The blueprint for how to take down the Oklahoma Sooners was out there for all to see.  Baylor followed that formula and knocked OU out of the top spot in this week’s SwampSwami.com College Football Top 25 rankings.

In late October, Oklahoma traveled to Lawrence, Kansas and was expected to stomp the lowly Jayhawks.  A funny thing happened that day in lovely central Kansas, though.  KU ran the football right at Oklahoma from the start of the game.  The Jayhawks ran the ball on third down when the Sooners were sure they would attempt a pass.

For three quarters, the Kansas Jayhawks led the heavily favored Oklahoma Sooners.  KU ran out of gas late in the game and Oklahoma rallied to win the game.  Only a final “style points” touchdown in the final minute gave Oklahoma a 35-23 win.  The game was much, much closer than the final score indicated.

The blueprint on how to beat Oklahoma was there for all to see.  One team paid attention to it.

In sunny Waco, Texas, the 8-2 Baylor Bears ran the football right at Oklahoma for the entire game and handed the Sooners their first loss of the season by a final score of 27-14.

Just like Kansas, Baylor ran the ball when OU was expecting a pass and passed the ball when the Sooners expected a run.  Baylor quarterback Gerry Bohanon passed for only 117 yards, but he also ran nine times for 107 more yards and two scores.  Running back Abram Smith (a converted linebacker, by the way) rammed through the Sooners for 148 yards on twenty carries as the Bears racked up nearly 300 yards on the ground.

Baylor head coach Dave Aranda (who was LSU’s defensive coordinator during the Tigers’ 15-0 perfect season  just two years ago) applied plenty of defensive pressure as quarterbacks Caleb Williams threw two interceptions and former (how soon we forget) Heisman trophy candidate Spencer Rattler was equally ineffective in relief.  Baylor sacked the OU quarterbacks five times.

As the game clock approached zero at the end of this game, the Baylor students rushed the field too early and caused a five minute delay as three seconds remained on the clock.  Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley was none too pleased to learn that it was Baylor’s coaches who called a timeout prior to the students’ celebration.  The OU coach had to retrieve enough of his players from the locker room for one final play as Baylor kicked a field goal to make the final score a 13-point win.

Baylor coach Aranda said that the final margin of victory might be needed to break a season-ending tie in the event that the Bears finished the regular season tied with Oklahoma or Oklahoma State for the Big 12 title.  Around America, Kansas fans rejoiced to watch OU get a taste of their own medicine after the Sooners had scored a needless touchdown in the final seconds (rather than taking a knee) to finish their football game in late October.

Speaking of Kansas, the Jayhawks pulled off one of Saturday’s biggest surprises by traveling to Austin and beating the Texas Longhorns 58-57 in overtime.

KU led most of this game, but the Horns rallied from 21 points down to tie the game late in the fourth quarter.  In overtime, Texas scored first and kicked the extra point.  Kansas then matched the touchdown, decided to go for a game winning two-point conversion, and succeeded.

It was a gutsy win by a Kansas team which is playing its best for first-year head coach, Lance Leipold.  The Jayhawks won their first Big 12 road game in 13 years (2008).  For the Longhorns and their latest Coach Steve Sarkesian, the loss marked the fifth straight for Texas.  The last time UT lost five games in a row was 65 years ago in 1956.  Ouch!

Elsewhere, the 5-5 Florida Gators’ porous defense allowed a scho...

Hey, Shreveport!  Are you ready for some football?

On Wednesday, Centenary College of Louisiana (not to be confused with Centenary University in New Jersey) announced that the small private college will begin playing football once again by no later than the 2024 season.

Shreveport is the third largest city in Louisiana.  The greater New Orleans metropolitan area features Tulane Green Wave college football, while the second largest city, Baton Rouge, is home to the state’s flagship LSU Tigers.

Even the fourth largest city (Lafayette) has the University of Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns (ranked at a lofty #7 in this week’s Swampswami.com College Football Top 25 rankings).  The state’s fifth largest city (Lake Charles) features the McNeese State University Cowboys while the state’s sixth largest city (Monroe) is home to the ULM Warhawks.

Shreveport (population 182,616) and its Red River next-door neighbor Bossier City (population 67,845) are without a college football team to call their own.  The closest major (FBS) college teams are located 65 miles to the east down I-20 in Ruston (Louisiana Tech Bulldogs) and 35 miles further east in Monroe (ULM Warhawks).  LSU is situated almost 250 miles to the south in Baton Rouge.

The Shreveport-Bossier area has produced more than its share of successful football stars with Woodlawn High School’s Terry Bradshaw becoming the first pick in the 1970 NFL Draft.  He would lead the Pittsburgh Steelers to four Super Bowl victories during his Hall-of-Fame career.  Byrd High School quarterback David Woodley and Southwood High School quarterback Stan Humphries took the Miami Dolphins and San Diego Chargers, respectively, to a Super Bowl appearance, too.

Current Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott played his high school football at nearby Haughton High School in Bossier Parish.  This region is rich in high school football talent as both big and smaller schools annually feast on local gridiron talent.

Alas, all high school football players from the Shreveport-Bossier City area have been forced to leave home to play their college football as none of the local colleges and universities have fielded a college football program within recent memory.

Good news, Shreveport-Bossier City!  By 2024, that will finally change.

Centenary College has been a part of Shreveport for a long time.  The school (which is affiliated with the United Methodist Church) will celebrate its bicentennial (200th) birthday in 2025.  Like the decline in population for the city of Shreveport, the private liberal arts school’s enrollment has been sagging in recent years with less than 600 students today.

Like most private colleges, tuition at Centenary College isn’t cheap ($38,060 according to the school’s website) with room and board bumping the expected annual cost to just over $50,000.  The school’s website indicated that 100% of degree-seeking students do receive some sort of merit aid.

During the big announcement Wednesday, Centenary’s President Dr. Chris Holoman (sporting a nifty maroon Centenary football jersey) proudly announced that the school would bring back football by 2024 after a 50-year absence.   According to Dr. Holoman, Centenary’s football team began play in 1894 with the first game for the Centenary “Ironsides” (that was the football team’s nickname at the time) coming against none other than those Tigers from Louisiana State University.

A rematch pitting Centenary against LSU will not be happening anyt...

How hard should it be to determine how many major college football teams should be involved in the annual College Football Playoffs?

Right now, there are four teams selected to play for the college football championship trophy.  Bowing to additional media and fan pressures, there has been a (gasp!) committee tasked with studying this important (to the sports media) issue.

Over my lifetime, I’m at a loss to think of too many successful or timely decisions which have come directly from a committee.  What about you?  Committees seem filled with good intent, but, then again, so is Congress before they are sworn into office every two years.

How are successful are committee results?  Congress recently had a 15% approval rating, and that might be higher approval number than college football fans would assign to today’s College Football Playoffs committee which is tasked with determining a better method (if possible) than the current four-team playoff formula.

Who needs a committee to do this?  I could select a group of college football fans, put us in a room, have a robust debate about an hour,  and emerge with a consensus plan which would be agreeable to the majority of football fans.

So, why is this process taking longer than it felt like for Christmas to arrive when I was six years old?

Money, of course!

If the people in charge of a college football playoff system (whoever these individuals are) want to determine a singular champion every year, we now have nearly 30 years of history to draw upon.

Prior to 1998, there was no playoff system.   The Associated Press voters (whoever they are) and the Coaches’ Poll (formerly UPI) made their selections after all of the big New Year’s Day bowl games were completed (back when we had fewer bowl games which were actually meaningful).

After a few of legendary Coach Joe Paterno’s Penn State teams of the 1960’s and 1970’s were slighted more than a few times after going unbeaten, there was a push to institute some sort of major college football playoff.

It wasn’t until 1998 that the Bowl Championship Series (BCS) was finally put in place to decide a champion from the six largest football conferences (SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and the now defunct football group called the Big East).  If your team wasn’t part of those conferences, you were simply out of luck.  The top two teams (as determined by a weird assortment of polls, computers, warlocks, and wizards) played one final game for the national championship after the New Year’s Day bowl games.

Apparently, that wasn’t good enough.

