[NU Sports] Evening edition ...

[SjT (Stephen J. Truog)]

Good game under the lights in Kinnick. A tad too many turnovers on both sides to see either one making a serious run at the Roses, but exciting nonetheless. Looks like Iowa's starting to take control and that should set up some HUGE road games at Madison next weekend and at Columbus in November.

Not much of a game in the afternoon as OSU's defense gets more impressive each week. If they start scoring in addition to shutting people down, then they should be headed for a rematch with SC in Pasadena.

You could fill many a' Sunday papers with the clueless statements made by John "The Buffoon" Saunders on ABC's college studio show (and you'd have matching visual shots of the clueless looks from Jesse "The Bachelor" Palmer) ... some doozies from the Michigan-Iowa halftime:

- Everyone would agree that VaTech is the best one-loss team in the country. Really? Would people out west agree to that, John? A team that barely beat Dook last week and struggled most of the game at home before scraping by Nebraska is better than the team that went into the Horseshoe and won??? You can make a case for the Hokies, but it's far from unanimous.

- Johnny also got his nodding head of a co-host to agree that the winner of tonight's game is the team to beat in the Big Ten. Really, John? Even with Michigan having a loss? Even with Iowa having to visit Columbus, Madison and East Lansing yet? Even with PSU coming on strong after their traditional mental block with Iowa? Did you SEE the last four games by OSU's defense? Did you see the turnovers by Iowa and Michigan?

- And finally, he rightfully rushed with the pack to defend Bobby Bowden ... yet a few years ago, seems like John -- in his early days of Big Ten bias -- was one of the leaders of the "JoePa is too old" crowd.

Oh well, it's not the dull talking heads on CBS' halftime show. But they at least know which side of their bread gets buttered. While John can't wait to snipe at the Big Ten, the CBS folk fell all over themselves today to show how strong and deep the SEC was, despite Vandy losing to Army ... or the team that lost at home to UCLA destroying "major power" Georgia ... or mediocre Arkansas showing that Wisconsin wasn't the unbeaten team that should heva been left out of the polls ... or trying to convince us that Ole Miss is still a good team. See, the CBS studio team knows that if you just keep saying how awesome the SEC is and how deep and almighty the league is, sooner or later people will just start believing it instead of realizing that it's a league with three great teams and a whole lot of mediocrity after that ... not all that different from the other major conferences.

Oh yeah, and reason #24601 that baseball sucks is that they CANCEL a playoff game due to cold. Boo frickin' hoo, suck it up roid ragers! A clever ploy by Bud Selig to move more games back to the middle of the weekday because NO ONE WATCHES OR CARES on the weekend when you have football games going on!

GO CATS!!!
-SjT

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STEPHEN J. TRUOG
sjtruog at yahoo.com
GO CATS!!!