The internet has allowed us, as a species, to demonstrate incredibly poor ideas, behaviors and decisions with large audiences.
For the past week, I have been obsessed with the “Democracy Manifest” meme and its origin video from 1991.
“What is the charge?” Australian Jack Karlson asked of police as he was arrested for fraud at a restaurant. “Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?”
Witness the succulent action:
Lost to the sands of time, Karlson’s arrival and experience at jail must have been a letdown from the rhetorical high of his public detainment.
In Week 2 of the 2024 college football season, many teams suffered similar deflating letdowns, including Iowa, Kentucky and the two top teams in our state.
For OSU, giving up 648 yards ended up being a winning proposition.
For OU, only one legitimate scoring drive prevented an embarrassment of epic proportions.
By the end of Week 2, however, at least OU and OSU avoided the fetid fate of Notre Dame, whose offense did a lot of sit, stand and kneel before a 61-yard field goal attempt was blocked to end their game and undefeated season.
All that flaccid football brings us to the biggest, most-memeable news of the past week among the CFB interwebs. After Georgia Tech humbled Florida State two weeks ago, a Seminoles fan loudly and proudly announced on Twitter that, “If Florida State loses to BC this weekend, I will eat dog shit out of a red solo cup with a spoon and post a video of me doing it. Book it!”
Well, his followers — and the college football Twitterverse — did indeed “book it.” When the ‘Noles fell behind 14-0 against Boston College in the first half Monday, screenshots of his post were shared across the country, and it quickly went viral. By halftime, with FSU down 14-6, the man had locked his “X” account for privacy. By the time Boston College won 28-13, his account no longer existed.
The search for @321Nole proved greater than the one for Spock in 1984, but he had managed to disappear into the mists of the internet.
Did this man become the hero we all wanted by following through with his pledge? No. Yet he may be the hero we deserve as a species. By flying too close to the sun with his proclamations and dares before falling like Icarus to the ground — and under it, obviously — he demonstrated how college football fans can relate to a poor credit card fraudster trying to eat a succulent meal.
On to the Hangover Highlights!
- I could not have been put in a worse mood after watching Arkansas bumble and fumble its way to a 39-31 double-overtime loss at an equally disjointed Oklahoma State. Bad football wrecks me, though, especially for four hours. After a quarter-and-a-half, I was convinced either Arkansas was pretty solid and/or OSU most certainly was not.
- Then … the idiocy started. The Hogs were driving for what looked to be the nail-in-the-coffin score, up 14-0 against an OSU team that had barely showed a pulse to that point. A wayward Tyler Green pass returned for a pick-six interception, however, became the defibrillator the Cowboys needed. It made the score 14-7 and immediately announced they would not fail quietly … or at least that Arkansas simply would not allow them to.
- In the fourth quarter, with Arkansas again ready to put the game away after forcing an OSU punt up by two touchdowns, the Razorback punt returner promptly muffed the catch. It allowed a 25-yard touchdown drive and, again, a new heartbeat for the hometown Cowboys.
- I could go on and on from that point about the moronic mistakes made by both teams. It included a complete lack of self-awareness by OSU quarterback Alan Bowman, whose finger pistols picked up a well-deserved unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after a big pass play that might have sealed the win for his team. It also saw Arkansas unbelievably try to run a play with seven seconds left — without a timeout — down three points and already in field goal range. (When the ball was snapped, I looked at my friends and asked if I was having a stroke.) There were multiple missed field goals by both teams, more turnovers and failed fourth-and-short conversions.
- At one point, I felt like the poor bastard in the old 1980s movie Flash Gordon, who stuck his hand in a stump and was stung by some beast. Knowing the poison would soon drive him insane, he looked at his companion and begged for death: “Please, spare me the madness!”
- That was me: I just wanted the contest to end, either way, and save myself the psychosis of such a terribly played and coached game … and also from endless camera shots of Arkansas head coach and potential Manssiere model Sam Pittman wandering around the sidelines.
- Hours later and in a different county, I heard someone proclaim, “We’ve turned into Iowa!” while watching OU limp to a 16-12 offensively uninspiring victory over Houston. “OU and Houston are bumping wieners,” I replied.
