Monday, November 8, 2010

Zenyatta Finished Second

The most entertaining race horse I have ever seen, Zenyatta, finished 2nd in her final race Saturday.  She ran dead last for nearly half the race and thundered back in a thrilling sprint, losing by a nose.

Penn State was pretty dead for nearly half its game on Saturday, trailing 21-0.  They came roaring back and crushed an all too cooperative Northwestern team, 35-21, as Joe Paterno bagged #400.  Props to the Coach.

The early games on Saturday were pretty interesting.  In a thrilling finish Indiana beat Iowa, oops, he dropped it, Indiana loses again.  Illinois at Michigan was highly entertaining, even more so if you didn't mind the two Michigan fans acting as ESPN announcers.  The Air Force wore special retro unis for their beatdown of Army, pretty cool.  Baylor was thrashed by OK State, bringing the Bears down to earth a little bit. Later games: Navy scored 67 points.  In football.  Alabama lost to LSU, officially ending any title aspirations.  TCU and the Ducks rolled again. 

In our one star game, Illinois at Michigan, the two teams traded haymakers all day, starting with a TD on the first play from scrimmage.  Michigan showed itself to be not Denard dependent, as their starting QB exited the game and Tate Forcier put on quite a performance in relief.  The two teams ended up tied at 45 at the end of regulation. Then to OT and tied at 52, then tied at 59 (as a pass was broken up by the Illini defense, then tipped into the Michigan receiver's hands, TD, argh!), then finally Michigan prevails, 67-65 as the Illini are unable to convert when it got to mandatory 2 point time.  It's a one star winner for us, and a heart breaker for Illinois.

The four star game, Wyoming @ New Mexico, featured an expensive lesson in "swagger later" that turned the game around and cost us a lot of cash.  Early in Q3, Wyoming was about to add to their 21-14 lead over winless New Mexico, which would have put a fork in the Lobos, when running back Cowboy running back Robert Herron took the handoff at the 3 and ignored the "cover up the ball" lesson that kids learn when they're tiny little football players.  He had the ball knocked loose before he was past the line of scrimmage, turnover, one of 4 Cowboy TO's for the night and the end of Mr. Herron's playing time for this game.  NM's subsequent 3 pointer made that a 10 point turnover and energized a sagging Lobos team.  When the Lobos scored to go ahead 31-24 with 8 minutes to play, the announcers were stunned, the team was racing around like their hair was on fire, and our money was as good as gone. Final NM 34, WY 31 on a last second field goal, four star loser, and NM's first win of 2010.

A&M 33-19 over Oklahoma, two star loser.  Texas Tech 24, Missouri 17, three star loser.  Un-freaking-believable.  Our worst season ever gets more challenging.  We're at negative 14 for the year.  Breaking even before bowl season is the goal now, as pathetic as that sounds. 

Out goes the new logo that maybe brought us bad juju and in comes the new new logo and some good juju. 

That's the plan, anyway.

No comments: