In what week could I correctly call the Mississippi State, Ole Miss, and Arizona State upsets and still only go 9-4? Maybe the greatest Saturday in college football history.
Last Saturday was spectacular. Everything happened. It was Mississippi’s biggest day since the fall of Vicksburg. Records fell almost as fast as top-10 teams. Katy Perry discovered college football. The Nationals and Giants played the longest postseason game in baseball history.
The Timbers got a massive, season-saving, come-from-behind win against the classless San Jose Earthquakes and that was at best the 34th most interesting thing that happened.
The week seven picks are below – but in place of the usual snippets on each game, I’m going to run you through my Saturday, October 4th.
Florida State 51, Syracuse 24 – Kirk Herbstreit had been making sly comments since the middle of summer about how much he wanted College Gameday to go to Ole Miss for the first time ever this year, and heading to Oxford for the ‘Bama game was really a no-brainer. Despite its many foibles – The Clarion-Ledger’s award-winning, KKK-bustinginvestigative reporter Jerry Mitchell just made a crack on Twitter about nobody actually graduating from Ole Miss – the campus is one of the prettiest in the country, and there’s no tailgating scene like The Grove.
Oklahoma 43, Texas 17 – Needless to say, Gameday at Ole Miss was a hit – and while Katy Perry was undeniably and insufferably annoying as the guest picker, there’s something to this tweet from Bruce Arthur: “Katy Perry brandishing a corndog and correctly predicting a college football upset of Ole Miss over Alabama is a top-10 American moment ever.”
Georgia 34, Missouri 24 – Even crazier is the connection between Katy Perry and Ole Miss: She’s from California and had never been to a college football game, it’s just that her manager was an Ole Miss fan and she was playing a show in Memphis the next day. So there Katy Perry was leading the crowd in Hotty Toddy chants and ripping the Alabama headgear off Lee Corso.
Auburn 45, Mississippi State 34 – And am I the only one relieved that Corso wasn’t seriously hurt? I’m not sure assaulting an 80-year-old is a surefire path to hilarity and joy, but I’m glad it worked out.
Baylor 51, TCU 24 – Speaking of assaults: Mississippi State just bludgeoned Texas A&M in Starkville. Along the way, everyone realized that Dak Prescott is Tim Tebow – Tebow also was a big, run-first quarterback who wore #15 and had Dan Mullen as his offensive coordinator – but I’m just happy I’m going to spend the rest of the season saying, “DAK!” To the victor goes the spoils – for the first time ever, Gameday is going to Starkville for the game this weekend against Auburn, the SEC on CBS will also feature a game from Mississippi State for the first time ever, and the Bulldogs join the Rebels on the cover of SI. Eat your heart out, Grant!
Notre Dame 34, North Carolina 13 – Also of interest in that early timeslot was Florida and Tennessee playing a game that drove watching fans to tears. Florida ended up winning 10-9 because they benched Jeff Driskel, and his replacement was going to be the new savior of the Gators until just a few hours later he was accused of sexually assault in Gainesville. You can’t make this stuff up.
Alabama 41, Arkansas 21 – But this day was really all about that 12:30-4:00 zone. We had Ole Miss – Alabama, Notre Dame – Stanford in a driving rainstorm that might have knocked out Lewis and Clark, Baylor and Texas, the Nats – Giants game getting under way, MLS soccer starting – TCU and Oklahoma were playing a thriller and it was in about fifth position on the Things To Watch list.
Penn State 27, Michigan 24 – If we’re being honest here, Alabama had no business beating Ole Miss, because they turned the game by blatantly cheating. With time running out in the first half and the score at 7-3 Tide, Alabama forced a fumble by grabbing the Ole Miss’ running back’s facemask, turning it 480 degrees, and stripping the ball. They then returned it for a touchdown to make it 14-3 going into the break. In the second half, Ole Miss outscored Alabama 20-3.
LSU 14, Florida 10 – As the games came down to the wire, mayhem broke. In the space of 20 minutes, we saw the following things happen.
Ole Miss finally broke through for the game-tying score on a long touchdown bomb from Colonel Fraser Bo Wallace, got a 15 yard penalty because a guy took his helmet off on the field (the Pac-12 refs would be proud) making the ensuing kickoff returnable. The kickoff was indeed returned, and Ole Miss forced a fumble, recovered, and took it in to make it 23-17, then contrived to miss the extra point twice, convincing everyone watching that they were conspiring to give the game away, only to see a tiny Ole Miss defensive back pull off an incredible interception in the back of the end-zone to kill off ‘Bama’s last drive and seal the game.
