The Road to South Florida Week 11

Dear Football Fans,

Saturday night there was a full moon - the moon was 100 percent illuminated as seen from Earth. My mother Betty, an Eastern European, always used to say, “Russians go mad when the moon is full.” Last weekend’s college football was filled with illumination and madness.

Some teams proved themselves to be novas, brief, but brightly burning stars (Syracuse).

Other teams fell to earth like an asteroid, with huge, deafening clunks (Penn State and Ohio State).

Other teams are streaking through college football like comets (University of Miami, Notre Dame).

“Lost in Space” was a 1960s TV show. The teams that don’t have six wins by now may be lost in space as far receiving a meaningful bowl invitation, unless it’s the Space Cowboy Bowl (there’s no such Bowl) or the Spaced Out Bowl (also no such Bowl).

The show was about a family of space pioneers who become “lost in space.” The Robinson family - mom, dad and three kids; Judy, Penny and Will, were accompanied by Major Don West, the pilot of the “Jupiter 2” and the evil Dr. Zachary Smith, a doctor of Intergalactic Environmental Psychology. Dr. Smith’s efforts to sabotage the mission resulted in him being stuck in space with The Space Family Robinson.

The best character by far was The Robot who had many great sayings, including “This does not compute” and, “Danger Will Robinson, danger.”

Danger was unheeded by then #6 Ohio State and then #7 Penn State. Ohio State was thumped by the then unranked Iowa Hawkeyes, 55-24. The week before Ohio State had beat Penn State, by a point, 39-38. Penn State was beaten two weeks in a row, last week by The Michigan State Spartans, 27-24.

If The Robot were doing football commentary, he would say, “It does not compute.”

Ohio State has dropped to the #13 spot and Penn State is at #14. How low the mighty have fallen. Iowa’s win over Ohio State got them in the #20 spot this week. 

I believe that in space jargon, Ohio State and Penn State may be “evolved stars,” stars that are near the end of their life cycle (at least for this season) where most of its fuel has been used up. At this point the star begins to lose mass.

Maybe I’m on another planet, analogizing between last week’s games and “Lost in Space.” Maybe the better comparison is “Dark Shadows” an American gothic soap opera that also started in the mid-60’s.The full moon made me think of space, but perhaps I should have gone right to werewolves, zombies, vampires and parallel universes. 

University of Florida, with their interim head coach of one week, can be likened to Barnabas Collins, the 175 year-old “Dark Shadows” vampire who searched for fresh blood. The University of Missouri Tigers were werewolves, sucking the life blood from the hapless Gators, 45-16. Only twice in 100 years has Florida given up 42 points back to back. UF started the season in the AP Top 25. Now they have a 3-5 win loss record. It is indeed time for fresh blood for the Gators.

The Oklahoma win against Oklahoma State, 62-52 was wowie zowie football‼‼ What a game. The teams scored 114 points between them and had 1,446 combined yards. While a high-scoring offensive game is thrilling, neither team’s defensive squads have much to brag about. 

Florida State eked out a win against Syracuse, 27-24, adding a win to the 0-3 losses at home record this season. The Seminoles needed this victory. Syracuse was the team that beat the undefeated Clemson, but I don’t think that will extrapolate into a FSU win over Clemson when they play this Saturday in Death Valley.

Two years ago I was in at Clemson for the FSU game. I was on the field before the game (one of the great perks of being OB President was being able to watch the game from the sidelines) and had my picture taken sitting on the bench with the FSU kickers. Leslie Pantin, a die-hard Seminole, saw the picture and said Jimbo Fisher should have put me in and that Seminoles couldn’t have done worse. FSU lost the game 23-13.

Coach Fisher rescheduled FSU’s game against University of Louisiana Monroe for December 2. You may recall that because of Hurricane Irma, the FSU regular season game against Louisiana Monroe was cancelled. FSU, with their 3-5 win loss record, is trying to have the six wins needed to be bowl eligible. In addition to playing Clemson this weekend, they have Delaware State, Florida and ULM ahead of them. Optimism is good, but this may be wishful thinking to think a bowl is a possibility. They have to win three of the next four match-ups.

FSU has been to a bowl every year since 1981. The only comfort I can give them is that there are good sales after Christmas and they can use Bowl season to hunt for bargains.

My beloved friends, Martha Block and Martin Kahn are very good to me. Friday I came home to find a package they had delivered - a Clemson tee-shirt. Being a Gator, I usually take a dim view of wearing apparel emblazoned with another school’s logo. It’s like being a Crip and wearing the Bloods’ colors. However, I was touched by the gesture and being as I love Clemson, I wore the shirt.

Sunday I was on Old Cutler Road, a beautiful, tree-lined street in Coral Gables that is still feeling the effects of Hurricane Irma, so there are hills of debris. I’d been running, or something like that, wearing my Clemson tee-shirt. Two guys who were doing tree removal stopped me to ask what I thought about the Miami win against the Hokies, 28-10, the night before, and the Clemson win against NC State, 38-31. I found this amusing that two real guys actually stopped to ask my opinion about a football game. They don’t know that I follow football, but they saw the shirt. We discussed the game for a bit. They both opined that they think it will be Miami-Clemson in the ACC Championship game. But for the bright orange Tiger paw shirt, I never would have had this very nice conversation. 

