Each college football team plays a game only a dozen weekends annually — a couple more if they’re lucky enough to make a conference championship, a bowl game or even the playoffs. That’s about one-fourth of the calendar year.
When the season starts, it’s hard not to wish it would continue uninterrupted. Like my 12-year-old self having a Jolt Cola for the first time in 1986, I’m ready for another, and another, and another ….
But this weekend, with my (twice) alma mater Oklahoma Sooners on their off week, I found myself feeling like any of a dozen “waiting” memes. I became a living, breathing version of the old Rogers Hornsby quote, except replace “baseball” with “OU football” and “spring” with “next weekend.”
“People ask me what I do in winter when there’s no baseball,” Hornsby said. “I’ll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring.”
Oh sure, I do love watching ALL college football games, so I certainly enjoyed myself observing other schools play this weekend. Three top-10 teams lost, including No. 1 Alabama’s demise at the hands of my favorite scrappy QB.
Yet, it all just seemed … off … not to be preparing the grandstands of Cowenstan National Stadium (better known as the patio at my house) on an autumn Saturday for a big game involving my favorite team.
Uninspired, I took advantage of OU’s off week to visit a couple of Oklahoma City breweries and play some retro arcade games (eat steaming hot death, Bald Bull) all while keeping at least one eye glued upon the television. Maybe the crimson and cream were off this weekend, but I was determined to make do.
If you noticed that I’ve been using the terms “off” or “idle” instead of the term “bye week,” that’s because “byes” are when a team faces no opponent in a TOURNAMENT bracket and, thus, receives free advancement to the next round. (They wave “bye-bye” to that particular round, so to speak.) That makes the term inapplicable for an open schedule date during the regular season.
Sure, it’s an odd hill to die upon, but here I lie nonetheless. Muttering about this Saturday while I repeatedly bashed Glass Joe in the face, I was reminded of a sports editor I once had. While editing a story that employed the phrase, “if the season ended today,” the editor pounded the delete key and angrily proclaimed, “But it DOESN’T end today, you numbnuts!”
I guess us wordherders are all triggered by something or another. Thank goodness the season isn’t ending any time soon, or I’d really be as messed up as Little Mac after facing Mike tyson.
But it doesn’t, you numbnuts! I have a whole slate of games to discuss, so buckle up for this week’s Hangover Highlights.
- While this week’s schedule looked rather boring and pedestrian heading into Saturday, it proved to be a bloody weekend for top teams. It seems some may have been anticipating a Lazy Sunday-type Saturday, but that spelled big letdowns for Alabama, Tennessee and Missouri.
- Before discussing the major upsets, let’s start local where Oklahoma State got a misty taste of ass-whipping and teardrops in their eyes from a 38-14 disaster against a middle-of-the-road West Virginia squad.
- As we unpack the big issues in Stillwater, bear with me though as I traipse down memory lane. In September 1999, I took a Saturday trip to Big Bend National Park with my girlfriend (now wife). She was a Texas Tech student at the time (yes, I robbed the cradle a bit), and was interested in how her Red Raiders were faring that day. After we left the far-flung park and finally found a radio signal, we heard Tech was getting demolished by a mediocre Arizona State team.
- “Something’s really, really wrong with Tech,” I told my wife. “It’s one thing to lose a game like this. It’s a completely different thing to get blown out.”
- That’s where I am with OSU this year. Before Saturday’s game, I picked the Cowboys to win by two touchdowns and felt good about it. After West Virginia out-gained OSU 558 yards to 227 — after Alan Bowman finished with a 12.6 quarterback rating and Ollie Gordon received only 13 carries for 50 yards — well, I’m not sure what’s going to happen next in Stillwater beyond a tense coach’s show at the Legacy Village senior center Monday evening.
- OSU Head Coach Mike Gundy has made a career of avoiding the wolves at his door. In 2014, he pulled an upset of rival OU out of his hat, thanks to Tyreek Hill’s miraculous punt return. Going into the game, many had conjectured that 2014 might be the last season for Gundy. Afterward, and especially after a big bowl win a few weeks later, OSU fans were fully back on the Gundy train. Last year, after getting housed at home by South Alabama, fans saw another example of Gundy turning the tide. The Cowboys improbably flipped their season — and rushing scheme — to make the Big 12 Championship game.