Beginning in 2014, today’s current College Football Playoffs system was put into place giving the top four teams a chance to play for the national championship.  Featuring two national semifinal games (played as traditional bowl games), the two winners square-off in their own Monday night spotlight for the national championship.  A 13-person panel (totally unbiased, of course) determines those top four teams and ranks them #1 through #4.  The top vote-getter plays against #4 in one semifinal and #2 goes up against #3 in the other game.

That’s where we are today.  Honestly, I cannot remember a single team which has been left out of the current four team system which can prove their beef.  Yet the “We want more playoff teams!” chants continue to grow.

Let’s take a look at how the smaller colleges (called the FCS) handle their playoffs.  Though most sports fans have heard about North Dakota State (winners of eight of the past ten years), the FCS Playoffs are now a 24-team affair.

According to the NCAA website, the winners of twelve participating conferences are automatically selected plus a dozen of the highest ranked remaining teams are invited to play this tournament.   Games begin right after Thanksgiving with the top eight teams receiving a first round bye.  In the first three weeks of December,

After the first weekend of college football in November, there are now just four unbeaten teams remaining out of the 130 large division BCS schools.  Oklahoma, Georgia, Cincinnati, and (are you ready?) UT-San Antonio stand alone as only teams which have can boast of being undefeated through week #9 of the regular season.

What are the chances that each of these four teams go unbeaten the rest of the way?  Let’s examine each team and see what dangers are lurking:

* Oklahoma – The #1 team in our SwampSwami.com Top 25 rankings for the past month has several potential landmines ahead on their schedule. The Boomer Schooner travels to 7-2 Baylor next weekend, then hosts 6-3 Iowa State, and finishes the regular season with the annual Bedlam game against archrival 8-1 Oklahoma State.  If OU wins out the rest of these games, they will have no trouble being a top 4 BCS team.

* Georgia – The #2 team in the SwampSwami.com Top 25 rankings has the toughest defense in the land. The Bulldogs have given up just 59 points in nine games (about 6 ½ points per game) with no one scoring more than 13 points on their defense.  The Dogs will next travel to Knoxville to play 5-4 Tennessee (on CBS next Saturday at 2:30PM) and will finish-up at home with FCS cupcake Charleston Southern (3-5) and annual rival Georgia Tech (3-6).   Though most Georgia fans expect an SEC championship game against Alabama, this Bama team is overrated (except in my poll where the Tide is now ranked #8 and very easily could have lost to 4-5 LSU Saturday night in Tuscaloosa).

* Cincinnati – The Bearcats hosted their first ESPN College GameDay on Saturday and the fans’ enthusiasm was superb. Their unbeaten football team, though, nearly laid an egg at home Saturday afternoon and is seriously sputtering over the past few weeks.  Cincy’s offense depends entirely on its quarterback.  It has become predictable, and the University of Tulsa (3-6) had a last minute chance to tie Saturday’s game (fumbling a potential game-tying touchdown into the end zone).  The remaining schedule finds the Bearcats on the road for 2-7 South Florida, home to play 7-2 SMU, and on the road to finish the regular season at 5-4 East Carolina (which has a history of playing its best against the best opponents).  If Cincy goes unbeaten, they will likely face long-time rival (and future Big 12 cousin) University of Houston (8-1) in the AAC championship game.

* UT-San Antonio – If you didn’t stay up late Saturday night to watch the nightcap game of UTSA traveling to 6-3 UTEP, you missed a terrific first half of offense by the Roadrunners. UTSA’s head coach is a great story.  Jeff Traylor attended and played football at Gilmer High School in northeast Texas, went to Stephen F. Austin as a walk-on, picked-up his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Education, and ultimately returned to coach his former high school team.  After winning four state championships (which is an exceptional accomplishment in Texas), Jeff Traylor took the head coaching job at UTSA two years ago.  This guy is for real, and so are the Roadrunners.  UTSA’s remaining schedule consists of home encounters with 1-8 Southern Miss and 6-3 UAB and one final road game at North Texas (3-6).  Every team in C-USA has three or more losses, so UTSA has, by far, the best chance to finish undefeated.  Will the BCS overlords put them into the Final Four?  I would, but they’ll probably send UTSA to a Fiesta Bowl game for a paycheck game rather than give the Roadrunners a chance to prove themselves in the final four.

