5 Thoughts - Colts, Pats, & The College Game

Why the showdown by the Colts vs. Randy Moss and the Patriots proves the college game is better, the bounceback of Michigan and Mississippi State, and the lack of open bowl slots in the latest 5 Thoughts.

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Of course, I do really, really want to see this game

By Pete Fiutak   

1. You want proof that college football is better than the pro version? New England Patriots vs. Indianapolis Colts.

I'm an American. I'm an man. I'm 40. Actually, I'm 37, but my inner Mike Gundy got the best of me. I like football in all forms, and that includes the NFL when it's done well. But there's a reason I work in college football. There's a mega-storyline every Saturday, and teams don't have to travel to London to get a fired up atmosphere to play in.

With the on-field NFL product close to unwatchable this year without a die-hard hometown passion, a fantasy interest, or "investment" to attend to, the world is now ready to go nuts over arguably the greatest regular season matchup in pro football history, or what we in the college game like to call just another Saturday.

Because of all the rivalries, regular season games that actually mean something, and all the nationwide interest from Eugene to Columbus to Boston to Baton Rouge to Tempe, and everywhere in between, it's impossible to not be into this year's college football season with an intensity that no sport can match, and it's because of the set up. Just remember this when you're begging for college football to have a big playoff.

I'm for a four-team, plus-one style of playoff, but without some end of the year gimmick like every other sport has, we get to watch weekly battles that have a true sense of urgency. We get to watch Matt Ryan pull off a five minute miracle to beat Virginia Tech and know that we saw something that will be talked about by Eagle and Hokie fans forever. We get to see a Beaver Stadium crowd 100,000+ strong do everything humanly possible to try to will their team to a win over the number one team in America. We get to see USC frantically try to save its season on a final drive against Oregon. We get to see Georgia pull out all the stops to overcome its nemesis. We get to see Les Miles go for an unreal play call to keep a championship dream alive. We get games that mean something in a sports world full of pointless exercises in athleticism masked as entertainment.

By the way, the NBA regular season starts this week.

Circle of life, Big Ten style

By Richard Cirminiello

2. In what will surely go down as one of the strangest bookends to a regular season in college football history, Michigan is going to beat Ohio State on Nov. 17, coming full circle on a season that began with the infamous loss to Appalachian State on Sept. 1.  You can just feel this coming, as the Wolverines surged to a seventh straight win on Saturday afternoon.  Sure, the opponent was lowly Minnesota, but the underlying cause for optimism was that Michigan stayed on the tracks, despite not having both Mike Hart and Chad Henne for an entire game for the first in their careers.  While Hart and Henne rested, the Wolverines maintained momentum and bolstered their depth, getting solid production from freshman QB Ryan Mallett and sophomore backs Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown.  The confidence is building.  The stars are getting healthier.  WR Mario Manningham is back to being an integral part of the attack.  And the defense, so maligned during the 0-2 start, has climbed all the way up to No. 3 in the league, creating turnovers faster than a French baker and not allowing a meaningful second-half touchdown during the seven-game winning streak.  Michigan is all the way back, its respectability back intact and its to-do list now including a trip to Pasadena that seemed impossible two months ago.  Ohio State is a worthy No. 1 team, coming off an impressive win over Penn State Saturday night.  Its perfect season, however, is going to end in Ann Arbor by a Michigan team that’s in the process of authoring one of the great turnarounds in school history.  Ponder this: When the dust settles in January, what would qualify as the bigger shocker, the Wolverines losing to a team from the Southern Conference, or the Wolverines rebounding from an 0-2 start and the absolute depths of despair to win the Big Ten Conference?  Not as obvious as you might think.             

The Dogs bite back

By John Harris

3. On the opening night of the season, the Mississippi State Bulldogs had the national television stage all to themselves.  It was the fourth opener for head coach Sylvester Croom and one in which his Bulldogs needed to make a statement.  After a 45-0 whitewash, the Bulldogs appeared headed for another rough season.  However, along the way, the Bulldogs shrugged off that loss and became a viable bowl game threat in the SEC West.  They beat Auburn at Auburn earlier this season and beat new flavor of the month Kentucky in Lexington last Saturday.  They’re not the most fun team in the world to watch, but you know what, Croom, his staff and his players are winning games and are now one game away from being bowl eligible.  It may not sound like much, but Kentucky was in the exact same situation last year and was ranked in the top ten earlier this season. 

