The Hangover Cure: Week 9

Look here for the inspiration. (And read that.)

No Air

Colorado usually plays in the thin air of Boulder. Chase Daniel and Missouri’s defense left the Buffs breathless on Saturday.

Daniel returned from two weeks of tip-free service as the Quarterback Presented By Domino’s Oven Baked Sandwiches, going 31-of-37 for 302 yards with five touchdowns and just one interception in the Tigers’ 58-0 rout. But the more important and more impressive performance was the shutout Mizzou’s much-maligned defense pitched.

They held a young and somewhat shaky Colorado offense to under 200 yards of total offense, forced a turnover, limited the Buffs to 4-of-16 on third down, and ended one of the longest active scoring streaks in the nation, one that dated to 1988.

Missouri is not a national title contender at this point, and the Tigers are going to have an uphill road to playing in January, looking up at the four superior Big 12 South teams. But if their defense can key an upset in the Big 12 Championship, a berth this team should cruise to unless Kansas finds brakes for its own free-fall, Missouri could be the key to another season of BCS chaos.

A Milli

Penn State, we thought, was different. We thought there was a fantastic offense, the wonderfully named Spread HD, to run roughshod on the plodding Big Ten teams, backed by a better-than-decent defense that would surprise by shutting down teams like Ohio State.

Uh, no: we’ve seen this production before, and it’s no different from the teams we’ve called the class of that conference in the last five years.

In a 13-6 game that was essentially an advertisement for the 1970s, Penn State’s spread was neutralized by Ohio State’s disciplined defense; it’s not a fast crew in scarlet and grey, but they are seasoned, and they shut down the Nittany Lions for most of the game, allowing a field goal after one big offensive play and a touchdown on a short field.

And Penn State’s defense figured out how to shut down Beanie Wells (uh, hit him?), and, by doing that, turned Terrelle Pryor’s run/pass options into sack/scramble/ incomplete decisions. Ohio State’s offensive line was as porous as it has been all year, and Pryor’s mobility helped with that, but Penn State was basically able to set the tone of the game up front.

Blame the loss on Pryor, if you want, because his fumble, the result of poor ball security, was crippling, and his interception a minute from the final whistle was a product of poor decision-making and trying to do too much. But he did about as well as you could expect any freshman quarterback to against a top ten team; two turnovers, and enough offense to be able to send the game to overtime on the final drive; to expect more is to ignore the fact that program saviors past (Vince Young, Danny Wuerffel) and present (Colt McCoy, Tim Tebow) all had their stumbles early in their careers. I hold Pryor to a high standard because I think he combines some tremendous physical gifts with great instincts, but expecting him to never lose, or to be the sole reason Ohio State wins, is as much folly as laying all the blame for this one on his shoulders.

Ohio State lost this game because they’re not as good as Penn State. And Penn State couldn’t put Ohio State away because they’re not as good as, for example, the USC team that splattered the Buckeyes earlier this year.

We hope, every time, that the class of the Big Ten will be a different and nationally competitive team; instead, we were duped once more by one of the many pale imitations of the Ohio State team that used Maurice Clarett, the “phantom” pass interference call on Glenn Sharpe, and generally overpowering line play to make the Big Ten style something to ape.

And, every time some team tries to compare, the result is never better than fair.

Put On

It was Homecoming. It was a celebration of Mr. Two Bits. It was the one team that’s been a guaranteed W for a generation.

And so, the Florida Gators put on a show on Saturday.

Winning the field position battle is easy when your frightening special teams develops a new facet and puts two Tim Masthay punts five yards behind him, setting up two short touchdowns. Getting in the other quarterbacks’ heads is easy when the coverage is limiting him to dinks and dunks that result in a 3.5 yards per attempt for the game. Stomping a team is easy when the score is 28-0 at the end of the first quarter, and the field goal to sta