Bottom Ten Alert! 

If you like the word “equity”, you will now find it at the bottom of the BCS 130 as both the UNLV Running (on Empty) Rebels (which won on the road at 3-6 New Mexico State 31-17) and the Arizona Mildcats (which scored a late touchdown to defeat equally moribund 3-6 California “Boo Boo” Bears by a 10-3 f...

Though I will admit to having a vivid imagination, I am not a conspiracy theorist.  As an accounting major, I do tend to be happier when the things which I care about the most remain in neat and orderly places.  It can make me a little uneasy when things go sideways or don’t add up evenly.

With my advancing age, I am noticing more unusual trends and often ponder why some are happening.  Perhaps some things have always been that way, and I am now slowing down enough to notice it more lately.

Here’s a good example.  The BCS playoff rankings are coming out tonight.

Despite the fact that I watch a lot of college football and feel like I know a good bit about all of the top teams, I will guarantee that you will not find 8-0 UT-San Antonio mentioned in the top eight teams you will hear about tonight.  I will also be shocked if the current leader of the Atlantic Coast Conference – by two full games – Wake Forest (now 8-0) makes it into great eight, either.

Through last weekend, there are now just six unbeaten teams remaining in major college football.

There will only be four teams who make it into the big money BCS playoffs after the conclusion of the regular season.

What about 8-0 Cincinnati, you ask?  Cincy is unbeaten, ranked #2 by the Associated Press (and #3 in last Sunday’s SwampSwami.com Top 25 rankings) and proudly points to its early season win at 7-1 Notre Dame to prove that it should belong in those top four teams tonight.

I will be surprised if we find Cincinnati ranked as one of tonight’s top four BCS teams.

Nobody will flinch if Georgia is #1 in the BCS rankings.  They’ve earned it on the field and have displayed the best college football defense we’ve seen in many years.   No arguments from me.

After Georgia, why not Cincinnati?  I’m hearing that 7-1 Alabama will likely be ranked as the #2 team.  Sorry Bama fans, but why should the Crimson Tide be ranked #2?  After eight games, let’s review how Alabama’s 2021 opponents are currently faring through last weekend:

* Miami (FL) – is now 4-4

* Mercer (FCS) – 6-2

* Florida – now 4-4

* Southern Miss – 1-7

* Ole Miss – now 6-2

* Texas A&M – the team which beat Bama – is now 6-2

* Mississippi State – 4-4

* Tennessee – 4-4

After eight games, Alabama’s opponents are now just 35-29 on the year.  That doesn’t sound very impressive to me.

Before you accuse me of being a Bama hater (which I am not), I have the utmost of respect for the accomplishments of Coach Nick Saban over his career.  I usually root for Bama against almost every non-SEC team.  This isn’t a knock on Alabama (historically, speaking).

Can anyone point to one specific reason why THIS YEAR’s Alabama team is worthy of being ranked #2 this week over five other teams which are currently unbeaten (Oklahoma, Cincinnati, Michigan State, Wake Forest, and UTSA)?

It’s because the BCS (more correctly named “Beauty Contest Show”) is rigged toward the same group of name brand schools.

What about Michigan State?  They are certainly an established name from the Big Ten, right?  Michigan State is now 8-0 and just beat arch-rival and formerly unbeaten Michigan last Saturday.  Why wouldn’t 8-0 Michigan State be ranked above a one-loss Alabama team?  Isn’t it better for a team to win all of its games than to lose one game?  What more can Michigan State or Cincinnati do?

Simple.  Because it’s a rigged contest.

As you watch the stellar BCS rankings handed out to 7-1 Alabama and 7-1 Ohio State tonight, remember the other 7-1 teams who are having a great season.  Oregon (which beat Ohio State…in Columbus), Baylor, Oklahoma State, Houston, SMU, San Diego State, Coastal Carolina, and Louisiana Lafayette are also 7-1 and have actually beaten one or more tough teams this year, too.