We also got a TCU lineman intercepting a Trevor Knight pass and return it for a touchdown to grab the lead, only to see Oklahoma block the TCU extra point, return it for a two-point safety, but hold on to get the signature, We Belong In The Big XXI, Gary Patterson is so sweaty he looks like he just showered with his clothes on win that they had waited three years for.
At Notre Dame, after scoring -634 points for the first three and a half quarters of the game, Stanford drove down for what appeared to be the game-winning touchdown until Everett Golson came back down the field and threw the real game-winning touchdown on fourth down to keep Notre Dame’s undefeated season intact.
Texas A&M 41, Ole Miss 37 – Also happening at this time: An unbelievable baseball game in Washington.
Let’s back up for a moment. The baseball playoffs have been off the charts this year. The majority of games have been decided by one run. The Kansas City Royals, helmed by the three-headed monster of Ned Yost, Don Wakamatsu, and Raul Ibanez appear to be the team of destiny. It’s incredible stuff.
In this game two between the Nationals and Giants, Nats starter Jordan Zimmerman was throwing a gem. In his last start of the regular season, Zimmerman threw a no-hitter, and he was pitching a shutout with his team up 1-0 in the 9th inning here.
But after a two-out walk, Nationals manager Matt Williams decided to pull Zimmerman and go to closer Drew Storen. Then, in the most typical Giants fashion, Buster Posey singled, and Pablo Sandoval drove a double down the left-field line to tie the game, with Posey coming around third for the winning run.
The resulting play at the plate was so close; it appeared even more inconclusive after 50 replays from 20 different angles. Eventually, Posey was called out, and the stage was set for extra-innings and the longest game in playoff history.
In the 10th inning, Nationals second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera thought he drew a walk on a 3-1 pitch right down the middle, and became irritated with the home plate umpire. He then watched the 3-2 pitch go right down the middle for a called strike three, became incensed, threw down his bat, threw down his helmet, started screaming, and was thrown out of the game.
This wasn’t a great strategy, since Cabrera was going to get approximately 34,324 more at bats in the game. Williams was also run in the resulting argument, and we settled in for the long haul.
By the 18th inning, batters were coming up to the plate half asleep and shivering with their 0-8 nights in toe. Instead of gut-churning excitement, there was a morbid curiosity about how much carnage the game could produce.
It could have gone on forever, until Brandon Belt clocked one into the upper deck and the Giants took it 2-1 after more than six hours.
Continue watching the baseball playoffs, folks. The drama is at level eleven.
Arizona 34, USC 31 – Meanwhile, the Timbers kept their season alive in Northern California when the soccer ball hit Rodney Wallace’s face on a corner and went in, Landon Donovan broke the all-time MLS assists record, and the Cardinals and Giants were almost done with the “late game,” which the Dodgers would end up winning 3-2 on a Matt Kemp home-run down the left-field line.
Also, Arizona State beat USC on a legitimate Hail Mary – their backup quarterback threw for 514 yards and five touchdowns in the game, and a suddenly pretty-likable Auburn team was beating the stuffing out of a bedraggled LSU.
And just when we thought the fun was over, that there was no more fun to be had, the Pac-12 rode to the rescue. UCLA managed to lose at home to Utah despite getting two cracks at a game-winning field goal – the first of which might have hit the pylon before a dramatic cut to the kicker, who was lying on the ground as if he’d been shot – or apparently, roughed.
No worries though, because he missed again after the kick was moved up five yards.
We also had a game in which Cal beat Washington State 60-59, because Connor Halliday could set the single-game passing record and the Cougs could score 59 points, but a game-winning 19-yard field goal proved to be too much.
After using a complicated formula, it was proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Nevada will in fact win the Pacific 12 conference this year.
The carnage? Five of the top eight in the AP Poll for the first time ever, and four of the top six for the first time since 1990, lost. This was the kind of day SportsCenter was made for. It was, in fact, the only day SportsCenter is tolerable for.
It was beautiful. Sometimes, sports make you feel dumb for loving them so much. Sometimes, they make you feel like a million bucks. Saturday was one of those days.
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