Sunday morning coffee....

It's a rainy Sunday morning in Fondren. The coffee is hot and strong. I'm watching Ryder Cuppers start to warm up, and reflecting on what I watched last night flipping channels between the Monsoon Bowl in Hattiesburg and Ole Miss-Bama in Tuscaloosa.

• Really hard to make definitive observations about Louisville-USM because of the playing conditions, which were horrid. No. 19 Louisville waded out of The Rock with a 21-17 victory. I do know Charlie Strong, Louisville's fine coach, has to be proud of his team to come away with a victory because all the ingredients for a huge upset were present.

Looked to me like Louisville, after being gashed by USM's running game in the first half, just brought everybody to the box in the second half and dared the Eagles to throw. USM could not; not sure anybody could have in those conditions. Great effort by Elllis Johnson's team. After the Western Kentucky game I wondered if the staff might have lost the team. Clearly, they have not.

• Ole Miss, a 33-14, loser at Bama is making strides. The Rebels looked like they belonged on the same field with Alabama, the best team in the country. You have to be impressed with the coaching on both sides of the ball. Dave Wommack's defense really took it to Bama. Reminded me of the way some of Wommack's defenses played at USM.

Offensively, Ole Miss is maximizing what it has. At one point, you had a quarterback, who was playing juco ball last year, handing off to a running back, who formerly played juco quarterback, for a 10-yard touchdown against the best defense in college football. It was impressive.

Would love to be a fly on the wall in Nick Saban's film review today. He has teaching moments aplenty and will point out at length how Ole Miss out-hustled his No. 1 ranked Crimson Tide.

Never thought I'd write this in 2012 but six victories is not out of the question for Ole Miss, if the Rebels can stay healthy.

Thumbs up to MC's proposed move up

 

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Mississippi College Thursday announced its intention to return to NCAA Division II, the level on which its teams played until 1996 when the school dropped back to Division III.

This is good news for Mississippi College, good news for Delta State and good news for the Gulf South Conference, which already has tendered MC an invitation to rejoin the conference, contingent on the NCAA's approval of the Choctaws' move to Division II.

It is not a done deal. The NCAA carefully weighs the pros and cons of any move such as this one, and many applications to move up a division are turned down. My guess is that this one won't be. We'll see.

“It's a process,” MC athletic director Mike Jones said. “We've made the first step in the process but there's a long way to go.”

If the process goes as expected, the NCAA would announce a decision on MC's request as early as next July.

Why is this good for Delta State, you ask? Because Delta State misses the arch-rivalry it had with Mississippi College. Delta State-MC was an Alabama-Auburn type rivalry of Division II. Having MC back as a regular rival would increase DSU's publicity in central and south Mississippi.

Why is it good for Mississippi College? Because MC fans identify more with the Gulf South Conference than with their recent Division III rivals. Because the road trips will be shorter. Because media exposure, especially the Gulf South's TV exposure, will be much better.

Why is it good for the Gulf South Conference? Because the Gulf South is Division II's SEC, the best D-II league in the land. What the GSC doesn't have are a lot of big markets. The Jackson metropolitan area will add much to the GSC's footprint.

It's a good deal for all involved. I can't imagine that the NCAA would say no, not when the Gulf South is clearly backing MC's move.

Thoughts and prayers with Jake Gibbs family

Over the past 30 years, I'm guessing I have called Ole Miss great Jake Gibbs at home probably far more than 100 times for various stories, columns or books.

Invariably, Patricia Gibbs, Jake's wife, would answer in her soft, pleasant voice, and we'd usually talk for 10 or 15 minutes before she either got around to calling Jake to the phone or telling me Jake was on the golf course or somewhere else.

Always, she was pleasant and kind. Our conversations often lasted longer than my interviews with Jake, who remains one of my all-time favorite people in Mississippi sports.

Patricia died Monday at her home.

Services will be Thursday, September 27, 2012 at 10:00 A.M. at First Baptist Church with Dr. Robert Allen and Dr. Eric Hankins officiating. Burial will follow in Oxford Memorial Cemetery. Visitation is today 4:30 P.M. until 7:00 P.M at Waller Funeral Home.

Born in Boliver, TN, Mrs. Gibbs was a member of First Baptist Church of Oxford. She enjoyed reading, playing bridge, cooking and spending time with her grandchildren.

