The View From Bennett Avenue

Not much was expected of the second weekend of college football. If you had to see the in-laws or put away the patio furniture, this was the weekend to do it. Sure there was hype for the Ohio State-Southern California match-up, but that was an uncompetitive clunker a year ago. Notre Dame versus Michigan? Yeah, both teams look to be back from recently painful seasons, but this is not the clash of Top Ten teams we have seen from this series in years past. Overall, there was not too much excitement expected for the average fan, especially in light of the build-up for the opening games of the NFL.

But that is the beauty of the sport. There is great competition and excitement in the least likely of sources. Just bouncing around the ESPN channels for the early games produced down-to-the wire finishes for Connecticut-North Carolina, Fresno State-Wisconsin and Central Michigan-Michigan State with the Chippewas needing a touchdown, successful on-side kick, penalty on the Spartans to nullify a missed field goal and then a winning field goal—all in the final minute of play. Then in the afternoon, the Irish and Wolverines offered a very entertaining contest that showcased a great deal of talent from both squads, Houston stunned no. 5-ranked Oklahoma State and UCLA and Tennessee knocked heads the entire game before the Bruins pulled out the victory. And then in the evening, who could have expected that Georgia and South Carolina would give us a barn-burner of a game featuring 78 points? Crazy. Meanwhile, the Trojans and Buckeyes spent most of the evening feeling each other out before the visitors prevailed. Most of that game was not pretty, but the same can be said for the Pittsburgh-Tennessee and Green Bay-Chicago pro games too.

All in all, it was a great day even if the nation’s media did not seem to care. Without potential BCS implications, the majority of the games do not really matter in their eyes. They can talk about which teams are in the running for the national title until they are blue in the face, but celebrating the joy of the Central Michigan kids after pulling off that stunner or explaining the implications of Fresno’s narrow loss in the race for spots in the BCS are beyond them.