Saturday, November 24, 2007

More Knee-Jerk Reactions

As I said earlier in the year, I love the SEC. Every game is a war. Every game is full of suspense and excitement, providing 3 ½ hours of sheer drama. Any team (except Ole Miss) can beat any other team on a given day. 18 games in the SEC this season have been decided by six points or less. Every team has at least two losses in the conference. The conference season is like a death march. Today, Tennessee went up to the bluegrass of Kentucky and barely made it out alive. The Vols won a nailbiter, 52-50 in quadruple overtime. With the win, the Vols claimed the SEC East title and will play LSU next week in the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta.

The Fighting Manginos, aka Kansas Jayhawks, have had a great run this season. However, their hated archrival Missouri Tigers are just a little better. Mizzou had their way with KU for most of Saturday evening at Arrowhead Stadium. As a Sooner fan, I do not look forward to facing Mizzou for a second time next week. OU can’t win a national championship. However, the Sooners can keep Missouri from winning one.

Speaking of OU, the Sooners rebounded from last week’s debacle in West Texas by pounding Oklahoma State, 49-17. OU thus clinched the Big 12 South Division championship. The Sooners will be in the Big 12 championship game for the sixth time in eight years. They have a chance to become the first team in the history of the Big 12 to repeat as champion. The Sooners have championships in 2000, 2002, 2004, and 2006.

Two head coaching jobs came open on Saturday. At Nebraska, Tom Osborne did the expected and gave the boot to coach Bill Callahan. Ole Miss fired head coach Ed Orgeron, and thus deprived several college football blogs of plenty of choice material.

Does Brent Musburger remember that KU’s nickname is Jayhawks? He seems to love to refer to them as the Manginos. He’s done that several times tonight. I know “Fighting Manginos” is a cool moniker, and I’m guilty of using it a lot. It just sounds weird in the middle of the game.

2 comments:

Zee said...

UH is getting jipped!

John said...

Actually, UH is #12 in this week's BCS rankings. If they beat Washington this week, they'll probably go to the Sugar Bowl.

Hawaii couldn't get anyone to play them this year. They wanted to play at Michigan in place of Appalachian State, but UM chose to play ASU. They've also had big-time teams back out on them. That's why they played Northern Colorado and Charleston Southern this year.