Like General MacArthur, I have returned; and I have with me this week’s version of “Tuesdays With The Sorries”. But just to change things up a bit, I’ll start with the NFL this week and move to the colleges later on. The Arizona Cardinals sought to avoid two consecutive trips from the west to the east coast involving long flights by staying east for a week and practicing away from home. Well, that worked out just swell as they surrendered 56 points and 6 TD passes to the Jets and Brett Favre in the second game of that stretch. Who knows; maybe the Cards would have been torched that badly in any event, but I don’t think that the club management will be looking to foot that bill for keeping everyone away from home for a week any time soon. Let’s call the Cardinals’ performance bleak.
The Denver Broncos lost to the Kansas City Chiefs by 2 TDs. Any team that loses to the Chiefs this year had a sorry week, but to lose to the Chiefs by 2 TDs is noteworthy in its sorriness. The Broncos’ defense should voluntarily forfeit a game check here allowing Damon Huard to complete 21 of 28 passes and allowing Larry Johnson to gain 198 yards rushing on 28 attempts. Let’s call the Broncos’ performance pathetic.
The St. Louis Rams led the Bills in the 4th quarter and managed to lose the game by 17 points. That’s sorry all by itself. Then, the club management compounded that shame by firing Scott Linehan as the head coach and replacing him with the defensive coordinator whose unit gave up all those 4th quarter points. Jim Haslett has already shown himself to be a mediocre head coach in the NFL; so even if this is a “step-up” for the Rams in terms of coaching, it isn’t a big step up. Rams’ ownership needs to sell the team as they are rumored to want to do and let someone else pay the money to hire some people who know football come in and try to rebuild the franchise from the ground up. The Rams are performance was blighted.
Rare though it may be, I want to include in “Tuesdays With The Sorries” one of the winning teams from last week by mentioning the Cleveland/Cincinnati game. One team had to prevail here; it was the Browns. Both teams stink in general and both teams stunk on Sunday. This was a CBS televised game in my viewing area so I checked it out while there were commercials on the FOX game; it was painful to watch; at its best moment, it came all the way up to “brutal”. I’ll label the performance of both the Browns and the Bengals as dismal.
In college football, nine of the top 25 teams lost over the weekend. It is easy to forgive two of these losses because they came to other teams in the top 25 who were ranked higher than the losing team. On the assumption that the poll voters have their heads external to the lower ends of their alimentary canals – I know, that’s a big assumption – those two losses were to be expected. But the others…
Oregon State beat formerly #1 USC. They beat them outright as 24-point underdogs. It wasn’t that long ago that I watched Penn State dismantle Oregon State hardly breaking a sweat. There are star players in terms of physical talent on the USC squad but the focus and the mental dedication to football by this team – and by the coaching staff – has to be in question. Let’s call USC’s performance barren.
Alabama (last ranked #8) beat formerly #3 Georgia. They beat the Bulldogs and they beat them convincingly. Georgia fans were upset when pre-season #1 Georgia moved down in the polls after lackluster wins earlier on; Alabama showed that Georgia is a good football team but has a long way to go to be considered the best in the country. Let’s call Georgia’s performance glum.
Ole Miss beat formerly #4 Florida by blocking an extra point try late in the game. Candidly, outside of the “Eli Manning years” at Ole Miss, it has been more than a few years since Ole Miss has been more than an SEC doormat. Maybe this means Ole Miss is re-emerging as a football power; maybe not. But they sure took care of business on the field last weekend. Let’s call Florida’s performance grim.
Michigan beat formerly #9 Wisconsin. The Badgers dominated the early going in the game but could not put the ball in the end zone. This was the classic case of the better team letting the lesser team hang around and start to believe it might actually pull the game out. And that is what Michigan did – with the help of Wisconsin continuing to play as if they had their collective thumbs up their collective butts. Let’s call Wisconsin’s performance dour.
Navy beat formerly #16 Wake Forest. Navy’s defense – particularly its pass defense – has been anything but robust this year. Nonetheless, Wake Forest had precisely zero points in the first half and managed only 17 for the game. Let’s call Wake Forest’s performance stark.
Maryland beat formerly #20 Clemson. This is the second bad defeat by Clemson this year. The Tigers were once ranked as high as #9 and have now been blown out by Alabama and lost to a truly mediocre Maryland team. Clemson and Wake Forest were thought to be the “gold standard” of the ACC; bringing to mind the rhetorical question posed by Chaucer:
“If gold rusts, what shall iron do?”
Let’s call Clemson’s performance austere.
Houston beat formerly #23 East Carolina. That makes a second loss for East Carolina who looked like a Cinderella team after Week 2. East Carolina probably then thought of themselves as making a major bowl game on New Year’s Day; now they should focus on the possibility of an appearance in the WAGARAB – Who Gives A Rat’s Ass Bowl. Let’s call East Carolina’s performance dreary.
Two other performances demand a passing mention here. Rice beat North Texas by 57 points. No one considers Rice to be one of the top 50 teams in the country; Rice may not make it into many top 75 lists. What does that say about North Texas?
Virginia lost to Duke by 4 TDs and scored only 3 points. How bad is that? That is go-sit-in-the-corner-and-hide-your-face-in-your-hands bad.
Finally, a comment from Greg Cote in the Miami Herald:
“The Dolphins cut kicker Jay Feely, who, among his parting shots, said the team ”lacked talent.” Gee, really, Jay? Ya think? Because that 1-15 season really didn’t give us any kind of clue!”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…