Stupid freaking leprechauns...

What looked to be the easiest week in our college football picks turned into a week filled with exciting games, with one in particular standing out as an "instant classic". The biggest impact on Saturday, though, wasn't leveled by a linebacker or a fullback, but by the weather. The major front that swept across the country made an appearance at numerous games, and may have changed the outcome for several top teams.

Given that we are talking about "college" football, let's review, shall we? What did we learn this week?
We learned that:

• You don't want to play Arkansas in overtime (6-1 overall), as Alabama learned
• Arkansas' punter is, um, special...
• Everyone should schedule a 1-AA team
• Well, almost everyone
• Buffalo has never really recovered from "wide left", have they? What? Wrong Buffalo? Sorry...
• Troy never stood a chance
• Gig 'em, indeed
• High scoring football in Seattle must be contagious
• Colorado's new motto- "Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory"
• For the 2nd straight week, an Oklahoma team falls prey to a blown instant replay call
• Bye week for two teams (and obviously, I can't read a calendar)
• Joe Paterno is old

Couple of notes on this one- first, I spent the majority of Friday giggling about this shirt, which implies that JoPa is a brain eating zombie (PSU fans call themselved Zombies). So, Saturday was another dia del gigglismos (as we say in LA), for all the wrong reasons.

CFMusings would like to go on the record as being a big fan of Coach Paterno, and in saying that humor about the bodily functions of the elderly is disrespectful and wrong. Funny, but very wrong.

First was the sign I saw on SportsCenter (which was removed for Gameday)- after some research I found the story of said sign... (comments section here)

I showed up at College Gameday this morning at about 8:00 to make sure I got the perfect spot (right behind Herbstreit's left shoulder), and I did. I used the recommendation from Cory's blog comment earlier this week to use the sign:

"Boxers of Briefs?" (picture of Paterno) "Depends.."

So at about 9:30 when ESPN started the live from Columbus segment with Herbstreit I had the sign in perfect location, right off his shoulder, clear as day. My sign was on Sportscenter - score.

At 9:45 a Gameday security ogre approached me and demanded that I take down my sign and give it to him, or I would have to be escorted away from the set. So I gave him a few "what the hell" comments and after he threatened to bring in the police and make the situation ugly, I bargained with him to give me a Gameday t-shirt in exchange for my sign.

So then, right before a crucial punt in the second quarter, Jo Pa goes 'trotting' across the field to the locker room with a case of "flu like symptoms". At first, I thought it was a trick play of some sort- I was impressed that none of the Ohio State or Penn State players were phased by it.

But ah, ABC. They wanted to go indepth, and let us know way WAY too much about Coach Paterno's problems. Here are some posts from other bulletin boards...

Did JoePa just run to take a pee break with 7 minutes left in the first half? Or is he just late for the early bird dinner specials at Bob Evans?

You know what an older gentleman, sensitive to the slow deterioration of his once-strong body, wants above all else? Wall-to-wall national coverage of his case of the runs. Thanks, ABC.

Can we start calling him Joe Pooterno?

Huh- that's the first time Joe's gone for two this year...

Maybe he's trying to be the spokesperson for these...

Well, I guess eating brains will do that to you. Back to the list. We also learned that-

• Speaking of crappy, Ohio State was hampered by the weather in their ugly win
  

These things will happen, but it just seems like since the UT game, the Buckeyes have not been firing on all cylinders, waiting instead for the big play. And their third score (INT for a TD), may not have been a TD- it looked like the ball was dropped by Jenkins before he crossed the plane of the goal line. If so, then it should have been no TD, and PSU's ball at the 20. Again, they replayed this (to check to see if he was in bounds), but the call was not overturned. It was good to see the defense take charge, though, when the offense was sputtering. That has been the largest concern, and has been answered. Nonetheless, I believe that we learned that

• Ohio State is not the #1 team in the country

I know that I'm the guy that always picks against his team in big games, but I've been saying this for a while now. I think that they'll have to take yet another step forward to beat Iowa this week, MeatChicken at the end of the year, and Michigan State. Which brings us to..

• Charlie Weis may be an offensive genius, but his defense sucks
• The "L" in John L. Smith stands for "Lay down, roll over, and give up"
• Stupid freaking leprechauns
  

You'll hear about how this game "redeemed" Notre Dame's season, and how the "Luck of the Irish" made a difference. The facts of the matter are that 1) Notre Dame gave up 78 points in 6 quarters, 2) The second half was played in a monsoon, 3) This is as much about MSU's inability to finish as it is Notre Dame's tenacity (someone called this "The Meltdown"). I know that I picked Notre Dame, but ND fans are soooo annoying. I was looking forward to a "you can't even be the champion of Michigan, how do you expect to win a National Championship?" email to several friends of mine.

Just so you don't think I've been drinking the haterade, I have a hard time figuring out who's the best team in the country these days. tOSU struggled was losing at halftime to a team that ND smashed, ND needed a collapse by MSU to pull out a win, USC was only up 3-0 at the half against Arizona, Georgia needed a miracle to beat Colorado, Florida was only beating Kentucky (Kentucky!) 12-7 in the third quarter, WVa and Michigan had their wins in question in the third quarters as well.

So, who's #1? Dunno... But these are my top 5 (in no order)- USC, tOSU, Michigan, Auburn, Lousiville/WVa/Texas/Florida (OK, I cheated, but these teams are a step behind everyone else).

Luckily, though, we know who's on top of our league from week to week... It seems like we weren't phased by the weather at all!

Stupid NC State- cost 6 teams from having perfect scores. Why did Coach Amato start to care now?

The top of the heap looks pretty solid- Is Steve starting to pull away? Or is Michael's forward progress going to be reviewed so that he can have a second chance?

Paula- I'm proud of you! Doug- Um, are you still with us?? And what happened to Carrie? Now there's another battle for "best in the house"...

These are great scores, given that teams are playing less than they did in the past. As you may remember, the NCAA changed the rules regarding clock usage (read here and here) the Wizard of Odds blog brings us the following stats from the year thus far (before this week), courtsey of CFbStats.com

Overall----G-------Plays------Plays/G------Min--------Min/G-----Time/G
2005-------178-----29736------167.05-------35593------199.96-------3:19:58
2006-------199-----30261------152.06-------36988------185.86-------3:05.52

That's 15 lost plays per game, average. FYI.

So, let's see what we'll be talking about this time next week? Will Emily stop staring at her thumb and move up the charts? What will happen in these games?

• BYUand TCU (on OLN... uh... Versus)
• Auburn and South Carolina
• Rutgers and USF
• Illinois and Michigan State
• Texas Tech and aTm (If the Aggies win, Coach Leach has his second career planned)
  
• USC at WSU
• Manginos at Nebraska (is Runza Hut ready?)
• tOSU at Iowa
• Anderson at Mt. St. Josephs (really)
• Ursinus and McDaniel (I double checked..)

Small schools (if I goof this up, it will be the last one...) Division 2 match up, as Tusculum meets Wingate. The Pioneers of Tusculum have the opportunity to spend their off hours perusing the fantastic collection of the Andrew Johnson museum. Located in Greenville Tennessee, Tusculum is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, USA, and is unique for their "block system" of education (where a student will take one class at a time, for three hours a day, for 18 consecutive days), used by only three other institutions.

Located in beatiful Wingate North Carolina, the Wingate Bulldogs also have excellent co-curricular opportunities, as WU bosts both a magnetic resonance spectrometer and a DC plasma spectrometer. Wingate University is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, and is 3-1 on the season. Perhaps they can use their spectrometers to analyze weaknesses in the Tusculum gameplan