Starting Five
1. Earlier this week John L. Smith declared Chapter 7 Bankruptcy (no one ever talks about the first six chapters, do they?). Yesterday Arkansas’ interim coach watched as his No. 8 Hogs squandered a 21-point lead — quarterback Tyler Wilson missed the second half due to an “above the shoulders injury” (psst: concussion) –and lost in overtime to Louisiana-Monroe.
2. Welcome to the O.C. SEC, bitch! Florida and Georgia travel to the SEC’s most recently annexed outposts, College Station, Tex., and Columbia, Mo., respectively, and spoil the SEC debuts of Texas A&M and Mizzou. Old man football? No, Grown Man Football.
3. The Pac-10 (for just for one weekend, Larry Scott prefers you not recall his own annexing) goes 9-1, including UCLA’s 36-30 upset of No. 16 Nebraska and Arizona’s 59-38 lassoin’ of No. 18 Oklahoma State.
4. Tommy Boy! Notre Dame quarterback Tommy Rees enters the game –and the 2012 season — for the first time with 2:12 remaining and leads the Irish on a game-winning drive while also saving Callahan Auto Parts. That’s gonna leave a mark!
Which one of these two should start Notre Dame’s next game at QB?
5. Kris Medlen: all he does is win. The Atlanta Braves win for the 19th consecutive time when Medlen starts, as he beats the New York Mess 11-3 and ups his record to 8-1.
The Reserves
Mother Nature smiles on Savannah State, as a 56-minute weather delay persuades officials to call the game at Florida State with the score 55-0 midway through the third quarter. You might say that God intervened where grown men should have.
Kick a game-winning field goal, earn $3,550 a year! That is essentially what happened to Edgar Castaneda of FCS school Sacramento State. The walk-on kicker, a transfer student in his first season there, booted a game-winning 30-yard field goal to upset Colorado and afterward was awarded a full-ride scholarship.
And we thought the Brooklyn Cyclones were a minor-league baseball team…
Louisiana-Monroe has now beaten both Alabama and Arkansas in the past six seasons, which is something that SEC West member Mississippi cannot say.
Seal accuses soon-to-be ex-wife Heidi Klum of aggravated Schwarzeneggering . Isn’t that crazy? (Crazy!?!)
As Heidi hit the catwalk this week, Seal is said to be vacationing in Hawaii and penning a Dracula musical.
Penn State kicker Sam Ficken misses four field goals, including the potential game-winner from 42 yards out as time expired, and the Nittany Lions lose at Virginia, 17-16. Former Penn State three-point specialist Anthony Fera, who transferred to Texas last month because he could, missed three field goals all of last season. You have to feel for Ficken, and for the Penn State defense, which forced four turnovers that led to just three points.
The New York Yankees fell into a first-place tie with the Baltimore Orioles after a blown call — a clearly missed call — cost them the chance to tie the game in the top of the 9th. The Orioles have two words (no, not those two words) in reply: “Jeffrey Maier.”
One week ago Oklahoma State beat Savannah State, 84-0, and North Carolina ripped Elon, 62-0. The Cowboys and Tar Heels both lost yesterday to unranked teams (Arizona and Wake Forest, respectively). Something tells us Ray Ratto and Jon Wilner (among others) will have neither ranked in their Top 25 in this week’s AP poll.
There are few spy novels as intriguing — not to mention horrific — as this real-life French Alps massacre story.
USC quarterback Matt Barkley, who celebrated his 22nd birthday by tossing six touchdown passes in a 42-29 defeat of Syracuse, will be the first one to tell you that wideouts Marqise Lee and Robert Woods make his job easy. Each one is spectacular. The latter’s Twitter handle is @HeismanWoods and we have absolutely no problem with that.
Woods is the goods
CPR was performed on a player, Tulane’s Devon Walker, on the field in the midst of yesterday’s game. Walker suffered a broken neck while making a tackle on the final play of the first half. Injuries, even devastating ones, are part of football, of course. The circumstances of the game, though, are this: Tulsa, facing 4th-and-2, was up 35-3 with :02 remaining in the first half and had the ball on the Green Wave 33. Tulsa called timeout. Then Tulane called timeout. Then the Golden Hurricane threw the pass play on which Walker was injured.