Written by Adam Jones
Sunday, 20 November 2005

We could go home. Or we could go to Lala's over on Justin. At home we will get two very small children, one of whom should be asleep and the other of whom has no regard for his parent's need for eight hours of uninterrupted quiet. At Lala's we get year-round Christmas decorations, beer in a can and a jukebox that doesn't have a single song dating past 1970. Lala's won partially because it's been a long time since I played "Hey Porter" by Johnny Cash or "Twistin' the Night Away" by Sam Cooke on a jukebox. The latter confused me as a child. I knew the song because I had older siblings (it didn't hurt that it was on the Animal House soundtrack). Sam Cooke's protagonist spends a fair amount of time "dancin' with the chick in slacks." I always assumed that he was dancin' with the "chicken slacks."  I was white bread and middle class; obviously "chicken slacks" were some mysterious clothing item from the soul underground that helped one approximate the moves of a chicken, or perhaps do the funky chicken. Or maybe they had a small chicken pattern printed on them. I did not know. Given that Lala's had a fair number of young twentysomethings on this Friday night, I wondered if some of them might be hearing Sam Cooke for the first time and perhaps they discussed the same thing.

"What the hell are chicken slacks?"

"Dude, Sly Stone invented chicken slacks in the early sixties, don't you know anything?"

Once, I spent an entire college football day at Lala's. I must have been with Oglesby, Campbell and Ted Abdelnoor. That's a lot of beer in a can. Not sure if we had anything to eat. We watched the TV in the corner of the front room, behind the dance floor, to the right of the velvet matador picture and sharing space with the front yard lighted Santa. It must have been rivalry day, that last Saturday before we all go our separate ways for Thanksgiving. It feels like that was a long time ago.

And it seems like yesterday.

Ohio State 25, Michigan 21.

Anthony Gonzales's catch inside the five as he was being turned cranium over coccyx by a Michigan defensive back will be replayed on Buckeye pre-game radio broadcasts just as much as the Charles Woodson punt return is played on the Wolverine pre-game show. It was that good. The guy who made it happen, Troy Smith, wasted no time in becoming one of the more hated men in Michigan; for two seasons in a row, he has been an absolute maize and blue murderer. Yet the Buckeye season is not quite what they wanted. That's because of...

Penn State 31, Michigan State 22

The 10-1 Nittany Lions, thanks to Michael Robinson, their own QB sensation (who should be first-team All Big Ten if there is any justice in the world), will take Joe Paterno to the...well, not the Rose Bowl, but some reasonable BCS facsimile after surviving Spartan Stadium and some dumb mistakes that MSU couldn't capitalize on.

At this point, let me pause and catch my breath before a lame attempt to describe USC v. Fresno State.

It was 7-7 after the first quarter. Still with me? Fresno State went up 21-13 at halftime. I went to bed and turned on the upstairs television. I drifted to sleep only to be awakened by Reggie Bush flying down the sideline to make it 27-21, USC; I had missed a TD somewhere. After a Fresno pick, USC scored again to make it 34-21. At this point, I assumed the game was over - I had seen USC do this before. Oregon game anyone? But Fresno hadn't read the script. The Bulldogs answer to make it 34-28. Funny thing, Reggie Bush really can't be tackled on this night and he goes 50 yards to make it 41-28. Can I go to sleep now? Nope. Fresno State answers again to make it 41-35 and then the sun comes up on the wrong side of the world. Bush fumbles the ensuing kickoff and all of a sudden it is Fresno State 42, The Juggernaut 41 with about nine minutes to play. Bush (see a trend here?) sets up the next SCTD with a 43-yard reception. After a Bulldog fumble and a USC field goal it's 50-42 and that's how the game ended. Well, that was the final score anyway. How the game ended was on a Darnell Bing pick deep in USC territory with about one minute to play denying Fresno a shot at a TD and two-point conversion to tie. And the Juggernaut perseveres with the help of the fifth Bulldog turnover of the night.

If you are scoring at home, Reggie Bush had 513 all-purpose yards, 294 of them on the ground. USC needed 'em all.

Auburn, no longer the SEC Stealth Team, blistered 'Bama in a 28-18 Iron Bowl that was more one-sided than the ten point spread. Try 11 sacks for the Tiger War Eagle Plainsmen. Nasty.

Last season, the Miami Hurricanes shockingly lost on the road to a mediocre North Carolina team. This season, the Hurricanes shockingly lost at home to an above-average Georgia Tech team. Which is worse? You decide. Georgia Tech 14, Miami 10.

Uhm, Virginia, you see, the thing is, well, this is a rivalry game to Virginia Tech even if maybe it isn't so important to you. So, fellas, could you at least, well, get mad or something? Or maybe act like you care? Hokies 52, Cavaliers (and boy does that describe their level of play) 14.

