Calling All Brain Cells . . . .
After a couple of tough back-to-back Gator losses, we were granted a reprieve from more pain and misery this weekend courtesy of a timely off-week. An off-week for the Gators equals a weekend get-away for Mr. and Mrs. SportDork, so we decided this was the perfect opportunity to tour the historic city of Bath and to see Stonehenge, one of the seven wonders of the Middle Ages - and more importantly, also a convenient two-hour drive from our home-away-from-home here in England.
We had a great time visiting both Stonehenge and the city of Bath, and as usual, I have a variety of photographic jewels to share with you. But as you know, getting those pictures ready for SportDork.com takes time - time that I have but choose not to utilize very efficiently - which means you're going to have to wait until Friday to see Stonehenge through the eyes of The SportDork.
Mrs. SportDork and I had very different reasons for wanting to visit Stonehenge. Mrs. SportDork wanted to take in the magnificence of the mysterious prehistoric monument, while I just wanted some answers to this year's college football season. Upon arrival, I inched up as close to the stones as the security rope would allow, and whispered, "What will the rest of the college football season bring?" Suddenly, the wind began to howl, and I heard a soft voice behind me. "I don't know much about the BCS, but I can promise you that you will encounter great pain and misery if you keep watching twelve hours of re-aired college football games every Sunday." I turned to find Mrs. SportDork standing close behind me, eyes wide with surprise. "Did you hear that?" she whispered, in a tone eerily similar to the voice I had heard moments earlier. "Sounds like pretty sage advice from the stones." I couldn't argue - while the advice had not actually come from the stones, it was sage nonetheless.
I left Stonehenge slightly disappointed that the only predictions I had been given for the rest of the football season had come from my wife, and that they involved the specter of serious physical injury rather than the names of the BCS bowl teams. My search for answers continued as we made our way to the Great Roman Bath, where we came across this guy:
I knew if anyone held the answers to this season, it was him. I wasted no time tracking him down.
Here I am asking him why the Gators are so ineffective when they run the Cover 2, and how that will impact us against a great passing attack like Kentucky's. He didn't have many insights into the nuances of the Cover 2, but that did not dissuade me.
I had to know whether he held the answers to this year's season, so I posed the same question that Stonehenge had been unable to answer. Here he is providing the answer:
"Expect the unexpected, my son. Today's college athletes possess great athleticism and very little brain power - a powerfully dangerous combination. Go forward with great caution. And try the vegetable pie at the concessionaire stand on your way out. It's very tasty."
I thanked him for his time and wisdom. I only had one more question.
Here he is after I asked him whether he was wearing anything underneath the robe. I thought it was funny.
Well, talk about unexpected! Not only was the vegetable pie far tastier than I ever would have imagined, but when we got home on Sunday and I went on line and checked the scores from this weekend's games, I found out LSU and Cal had lost on Saturday, throwing the mythical/imaginary national championship race into complete turmoil. But it wasn't until I sat down in front of a rerun of College GameDay Final and saw highlights of this weekend's games that I truly understood the wisdom of what I had heard just a day earlier. ESPN likes to coin a term for each Saturday of the college football season, like "Redemption Saturday", or "Statement Saturday," so I came up with one of my own for this past Saturday: "Bonehead Saturday".
I sat on my couch on Sunday and watched one bone-head move by one bone-head player after another cost their teams a win. First, I watched Cal, with a chance to kick a field goal and tie the game against Oregon State with under a minute left and no timeouts, decide to take one more shot at the end zone before trying the field goal, in an attempt to avoid overtime. Not necessarily a horrible decision - until your quarterback inexplicably goes out on the next play and takes a sack in the middle of the field instead of throwing the ball away to stop the clock, time expires as the field goal team races on to the field, and Cal loses. That's one way to avoid overtime.
Then I watched Arkansas finally score a touchdown to go up 7 - 6 on Auburn with about 1:30 left in the game, putting themselves in position to pull out the victory. Of course, their kicker promptly runs onto the field for the ensuing kick off and manages to do the one thing he absolutely can not do in this situation - kick the ball out of bounds. Auburn accepts the penalty, Arkansas re-kicks from ten yards further back, and Auburn runs it back to their own 45-yard line. A few plays later Auburn is in field goal range, and their kicker trots on and kicks the winning field goal as time expires.
Finally, I watch Vandy, tied with Georgia late in the game, drive deep into field goal range, confident that I will be spared any bone-head plays, since Vandy allegedly has student-athletes that are students and athletes. As I'm waiting for the highlight of Vandy's kicker putting one through the uprights to win the game and upset Georgia, I'm instead treated to a highlight of Vandy's running back fumbling and Georgia recovering, which is followed by a highlight of Georgia's kicker hitting the game-winning field goal with time expiring.
What's incredible is that this is merely a sampling of the frightening lack of brain power that was showcased all over the country by Division I football players last weekend. Even more incredible is the fact that we will continue to witness a parade of similarly bone-headed moves during the course of every weekend from now until the end of the season, because not a single other player on a single other team will actually learn from any of these painful lessons. They will continue snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory by running out on to the field and making the one mistake that they absolutely can't afford to make at the one time when they can't afford to make it. As painful as it is to watch, I hope they never stop. What fun would that be?
Sportdork--
Alabama and Auburn should not ever be confused.
Bama won 27-24 over Ole Miss on a questionable ref reversal at the end of the game.
Auburn was the beneficiary of Arkansas stupidity.
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I sincerely apologize. That is worse than any homonym screw-up. Looks like the Gators aren't the only ones that had an "off-week." You are the second person to point out a blatant error in today's entry. The worst part is that I watched a replay of the Auburn/Arkansas game, and yet that's the one I screwed up. The error has been corrected. My only explanation is that I must have spent too much time in the sauna this weekend.
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Dear AJSD,
I loved two things about today's entry. First, you talked about sports. Secondly, you took the exact same picture with Nostra Dumbass and he couldn't help, but blink in the presence of your manliness. Way to intimidate the little guy. The only thing missing was you duct taping him to a shopping cart and sending him up and down the elevator for hours on end!
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Another satisfied reader. That's what we're all about here at SportDork.com. It's really no surprise that ND blinked - the pictures on SportDork.com are enough to reveal how overwhelming my manliness is.
I have to admit that I'm not really following you on the whole duct tape, shopping cart and elevator thing. I must have blocked it from my memory. But hey - as long as you're happy, I'm happy.
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