College football news

At home, #1 Ohio State BARELY got by Northern Ilinois. Really? The defending national champs with all that supposed talent were lucky to outlast a MAC team?

Down goes #2 Bama. It seems Ole Miss has their number. It was one thing for the Rebels at home to knock off the Tide last year, but quite another to march into Tuscaloosa this year and throttle them yet again.

How Michigan State rose to #4 after an unimpressive 3 point home win over lower-ranked Oregon, and two patsy games is a good question. Yesterday, again at home, the Spartans beat Air Force.

[Idle thought. Air Force features a triple-option running attack. In other words, the fly boys put all their stock in a ground attack? Something is wrong with that picture.]

Michigan beat UNLV 28-7. It sounds convincing, but it's really not. The Wolverines were 35 point favorites. Hey, despite all the bluster surrounding Jim Harbaugh's return, Michigan is still Michigan. UM couldn't cover a 35 point spread if a team of autistic Campfire Girls visited their Big House. This was the take the points no-brainer bet of the week.

Stanford knocked off #6 Southern Cal 41-31. Count yours truly among those that never did much care for Trojans. Ahem.

There was the Reggie Bush cheating thing, his shyster coach Pete Carroll bailing on the program for big pro money in Seattle when the school got slapped with major sanctions, and I'm pretty sure some guy named OJ once played football there. How did he work out? With USC, it always seems to be something, and not good.

So hurray for Stanford. They are generally considered the brainiest school in the Pac-12, much like Northwestern in the Big 10 -- or is that 14 -- and it's good to see brains win over the jock/brawn of USC once in a while.

[Idle thought II. If they're so smart, why do they call themselves the Cardinal, as in singular? Are they like the evil Borg of Star Trek fame? Everyone is assimilated into one mass entity?]

Besides, look at the alumni Stanford has turned out. John Elway won Super Bowls, went to the Hall of Fame, has a bazillion car dealerships, and is GM/Pres of the Denver Broncos. A very impressive career.

Then there's Condoleezza Rice, the former self-professed smartest person in any room she walks into. And Tiger Woods, former golfer extraordinaire turned serial adulterer and duffer. And Chelsea Clinton, arguably the homeliest female to have lived in the White House since Eleanor Roosevelt. We're talking SERIOUSLY ugly here, but at least one had brains.

Hmmm. On second thought, maybe rooting for the dumb jocks isn't such a bad idea after all.

There's worse things.....