Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Random Musings From Opening Weekend

(Editors Note, The preview articles got stalled due to family obligations, work and the rest of my real world life beyond the keyboard. I'll try to bring them back next year)

Oh, it was Christmas Day for me and the millions of college football fans across the country. It was opening weekend! We had to sit through the long hot summer of two-a-days, as in visits to our favorite teams' message boards. We read the stories of the fights in the clubs, the breaking and enterings, the DUI's, and the suspensions. The message boards became feeding frenzies when the 5 star athlete with the 1.6 GPA ended up at some backwoods JUCO diploma mill in Mississippi, probably never to be heard from again. Thank God we finally kicked it off and the stories are now about what happens between the white stripes and not about the athletes wearing the stripes.

Instant Karma is gonna get ya
Remember what I was saying about Karma, it seems it is coming to fruition. From my own hillbilly-centric point of view, we West Virginia fans had the trifecta. Michigan lost at home in Rich "the product" Rodriguez's home opener. Virginia Tech lost to East Carolina in a huge upset and Pitt lost at home to a MAC team, Bowling Green. Coach Dave Wannstedt's reaction to the loss was, "They ran some complicated offenses." Ureka!

Somewhere up there Jack Fleming is calling in some favors. If my Mounties run the table, I think we may hit Nirvana.

Did you hear Beanie Wells got hurt?
The national media attention this has received has been unbelievable and somewhat disheartening. It goes to show that as long as you have the big TV contracts, the big schools are going to get the coverage. I'm not knocking the kid or his injury, but when is the media going to wake up and stop pimping programs because of TV contracts and how much merchandise they sell? Let's start talking about the teams that are getting it done on the field, not to say that OSU has not. Maybe I'm sick and tired of the fix being in college football where only certain programs are marketed to be able to play for national titles. I actually have this strange notion that everybody should have a chance to be successful and that your success is based what you do on the field, not what some network talking head thinks will sell more commercial air time.

Notre Dame Didn't Lose...
Well idle gave them a tough match up, but they came through without any injuries. As long as as Jimmy Claussen can stop dressing in spandex, the schedule looks a bit easier than first thought for the Irish. Charlie Weiss will still have to pay that medical bill he tried skip out on. Chalk one up for the doctors and not the lawyers...

Willie!!!
For those that have read my articles chronicling the career of Mr. Williams, you know that I have been hard on the guy. I mean c'mon, after 11 arrests and being kicked out of two schools, it was too easy for him. Where is he now you ask? We hillbillies took him in, of course. He's now at WVIAC power Glenville State. Hey Willie, you won't find many free lobster dinners in Gilmer County, but what you will find are some of the best people around to help you get your life back on track. He didn't make the box score for the opening game against Lock Haven, but hopefully he gets something better out of all of this; a good education. I'm actually rooting for the kid.

TTFN