A couple of readers have taken exception to me saying that South Carolina is a lousy football team (which is actually to their credit; I didn't say they were poorly coached or didn't play hard, that would describe Tennessee). Guess what? South Carolina is a lousy football team. But they probably won't be next year. Clemson 13, Gamecocks 9.

Did I mention Tennessee? One of the basic rules of life is that if you are BIG STATE U, then you are not allowed to lose to a small private school within the borders of your state, unless the small private school is Notre Dame or USC. LSU does not lose to Tulane. Clemson doesn't lose to The Citadel, Texas doesn't lose to Rice unless John Mackovic is on the sideline and North Carolina does not lose to Duke, discounting the Steve Spurrier years. Tennessee DOES NOT LOSE to Vanderbilt. EVER.

Until today. Vanderbilt 28, Tennessee 24.

South Florida beat Cincinnati 31-16. Why do you care? Because if South Florida, which did not even have a football team ten years ago, but now is a member of the Big East because somebody has to be, beats UConn and upsets West Virginia on December 3rd, which I don't think will happen but really wouldn't be a stunning upset, then the Bulls (they're the Bulls, if you were wondering) will be the Big East representative to the BCS. This, my friends, will be a great human interest story right up the point you all settle into your chairs to watch an LSU/South Florida Sugar Bowl. Then, not so funny.

LSU, in full throttle, played their most complete game of the year much to Ole Miss's (shouldn't it be Old Missus. Never mind.) chagrin. 40-7 as the Tigers held Ole Miss to seven net rushing yards and Early Doucet presumably caught at least one pass since the box score credits him with a TD. I still want to see the replay.

Notre Dame ripped the worst Syracuse team in the last half-century 34-10. The Irish head to the BCS with a win over Stanford. Why? Because they're Notre Dame.

Georgia blasted Kentucky 45-13 and boy do they want the Auburn game back.

In another bizarre fog-shrouded game, Oregon beat Oregon State 56-14. I watched this one for a stretch and kept expecting a King Arthur movie to break out.

Texas Tech went to 9-2 with a 23-21 win over Oklahoma. Or did they? The play you will see on the highlight shows for the next week concerns whether or not Taurean Henderson stretched the ball into the end zone on the game's final play. Henderson might have done so - it is an arguable point. The play that will soon be forgotten, however, was an abominable phantom spot on a Danny Amendola catch on fourth and three for the Raiders. I can't decide whether it was home cookin' or glaucoma but the Sooners got jobbed.

Everybody else took the day off. Seriously, UCLA, West Virginia, TCU, Florida, Florida State, Wisconsin...

This marks the end of regular weeks. The rest of it is loose ends and championship games. So where do we stand? I am glad you asked.

Impressive Showing of the Week: Fresno State, because the Bulldogs never quit when put in a position where other teams would have packed it in.

1. The Juggernaut vs. The Vince Young Show: Fresno State is a very good football team, but let's be serious. Could the Bulldogs go to Austin and ring up 42 points (even with five turnovers mind you) and play Texas for a full sixty minutes? You can bring out the homer cry if you want, but my answer is hell no. Does that make Texas better than USC? Nope, a heavyweight champ only loses when knocked out; but it is very hard to argue that USC is clearly the best team in the nation.

3. LSU: Maddeningly inconsistent, but with wins over Auburn, Florida, at Alabama and at Arizona State with the Sun Devils at full strength. The loss to Tennessee looks more and more like a fluke borne of emotional exhaustion and bad breaks. All this and they field a line-up arguably with more NFL talent on it than USC or Texas. You can argue whether or not Les Miles "deserves" this, but he clearly has the keys to one hell of a car.

4. Penn State: Take away one play versus Michigan and the BCS might be set to screw over Joe Paterno in the biggest joke of its short, sad history. Paterno has, of course, been screwed before. Try five post-bowl undefeated teams and only two national titles. In 1973 he went 12-0 and finished fifth in the AP. Huh?

5. Ohio State: 20 and 1, that's the combined record of the teams responsible for the two losses on the Buckeyes' record this season.

6. Auburn: The Tigers, after losing Cadillac Williams and Ronnie Brown, once again field the best running back in the SEC, Kenny Irons. They either must built them in the lab (it is a land grant school, after all) or maybe Tommy Tuberville does know what he's doing.

7. The Irish: Despite my crack above, this team deserves to be here and will deserve their BCS invite.

8. Georgia: Oh what might have been. Nearly beat Florida without D.J. Shockley and were moments away from taking down Auburn. As Bill Parcells says: "your record is what your record is."

9. Virginia Tech: Maybe they should be higher; I admit I thought they would go straight into the tank after the Miami game.

10. Oregon: 10-1 while playing three different QBs and playing atrocious (at times) pass defense. The Ducks are tough.

Drive safe and don't forget to throw the football around the yard after dinner. It builds our nation's character.