September 24, 2006

by Adam Jones

My wife does not understand my affinity for color weather radar. Quite simply, I love it. She does not. I could sit for hours and watch the greens turn orange and red and slowly envelope my town in a fantastic barrage of rain and thunder and lightning. When he was a very young boy, Z and I once stayed up long into the night-or I did anyway-watching a thunderstorm roll in on channel 44 with the upstairs windows open to let in the real time sound effects.

Where I grew up, there was no need for this technological marvel. The Texas Panhandle sits on the High Plains-accent on High. It is about 3600 feet from sea level to the top of the Caprock Escarpment to a flat piece of land the Spanish explorer Coronado called the Llano Estacado. Land so flat that you can see the weather long before it hits you. The squall lines almost always start from the northwest, coming off the Rockies, and they build and spread and darken the sky so predictably that you have a great sense for when to get inside. You don't need television. There is a great book, probably long out of print, titled The Desert Smells Like Rain, which tells of the Indians of Southern Arizona who schedule their crop cycles, and thus their entire livelihood, around the two times a year it rains in their desert homeland. The farmers and ranchers of the Texas Panhandle have these same instincts, although the Ogallala aquifer gives them a somewhat larger margin for error.

It's almost like the storm clouds speak to you. As they approach Amarillo, they seem to say: "Hmmm, this is the biggest city for hundreds of miles. It appears that there may be thousands of cars that we could perhaps destroy if we could muster up a good hail storm. Let's get 'em, boys..."

College football fans all over the country watched this phenomenon with great (self) interest yesterday. Delays, suspensions, ponchos...all part of the landscape on a day where the games just weren't that interesting. My own family was subject to a game suspension in Austin where lightning threatened the end of the Texas/Iowa State contest. When we eventually got home and put the kids to bed, I had the house to myself and Michigan State had a 34-21 lead on the Fighting Irish. I settled in to watch-not the game-but the arrival of a huge thunderstorm threatening Spartan Stadium. I missed it. I went to bed at 9:30 after a very full day. The thunderstorm would have been tremendous. The game was even better.

Notre Dame 40, Michigan State 37

Notre Dame fans could probably feel two "here we go again" impulses yesterday: one of a defense that would continue to keep their team from the upper ranks, the other of the early promise of a coach that dissipates in the face of a run of good competition (the Willingham Syndrome). ND escaped this fate-for the moment, anyway-behind a brilliantly accurate Heisman Default Quinn in the second half of a game they trailed 17-0 at the end of one and 34-14 by the half. But Quinn's quick strikes to very open receivers would not have been enough without a pick six to ice the game with just under three minutes on the clock from Irish cornerback Terrail Lambert on a terrible decision from MSU's Drew Stanton. The Irish survive stop two on a nightmarish tour of Michigan institutions of higher education.

And that was about it for the weekend. Seriously.

Oh, Georgia survived in the last moments behind back-up quarterback Joe Cox, who saved the Bulldogs' bacon (Don't dogs just love bacon? Man, what my dog wouldn't do for bacon. That's goooood. Anyway...) in a 14-13 win over a Colorado team that should have been down by four touchdowns at that point in the proceedings. Although I do keep telling anyone who will listen (not a huge group of people, mind you...) that Colorado can't possibly be as bad as they have played so far and I expect the Buffaloes to improve greatly over the last half of the season.

NC State upset Boston College in a late thriller that probably is not enough to save Chuck Amato's job and Alabama lost an excruciating overtime contest with Arkansas because their back-up kicker (name deleted) missed an extra point at the end of the second overtime. This is the same guy (name deleted) who missed three field goals of less than 40 yards during the day, any of which would have won it for the Tide.

Now I really am finished. I know everyone appreciates this rundown with their Monday coffee and believe me, I enjoy our time together just as much-it certainly beats reading memos and reports and cost proposals. But I need better material than this.

Do any of you care that Cal destroyed Arizona State 49-21 when we all know that Arizona State can be counted on to wilt against even a slightly physical team by about week four or five of every season since about 1968? I didn't think so.

Is anyone surprised that Buffalo and Tulane and Middle Tennessee State and Rice can't really play with Auburn and LSU and Oklahoma and Florida State? (To be fair, Rice played about a quarter and a half of competitive football...)

The Big Ten wasn't bad. Penn State led Ohio State 3-0 at halftime in a miserable game that Joe Paterno missed huge chunks-probably a bad choice of words-of while nursing some digestive issues. Ohio State came back behind some timely passing by Troy Smith and made the score look much better with two late interception returns for touchdowns. 28-6 Buckeyes.

Wisconsin played solid football, but finally caved to Michigan's offense and the very forgivable sin of not really being able to cover Mario Manningham in a 27-13 win for the Maize and Blue.

Michigan and Ohio State will be the game of the year in college football.

East Carolina gave West Virginia some problems, but the Mountaineers pulled away for a 27-10 win.

I am now convinced that the universities of Virginia and North Carolina are putting entirely too much emphasis on academics. Calvin Johnson put together an NFL audition tape on Thursday night in a 24-7 Georgia Tech win over a completely inept Cavalier squad. Nawth Klina, for their part, lost 52 to 7 to Clemson. 52 to 7? Clemson might as well have played North Carolina A&T or Coastal Carolina or just had James Taylor sing about Carolina to their fans, which would have been much more enjoyable for everyone, especially the Tar Heel defenders, who were bludgeoned to baby blue death by the Clemson running attack. Are you sure Lawrence Taylor played here?

Southern Cal was OK on offense, but great on defense in a 20-3 win over Arizona. Florida and Louisville had similar workmanlike experiences in defeating Kentucky and Kansas State.

Wake Forest is 4-0 after beating Mississippi 27-3.

Cincinnati gives everyone trouble for a half-Ohio State last week, Virginia Tech this-and then runs out of talent. Hokies 29, Bearcats 13.

Tennessee had little trouble with Marshall, 33-7. Iowa should have blasted Illinois, but settled for a boring 24-7 win.

Troy is gaining a reputation as a very difficult out as a paycheck opponent. Apparently Nebraska was unaware of this reputation as they rolled the Trojans 56-zip.

Boise State cracked the AP top 25 this week and then underwhelmed with a 41-34 come from behind job against Hawaii.

By the way, a long-standing JTT rule is that if your team is in the top 25, then they get mentioned. If not, author's discretion.

Finally, on the home front, Texas and Iowa State were nice enough to score all of the points in a 37-14 Longhorn win before lightning delayed the fourth quarter and the Jonesfamily vacated the premises. Thanks for your consideration; no one hates missing a garbage-time TD more than I do.

Impressive Showing of the Week: The National Weather Service

The top ten is the same as last week's because nothing of any import happened. On second thought, I'm going to give Georgia's spot to West Virginia. I've ignored the Mountaineers long enough.

1. USC

2. Auburn and Ohio State

4. Michigan

5. Florida

6. Texas and LSU

8. Tennessee

9. Louisville

10. West Virginia

Thanks for reading this far; I was bored by paragraph six. Next week will bring better things to the field with the Buckeyes going to Iowa and...well, the Buckeyes going to Iowa.

Some of my readers have mentioned that they are not receiving the Monday e-mail. Spam filters get more sophisticated all the time; if you have Norton anti-spam, please de-select the box marked weekly ramblings of Texans who just don't know when to quit.

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Stay dry.

Copyright 2006 Adam Jones

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