Here’s a hint on why the “Beauty Contest Show” works the way it does.

Happy Halloween!  As the college football season wraps up the month of October, there are now just six of the 130 FBS major college football teams left with a perfect record.

This season has been loaded with several big surprises and a few very sad teams who are probably ready to get this season completed ASAP.

With this being Halloween, let’s take a look at a few teams which deserve extra treats tonight and a few football teams who might prefer just to stay home on this spooky night:

Treats!  Michigan State should find some extra Snickers in their bag tonight as they are now having the last laugh on Halloween, 2021.  After 13 mostly successful seasons under former coach Mark D’Antonio, Sparty brought in a new head coach named Mel Tucker.  After a throw-away 2-5 season in pandemic plagued 2020, Michigan State has rebounded in a big way in 2021.  The Spartans rallied from a big deficit on Saturday against arch-rival (and formerly unbeaten) Michigan to grab a 37-33 win and move to 8-0 this year.  Tucker is now a hot name in LSU’s search for a new head coach to replace Ed Orgeron.  MSU is likely to up the ante to keep Mel Tucker after the big win over Michigan.

Tricks?  Florida’s Wally Gator isn’t happy after being shellacked by rival Georgia 34-7 on Saturday in The World’s Largest Cocktail party in Jacksonville.  Though head coach Dan Mullen is widely touted as a quarterback guru, his duo of quarterbacks have been tossing interceptions like some parents will be tossing mini-Milky Way bars into kids’ trick-or-treat bags tonight.   Despite people saying that Anthony Richardson is the next Tim Tebow, I just don’t see it.  After dropping consecutive games to LSU and Georgia, Florida is a disappointing  4-4, but the schedule might allow them to save this season and Dan Mullen’s job.

Treats!  Wake Forest is named the Demon Deacons.  How appropriate for tonight’s Halloween festivities, eh?  Before this season started, would you have believed that, before November 1, Wake Forest would be leading the ACC?  Would you believe they are leading the conference today…by two games?  The Deacs are 8-0 and #5 in the SwampSwami.com Top 25 poll this week.  After musical group Steely Dan wrote a hit song called “Deacon Blues” which lamented how badly this school’s football team had performed in years gone past, perhaps Donald Fagan should now produce a follow-up tune titled, “Happy Deacs are Here Again”!

Tricks?  Longtime fans of the University of Texas Longhorns are ready to pull-out the remaining hair by now.  The Hook ‘ems are great at grabbing an early lead, but this team hands-out victories to their opponents in the fourth quarter as frequently as I will be clearing out the cheapest candy first at my front door tonight!  Even with former Bama offensive coordinator Steve Sarkesian now in charge, Texas is now 4-4, losers of three straight games, and is fading fast in a very tough Big 12 Conference race this year.

Treats!  Auburn has surprised many SEC fans by racing out to 6-2 record this year under former Boise State coach Bryan Harsin.  Harsin, a former Boise State quarterback himself, has lit a spark under Auburn’s long-time underachieving signal-caller Bo Nix.  Anyone who watched Bo Nix’ performance at LSU several weeks ago can see that he is playing with more confidence than at any time in his Auburn career.  After handily taking down Ole Miss Saturday night, Auburn fans are being treated to a magical season.  Better watch out, Bama.   These guys are on a giant Halloween-sized Tootsie Roll!

Tricks?  After Indiana finished the 2020 season ranked #12 at 6-2, the expectations for this year’s Hoosiers were lofty.  After eight games, Indiana has flipped to 2-6 and has been a major disappointment this season.  After losing to Maryland on Saturday, IU now must go on the road to play at 7-1 Michigan next Saturday.

In case you were paying more attention to the World Series or this lovely October weather, the major college sports conference game of musical chairs has been playing once again over the past few weeks.

While most sports fans are quite aware that the University of Texas and Oklahoma University will become the 15th and 16th teams in the expanded Southeastern Conference, some of the other college sports conferences have joined the reshuffling act in a big way lately.

