Saturdays with Verne

Breathe in deeply. Smell that? It’s the smell of fall and the greatest time of the year: football season. Now that the NFL kicked off we are in full pigskin mode and I’m ecstatic. I’m even happier that we are swinging into college conference play and I’ll have my weekly, Saturday afternoons date at 3:30 with Verne. Besides bowls and the NFL playoffs, nothing in football makes me as happy as listening to Verne Lundquist call the 3:30 SEC game on CBS. It is a pure pleasure. Watching the best college football in the land being called by the oracle that is Verne is simply sublime. This week we get USC-Georgia. And while the Dawgs will probably win, Spurrier always seems to give Georgia fits, no matter who he’s coaching. So here’s to you Verne, and to you SEC, for making fall more enjoyable.

So the world’s best pun writers have been having a field day with the news that Kim Jong Il is ill. Sounds like he’s been doing too many things that aren’t good for the Seoul! Zing! Shit, that’s South Korea. I’ve got nothing.

Perusing the college football box scores can yield some pretty hilarious statistics, especially early in the season when teams are playing D1-AA jokers at a rapid rate. Normal games can also produce odd stats. Here are some of my favorites from this past weekend, plus general football thoughts as well.

UVA’s next opponent, Connecticut, did not exactly light it up against Temple on Saturday, winning a 12-9 overtime snooze fest. What was strange is that Uconn running back Donald Brown had 214 yards on 36 carries…but didn’t score a touchdown until overtime. Apparently Brown ran wild until his team got into scoring position, and then he either got stuffed or he didn’t get the ball, I don’t know. Brown averaged 5.9 yards per carry, but his long was only 19. He ran for 6 yards on every carry 36 times it seems like, until his team needed it most that is. It didn’t help that the Uconn kicker was 2/5 on field goals. Very strange.

Virginia didn’t exactly light up the scoreboard either against Richmond. A huge problem is that Mikell Simpson rushed 23 times for a paltry 36 total yards. Dude could only average 1.6 yards per carry against freakin Richmond. Meanwhile, Cedric Peerman had 60 yards on 10 carries. Now I’m no coach, but it seems like Peerman should have gotten more carries. C’mon Al. Another huge problem is that our starting quarterback is a retarded pothead.

The UVA-Richmond game was the lowest scoring game of the weekend. Second lowest scoring game? Uconn-Temple. They can probably give the scoreboard operator the night off this coming Saturday.

Florida is going to have big trouble winning the SEC without a running game. The Gator running backs ran 9 times for 7 yards against Miami. Tim Tebow and Percy Harvin ran 18 times for 82 yards, but having your quarterback and best receiver doing double duty like that for a season is not going to hold up.

Texas State played a strange game against SMU. On offense, Texas State either scored or turned the ball over. For the whole game. They didn’t punt or turn the ball over on downs once. Here is the Texas State drive summary: fumble, fumble, interception, fumble, touchdown, touchdown, interception, touchdown, field goal, touchdown, touchdown. They were either amazing or atrocious. If there are any moral victories, it is turning the ball over on your first 4 possessions and only losing by 11.

There were only two punts in the whole SMU-Texas State game.

There were 13 punts in the UVA-Richmond game.

There were 12 punts in the Uconn-Temple game.

I’ll say it again, Uconn plays UVA this week. Ye gods.

After tying the game at 7, Montana State watched Kansas State score 62 unanswered points, including three defensive touchdowns. That would be quite demoralizing.

Arkansas State opened their game against Texas Southern by going on a 52-0 run. In the first half. Texas Southern then kicked a field goal to “cut” the lead to 52-3. Again, I’m no coach, but when I’m down 52-0, before halftime, I ain’t kickin’ no godamn field goal.

Arkansas State ran for 441 yards on 44 carries in the game. That’s right, they averaged 10 yards a carry on 44 carries. That’s beyond video game ridiculousness.

Oklahoma State had both a running back and a wide receiver go over 200 yards for the day against Houston. Kendall Hunter had 210 yards on 22 carries and 2 touchdowns and Dez Bryant had 9 catches for 236 yards and 3 touchdowns. That’s Monopoly money.

Cal’s Jahvid Best had two 80+ yard touchdown runs against Wazzu. Besides those two runs Best averaged only 2.8 yards per carry. Including those runs, Best averaged 14.2 yards per carry. Best had more rushing yards than Washington State had total yards. And this was a conference game. Ye gods.

The answer to last week’s riddle is a trick question. Girls would never be in the woods in the first place on their cell phones. They would either be in their car, walking on the sidewalk, sitting at the dinner table, or going grocery shopping.

During halftime of Monday Night Football I got excited because I thought they were going to bring back the Jacked Up segment, where they show the biggest hits of the week. I was sorely disappointed when I discovered that the segment had been renamed Sunday Thunder, they only showed 3 hits instead of 5, and that everyone in the booth didn’t scream when the person got hit. Add it to the infinite list of why ESPN is going into the toilet.

Did yall catch the US Open final where Federer wiped his ass with Andy Murray? Maybe it wouldn’t have been such a rout if Murray hadn’t been sporting such egregious facial hair.

Good God man. Some people need to accept that they just can’t grow good facial hair. Like Tyler. Or 2nd Lieutenant Owen T. Caldwell I should say.

So I’m doing a college football pick’em and one of the games this week is Iowa-Iowa State. I know nothing about either team so I decided to check their schedules, as both are 2-0, to see if either had beaten anyone of consequence. It turns out both teams have played the weakest schedule on either side of the Mississippi. The two pansy Iowa teams have played South Dakota State, Kent State, Maine and Florida International. What a pair of sack-less coaches. Good luck playing in the Midol Bowl Boys.

Well, that’s it for this week folks. Enjoy the glory of football season. Stay safe everyone.