By JOHN P. WISEOne Great Season
What looked like it would be a boring weekend in college football turned out to be — quoting Frank the Tank here — a pretty nice little Saturday.
Georgia hung tough with No. 2 Auburn for three-and-a-half quarters, No. 3 TCU found itself in a 14-0 hole early and No. 8 Ohio State trailed 14-3 at home before waking up after halftime to throttle Penn State.
And though the SEC East Championship game was a blowout, much of America cared — and enjoyed — because Florida was on the very short end of that 36-14 rout at the hands of old friend Steve Spurrier and his South Carolina Gamecocks.
TCU eventually won its game against San Diego State, but it was much closer than anyone was expecting it to be. Also harming the Horned Frogs' cause Saturday was the fact that their three resume wins all were downgraded after Utah failed at Notre Dame, Baylor lost to Texas A&M and Oregon State fell at home to Washington State, the school better known for its flag than its football team.
And to cap off the wild night, top-ranked Oregon took its high-flying offense to Berkeley, where an up-and-down Cal team awaited. The Bears' defensive line manhandled the Ducks' well-oiled rushing machine, but as No. 1 teams are able to do, Oregon played just well enough to stand triumphant at the end, escaping with its perfect record still intact after 10 games.
You can't score 60 every week; you can't win every game by 40 points. Elite squads will struggle a time or two; and they may even get a little lucky, as the Ducks did when Cal missed a do-over field goal in the fourth quarter that would have given the home team the late lead.
Surely the experts will spend this week doubting Oregon's status as the nation's top team, but if UO was an SEC squad, its 15-13 road win would have been deemed a gritty effort, the stuff of champions. Do you disagree?