Speaking of Big, let’s talk about the Big 12 Conference.  Though during the past few years they were more accurately the Big “12 minus 2” Conference with only ten teams, the loss of Texas and OU lit a fire under the remaining members to get big or fall apart.  They recently extended invitations to four new schools by adding the University of Houston, Cincinnati, the University of Central Florida, and Brigham Young University to the conference.

The updated math is now correct, too.  10 teams -2 teams +4 new schools = 12.  Yes, the Big 12 is officially comprised of dozen teams once more.  Hooray!

Hold on!  Didn’t three of those teams just come from the American Athletic Conference?  The AAC can’t just sit around and let their conference fall apart, could they?  No, sirree!  The AAC has recently announced that they are replacing those three teams, plus they are adding three more for a total of six new colleges to their conference line-up soon.

The new AAC members will be Florida Atlantic, the University of Alabama-Birmingham, Charlotte, and three Texas teams.  North Texas (Dallas-Fort Worth), UT-San Antonio, and Rice (Houston) insure that the biggest TV markets in the state of Texas will become part of the new and improved AAC.

Now, wait a minute!  Those six schools jumping to the AAC all came from Conference USA, didn’t they?  How many teams does that leave in C-USA?

After the six departing teams, Conference USA would have eight remaining members.  UTEP (El Paso), Marshall, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, Florida International, Old Dominion, Southern Miss, and Louisiana Tech make up the Great Eight of C-USA.

So, does this now mean that Conference USA will be shopping for up to six new teams?

As our buddy Lee Corso says every Saturday morning on television, “Not so fast!”

In the past week, the Sunbelt Conference has shocked the college sports world by announcing that it will be adding Southern Miss and Marshall to their conference with Old Dominion and current FCS powerhouse James Madison also expected to become members of the Sunbelt soon.

Conference USA is having math problems.  They get passing marks in subtraction, but this league can’t seem to figure out how to add anymore.

With the initial six teams bolting for the AAC and three more likely to join the Sunbelt, that will leave just five teams remaining (as of today) in Conference USA.  UTEP, Marshall, Western Kentucky, Middle Tennessee, Florida International, and Louisiana Tech are now the Fab Five.

What are the possibilities of those other five schools finding a new conference home?

The Mountain West currently has twelve member schools.  It would be easy to make the case for UTEP to leave C-USA and play other schools more in their geographic footprint.

The Mid-America Conference (MAC) also has twelve member schools right now.  Marshall, Western Kentucky, and Middle Tennessee are regionally plausible as possible future MAC teams.

That would leave Florida International and Louisiana Te...

Less than two years ago, Ohio native Joe Burrow quarterbacked the LSU Tigers to the national championship as the team finished with a perfect 15-0 record.  He earned the Heisman Trophy and nearly every other national quarterback award after that incredible season.

A few months later, Ohio native Joe Burrow was selected by Ohio’s very own Cincinnati Bengals with the first pick in the National Football League draft.  Statistically speaking, the #1 pick goes to the team which had the worst record in the previous season in the NFL.

The Cincinnati Bengals earned that dubious distinction by finishing the 2019 season with a pitiful 2-14 record.

Though the Bengals have advanced to the AFC Wild Card game seven times over the past 30 seasons, that also means that the team has missed the playoffs three out of every four years, too.

It’s hard to believe that Cincinnati has appeared in twice as many Super Bowls as the New Orleans Saints (1).  The Saints made the most of their one appearance by winning the Super Bowl after a fabulous 2009 regular season.  The Cincinnati Bengals are 0-2 in the big game since coming into pro football back in 1968 as part of the former American Football League.

Perhaps that’s why this team has been called the “Bungles” for many of their seasons due to a history of underachievement on the field.

When Ohio native Joe Burrow’s name was called as the first pick of the draft two years ago, the people of southern Ohio rejoiced.  They had just watched their favorite quarterback languish on the bench in Columbus while waiting his turn to play for Ohio State.  Burrow kept his focus on his studies at Ohio State and finished his undergraduate degree in consumer and family financial services in just three years.  Then it was time to evaluate his options and find another place to play football before his college eligibility ended.