Survivors include her husband; three sons, Dean Gibbs and his wife, Paula of Oxford, Monte Gibbs and his wife, Joyce of Oxford, and Frank Gibbs and his wife, Mary Heather of Hernando, MS; one brother Bill Callaway of Greenville, MS and seven grandchildren.

Memorial contributions in Mrs. Gibbs’ memory may be made to First Baptist Church, 800 Van Buren Avenue, Oxford, MS 38655.

The thoughts and prayers of the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame Museum staff are with the Gibbs family.

Jake Gibbs 

NFL: greed personified

Greed, one of the seven deadly sins, might eventually bring down the multi-billion dollar industry that is the NFL.

The NFL's general attitude, concerning not only officials, but fans and also the former players who built the game into what it has become today, can best be described by the age-old quote: "Let them eat cake."

Roger Goodell, meet Marie Antoinette.

We are talking about the most successful sports league in history, recruiting officials from the bush leagues to regulate games involving some of the most gifted athletes in the world. The results, including Monday night's, are predictable.

It's almost like if the President of the United States, with war at hand, called an emergency meeting of his cabinet and then decided, instead, to substitute the Holmes County Board of Supervisors.

The officials' controversy will not in itself bring the league down, but the general attitude might.

Here's what is worst: The league continues to turn its back on veteran players, who made pennies in the league's infancy, and suffered injuries that have essentially ruined their lives.

Those ex-players are in the process of joining together in a class action suit that could cost the league dearly. And, frankly, I'm pulling for the ex-players, many of whom are in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and have been forgotten by the league they helped to build.

Saints get little respect here

 Orley vowed a comeback last week and he delivered, cutting Rick's lead to a measly one game on the season. Cleveland is now 21-8, Hood 20-9, and, no, that's not against the spread. Both missed on the Saints, but both appear to have learned their lesson.

 

 Orley's picks

 Ole Miss at Alabama: It’s one of those weeks when one of college football’s mere mortals, in this case Ole Miss, pays the price for playing in the SEC West, which is a lot like playing in the NFL, but with better officiating. Tide 38, Rebs 10.

Louisville at Southern Miss: Whatever disease USM has, it’s hard to see it getting cured in one week. I hope the coaches burned the Western Kentucky tape. Louisville 31, USM 17.

Tennessee at Georgia: Rick made fun of me for picking UT over Florida. Something about once a dope, still a … If Derek Dooley doesn’t pick it up, he’s going to find himself back in Athens living with Vince and Barbara. Georgia 38, UT 21.

Medlen's mastery and more. . . .

 

Scattershooting on a Sunday morning, wishing I could watch Kris Medlen pitch every day (and so does Fredi Gonzalez wish that) . . .

Seriously, Medlen has become a Greg Maddux clone. He is 8-0 with a 0.76 earned run average in 10 starts this season. The Braves have won the last 21 games Medlen has started, and if they win the next one, he will equal Whitey Ford's 22 straight winning starts of 60 years ago. Those are crazy numbers. Not surprisingly, the Braves have arranged their pitching rotation so that Medlen would pitch the one-game wild-card playoff. And, with apologies to Tim Hudson, that's a no-brainer. . . . Medlen-Maddux similarities? Both field their position like shortstops, both look like accountants in baseball uniforms, both throw the ball with pinpoint control and both have just the right amount of cockiness. . . .

You have to like the way Ole Miss took care of business in New Orleans after the thrashing at the hands of Texas: crisp, business-like, effective. . . . Didn't get to see State's romp over South Alabama, but the score was predictable. Bulldogs still on schedule to be 7-0 going into Alabama. They should be favored in the next three . . . .

I've been watching Southern Miss football for more than half a century and, no, I did not see this coming. I knew there would be some rough spots, with the loss of four-year starter Austin Davis at quarterback and the coaching staff change. But 0-3 and losing by 25 to Western Kentucky? Looks like a snowball going the wrong way, unless something happens fast. . . . Louisville, Boise State and then UCF coming up next three weeks. Yikes....

Florida State is, in a word, back . . . .

LSU looked mighty, mighty ordinary last night. Presently, I'd make Alabama a 10 point pick over the Tigers — and, for that matter, at least a 10-point pick over anybody. . . .

Add Missouri's new football uniforms to the growing list of togs that would be better off burned and forgotten. . . . Oregon started this, and it has gotten out of hand. . . .

