Milliceconds

I blog every six months or so…and I guess I’m back in the bloggin mood…so this is my official welcome back post…weak.

Firsts are celebrated. First steps. First kisses. First dates. That’s fine. But there’s not much love for the boring and mundane second step, second kiss or second date…and especially not the 13th or 14th.

The opening weekend of the college football season has been a lot like a great first kiss from the girl you’ve been waiting to date for 8 months. Pass the smelling salts, please. 

Finally this weekend we got the kiss…and to some it was the best kiss they’ve ever experienced. We’d been starved for so long that we had no choice but to have an extreme and forceful reaction. Oh and we’re also are obligated to kiss and tell.

“LSU is the best team in the country”, “Boise State could win the SEC East”, “Auburn couldn’t win the WAC”

People who are the constant voices of reason in the college football world are guilty of lobbing those statements out after one week.

Hold on there lover-boy. Sure, it’s not sexy, but what ever happened to a body of work?

Let’s see how the 2010 season would’ve worked out had our week one reactions come through:

1) Auburn will not sniff the National Title:

Their week one victory over Arkansas State was nothing like we’d expect from an eventual national champion. Sure they rolled up 52 points in eventual Heisman Trophy winner, Cam Newton’s debut, but they also allowed 366 yards. Defense wins championships…oops.

2) Boise State is finally going to crash the BCS party:

They won a great Labor Day night game against Virginia Tech and everything was setting up for the 3rd ranked Broncos, finally…until Nevada beat them in November…oops.

3) LSU is gonna suck:

The Tigers could barely beat a North Carolina team who was hampered by the loss of 13 players, including six starters. Get the moving truck ready for Les Miles…how’d Michigan do today? The Bengal Tigers recovered nicely, rolling off 6 wins in a row before losing to the eventual champs, Auburn & then in the finale to Arkansas. They finished 11-2 ranked 8th in the nation…oops.

So that’s how things would’ve ended last season for three teams getting the most attention after the first week of this season. Just like with most things, between extremes lies the truth. 

LSU is a very good…nay, great team. Do they have the potential to become one of the best teams in college football? Absolutely. But beating Oregon like a drum doesn’t equate to finishing off the rest of their brutal schedule, which includes a trip to Tuscaloosa. Oregon plays a style of football that plays to LSU’s advantage. That showed Saturday night in Dallas. Oregon also lost key pieces to their defense from a year ago, and their offensive line. Advantage LSU.

Boise State is a very good team. Beating Georgia was a major step for them. But the Dawgs are young and average themselves. Hypothetically, could the Broncos win the SEC East? Who knows. It doesn’t matter cause they don’t have to. They just have to keep winning and avoid another “Nevada-type” loss. If they do that, they’ll get their shot. 

Auburn looked nothing like the team that walked off the field in Glendale with the crystal ball in their grasp. Mainly because they aren’t that team anymore. But does coming within an eyelash of losing to a WAC team mean the season is lost? Negative. Oh, they have work to do, but rather than seeing an Auburn team that “almost lost” how about the Utah State team that almost won. They had some players. I’m sure we’ll hear the name Chuckie Keeton again in the next few years.

Bottom line: Don’t panic. It’s a long season.

Sometimes it’s our first kiss that becomes the hose beast with dragon breath, while our 14th kiss becomes our soul mate.

When it all comes down to it, it’s nice to be getting kissed again at all. Welcome back college football.

This was found in our in-boxes this morning.

From: Porter, Vicki L.
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 6:39 AM
To: WIAT NewsRoom
Subject: feeding the fish

 

DO NOT FEED THE FISH.

 

I don’t know who fed them between yesterday evening and this morning but, STOP IT.

 

They are fish not men. They don’t need a hand full of food, they only need 4 pieces. You are killing them. They can’t breathe because there is so much food in the bowl. There’s only 2 small gold fish, not a tank full of piranhas. So just don’t feed them. Fight the urge.

No fish were harmed in the writing of this post.

A man and his young son were driving down a busy Alabama highway. ”Dad?” his son asked, “what do those numbers mean?” The father looked at the passing car and noticed “28-27 War Eagle!” scrawled on the back of the window. The man replied, “It’s a football score written in shoe polish, son.” “Why do they put it shoe polish?” the boy asked. “‘Cause, son…there’s always next year.”

And next year can’t get here soon enough for one side of the Alabama-Auburn rivalry.

One thing is as clear as the crystal the 2010 Tigers are fighting to play for - the pendulum of power in the state of Alabama swings both ways, and does so with the zip of a Cam Newton curl route or the flash of a Trent Richardson breakaway.

It’s the Wednesday after the Iron Bowl, and fans are still lighting up the talk radio phone lines like a Christmas tree, talking about the game. Oh, they’re talking about the SEC Championship Game too, which Auburn is a part of, by the way. But, the talk mostly centers on what happened on a cold Friday afternoon in Tuscaloosa.

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