Burrow took his talents south all the way to LSU with two seasons of college eligibility.  The Bengal Tigers had a reputation as a perennial contender nearly every year, but the school rarely featured a top level quarterback.

This was a marriage of two parties needing each other.

After earning the starting job at LSU in his first year in Baton Rouge, his Tiger teammates rolled-up a nifty 10-3 record in 2018 and finished #6 in the final AP poll.  Meanwhile, Joe Burrow kept working hard in the classroom at LSU, too.  He would eventually walk across the stage at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center to collect his Master’s degree in Liberal Arts within days after picking-up college football’s Heisman Trophy.

While accepting the Heisman Trophy in New York City, Joe Burrow made a sincere pitch to the nation to please help the local food bank back home in rural Athens County, Ohio.  Over 13,000 people from around the country donated nearly $500,000 as a result of Joe Burrow’s sincere plea for assistance for his hometown that night.

Even while he was adopted as “family” during his two years in the Bayou State, Joe Burrow still loved his home state of Ohio.

Today, Ohio and Cincinnati Bengals football fans love Joe Burrow even more.

During his rookie season with the Cincinnati Bengals in 2020, Burrow sustained a devastating knee injury which ended his season in Week 11.  The Bengals would finish the pandemic-plagued campaign with just four wins against twelve losses.  That wasn’t exactly what the fans or Joe Burrow had in mind.

Cincinnati’s young coaching staff seemed as hungry to turn this team around as their new quarterback.  An offensive specialist on his way up the coaching ladder, Bengals’ head football coach Zac Taylor (just 35 at the time he was hired) and first round draft pick quarterback Joe Burrow immediately bonded in the Queen City of Ohio.

On Saturday, ESPN’s popular Saturday morning college football kick-off program ended with Lee “Not So Fast!” Corso donning the wrong head gear again.  He picked UCLA to beat the Oregon Ducks.  Oregon held-off a late charge from UCLA to win the game 34-31.

After the pre-game show, ESPN’s 11AM football game was 7-0 Oklahoma at 1-5 Kansas.  The Jayhawks were a huge 38-point home field underdog as Kansas has not defeated a Top 25 football opponent in over 11 years.  Heck, they haven’t beaten a FBS (large division) school in nearly two seasons.  Oklahoma hasn’t lost to Kansas in 24 years (1997).

I opined to my lovely wife “Why would ESPN choose to show this game?  This is probably going to be a disaster.”

For the first three quarters of the game, it was.  If you were rooting for Oklahoma, that is.

Early in the first quarter, the electricity went out at the stadium and across the University of Kansas campus.  ESPN apparently had back-up generators.  On the field, the referees conferred and decided they would keep the time and score themselves.  It was 11AM with there was plenty of light, so on with the game!

Kansas took the ball in the first quarter and cleverly dissected the overrated Oklahoma defense with impressive short passes and bruising runs up the middle.  Kansas matriculated down the field to grab an early 7-0 lead.  OK, I’m hooked on this game now!

By halftime, the power had returned as the Jayhawks were nesting on a 10-0 lead over the unbeaten Sooners.  OU fans (who comprised half of the crowd at Kansas – with plenty of unsold seats remaining) were looking as dazed and unsettled as your office mates on a Monday morning when you declare that there is only packet of coffee left – and it’s decaf.  Nooooo!

Oklahoma apparently upzipped some packets of 2-hour Energy at halftime and played like it.  Though Kansas nursed a 17-7 lead late in the third quarter, the momentum had started to swing.

With OU finally taking a 21-17 lead in the fourth quarter, I saw one of the strangest fourth down plays I can remember.  Near midfield and facing a fourth down and two situation, Oklahoma took an unnecessary chance and opted to run the ball.  The running back was stuffed short of the first down marker when OU’s quarterback, Caleb Williams, literally grabbed the ball away from his teammate.  Shockingly to the Kansas defense and anyone watching in the stands or on television, the OU quarterback slithered his way ahead for about five yards and the game clinching first down.

Oklahoma won the game 35-23 on one of their typical (sorry, OU fans, but you know I’m right)  “Let’s run up the score for style points” touchdown in the final minute to make the final score look better on paper for any Associated Press college football voters who don’t do their homework on Saturday.