One of my partners, Dan Casey, came by Monday morning to discuss Deshaun Watson’s injuries that will keep him off the field for the rest of the season. I told him the tee-shirt story and he commented that with so many things that divide us, we all need an affinity - a way to connect as human beings. College football, college sports, are a lingua franca - a common language - an affinity.

However, life is not all beer and skittles and despite a common love of sports, there are some serious feuds that keep us fired up on behalf of our teams.

Case-in-point: the University of Miami-Notre Dame game that will be played this Saturday. Go back in time to October 15, 1988, when the #1 Hurricanes met the #4 Irish at Notre Dame. Two enterprising Notre Dame students created “Catholics v. Convicts tee-shirts, in violation of school rules.

Neither school was in a conference at the time. The two teams hated each other. Apparently the coaches weren’t in each other’s fan clubs either. Notre Dame Head Coach Lou Holtz told the team after a fight broke out at the beginning of the game, “Guys, leave Jimmy Johnson’s butt for me.” In what is considered by many to be a game that was won by Notre Dame by a bad call, Notre Dame beat Miami 31-30. Miami fans generally still hate Notre Dame, rivaled only by their loathing of Ohio State, who they firmly believe stole the National Championship from them in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, beating Miami 31-24 in double-overtime.

The “Catholics v. Convicts” game was the subject of an ESPN “30 for 30” show that aired last December. Watch it before the game. 

This is THE GAME of the weekend, when #7 Miami plays #3 Notre Dame. Miami is 8-0 this season and on a 13 game winning streak. Coach Mark Richt is 17-4 in his two seasons with The Canes. Notre Dame is 8-1 this season. Coach Brian Kelley has a 67-32 win loss record since he became Head Coach of Notre Dame in 2009.

Even among Cane’s fans there seems to be doubts about their chances this weekend. Balderdash! It will be a fantastic game. The Irish are indeed great this year, but they were 4-8 last season. Yes, I know that was last season and this is this season, but they may not be infallible.

The game will be played in Hard Rock Stadium, so the Canes have a home field advantage. Fans have lamented for years that the old Orange Bowl stadium is gone and nothing will ever be the same, but Hard Rock Stadium is newly renovated and it provides a great fan experience. Best of all, there are enough ladies rooms. The old Orange Bowl Stadium, for all its charm, was woefully deficient in that area.

It is impossible to get a ticket for this game, although rumor has it that my wonderful law partner Christina Paul still has four tickets for excellent seats.

I imagine those “Catholics v. Convicts” white tee-shirts are going to reappear this weekend. Either someone has some raggedy old shirt left from 1988, or new ones are for sale. A sartorial tip: after age 30, men should never wear white tee-shirts as anything other than an undergarment, even if they have catchy slogans written on them. By never, I mean never. You are not James Dean and you are not a rebel without a cause.

I’ve taught at the UM law school for many years so I feel loyalty and affection towards The Canes. I would suggest that if a new version of the tee-shirt is made this year, it’s “Convicts v. Canes.” Enough said.

This is a football, not a fashion email, so I’ll move on, although I have more to say about what kind of shirts men should and shouldn’t wear after a certain age. I’m always available to dispense fashion advice, or advice about just about anything for that matter. 

In addition to the UM-Notre Dame game, there are two other matchups of Top 10 teams.

#1 Georgia plays #10 Auburn. Is Georgia becoming the new Alabama, winning so often that it’s boring? This game is called the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry, and as the tenth ranked school in the country, Auburn is not going to be a lay down for Georgia, but Georgia is a machine.

#6 TCU plays #7 Oklahoma. This battle of these two CFP Top 10 teams may not get either of them into the CFP semifinal, but who knows what can happen if other teams stumble like last weekend? After Oklahoma’s win last week over Oklahoma State, it seems they are on the move. I thought that last week about Ohio State though and look how that turned out.

Other games to watch:

Washington, who has had some ups and downs this season, takes on Stanford. Not much at stake here but PAC-12 bragging rights.

#20 Iowa plays #8 Wisconsin. The sports pundits who have been decrying Wisconsin’s lack of a serious opponent this season are going to see The Badgers play the team that beat Ohio State.

If you are interested in how the other teams are ranked this week but the CFP and AP, here you go:

WAHL TRIVIA QUESTION: Larry’s questions, even the ones he considers “easy” are too difficult. He is to college football trivia what Bobby Fischer was to chess. Not one person answered last week’s question, correctly. It’s so tough that I don’t want to type it in again, but the answer was Mississippi State, Clemson and Michigan.

Mario Trueba answered first and he was two thirds correct. Since he is a fellow Orange Bowl Committee member, he doesn’t need a bag, however delightful, of Orange Bowl goodies. His prize (or penalty depending on your perspective) for being mostly right is he can take me to lunch.

Miami and Notre Dame are both ranked in the top 10 on the eve of their game this week. The two teams have met 26 times. Notre Dame holds an 18-7-1 advantage. In how many of those games were BOTH teams ranked in the Top 10?

Since I’m loaded up on Orange Bowl stuff bags, the winner of this week’s trivia contest will get TWO bags of treats.

An SBNation writer wrote that regarding 2017 Bowls, “everything is a total mess.” This chaos is glorious.

Dear sports fans and friends, if your team wins this weekend, when something good happens, or when you’ve finished work, shout out like Fred Flintstone, another 1960s TV icon:

YABBA DABBA DOO!            

Enjoy Game Day.

Lee