- Despite its girth, OU’s offensive line is a sieve, and I’m not sure the unit can be salvaged. Thus, I am unsure whether OU fans can even bet on a winning season at this point. While the defense looked solid for a second straight week, OU’s offense stalled more than the 1974 Volkswagen Bug that I just purchased.
- Flashy freshman running back Taylor Tatum received one carry, Gavin Sawchuk had four yards on four carries, and Jackson Arnold’s long ball looked like he would have been better off punting. Houston won the time of possession battle 35 minutes to 25 minutes, including an astounding 12-play, 20-yard Houston drive that took 7:25 off the clock.
- OU won, and as Bill Belichick used to say, “We’re on to [Tulane].” But as Brent Venables even said after the game, the Sooners deserved to lose Saturday, which they will do a lot of playing that level of football going forward.
- Billed as the game of the weekend, Texas destroyed Michigan 31-12 in a contest between two teams who were both in the playoffs last year and who ranked within the top 10 this season.
- The game can be summed up thusly: It’s a new season, and Michigan is not particularly good while Texas is. Both of these things can be true, as they’re not mutually exclusive.
- Saturday night felt like a flashback to classic Big 8 days, with Nebraska taking out years of pent-up frustration to beat Colorado 28-10. Sure, the Cornhuskers did not score in the second half, but the Buffalos failed to do so in the first. It appears Matt Rhule has his program on a better trajectory than Deion Sanders, who could be staring into the abyss of another four-win season and even tougher questions from the Aflac duck and whatever press corps he allows to stick around for the post-mortem.
- As a whole, the Big 12 had an average Saturday. Utah topped Baylor for an early non-conference win against a conference opponent (yes, you read that right), and Iowa State went on a 20-6 second-half run to defeat Iowa by a point. Kansas, however, fell 23-17 to Illinois in a game that featured four Jalon Daniels turnovers. BYU barely survived at SMU, but Texas Tech gave up 197 rushing yards to a quarterback while getting stomped by Washington State. Cincinnati lost to Pittsburgh, but West Virginia, TCU, UCF, Arizona and Arizona State prevailed.
- Keeping with the theme of the day, Oregon survived another upset bid from a Pacific Northwest squad. After finally swatting away Idaho last week, the Ducks dodged Boise State 37-34 with a last-second field goal from the fascinatingly named Atticus Sappington. The Ducks don’t appear to engender much more faith than OU, OSU or many other teams after two narrow victories over less-than-powerhouse foes.
- On the flip side of all the above, Tennessee absolutely mangled North Carolina State on a neutral site, 51-10. At this point, it’s hard to think the Vols will be favored on Owen Field in Norman in two weeks by anything less than a touchdown.
- Meanwhile, my Diego Pavia watch continues unabated after another win for Vanderbilt behind the Albuquerque native. The Commodores crushed Steve McNair’s alma mater, Alcorn State, by seven-plus touchdowns Saturday. All of which means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things … except within the walls of Cowenstan National Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma, where we continue a man-crush on the former New Mexico Military Institute signal caller. Go Diego, go!
- The biggest upset in Week 2, of course, involved the Irish of South Bend getting bit by the Huskies of Northern Illinois. After a nice road win in College Station last week, Notre Dame suffered a brutal hangover Saturday, scoring fewer points at home than the point spread by which they were favored. (OU did the same, but at least the Sooners won.)
- Trotting into Norman next weekend, Tulane nearly pulled off a top-25 win this week against 16th-ranked Kansas State. The Green Wave led 20-10 at halftime and 27-20 early in the fourth quarter. A 60-yard scoop-and-score from a fumble helped right the ship for the visiting Wildcats, along with a red-zone stand in the final seconds as Tulane tried to score a tying touchdown.
- While we already knew Tulane would present a stiffer challenge for the Sooners than what they’ve seen the first two weeks, Tulane quarterback Darian Mensah and running back Makhi Hughes proved Saturday that they can be a handful.
- OU had better be ready for the Green Wave next week: They know their judo well.
(Correction: This article was updated at 12:20 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 8, to note that the Baylor and Utah game was technically a non-conference competition.)
