Memo to Keyshawn Johnson:  Think maybe Drew Bledsoe had a freakin’ point???
Arlington Heights 16, South Hills 13
TCU 38, Army 17
Oklahoma 19, Kansas 3
LSU 21, Florida 17
Dallas 16, New York 13 (OT)
Remember I said that for South Hills to beat Arlington Heights, they’d have to shut them out?
Well, South Hills shut out the Yellow Jacket offense.
Trouble was, they had a bit more difficulty with the other two phases of Heights’ game.  The Jacket defense returned an interception 39 yards for a touchdown and forced a safety from the Scorpion offense on a blocked punt, and another punt was returned 40 yards for the other score.
I don’t know if I’d be counting on a playoff spot from this bunch, if their offense can’t generate so much as a field goal against the South Hills defense.
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It can now be made official:  This is a rebuilding year for the Oklahoma Sooners.
When you can only get 19 points against the freakin’ Kansas Jayhawks  for Cthulu’s sake, something’s wrong.
OU probably needs to hope Rhett Bomar can mature as a quarterback and the defense can grow up while Bob Stoops retools his offensive line.  Billy Sims himself couldn’t run behind that motley crew.
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LSU survived a strong challenge from the Urban Meyer express, aka the Florida Gators, in coming from behind to win at Baton Rouge, where they had lost their last three.
“Survived” is the word for it, too.  Florida forced five turnovers, 11 penalties and five sacks of quarterback Jamarcus Russell.
Needless to say, Les Miles was not happy.
“There’s got to be a stronger push and a greater commitment by our team,” he said. “We’re going to fix it. If you turn the ball over the amount of times that we did and you have penalties that are unforced … we will not be able to do the things that this team is capable of doing.
“This football team has a lot in front of it. Right now, we’re just a sloppy team on offense,” he said.
Good luck with all that, Les.  Lotta that going around nowadays.
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TCU didn’t put away Army until late.  With a couple of exceptions, the defense did a fairly admirable job against the Black Knights’ offense, thanks in part to three interceptions, two by the much-maligned Quncy “Toast” Butler, who had at least one for the third straight game.
(Side note:  Memo to whoever’s reading me over at TCU:  Tell Quincy I said “nice work, don’t let up”.)
Jeff Ballard threw two touchdown passes and ran for two more as the Froggies ran up over 400 yards of offense and pulled away in the fourth quarter.
One of the classic moments in the game occurred in the 3rd quarter with about eight minutes left.  Army was driving, and on 2nd and one, a timeout was called by the referee.  Now, this crew is never going to be God’s gift to officiating – but they did provide a thimbleful of entertainment:
REFEREE (on mic, to crowd):  “Time out on the field.  This is an official’s timeout”
ARMY player (in background):  “Why?”
REF (without  turning off mic):  “Because I want one!!!”
CROWD (hearing the entire exchange):  BWAH-HAHAHAHAHAH…!!!
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Speaking of laughing, you’ll pardon me if I’m LMAO at Keyshawn Johnson Right About Now™.  After making a public spectacle of himself in throwing a temper tantrum last week at Drew Bledsoe for the cardinal sin of suggesting he should do a better job of holding on to the ball after catching a pass…Keyshawn goes right out and does the same damned exact thing yesterday against the New York Football Giants:  Catch, turn, step, hit, fumble.
The only difference is that this time, NY didn’t return it for a touchdown; Dallas was fortunate to hold the Giants to three.  In fact, for the first 58 minutes of the game yesterday, Dallas did an outstanding job of just that – holding the league-leading New York scoring offense to just two field goals.  They sacked Eli Manning four times, allowed the Giants just one-for-eleven on third down conversions and held noted Cowboy-killer Tiki Barber to just 64 yards.
But in the last two minutes, NY finally took a look at the Redskin tapes, got Jeremy Shockey isolated on our favorite bumbling twosome (Aaron Gleen and Roy Williams), and tied the game after the Giants traveled to the Dallas 24 on the strength of an Manning pass to Plaxico Burress.
All’s well that ended well, however.  Dallas won the toss and moved smartly down the field, thanks mostly to a 26-yard catch of a Bledsoe pass by Jason Witten, setting the ‘Boys up in FG range.
Four plays later, José Cortez was true on a 45-yarder for the win – and for my first bona fide  Perfect Football Weekend in well over a year. (Given the teams I’m following, I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to score another one again.  Phew. (grin))
The PFW will return Friday to see if we can make it two in a row.