Patterico's Pontifications

9/27/2008

Upset Weekend

Filed under: Sports — DRJ @ 1:43 pm



[Guest post by DRJ]

Yesterday No. 1 USC lost and today No. 4 Florida fell to Mississippi, 31-30.

EDIT: More upsets. Michigan upset No. 9 Wisconsin, and No. 3 Georgia fell to No. 8 Alabama.

Holy cow.

— DRJ

36 Responses to “Upset Weekend”

  1. Long time reader, never a commenter but I feel the need to chime in today…HOTTY TODDY!

    Andrew Whelan (92f53e)

  2. SC does this to me almost every year. Aaargh !

    I’ve been a season ticket holder almost every year since 1956. This was a huge breakdown by the defense. Not watching TV today so I have no idea what happened to Florida. Interesting, I think it is Florida that has an ex-USC back starting. Emmanuel Moody. He got tired of waiting his turn in the rotation.

    Mike K (155601)

  3. Mike K,

    I love it when people are big fans of their State so I’m glad you brought that up. As you probably know, I’m a big fan of the State of Texas so I give some credit to the new Mississippi quarterback, who is from Texas. The quarterback of the No. 3 Georgia Bulldogs is also from Texas and I guess I don’t need to tell you have many players there are from Texas on the No. 2 OU Sooners.

    We play some good high school football down here.

    DRJ (c953ab)

  4. Welcome, Andrew Whelan. It looks like we’re in for a wild ride this college football season and your Ole Miss Rebels helped get it started.

    DRJ (c953ab)

  5. Florida teams often rate very high in the polls. Seems to me U. of Miami sends many football players to the pros and the state had plenty of Heisman winners. But what did Danny Wuerffel really accomplish as a pro?

    Meanwhile I can think of a couple of Texas studs who won Heisman trophies in the past thirty years or so. The marvelous Earl Campbell comes to mind, along with Ricky Williams.

    madmax333 (0c6cfc)

  6. Candidly, madmax333, in recent times Texas hasn’t had that many impressive pros among the so-called skill players. But it’s still a great State for football.

    DRJ (c953ab)

  7. Boy, you called it, DRJ. Six big upsets and counting.

    Paul (ceb85f)

  8. Did you see the Michigan-Wisconsin game, Paul? I didn’t see it all but what a comeback for Michigan and a heartbreaker for Wisconsin, especially there at the end.

    DRJ (c953ab)

  9. 5. Earl Campbell could run for governor of Texas and win in a landslide. His face is everywhere here in Austin. I’ve met more people who say he’s their hero. I predict Ricky W will someday write a very interesting and hilarious autobiography. And slightly off topic but GO PHILLIES NL EAST CHAMPS!! The icing on that cake would be watching the Mets get sent home sans playoff spot like the miserable choke artists they will always be.

    Jack Klompus (b0e238)

  10. 9. Congrats on Phillies. My pick for best Philly team would be 66-67 Sixers.

    Ricky is now said to eschew the ganja in Miami. He always seemed to march to his own drummer in any case. Few would expect him to suffer from social anxiety and need paxil.
    Choke artists? Those Phillies of the early 60s under Gene Mauch come to mind.
    You sure do pick liberal bastions to reside in. I should talk, leaving Philly burbs for moonbat/buttefly ballot/Booby Wexler central.
    Speaking of Texas, you don’t hear so much about Ike now. I’m sure the people are hurting; it sure ain’t NOLA though.
    By the way, the original Ike was born in Denison, Texas and the first potus born in that state. Yes, lovesick, he was married to Tina Turner.

    madmax333 (0c6cfc)

  11. These Badger Alumni were quite content with a 19-0 halftime score when we stopped flipping back and forth to watch the Phillies trying to clinch the division in a tight game.

    Before we know it, the Philly closer is flirting with his 1st failed save in over a year and the Badgers are down 27-19… The Phillies pull it off with a clutch double play just in time for us to catch the last two minutes of the Badger-Wolverine snarlfest.

    Just when it looks like Bucky has been revived it’s called back because the split end on the left should have been a foot back from the line of scrimmage…. Oh well.

    Since we’re on football, being born in Ohio, high school through med school in Wisconsin, and last many years in Philly, I stick with those three, pulling for one of them to come out unscathed by the end of the season. Well, the Nittany Lions have their chance tonight. Of course, seeing some highlights of Beanie Wells back on the field today for Ohio State does give weight to the claim that the team that lost to USC is not necessarily the same OSU team that will be playing for the rest of the season.

    I think the real hay-day of Florida college football was in the early 90’s, I think there was a period of a couple of years that Miami, Fla, and Fla St combined were undefeated in games with teams outside of Florida.

    As a native Buckeye, however, one story shoes how tough Ohio HS football can be. Roger Staubach was the starting quarterback for Cincinnati Mueller. His fullback was Walter Johnson, later a defensive tackle for the Browns. His tailback was a wide receiver in the pros (though I forget the name). They were second in the state to Massillon.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  12. HA HA HA HA HA HA! C-H-A-O-S! I love, love, love it! I am looking forward to the day when the BCS has its moment like Fannie and Freddie and people will wake up and smell the fraud!

    L.N. Smithee (b18208)

  13. DRJ #8:

    Yes I did indeed, DRJ!

    Paul (ceb85f)

  14. The game’s still being played, but the (unranked) University of Kentucky Wildcats are leading Western Kentucky 24-3 in the third.

    The transplanted Southerner in Pennsylvania Dana (556f76)

  15. Play of the day by far was the end of the Miami / NC game. Miami throws the wwinning TD with time expiring and the Carolina DB pulls the ball out of the falling receivers arms. Interception – game over. This Penn St / Illinois game is also a barn burner. Uh oh – buh bye Georgia?

    rhodeymark (6231e5)

  16. Uh oh – buh bye Georgia?

    That is an understatement.