That night after the LSU loss, I felt for Sly and his staff.  The lead-up to the season came crashing down on all of them and it was painful to watch, unless you were an LSU fan, that is.  But, coming back from that defeat winning five of the next eight games has put them in a position to make some noise.  It won’t be BCS or even New Year’s Day game noise, but just being in the postseason would be a sweet song to hear this December for Sly and Bulldog nation.

Open bowling

By Pete Fiutak   

4. Call this a preemptive whine, and I’m doing it now because I know I’m going to end up having to hear the screaming in about three weeks.

There aren’t enough open bowl slots.

I’ve ranted on this before when it looked like the Big Ten would miss out on getting a team or two in, but now it also looks like the SEC, and potentially the Big East, will have teams on the outside looking in.

The problem is with the at-large bowl slots. There aren’t any. Navy gets the bid to the Poinsettia Bowl if eligible, and it’ll be eligible, meaning that the only possible opening anywhere will be the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl, and that’s only because there probably won’t be enough Pac 10 teams available.

Unless something crazy happens, the SEC will likely have ten bowl eligible teams (Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State and Arkansas), and with an upset, Vanderbilt could make it 11 (or ten if MSU or Arkansas crashes). There are slots for eight SEC teams to get in, meaning there could be three teams without a place to play if two teams don’t get into the BCS.

Hey Commodores, congratulations on having a shot at your first bowl since 1982, but you’re out for Miami University, the team you just beat easily. Instead of seeing Darren McFadden play his final college game before he leaves early for the NFL, you could be getting UTEP.

The bowls are always beautiful in their own way, and there are always wild surprises when you least expect them. Let’s just hope the matchups get people more excited than the average Sunday night Conference USA game.

Never work with children or animals

By Matthew Zemek

5. In a season straight from the loony bin, where just about everything makes precious little sense, you need to stop and ask yourself one simple question.
 
No, it's not Dirty Harry's "Do you feel lucky?"
 
The question is, "How come we haven't had seasons like this before?"
 
Seriously: with 19- and 20-year-old man-children playing before throngs of 60,000-100,000 people under withering scrutiny and intense pressure, why aren't more seasons this crazy?
 
The dysfunctional and disjointed nature of the 2007 college football season should only make all of us that much more respectful toward the coaches who have been able to win so consistently over an extended period of time. In this era of "what have you done for me lately?", we actually need to acquire a fundamental posture which instead asks, "what have you done for others over a long period of time?"
 
When you consider how hard it really is to survive a single college football season, the work of some of the sport's elder statesmen should earn them a certain degree of immunity from particularly ruthless forms of criticism.
 
The particular example I have in mind is Frank Beamer. Without embellishing the point, I'll say it simply: a number of Virginia Tech fans wanted Beamer to retire after Thursday's loss against Boston College. You don't have to be a philosophy major or a behavioral science professor to realize that such an outlook is incredibly sick and twisted. (If you even have to think a little bit on this matter, you need to see a therapist immediately.)
 
Elswhere in the country, I'm sure Pete Carroll is catching a little extra heat at USC. We all know how much crap Lloyd Carr has had to endure at Michigan. Hey, even Joe Paterno found himself under fire a few seasons ago when Penn State lost more games than it won. Philip Fulmer won a national title in Knoxville, but he's being savaged at Tennessee. (The irony of Fulmer's situation is that the current UT coach came to power only because he muscled out Johnny Majors in the early 1990s.) And of course, Larry Coker got run out of town in Miami last year, despite being a first-class individual who had almost no real missteps in first three seasons at the U. Doing a good job doesn't buy you much leverage or empathy these days in the world of college football. It's a shame.
 
Just remember: when your team reaches the mountaintop only to fall from grace a few years later, cut your coach some slack. With this season giving every coach a bundle of gray hairs, the least we can do is commend our more tenured coaches for winning as much as they have. Current frailties should only magnify the past; instead, far too many fans cite past glories as reasons to view present-day failures as unacceptable.
 
Stop getting it backwards, people. You try coaching 19-year-olds and discovering how little control you have when gameday rolls around.