A dramatic finish, as the US is wont to do, yet again. This time however, they didn’t play from a goal (or two) deficit– they held tight throughout the game, and Landon Donovan- the highest scoring American player in history– put a superb last touch on a frenzied goal opportunity, after regulation, in stoppage time.
Ah heck, why bother to explain.
Watch it, and if you’re a US soccer fan, get ready for chills.
Update later at night
I just read an article entitled, Time to start believing, US Fans which had this rather amazing passage which I would have never guessed would happen in America:
One detail: I had the pleasure of watching the games with a gentleman whose son attends the University of Alabama and was heartened by the knowledge that even there, in the depths of Crimson Tide country, the epitome of tobacco-chewing American sports culture, every bar had opened early, packed with nascent soccer fans.
Has America finally embraced the sport that I, and many others, have loved since we were kids? I mean, I’m not saying that this will rank up there with the NFL or the NBA anytime soon. But just as long as it’s not a ridiculed sport somewhere above curling and ice dancing, I’d be content.
It’s the Steelers and the Cardinals. The youth and athleticism of ‘Big Ben’ Roethlisberger versus the experience of a veteran battle-ready Kurt Warner. The stingy Pittsburgh defense versus a flashy Arizona offense that has all-world receiver Larry Fitzgerald. It’s the—
ah, give it a rest.
I truly could not care less who wins today. I’m thinking Steelers, because defense usually wins championships, but then again Warner’s got a pretty good post-season record. I’m watching the game with a coupla friends, and just using it as an excuse to hang out and eat chips, queso, and some Mexican food. (Since when did Mexican food become de facto football game cuisine? I mean, other than buffalo wings?) I’m honestly just counting down to college football season…. in AUGUST. Yeah, it’s tough scraping by.
Alright I’ve been quiet for a bit on the whole OU football front, especially considering the smackdown that OU gave Texas Tech and the 61 points that the Sooners hung on the Cowboys in Stillwater. I know, it’s rather shocking that I haven’t said anything, partially because I wanted to wait and see if OU could get there– I thought there was a distinct possibility that we might lose either one or both games, and [not] have the 3 way tie that we now know occurred.
As you may or may not know, OU broke the 3 way tie with its BCS score, and is headed to the Big 12 Championship (and presumably the national championship if we win). There’s been a lot of hollering and crying by Texas fans, and for the most part, I understood it. Sure, they beat OU by 10 points on a neutral field.
But the thing about Texas fans is they don’t seem to understand is that it was a THREE way tie, not a head-to-head tie. If Texas hadn’t lost to Texas Tech, none of this conversation would be happening. Many of those same fans claim that it was a last second touchdown that lost the game for them and that it was a road game. But guess what? It WASN’T a last-second score. For more than 3 quarters of the game, Tech was leading, and by a comfortable margin. To say that the Tech game doesn’t count and that only head-to-head should be considered in this mess only goes to show how weak Texas must have been to lose to this Tech team. But no, they chant again and again only about the infamous 45-35 score in Dallas in October. So what if OU had just beaten Tech by 1 point? Would that have made Texas fans actually recognize it as a 3 way tie? I think not.
To add to this, Mack Brown, Texas’s head coach, decided it would be wise to once again start lobbying for votes (Stoops stopped politicking by this point), going so far as to lobby DURING the Oklahoma-Oklahoma State game. Tacky. Stoops was given the same opportunity during the Texas-Texas A&M game but declined because he didn’t feel it was ‘classy’. (I concur.) What’s worse– the politicking actually worked! Many of the voters who had ranked OU #2 after the Tech game reversed their thinking after the OSU game to put Texas at #2. Thankfully, the computers saw through the veneer and have nothing to do with politics or UT text messages in the 3rd quarter of a game. They recognized that OU played the #2 team and destroyed them, is the ONLY Big 12 South team to have a quality ROAD WIN, and had the toughest out of conference schedule including beating the Big East’s conference champion and TCU, the #1 defense in the country. ESPN still belabors repeatedly how the wrong Big 12 team is going to the championship.
And all of this I was willing to just ignore, and push under the rug.
This is ridiculous. I say to you Texas, MAN UP and accept what happened. I know that Texas fans are first off praying that OU loses against Missouri (which means Texas would probably get into the NC game), or holding off for this atrocious predicament. I mean what else does OU have to DO here?? Florida, who lost to unranked Ole Miss, is already predicted as the next national champion. Who did OU lose to? The #5 team in the country. And afterwards? Blowing out the last 4 opponents by at least 60 points a piece.
Here’s my advice to Texas:
1. Schedule tougher out of conference games- not Florida Atlantic, UTEP, and Rice.
2. Don’t lose. End of story.
3. Grow a pair.
I’m sure my next post will be a little less… fired up. Thanks.
[Edit:] Check out this link– it uses just one of the computer rankings and allows you to ‘Play God’ as it were with all the different “What if?” scenarios and how it would play into the final BCS rankings. Once again, just from that one computer. And this isn’t taking into account the other 2/3 of the BCS, the human polls.
Sure, a lot of OU fans were hoping that the Longhorns would go down to the Red Raiders in Lubbock. Oddly, many of the odds-makers predicted it, even though Tech was ranked lower. But Tech provided some amazing ingenuity and guts down the stretch, and pulled off the upset. I’m sure a lot of OU thought, “If Texas loses to Tech and we beat Tech, OU goes to the Big 12 Championship, and the national championship game.”
So as of this writing, OU is winning against Washington, 55-14. Will they score again? It is possible, but Coach Stoops has put in our second team offense and defense so as not to be horribly cruel and run up the score against a relatively young Washington team under Coach Tyrone Willingham. And while I wouldn’t want OU to lose this game, I have to say– I feel bad.
I mean, this isn’t just some random team that OU is playing. We’re playing Coach Willingham, who was, I believe, unfairly outed as Notre Dame’s head coach. Granted, ultimately the whole thing is just about winning games, and which coaches are able to do that for their respective teams. He did great his first year at ND, and I’m guessing it was easier for him to recruit over there than at Washington. But in his second year the team did badly, and he was immediately fired. Meanwhile, Charlie Weis, his replacement, has done terribly at ND for the past 3 years and is still in place. I’m not going to get into the whole racial aspect of the whole thing– I don’t care. All I know is that it was unfair. But at Washington, his record is a paltry 11-27… and people at Washington are ready to drop him. Now, with this loss, his team is at 0-3. Ouch.
So I think this is the first time that OU has torched a secondary and overall defense and I sorta just feel bad for the coach. I know, I’ve never really done a true “college football” post, but here it is. If you’ve got any thoughts, lemme know.
*UPDATE 9/14/08* OU is now ranked number 2 in the nation, just behind USC. Prognosticators are claiming another OU-USC national championship game. Of course we’re only 3 games into the season, but let’s hope that if we do get there, it’s nowhere near the last result.
You all may have heard of calf-fries, Rocky Mountain oysters, and the other vague names for the dish where ultimately, you eat bull testicles. For all of those who are reeling in disgust right now, just know that yes, people eat that and much worse around the world. Lamb brain or iguana anyone?