- So, I’m not ready to pile dirt on Gundy and his Cowboys just yet. He has always managed to rise from the ashes like the mythical phoenix. Still, my mind spins back to a simple thought … if you can’t defeat a 2-3 West Virginia team at home — can’t even keep the game close — who are you going to beat? At 0-3 in Big 12 Conference play, OSU fans have a lot to ponder.
- I have this weird thing I like to do with friends: I like to describe the plot of a movie if I watch it backward. For example, let’s take a film everyone knows, like Titanic. If I were to describe it backward, it would be something like this: “An improbably handsome sea monster rises from the frozen depths of the ocean to save a young woman, builds a giant ocean liner from nearby wreckage, and they, along with others he saves, travel home. On the way, however, he ends up losing the girl into the arms of a mustache-twirling nepo-baby before they make port in London.”
- OK, the exercise is stupid, I admit. Still, if someone told me to describe the coaching career of Sonny Dykes at TCU — only to do it backwards — I think would be a fascinating corollary: “Bloated nepo-baby takes over a team and leads it to less-than-middling records for two seasons before taking advantage of a ton of upperclassmen and fifth-and-sixth-year seniors to make an improbable run to the national title game.”
- It all kinda echoes, doesn’t it? TCU fans, however, only wish it was playing out in the order I described. After getting blasted by a terrible Houston team on Friday, TCU is a mere 8-10 since the 2022 season that ended with the Frogs’ innards pushed inward by the Georgia Bulldogs in the national title game. The 2022 season looks more and more like a spin on the great wheel of chance and the result of well-timed COVID year eligibilities and transfers.
- Speaking of disappointment, Tennessee learned the problem of playing a freshman at quarterback on the road in the SEC. In the Vols’ 19-14 loss to Arkansas, frosh phenom Nico Iamaleava — whose surname portends transfer portal activity and hasty one-night stands — finished a pedestrian 16-of-28 passing for 156 yards and zero touchdowns. The Volunteers managed exactly ZERO points in the first half, as a matter of fact.
- Tennessee’s trip-up was the tip of an iceberg this weekend where so many top teams in college football were toppled. While Miami avoided further top-10 disaster when it came back from a 35-10 second-half deficit to win a showcase contest at Cal, we still saw THREE football fields rushed by ecstatic students because of hometown upsets.
- Besides Tennessee’s egg-laying in Arkansas, USC fell to Minnesota in a game that undoubtably kindled many warm-and-fuzzy feelings for OU fans.
- Meanwhile, Mizzou put the “mid” in Midzou when the Tigers saw their top-10 ranking melt at Texas A&M.
- And that brings us to the upset of the week … season … decade?
- Go Diego, go!
- Vanderbilt quarterback Diego Pavia — whom readers of this column dating back to last year know I have an unabated and unrequited man-crush upon — led the Commodores to their FIRST-ever win over a top-5 team, toppling No.1 Alabama by a score of 40-35. Vanderbilt students were so enthused that they tore down a goalpost and threw it in the Cumberland River, much to the irritation of the Nashville Fire Department.
- Let me recap why my love for Diego knows no bounds: He was a barely a two-star quarterback coming out of high school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and he was only recruited by a few low-level colleges … AS A WRESTLER. Pavia bet on himself, however, and he took advantage of being welcomed at the New Mexico Military Institute junior college. While there, he got a few sniffs from some universities, but nothing more serious than a walk-on offer at lowly New Mexico State.
- After leading NMMI to a JUCO national championship, the walk-on offer became a full scholarship opportunity. He led New Mexico State to one of the best seasons in school history last year, with a berth in both the conference title game and a bowl game.
- In the ensuing offseason, NMS’ head coach retired. Pavia, who had graduated but still retained a year of eligibility, weighed his choices and decided to take an offer from Colorado State to be the Rams’ starting quarterback. Not long after, though, he got a call from his old New Mexico State head coach, who had just taken an off-the-field analyst job with Vanderbilt. He invited Pavia to walk-on at Vandy and COMPETE for the quarterback job.
- Diego took the opportunity, walked on with the Commodores, won a scholarship and the starting job … and then on Saturday he led the ‘Dores to the biggest win in school history and one of the biggest upsets in the annals of college football.
- Diego Pavia is why I love college football. Diego Pavia IS college football.
- Go Diego, go!