Since Oklahoma has been the SwampSwami.com College Football Top 25 kingpin for two consecutive weeks, I will allow them to remain #1 again this week, because I must remain objective.  However, OU fans should remember the old saying, “Karma is a *itch” when they lose a future game at a most inopportune time.

For the University of Kansas football fans, the game represented a true coming-of-age moment for their new head coach, Lance Leipold.  KU did its homework before the game, exploited OU’s weaknesses, controlled the clock, and played one heck of a football game.  Kansas football is finally looking up!

There are just nine unbeaten teams remaining atop this week’s SwampSwami.com College Football Top 25 rankings.  Though Oklahoma State and Coastal Carolina both lost their first games last week by three points each, the Cowboys dropped to #12 in my poll and Coastal Carolina fell to #20.

We needed to “draft” a few two-loss teams this week as there are now just 23 te...

On Sunday, LSU head football coach Ed Orgeron and Athletics Director Scott Woodward stood on the same podium to announce that an agreement had been reached to relieve Coach O of his job at the end of this season.

This is the same coach who was named the Associated Press National Coach of the Year less than two years ago during LSU’s historic 15-0 national championship season in 2019.   Since winning it all, the LSU Tigers went a pedestrian 5-5 in 2020 (after winning their final two games).

In 2021, the Bayou Bengals were 3-3 and coming off a 42-21 shellacking at the hands of the Kentucky Wildcats the week before.  Though LSU would rebound with a 49-42 victory over the equally moribund Florida Gators last Saturday, a deal to relieve Coach O of his coaching duties in Baton Rouge was already in the works before that game was played.

AD Scott Woodward is also a graduate of LSU (Political Science).  He built a successful resume during his first big gig as the Director of Athletics at the University of Washington (2008-2016).  He did it again at Texas A&M as their AD from 2016 to 2019.

After accepting the job at Washington, Woodward took over after the school’s football team finished the year with an embarrassing 0-12 season and the budget had posted a nearly $3 million annual loss.  The new AD would lure successful Boise State football coach Chris Peterson to the school to turn around the football fortunes.  He orchestrated a $200 million renovation of the Huskies’ football stadium.  More importantly to his bosses, the school’s athletics program more than doubled its annual revenues under Woodward’s guidance.  The treasure chest was growing.

Moving closer to home at College Station, Texas, it was Scott Woodward who pleasantly surprised Texas Aggie fans by roping national championship winning football coach Jimbo Fisher away from Florida State.   The new AD also snared successful Virginia Tech basketball coach Buzz Williams to make the Aggies’ basketball team into a national contender, too.

If you step back and evaluate Scott Woodward’s performance as a college athletics director, you will notice that all of his splashy hires have been “name brand” successful winning coaches.  He also paid them quite handsomely to entice their change of coaching addresses.

Enter LSU.

In 2019, Scott Woodward was hired to become the new Athletics Director by his alma mater.  A Baton Rouge native, he considers the LSU position to be his “dream” job.

He replaced Joe Alleva – a man who was generally despised by most LSU Tiger faithful.  Alleva botched the firing of former football coach Les Miles and was later turned down by both Jimbo Fisher and then University of Houston coach Tom Herman.  Ed Orgeron, by default, was named LSU’s new head football coach in 2016.  Scandals subsequently rocked the LSU athletics department during Alleva’s tenure with the school.

Enter Scott Woodward in 2019.  The man with the golden touch now is calling the shots for his own alma mater’s athletics programs.

Pressure?  What pressure???

If anyone in the college athletics world should know how fanatical LSU football and baseball fans are, it would be Scott Woodward.  He grew up an LSU fan, went to school there, and has come back to town with the intentions of winning national championships in every single sport.

After presiding over the LSU football team’s national championship season in the fall of 2019, Woodward kept a close eye on the university’s cash cow football program.  LSU football annually contributes about $80 million of the $140 million generated by the school’s athletics programs.   Put another way, every LSU home football game generates about $10 million in revenue for the school.

The LSU baseball and men’s basketball programs are the only non-football p...