BCS National Championship Wrap-up

“The BCS Wrap-up Brought to you by the almost deceased 1996 Subaru Impreza”

In an odd twist of fate, the college football season ended on the same day that my 1996 Subaru died.  Yes, the one that sponsors the picks for you.  Perhaps it was just to much for the car to see its 12th football season come to a close.  Perhaps the 2007 itself was too much for the car.  In any event, let’s focus on the good times with the 1996 Subaru, instead of yesterday’s grim estimate  (when you have a car worth about $1500, its hard to justify spending $1200 on it to fix it).    

THE GOOD TIMES

1. December 1999, a young car with a sparkle in its headlight picks a younger LWN from the Marshall’s used car lot near Albany, NY.
2. January 2000-  LWN and the Subaru travel down interstate I-90 in a furious snow storm back to the University at Buffalo.  The trip took time, but the Subaru kept LWN safe from the elements
3. December 2002-  Record snow hit Buffalo, LWN and his friend “Damone” made their most daring two car trip back to Albany ever.  The two weaseled their way through 7 feet of snow to get home for the holidays.  The trip, usually taking four hours took 8.  The two drivers will later refer to that snow fall as “The Perfect Storm.”
4. The Spring Break trip with Deuce, Doughboy and The Grundle.
5. The “little car that could” towing my belongings from Bloomington to Philadelphia and back to Indianapolis.
6. All the doughnuts we pulled in various vacant New York State parking lots.

A Eulogy to my car– by LWN

Dear Subaru-

You were with me in my early college years until nearly the end of my 27th year on the planet earth.  You have been a friend, a traveling companion, a confidant, a champion.  We traveled nearly 100,000 miles together since we found each other in 1999.  Each mile is looked upon fondly by LWN.

You were there in the good and bad times.  Sure we smashed into some stuff together, but you purred on like a car twice your price tag.  I’ll never forget the time we hit a retaining wall near Dayton while you ferociously pulled all my belongings back to Indianapolis.  Instead of crumpling like a Saturn, you hit the wall, bounced off and continued to drive.  It was bravery like that which showed me why I invested so much faith in you.

You kept me from having a car payment for almost seven years.  I will miss you car!  You are undoubtedly my “Love of the Week.”

LWN

*If you would like to send your condolences, or have a good memory of my car please respond below.

                                                                                                                                                             

Wiping away the tears, we continue.  On the world’s greatest college football stage is there anyone you would rather have calling them game than Charles Davis and Thom Brennaman?  Exactly!  Who the fuck are these clowns?  Oh of course, I am sure all ten of you with the Big Ten Network know that Brennaman is the lead broadcaster for the network.  His greatest strength seems to be being in the right place at the right time.

Example 1-  He called the Boise State game against Oklahoma

Example 2-  He called the Michigan – App State game

The only thing less memorable about Brennaman than his lackluster performance is his catch phrase- “Can you believe it?!”  If I were an announcer, mine would probably be-  “That was so crazy I just shit myself!”  Now that is memorable.

Charles Davis is worse as a color guy.  Not a colored guy, I mean a guy who adds color commentary through the game.  He is so bland, there is almost nothing about him on wiki.

Let’s look at some of Davis’ remarks last night.

“It’s 3rd and long for Ohio State, you never know what Bo Pellini will dial up here.”

“It’s 3rd and long, who will Bo Pellini dial up here?”

“LSU inside the 10, let’s see what’s dialed up here.”

“Whoever the Baseball Coach is at Ohio State needs to spend some time on Boeckman………on sliding.” 

Bob Todd is the head baseball coach at Ohio State Charles, Bob Todd.

“Ohio State wants to show that power (OSU) can beat speed (LSU).”

With regard to the “dialing up” comments-

The first time I heard it, I was okay with it.  The second time, I wanted to “dial up” my local affiliate Fox 59 and tell them what kind of hack was adding commentary.  The third time, I wanted to “dial up” Fox’s national director of talent and send threatening messages.  The baseball coach comment drove me into a rage.  I personally know 5 people that could have done a better job. 

                                                                                                                                                            

The game seemed to go according to plan.  I was slightly surprised that Ohio State jumped out to the early lead, but adrenaline can do that for you.  I was not surprised that LSU’s speed and power ended up taking the game, even though Charles Davis seems to think LSU has no “power.”  Well Charles that’s odd since they have a successful white tailback who has in your words “deceptive” speed.  LSU spend over a quarter of their offensive plays running out of the “I” formation, and a tight “pistol” look which are forms of power sets in my opinion.

After Ohio State jumped out to the 10 point lead, the rest of the game seemed to go according to plan.  LSU makes a furious comeback, then exposed Boeckman for the hack he is.  You see, all season Boeckman was hidden behind a solid running game and defense.  His only good attributes are that he is tall, and he has long legs so he can run pretty well after five or six steps.  His arm is junk, he can’t stretch the field and has been most successful throwing quick passes into flat or the 10-15 yard seam route.  He was easy to hide because the Big Ten was down this year, and Ohio State’s 2007 OOC schedule (Youngstown State, Akron, Washington, Kent State) was weaker than the poo I took last night. 

LSU was most likely aware of this since they went one-on-one against the OSU wide outs all night.  To add insult to injury, when Boeckman threw that wild interception to Chevis Jackson (a ball that had no zip on it), Bo Pellini brought his back up safety through the middle.  Here is a quote from Boeckman on that pick.

 “I thought I was going to get more on the ball… Give their corner some credit.”

The strangest sequence of the game occurred in the third quarter.  The score was 24-10 LSU.  Ohio State stops LSU cold, even forcing Matt Flynn into an intentional grounding penalty on second down.  That made it third and twenty-three.  Incomplete pass, enter punt team.  For what ever reason, the goat of the game made his appearance.  Ohio State Linebacker Austin Splitter decided it would be a good idea to destroy the punter instead of blocking the kick.  1st down LSU.  On the ensuing play, Son of Ironhead decided to punch an LSU lineman after the play was over.  While it was a pretty good uppercut to the chin, the additional 15 yards made it easy for LSU to punch it into the end-zone. 

 

Goat of the game.  Nice Suit by the way Wangsta!

After that sequence, the game was no longer in question.  Sure the Buckeye faithful were rewarded with an INT and a TD, which I am sure made it worth the thousands of dollars they spend on game tickets, plane tickets, new apparel, hotels and drinking fees.

Let me end with some interesting commentary.  Who could I possibly root for in this game?  Ohio State-  The New York Yankees of college sports, or LSU- one of the worst public schools in the country?  Well I followed the spread from Vegas and went with LSU, but here is a quick look at the numbers.

Ohio State spends more than 100 million dollars a year on athletics (and they don’t even pay their athletes), while LSU boasts a 49% graduation rate for football players.  While this seems terrible, the school as a whole retains 83% of their students after freshman year but only 26% graduate in four years, 52% graduate in five years!  That’s higher education dear readers. The good news is that according to their own stats, you need higher than a “19″ on your ACT’s to get into LSU now.  Since I know my readers are a national audience, a 19 on the ACTs correlates to a 900 on the SATs.  For your information, the last time schools were ranked in tiers- (1st tier, 2nd tier, 3rd tier) LSU was a third tier school.

Well that is the end of the college football season.  See you next week when the “student-athletes” get back to working on their wrap sheets.

For the record, I ended the season “officially” at 40-40.