Congrats to Deuce McAllister, the newest Saints Hall of Famer. Great that it happens with so many Ole Miss fans still in New Orleans from the Tulane game.. . .

Time for the Saints to win one, right? Let's see. . .

It really did happen 35 years ago. . .

(Author's note: It happened 35 years ago this week. Ole Miss defeated eventually national champion Notre Dame on a sweltering day at Veterans Memorial Stadium. Ten years ago, this was written for The Clarion Ledger on the 25^th anniversary of the game. Reprinted with permission of the Clarion-Ledger.)

Much of college football's appeal is that we never know what will happen. We may think we know, but we never really know. Coaches often say it like this: "On any given Saturday..."

This given Saturday happened 25 years ago today: Sept. 17, 1977. The circumstances seem more remarkable a quarter century later than on that hot, steamy day at Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium when the scoreboard flashed the final, shocking score: Ole Miss 20, Notre Dame 13.

Consider:

• Joe Montana, perhaps the greatest quarterback ever, never got off the Notre Dame bench. But Tim Ellis, Ole Miss' third-string quarterback and a forgotten man at the time, threw the winning touchdown.

• That Ole Miss team, beaten by Alabama the week before and by Southern Miss the week afterward, would win only five games. Notre Dame, ranked No. 3 that day, would win 11 and the national championship.

• Notre Dame's Dan Devine would win national coach of the year. Ole Miss coach Ken Cooper would be fired that November.

Bad day? Remember Shorty Mac

If I'm having a bad day here at the museum, there's one sure way to turn things around and lift my spirits.

I just go out into the museum, step up to one of the kiosks and touch the screen to hear another great story from another great Mississippi legend.

One of my favorites follows. Mississippi State's late, great Shorty McWilliams, the only four-time All-SEC football player in history, tells about his first game at Tiger Stadium. The Bulldogs were in their pregame warmups and Shorty Mac was punting out of the end of the end zone. We'll let Shorty take it from there:

“Unbeknownst to me, they rolled up Mike the Tiger in that cage right behind me. I didn't know he was there and that 500-pound tiger roared. Oh he roared at the top of his lungs. It scared me so bad. It scared the (beep) out of me. I ruined myself. I had to play the whole game in those pants.”

My daddy used to take me up to Shorty's Weidmann's restaurant in Meridian. The food was great, but what was better was listening to Shorty Mac tell his stories.

And by the way, there'll never be another four-time All-SEC player. Anybody that good these days will take the money and run to the NFL for his senior season.

The late Dick Smith, a sports writer and later a newspaper owner, told me about one of Shorty's games at Meridian High in 1943.

“Meridian was playing Tupelo for the Big Eight Championship,” Smith said. “First seven times Shorty touched the ball, he scored. Short runs, long runs, kick returns, didn't matter. Every time he got the ball, he scored.

“The eighth time he touched it, he ran 70 yards until he pulled his hamstring and went down on the two-yard line. Of course, by then, Meridian was so far ahead, they didn't need him.”

Hood vows a comeback

Did the cream start to rise? Or did Orley just have an off day. Cleveland went 8-1 last week, while Hood faltered at 6-3.

On the season, Cleveland leads at 13-5, compared to Hood's 11-7.  Says Orley, "The comeback begins this week." 

We shall see...

Orley's picks

Ole Miss at Tulane: Good for the Rebs to be back at sea level, competition-wise, after a hard day’s night against Texas. Question is, can they heal the bruises, physical and psychological, by Saturday? It’ll be a red and blue weekend in the home of the Green Wave. Ole Miss 38, Tulane 20.

South Alabama at Mississippi State: Reckon USA will double cover Chad Bumphis? Sure. Reckon State’s defense, awful at Troy, can recover from a near nightmare? Sure. State 45, USA 14.

USM at Western Kentucky: The Golden Eagles have been golden duds so far, while Western’s coming off an exhilarating overtime victory against Kentucky. The road may not be the place to get well. WKU 24, USM 20.

LSU at Auburn: LSU rang up 63 points last Saturday while Auburn had a near death experience with Louisiana-Monroe. There won’t anything “near” about the carnage this week. LSU 52, Auburn 17.

Sunday morning musings. . .

Scattershooting while wondering how Oxford's plumbing held up to the Texas invasion. . .

• Did you see the play Western Kentucky used to beat Kentucky in overtime? It was a throwback from a halfback to the quarterback who made a shoestring catch and then could have walked into the end zone. It was a thing of beauty.

• Did you see the personal foul call against Louisiana-Monroe that extended an Auburn touchdown drive in Auburn's narrow victory. It was disgraceful. It was a clean hit and the call could easily have cost ULM its second straight road victory over an SEC opponent.

• Yeah, it was close, but State prevailed at Troy. Of all the things that have impressed me about Dan Mullen's coaching at dear ol' State, the most impressive is this: He wins the games he's supposed to win. That's the key at Ole Miss and State. Win the ones you are supposed to win and then get a couple you aren't. That means a bowl game every year.

• Count me among those who won't mourn USC's (and Lane Kiffin's) late-night loss to Stanford. Just goes to prove there is some justice in the world.

• Rest in peace, Arkansas.

• Have to say: Athletically, not a whole lot of Rebels looked like they belonged on the field with the Longhorn super studs but one who did was sleek, gifted wide receiver Donte Moncrief who is a monster of an athlete.

• Scary: Alabama has an athlete like Moncrief at every position and others chomping at the bit to get on the field.

• Somebody tweeted at me in the wee hours, asking what was the most points ever given up by an Ole Miss team. The answer was 92 to Vandy in 1915. So then I started looking at that Vandy-Ole Miss series in the early years. Fact: Vandy outscored Ole Miss 520-2 in the first 16 meetings between the two teams. Early this morning somebody tweeted back: “Ole Miss's recent record against Vandy isn't much better.

• Still like the play-calling and attacking, fast-paced offense Hugh Freeze is employing at Ole Miss, but he needs more Moncriefs and more beef up front.

• OK, time to get ready for the Saints vs. Cam...

It's all uphill for USM . . .

 

For the first time since 1998, Southern Miss football is off to an 0-2 start.

For the first time in 14 years, the Golden Eagles lost their home opener.

For the first time since October of 2010, USM lost a home game.

Simply put, following Saturday's 24-14 loss to East Carolina, USM football and first-year head coach Ellis Johnson face the biggest uphill climb Golden Eagle football has faced in years.

Clearly at stake: a streak of 17 straight winning seasons and a streak of 10 consecutive seasons that ended in bowl games.

USM out-gained East Carolina 324 to 228, but in this case statistics were clearly for the losers. The stat that mattered most: turnovers, which showed USM with three and East Carolina with not one.

The third quarter was a USM disaster. Leading 7-3 at halftime the Golden Eagles turned the ball over three times and were outscored 21-0. Anthony Alford, making his first start, showed flashes of the ability that made him Mississippi's Mr. Football as a high school senior, but he was often inaccurate with his passes and his reads.

Chris Campbell, who started USM's first game against Nebraska, relieved Alford late in the third quarter and showed more passing accuracy throwing for 145 yards and a touchdown.

Johnson and offensive staff have a decision to make before next Saturday's game at Western Kentucky in a rare must-win September game for the Eagles. Lost that one and Eagles would be 0-3 going into a three-game stretch against 19^th ranked Louisville, Boise State and Central Florida. USM no doubt will be underdogs in all three.

Johnson said afterward the quarterback job is “back open.”

“It's definitely a question right now,” Johnson said. “It's not one we can answer just coming off the game field.”

The guess here: Campbell will start and Alford will be used in short yardage situations. Regardless, USM must play better in all areas if the Eagles are to experience an 18^th consecutive winning season.

20 years ago, a bull became a steer

I'm just guessing that Hugh Freeze hasn't used any props or gizmos to get his Ole Miss Rebels fired up to play the Texas Longhorns Saturday. If the Rebels aren't amped for this one, something's wrong.

But, lest we forget, 20 years ago this week, Jackie Sherrill, then the head coach at Mississippi State, was getting his team ready to play Texas. And Jackie, who never missed a trick, used a prop.

His name was Willy.

Remember?

How could you forget?

Jackie decided to show his football players how a bull becomes a steer. Let's put it this way: Jackie took two — from poor Willy — for the team.

Mack Brown's Mississippi past

Let's go back 37 years to the fall of 1975. I was learning on the job as a sports reporter who still didn't need to shave at The Hattiesburg American.

It was my first full-time newspaper job.

Mack Brown, who will coach Texas at Ole Miss this Saturday night, was learning on the job as the wide receivers coach on Bobby Collins' first staff at Southern Miss.

It was Brown's first full-time coaching job.

I was 23; he was 24.

