Ah, the beauty of Friday night games. I set a personal record of watching football for 16 consecutive hours Saturday, only leaving the couch for a pizza delivery. Now, some random observations before finding a jogging path and a therapist:
Hold that Saban statue.
Let’s don’t anoint Nick Saban with sainthood after he did (or didn’t do) the following:
• He plays for overtime with a 6-6 tie when it looks like he found his place-kickers at the Tuscaloosa High intramural field. Alabama had stopped LSU on third down at the Tigers’ 45. Saban had 90 seconds and two timeouts.
Alabama wound up getting the ball from the punt at the 20 with 52 seconds left. Saban ran out the clock. He obviously had no confidence in sophomore quarterback AJ McCarron.
But how could Saban have more confidence in overtime when in 17 plays inside the LSU 30, Alabama had minus-12 yards? How could he rely on kickers who had missed three of five?
• The best weapon Alabama had was Trent Richardson, whose 89 yards rushing were the most LSU had given up all year. In OT, McCarron threw two incompletions and got sacked.
• With a defense even better than LSU’s, why did Saban attempt long field goals instead of punting? He could have scored a TD on a shorter field in a field-position battle or given his kickers chip shots instead of feeble attempts from 44, 49 and 50.
• Mostly, how does a program like Alabama’s not have a reliable kicker? Sophomore Cade Foster was ‘s No. 3-rated kicker out of Southlake (Texas) Carroll High, yet Saban has had sophomore walk-on Jeremy Shelley kick anything shorter than 40 yards.
Shelley is 0-for-2 between 40 and 49, including a blocked 49-yarder Saturday. Foster, 0-for-4 from 50 and longer this year, chose Alabama over Colorado, Stanford, UCLA and Washington.
At least Colorado frosh Will Oliver can reach the end zone.
Playoffs? Really?
For all you playoff advocates who rocked with anguish over the LSU-Alabama outcome, how much importance would this game have had if an eight-team playoff awaited?
The game would have been for seeding, nothing more.
Another clunker in Lincoln.
I know Lincoln is sleepy, but shouldn’t its team stay awake at home each Saturday? The 28-25 loss to Northwestern marked Nebraska’s fifth year in a row it lost to an unranked opponent at home. The rest of the list: Texas in 2010, Iowa State in 2009, Virginia Tech in 2008 and Texas A&M and Oklahoma State in 2007.
Blame an offensive line that produced only 122 yards rushing against the No. 95-ranked rush defense in the nation. The Cornhuskers benched left tackle Yoshi Hardrick and left guard Andrew Rodriguez for the second half.
And blame the freshly anointed Blackshirts, who desecrated the honor by giving up 468 yards, 308 in the second half.
“We didn’t come out to play,” QB Taylor Martinez told reporters. “Maybe we overlooked Northwestern for Penn State.”
UCLA still has work.
I’m still taking Arizona State to win the South. Despite its 29-28 upset loss at UCLA, the Bruins (4-2 Pac-12) must win at rapidly improving Utah on Saturday and then visit No. 18 USC after hosting Colorado. ASU (4-2) goes to Washington State before finishing at home against Arizona and Cal.
Still, Slick Rick Neuheisel slid down the hot-seat list as he’s letting quarterback Kevin Prince run wild. His 200 yards rushing have beaten Cal and ASU and given the Bruins the inside track on the South, however short-lived.
“This is definitely something different, being in first place,” senior receiver Nelson Rosario said.
Fourth-and-short.
Los Angeles Times headline on LSU’s 9-6 win: “No. 1 LSU wins ‘Game of Century’ — but which century is it?” . . . Stanford receiver Chris Owusu suffered his third concussion in 13 months and second in three weeks. “I was fighting back tears, just to see Chris lying on the ground again,” Stanford coach David Shaw said afterward. . . . Washington State coach Paul Wulff, after the 30-7 loss to Cal: “They are the best-looking team that I have seen in this conference — period.” . . . Look familiar? Arizona redshirt freshman Jourdon Grandon slipped and fell on DeVonte Christopher’s 65-yard catch-and-run TD, and former walk-on Lyle Brown got torched on Reggie Dunn’s 44-yard TD pass in 34-21 loss to Utah.
