Sunset Vette

What a great weekend for a sports fan. I can’t remember a single weekend with more great football games! Oh, well, except for LSU. They looked bad against Florida. I think there were quite a few things that contributed to the loss, but mostly Florida played one of their best games of the season and LSU played… bad. So they lost. Badly. That dropped LSU out of the top ten which is probably fine. I wasn’t comfortable with their lofty rating anyway. What this does do, if you’ve followed my posts over the past few weeks, is really increase the pressure to take Alabama down. They have to defeat Georgia too. I suggested that LSU could still win the SEC West title but only if they lost one of their next few games. They got the loss out of the way, now they have to win out.

I don’t comment on NFL as much because while I enjoy watching the games, it’s just a completely different environment. But even a casual fan had to love this weekend. Atlanta gives up a late touchdown to let Chicago go ahead by one point. There are less than 20 seconds left. Chicago kicks off, and Atlanta inexplicably runs around with the ball before they get tackled. If you’re not making a vertical move, get down on the ground and save your seconds! No matter, Ryan hits a receiver heading for the sidelines and preserves one final second, allowing Jason Elam to come in and steal the game from Da Bears. Talk about a cursed team… the Bears have lost three games this year and they’ve all been close or last second affairs.

Another exciting game… Cowboys and Cardinals. Dallas got a late touchdown catch / run from Marion Barber to pull within 3. But a penalty pushed the kickoff pack 15 yards, essentially eliminating the option of an on-sides kick. The defense managed to stop the Cardinals so the Cowboys got the ball back with no time outs and lots of field to cover. Romo fired a couple of stupid short sidelines passes before finally connecting deep to Jason Whitten. The boys rushed to the scrimmage line and downed the ball. Here’s the kicker (literally)… where the ball was spotted would have been a 57 yard field goal attempt.

But wait, a Cardinal player was walking off the field from the prior play and was behind the line! So the five-yard penalty pushed the field goal forward to “only” a 52 yarder. There is hope yet. They line up and kick… and the kick is blocked! Game over, right! No… it seems the Cardinal coach had pulled a “Shanahan” and called a time-out right before the snap! Reprieve for the Cowboys… they get a second chance and kick the field goal to tie the game and send it to overtime. Betcha the Cardinals don’t try that trick again…

The ‘Boys win the toss, and look really terrible on their first series. They line up to punt, the punt is blocked and carried into the end zone. Game over. <sigh>

Washington lost to the formerly winless Rams. The Eagles beat the 49′ers. The Giants play tonight on Monday Night Football, and if they win have a two game lead on everyone else in the conference.

But back to College… Texas beat Oklahoma in one of the best games ever in the Red River Shootout. As a reward they’ve been pushed to #1 in the country. Missouri lost, LSU lost, both dropped. Penn State won and hopped into the top five. Alabama didn’t play and held onto the #2 spot. Vanderbilt lost (I heard several comments on ESPN Radio suggesting they would lose at Mississippi State, and they did) but stayed tied for first place in the SEC East. Auburn seems really terrible this year, which reduces the value of the LSU road victory just a bit. They dropped out of the top 25. One weekend review pointed out that it was a terrible time to be a “tiger” with Auburn, LSU, Missouri, and a couple of other “tiger teams” all incurring losses this weekend.

The road ahead for LSU looks like this: @ South Carolina, Home versus Georgia, @ Tulane, Home versus Alabama. I believe that they need to win all of these games to have a shot at the SEC West title and a place in the SEC Championship game.