He played tennis; I played golf. He tried to convert me, correctly saying I'd get a lot more exercise in much less time on the tennis courts. Besides, he said, assistant football coaches, who aspire to be head coaches, have far too little free time for golf.

These guys can't pick their noses

So, we move into the third week of the college season, all square as they would say at the British Open. After two weeks, Orley and Rick are dead even at 5-4, meaning they have picked one more right than wrong. That would be good against the spread, but they're picking head-up. Which means, of course, chances are they could have done just as well flipping a coin.

It is early in the season, so maybe they'll eventually get into mid-season form. Or, maybe not.

Orley goes first 

Mississippi State at Troy: If you’re a State fan and you have gray hair, this is why. A sucker game, on the road. Who scheduled this? Big win against Auburn, then off into the darkness south of Montgomery … Better be ready. State 28, Troy 17.

Texas at Ole Miss: Tailgating heaven, no question. The Grove will be rockin’. Then the game will start. Hugh Freeze just doesn’t have the bullets to take down the Longhorns. UT 42, UM 17.

East Carolina at Southern Miss: No fun for ECU at South Carolina. No fun for USM at Nebraska. The Golden Eagles get well first, kicking the unforced error blues. USM 28, ECU 24.

Texas A&M at SMU: Have the Aggies already gone back to the Southwest Conference? Is Craig James playing for the Ponies? Wouldn’t matter. That A&M kid QB can get it. Here’s to the SEC … A&M 38, SMU 20.

Florida at Tennessee: Remember when Peyton Manning played quarterback at UT and the Vols could never beat the Gators? That was then and this is now (no, cause and effect are not in play). This is a battle of coaches trying to work their way through the heavy shadows of tradition and back into the limelight. Vols 31, Gators 21.

Rebels look sharp, coached

 

OXFORD — Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Central Arkansas and UTEP bear no resemblance to Arkansas and Mississippi State, and that's not to mention LSU and Alabama. Hugh Freeze's Ole Miss program still faces some growing pains in the lion's den also known as the SEC West.

But, bottom line, Freeze's first team, which defeated UTEP 28-10 here Saturday night, plays with purpose and with a plan. They play hard. Offensively, they are crisp, unpredictable. They don't miss a trick. Defensively, they run to the football and lock up on their tackles. They don't waste timeouts. They get the ball in the hands of their playmakers.

And did I mention they really play hard?

Except for a sluggish third quarter, the Rebels dominated a UTEP team that challenged Oklahoma well into the fourth quarter last week.

Fundamentally, Ole Miss looked so much better than last season or the season before. The Rebels blocked better. They tackled better. They hit harder. They didn't waste timeouts.

Russell stands tall for Dogs

ENROUTE FROM STARKVILLE TO OXFORD — About this time two years ago eventual national champion Auburn escaped Starkville with a narrow victory over Mississippi State.

The difference, I wrote then: Cam Newton. Had State successfully recruited Newton, State would have won that game going away. The difference was so obvious and it was the man behind the center.

Today, at Scott Field, the tables turned. State's Tyler Russell, poised, precise and so, so much better than his Auburn counterpart, was, in a word, the difference.

Russell completed 20 of 29 throws for 222 yards and three touchdowns. He was not intercepted. He stood tall in the pocket, took some monstrous hits and delivered time after time after time. He looked like the Meridian High quarterback who knocked off South Panola four years ago in the state championship game.

The final score — 28-10 — gives little indication of the whipping State put on Auburn this day before a bell-ringing crowd of more than 56,000. Auburn crossed the goalline only once and that on a 100-yard return of the second half kickoff. Otherwise, the Bulldogs limited Auburn to an anemic running game that looked like a juggernaut compared to when the Tigers tried to pass.

Gentle giant Hull was rock-solid

(The late Kent Hull will be honored Saturday at Scott Field when he becomes the fifth person and fourth football player to have his name added to the stadium facade. This is a column I wrote for The Clarion-Ledger the day Kent died last October.)

Solid. That's the one word to best describe Kent Hull. He was solid. Solid as a football player. Solid as a teammate. Solid as a person. Solid as a friend. Solid. Solid as granite.

There was no pretense, nothing phony, about Kent Hull.

Hull, whom I covered when he was a skinny, 18-year-old freshman at Mississippi State, became one of the greatest centers in NFL history. He died Tuesday from gastrointestinal bleeding at 50, far, far too young.