    As I write this, Alabama is leading Georgia 31-3 with ten minutes to play in the 3rd quarter.

    Paul (ceb85f)

  17. Isn’t this incredible? I’m used to weekends like this late in the season but not this early.

    DRJ (c953ab)

  18. Look out–Georgia has scored two touchdowns in the last few minutes, the last on a punt return.

    Now it’s 31-17 with nearly the entire fourth quarter to play.

    This game is starting to look much like Michigan-Wisconsin earlier today, DRJ.

    Paul (ceb85f)

  19. The University of Kentucky Wildcats beat the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers 41-3, to up UK’s record to 4-0. For the third time in four games, the UK defense held the opposition without a touchdown.

    The transplanted Kentuckian in Pennsylvania Dana (556f76)

  20. Dana,
    What area of Ky? My folks come from Harlan and I grew up near E-Town.

    voiceofreason2 (d1e92b)

  21. So much for the Georgia comeback. Now Alabama’s up 40-17 with four minutes left in the 4th.

    Buh-bye.

    Paul (ceb85f)

  22. The Top 10 is going to look a lot different next week.

    DRJ (c953ab)

  23. Georgia too little, too late: they got it to 41-30, after trailing 31-0 at one point.

    The Top 10 is going to look a lot different next week.

    A lot different?

    More like massive upheaval.

    Paul (ceb85f)

  24. voiceofreason2-

    Small world. My dad’s from Harlan, my grandfather was a coal miner- like most of everyone else I guess 60 years ago.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  25. MD,
    That is pretty neat. My grandparents lived in the coal camps in the 30’s, then moved to the Smith area in the forties.

    voiceofreason2 (d1e92b)

  26. vor2-
    It must have been in the late 40’s- early 50’s that the family moved “up north” to Dayton, Ohio.
    One of my dad’s interesting memories is taking the Greyhound south with my grandmother to visit relatives during WW-II. When they got to the edge of this little town in TN named Oak Ridge the bust would stop, weveral soldiers in battle gear would get on while they drove through, then they would get off as the bus was leaving town. (As most probably know, Oak Ridge was one of the 3 sites of nuclear research.)

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  27. 24-25
    Have to wonder if clean coal technology might bring back the various depressed Appalachian coal areas. I’m from northeastern Pa. anthracite coal area myself, in the general area of where the Molly Mcguires carried on. Sean Connery did a movie on them in 1970. Anyway, we had some really tough high school football teams back in the day, but western Pa. seemed to make the renowned NFL QBs.

    madmax333 (0c6cfc)

  28. MD,

    My Dad worked in Oak Ridge in the mid sixties before we moved back to Ky. More than a couple of times my mother had to drive out to the site to take my Dad’s badge to him while he cooled his heels in the security pen! Not sure if you have been to Harlan but it is slowly disappearing and a little depressing to see now. I was back there for a funeral about 3 years ago.Most of my family have long since moved away.
    We spent a week every summer in Smith when I was small. Beautiful area and lots of good memories.

    voiceofreason2 (1e6326)

  29. Ummm…. so far, this just seems like a repeat of last year’s whacky season, with major players being upset by rent-a-win teams on a regular basis. The Alabama upset over Georgia was big just because of the score run-up, but this early in the season, there’s really not necessarily that much difference between #4 and #8.

    All that said, Geaux Tigers! We beat Miss. State. Look for us to move up to #2 this week… not that it matters, because there’s a long season of football left to play.

    PatHMV (885ff2)

  30. Maxx,
    They would probably welcome any legal industry that came to the area. One of the major industries now is marijuana production. I’ve read that Ky is the #1 grower of domestic pot in the US. Towns are so small that undercover police ops is impossible.

    voiceofreason2 (1e6326)

  31. It’s been a long time since I was there, it was relatively depressing then. I remember seeing a vine bridge across a “holler”.

    madmax333- a good question. I think the coal down there is bituminous, and I don’t know details of clean coal technology.

    MD in Philly (3d3f72)

  32. PatHMV,

    I agree there were plenty of high-profile upsets last year, too, but they seemed to come later in the season. For instance, at this time last year only 1 team in the Top 10 (Texas) lost and the next week 1 Top 5 team (Florida) lost. Compare that to four Top 10 teams losing today, with three of them in the Top 5.

    DRJ (c953ab)

  33. Don’t be surprised if Bama leapfrogs LSU.

    rhodeymark (6231e5)

  34. I would not be surprised if Bama moved up to #2. OU looked great. Fuckin’ Penn State throttled my Illini.

    JD (5f0e11)

  35. The consensus on the TV analysis today was OU and Alabama for # 1 and 2 but no decision on which is which. SC will drop out of the top ten and that’s fine with me. Every team in the Pac 10 keys their entire season for the SC game and Carroll, while he is unusually good about keeping the team from letting down, can’t do it every week. Sanchez is still green and, I suspect, reading his newspaper clippings. Leinart would have gotten them down field from the two possessions inside the 10. Sanchez isn’t there yet. The big shock was the defense not stopping the run. However, New England had the same problem with Miami last week.

    The better coach wins most of the time. Carroll was out-coached.

    Mike K (155601)

  36. ESPN shows the AP moved Alabama to No. 2 after OU, but the USA Today Coaches’ Poll has ‘Bama at No. 4 after OU, LSU and Missouri.

    For now, I’d rank it OU-LSU-Bama-Missouri.

    DRJ (c953ab)


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