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After another week of sports action, and there are two things we still know for sure. NFL ovetime stinks, and Pat Summerall is more effective than a glass of warm milk at putting me to sleep. But the first thing I'll hit on this week is the underwhelming bowl peformance of what was thought to be the top football conference in America.
Big 12 Still Has Much to Prove This Week
Turns out the Big 12 may not beall that it was cracke up to be. Sure, they are 3-2 in bowl games thus far, but that number is misleading. Oklahoma State and Texas Tech were both in the Top 15 and got slapped in the mouth by Oregon and Mississippi in games they were heavily favored in. Kansas overwhelmed Minnesota as expected, and Nebraska impressed by taking down a tough Clemson team. In another matchup in which the Big 12 was heavily favored, Missouri needed a missed extra point and overtime to beat an overrated Northwestern team.
So now it's up to the big dogs in the Big 12 to prove the conference was anything but overrated. Another heavily favored team from the South is in action tonight as Texas should destroy Ohio State, at least on paper. The Buckeyes haven't stopped a prolific offense from outside the Big Ten in years, and their overrated offensive line has to deal with the defense that had the most sacks in college football this season, spearheaded by All American and multiple award winner Brian Orakpo. If the Longhorns sputter tonight, try not to be crushed by the stampede of people fleeing the Big 12 bandwagon. And if Texas does falter, expect those who back Oklahoma to be suddenly shaky in their support. Florida appears to be the better team anyways, and with the way the Big 12 has performed this bowl season I'm just hoping the Sooners don't lay another egg in a BCS game.
NFL Overtime Fail
I bemoaned the fact that the San Diego Chargers even made the playoffs, and getting a home game for "winning" that sad excuse for a division is proof that the NFL playoff system isn't all it's cracked up to be. So imagine my delight when the Chargers and Colts went to overtime Sunday. This golden opportunity to show how dumb the NFL is was not wasted as the Chargers won the toss and Philip Rivers took the offense down the field for the game-winning score without league MVP Peyton Manning getting to touch the ball. Brilliant. Why would you want an overtime showdown between rivals that features two of the best quarterbacks in the league when you can have the guy just named Most Valuable Player watch helplessly as his defense fails? So now a talented team that shouldn't have even been in the postseason heads into round two on the strength of Darren Sproles' legs and the world's dumbest overtime rules.
The announcers touched on Tony Dungy's thoughts about NFL overtime, and Dungy was very much in favor of the rule, which was shocking to me considering he has one of the best quarterbacks in the history of the league and those very rules prevented him from taking the field with the Colts' season on the line. I wonder if he's still in favor. But hey, it's not like you played your ass off for 17 weeks so you could be dispatched without getting the ball in sudden death OT. Oh wait.
Pat Summerall, the Grandfather of Boredom
I have this image of Pat Summerall that I pray is true because it helps me get through the day. I picture him as the most energetic, enthusiastic, passionate human on earth when he's not working. He runs 12 miles a day, does missions to Africa a few times a year, adopts a kid every month, and feeds the homeless just because he can. But as soon as he gets into the booth, something happens. It's like a microphone is his cryptonite. It sucks the life out of him so that he is unrecognizable to family and friends while the rest of the nation knows him as the bore you've seen calling games for decades. This is what I hope.
However, I fear that I am wrong. When FOX dusted Summerall off last week to call a bowl game, it was obvious that he was on top of his game. Unfortunately, that meant I was going to miss the game because that man's voice is the world's most powerful form of hypnosis. What's worse, he has handed the torch on to a younger man with equal ability to understate incredible sporting feats and make you truly believe that he hates his job and perhaps his life. I am speaking, of course, of Joe Buck.
Nobody in the business gets as much face time, and it seems that nobody in the business likes sports less than Buck. His call of David Tyree's now legendary catch in last year's Super Bowl was abominable. It was akin to sleeping through an earthquake. The man is a robot. I've heard more passion in video game announcing than Buck gives viewers on a seemingly daily basis. He's so dispassionate about having one of the world's greatest jobs that there's a web site dedicated to his comically understated way of calling games. When did it become en vogue for announcers to have no passion for what they were calling? At least pretend that you want to be calling the freaking Super Bowl. Give me Gus Johnson or Gary Thorne any day. At least they give a shit.
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