Kent was a good friend, so this is going to be personal.

He was in his first month at State, and I was in my first month at The Clarion-Ledger when we met in September of 1979. He was tall and long-limbed, the son of former Mississippi State basketball star Charlie Hull. Kent looked more basketball player than football player at that point, and the truth is, first-year State coach Emory Bellard probably wanted to redshirt him and bring him along slowly.

Injuries changed all that. Early on, Kent was starting, usually outweighed by 70 pounds or so by the guys whom he was assigned to block.

Orley Hood, then the sports editor of the old Jackson Daily News, interviewed Kent a couple days after his first start against Florida when a senior nose tackle thoroughly abused Hull.

"How was it?" Hood asked.

"I thought I was going to get killed," Hull answered.

"You mean hurt?" Hood asked.

"No, killed. I thought the guy was going to kill me."

That was Kent. He was a great interview, so honest, from Day One.

A Cristil-clear memory

Auburn and Mississippi State will play a huge game Saturday in Starkville. Hall of Fame broadcaster Jack Cristil will attend, health permitting, and Jack long ago lost count of how many Auburn-Mississippi State games he has seen.

No doubt, it's close to 60.

But Jack does remember one above all others.

“It was the mid-1950s and it was at Auburn,” Cristil said by telephone from his Tupelo home Thursday morning. “Oddly enough, Auburn won the game 26 to 25 or 27 to 26. This was back when players went both ways, and it was just a whale of a game.”

What a memory! The score was 27 to 26, Auburn, and it was 1955.

“Boy, what a game,” Cristil said, his distinct voice as strong as ever. “I remember out Arthur Davis (another Mississippi Sports Hall of Famer) was just marvelous all day."

Davis certainly was. Playing with a separated shoulder and injured knee, Art Davis (Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, Class of 1981) ran for a touchdown, passed for another score, had a 54-yard punt and made 11 unassisted tackles.

Payton: the best ever

After more than 45 years in sports writing, I have often been asked, "Well who's the best football player you ever saw."

I'm lucky. I covered the NFL's all-time leading passer (Brett Favre), the NFL's all-time leading receiver and scorer (Jerry Rice) and Archie Manning, patriarch of the first family of American football. All are from small-town Mississippi.

But the best, all-around football player I ever witnessed remains Walter Payton, another small-town Mississippian.He could do it all.

Sometimes, we need a reminder. Here's one:

Remembering Rube. . .

My good friend Michael Rubenstein would be 61 today. I, as so many, miss him. Here's a remembrance of Rube, narrated by Bert Case, which was shown at the annual Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame and Museum Banquet in July:

Week II: Orley, Rick agree to disagree

 

Orley Hood's picks:

Auburn at Mississippi State:  Last year, oh man.  Big. Auburn coming off the national championship. State full of ambition after making Michigan look like a junior high team in the bowl game.  State plays great. Wipes the field with Auburn. Loses. Splat. This time? State 24, Auburn 20. A year late, Bulldog nation’ll take it.

UTEP at Ole Miss: Doofus defense early. Lots of offense later. But it was Central Arkansas all game. Not this week. UTEP played Oklahoma tough last week. Rebs, depleted after two awful seasons and a coaching change, could go o-fer in the SEC. Again. Big, big game. UTEP 31, Ole Miss 24.

 Georgia at Missouri: Mizzou’s SEC debut. Georgia trying for a second straight SEC title game. Most every season Georgia seems to be overrated. This is a bad time, going to Columbia when maybe you ain’t what you oughta be. Missouri 20, Georgia 17.

Florida at Texas A&M: Same thing as above, traditional SEC power vs. newbie. Florida was awful last week. Two straight stinkers? Nah. Florida 31, A&M 21.

Confessions of a football addict

 

Yesterday, I learned how the other 99.99 percent lives. With no game to “cover,” I watched football on TV from 8 a.m. until midnight.

TV timeouts?

I just switched games.

It began with Notre Dame and Navy. “Are they really playing this early?” the wife said.

It ended with Oklahoma and UTEP. “They can't still be playing,” she said.

Gotta admit. I almost ODed on football. Some of those second-tier announcers are really, really awful. On the other hand, there's always the mute button.

A few observations:

Best halftime speech: Didn't hear it, but it had to be from Hugh Freeze: Ole Miss, down 20-14 at halftime to Central Arkansas, scores 35 straight points to win 49-27.