Perusing the Boxscore

Irony: So it turns out that little kid in the AIG commercial who couldn’t sleep because he was worried about his family’s financial security was onto something, huh?

There is a doctor’s office in the basement of my office building. One morning this week I saw a nurse hastily finishing a cigarette, at 7:45 am mind you, before going down to the basement for work. I was appalled. How can this person be trusted to advise someone on their health if they are a smoker? There should be a Good Samaritan Law where if you catch a nurse or doctor smoking you can report them and they lose their license on the spot. How would you feel as a patient if your doctor or nurse came in reeking of cigarette smoke?

Another weekend of college football come and gone; another full slate of interesting box scores to analyze. I swear, there are 10 things every week that I have never seen before. Take the Air Force-Houston game for example. Air Force didn’t complete a pass in the entire game…and won! Their quarterback was 0-7, but get this; the Falcons ran the ball 71 times for 380 yards and scored 31 points. Talk about a ground game. Air Force still managed 5.4 yards per carry on those 71 rushes, and as you can expect, won the time of possession battle. How intriguing.

Irony No. 2: The ESPN.com headline for the Cal-Maryland game read “Maryland’s relentless defense stifles No. 23 Cal”. Hmmmmm. Cal scored 27 points, got 26 first downs, racked up 461 yards of offense and only turned the ball over once. Yeah, “stifling” defense there in College Park. The real stifler was whoever scheduled the game for noon, so that kickoff felt like 9am for the Bears.

Michigan State running back Javon Ringer carried the ball 43 freakin times against Florida Atlantic, and still averaged 6.6 yards per carry for the day. That’s 282 rushing yards for you math majors out there. What a horse.

Navy running back Javod Bryant was the anti-Javon Ringer on Saturday. The Midshipman (note: in the singular) had 14 carries for a whopping 8 yards, averaging an impressive 0.6 yards per carry. Adding insult to a poor performance, Bryant had to go back to getting his balls hazed off knowing he lost to Duke. Tough day.

Continuing with odd rushing performances, Central Michigan’s Ontario Sneed summoned his inner Jerome Bettis and produced these numbers: 6 carries for 15 yards and 2 touchdowns. Consider Ontario Sneed my favorite name in college football. A great flow.

Oklahoma State absurdly had three running backs rush for more than 130 yards each against Missouri State, and they all needed less than 15 carries to do it. Keith Toston had 11 carries for 148 yards and a score. “Backup” Beau Johnson rushed 13 times for 138 yards and two TD’s. And “third stringer” Kendall Hunter added 132 yards on 11 carries and two touchdowns. Do you think these three laughed at “water boy” Michael Roberts after the game, who got 12 carries but only managed to gain 37 yards?

Washington State is really, really bad. They have lost their first three games by a combined 150-33, including Saturday’s 45-17 loss to mighty Baylor. If they can’t beat Portland State this week, it might be time just to give up.

As my Dad put accurately put it, Auburn hit a walk off homer in the ninth to beat Mississippi State 3-2. Woof.

The 16-13 Wyoming-North Dakota State game was another yawner. 5 field goals, a 2 yard touchdown run and a 3 yard touchdown pass. 13 punts. In Wyoming. Double woof.

BYU’s utter demolition of UCLA was about as methodical as you can get. 6 of the Cougars 7 touchdowns came from within 15 yards of the end zone. Their longest play from scrimmage was 37 yards. But every play seemingly got 7 yards. BYU threw for 337 and rushed for 184. They completed 77% of their passes and ran for 4.1 yards per carry. The defense pitched a shutout and forced 4 turnovers. That’ll get you to 59-0.

UCLA is bad. But do you know who is not bad? Sam Bradford and Chase Daniel. The Oklahoma quarterback was 18-21 for 304 yards a 5 TD’s while his Missouri counterpart went 23-28 for 405 yards and 4 TD’s. They both averaged over 14 yards per attempt.

Hawaii got the first laugh against Oregon State, but the Beavers got the last seven. After going up 7-0, the Warriors gave up 45 straight points. After their first drive, Hawaii went punt, punt, punt, punt, pick, missed field goal, pick, punt, pick, punt, punt, turnover on downs. After going 73 yards for a touchdown in just 1:57, Hawaii gained just 133 yards on their next 12 drives and 20:36 time of possession. Not good.

Regrettably UVA actually made the trip to Storrs and got walloped 45-10 by Uconn. I didn’t watch it but the most unacceptable part of the recap was seeing that the Huskies scored touchdowns on their first four possessions. That is truly pathetic. This from a UVA team whose defense is supposed to keep the team afloat this year. The Cavs allowed a tremendous 382 rushing yards, including 206 to Donald Brown alone. Uconn average 7.2 yards per carry, as opposed to 2.2 for the Cavs. This season is teetering on the edge of disaster. We have a bye week before playing Duke, which unfortunately is going to be a close game. Woof.

The St. Louis Rams may have a worse defense than UVA, but at least Chris Long is busting his ass per usual. Long had the first sack of his NFL career on Sunday, hopefully the first of many more. Good for him.

Also playing well on Sunday is the new starting tight end of the Indianapolis Colts, Tom Santi. The former Wahoo was filling in for the injured Dallas Clark, and had 5 catches for 29 yards. That’s a helluva place to be as a rookie.

So Austin and I had dinner at the Austin Grill last weekend (insert joke here). Well it turns out they have a meal called the Hangover Burger. It is a half-pound bacon cheeseburger with and fried egg and Texas chili on it. I was tempted to get it but A) my arteries screamed bloody murder and B) I wasn’t hung-over. The next time I’m hankering for a solid meal though, I know where to turn.

Well, that’s it for this week folks. Until next time, stay safe, keep it real and fill ‘er up.