roses with a big win in Fayetteville over the Arkansas Razorbacks. Jay "Heisman" Cutler continues to be the biggest impact player in college football and rightfully leads my initial Heisman list.

Week 2 - Heisman List

  1. Jay Cutler - QB - Vanderbilt
  2. AJ Hawk - LB - Ohio State
  3. Vince Young - QB - Texas
  4. Brady Quinn - QB - Notre Dame
  5. Matt Leinart - QB - USC
  6. Brad Smith - QB - Missouri
  7. Reggie Bush - RB - USC
  8. DJ Shockley - QB - Georgia
  9. Adrian Peterson - RB - Oklahoma
  10. Laurence Maroney - RB - Minnesota

Week 2 - "Revoke my Scholarship because I'm an idiot" List

  1. Anyone who plays for Pitt.
  2. Jimmy Skinner - QB - Marshall
  3. Chad Henne - QB - Michigan
  4. Rhett Bomar - QB - Oklahoma
  5. Trev Alberts - Unemployed

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