Sept 3, 2012

The Playhouse did some wonderful work Saturday, hitting on all three of its 'blog' plays, including our Super Play of the Year with Toledo +10. Our president and CEO placed two ill-advised bets out of his own account, banking on Navy and Boston College, but it was nonetheless a profitable day.

A couple thoughts from our 17.5 hours of football Saturday before getting to the Super Play of the Day.

ESPN found new ways to embarrass itself with its coverage of Penn State, clumsily portraying the Nittany Lions as some sort of rally-around-the-cause, feel-good story as they hosted Ohio in the first game of the post Joe Paterno era. At one point, play-by-play announcer Dave Pasch even stated that most of America was rooting for Penn St.

If by 'most of America' Pasch meant 'a small, imbecilic minority still clutching the to the deluded notion that a grand conspiracy had occurred between the NCAA, Louis Freeh and university board of trustees to scapegoat Joe Paterno for another man's crimes,' then, yes, we totally agree: Most of America wanted to Penn St to do well Saturday.

If, however, by 'most of America' he meant 'a majority of actual persons,' then he, along with his production team, must have done copious amounts of mescaline in the week leading up to the game. In the real world, the one that knows powerful men stood silent as horrible crimes were being committed against children, antipathy for Penn St is palpable, and the next person we meet that wasn't left giddy by them getting pounded by Ohio will be the first...

While USC and Oregon were impressive Saturday, the rest of the Pac-12 was dreadful, with Cal and Colorado losing to teams out of the Mountain West, Stanford barely beating San Jose State and Arizona needing OT to get past Toledo. Not to be forgotten is Washington St, which got hammered by BYU Thursday night.

It's one week, so we don't want to overreact, but judging by what we saw it could be long year out West. The conference, however, has an opportunity to redeem itself rather quickly. There are a host of inter-sectional match ups on the schedule this week, highlighted by Arizona-Oklahoma State, Washington-LSU, Arizona St.-Illinois and Oregon St.-Wisconsin. Win a couple of those games, and all is forgotten ...

This guy was one of the early
 highlights of the weekend

Texas St. (+34.5) won at Houston Saturday, becoming only the seventh team since 1980 to win out right as an underdog of 34 points or more, according to RJ Bell of pregame.com. The last such team to do so was Stanford, which beat USC as a 38-point underdog in 2007. A $100 money-line bet on Texas St would have paid $11,500 ...

Oklahoma State beat Savannah State 84-0, covering the what was once a 67.5 point spread in at least one spot. As Arizona State alums, The Playhouse hopes the Cowboys win 85-0 this week at Arizona ...

Some dude threw for over 700 yards, and then ruined it by telling reporters, implausibly, that he thought he only had thrown for something in the 'high 300s' ...

UTEP played OU tight for three quarters, ultimately falling to the Sooners 24-7. The Miners played two equally horrible quarterbacks, one of whom looked like a cast member 'Big Bang Theory,' and two dreadful place kickers, both of whom combined to miss three rather easy field goals. Otherwise, the outcome could have been different, because physically the game was a draw for much of the game ...

Here's a tip to carry with you through the rest of the season: Don't put money on Kentucky...


Super Play of the Day 

Georgia Tech +7.5.