Loser of the Week (Week 5)

POSTED BY Robert Reid, 01 October 2007

Sometimes it takes divine intervention to beat college football's loser of the week, or Duke

How much money is spent on wild, half-baked predictions from the barrel-chested reservoir of underworked college football analysts who bounce off whatever ESPN’s storylines are for the week? Actually, I don't want to know. Often college-football media's belligerent, don’t-dare-doubt declarative statements (eg ‘no one in the Big 12 can compete with Oklahoma, particularly in the north’) prove plain dumb. What’s worse is how it’s followed with equally declarative statements the other way (eg OU is 'soft and untested').

Rather than bicker, the Loser of the Week (LoW) joins the fracas with three declarative statements to read, believe, laminate and refer to (often). They are law, or until proven dumb next week.

Polls should debut after five weeks. We now, and for the first time all year, have the ability to rank teams. Compare pre-season Top 5 with current rank on the AP poll: #1 USC (now #2), #2 LSU (#1), #3West Virginia (#13), #4 Texas (#19), #5 Michigan (not ranked). It only gets crazier the farther down you look.
Young QBs are young QBs. Tim Tebow, Colt McCoy and Sam Bradford for Heisman? All have been mentioned in Heisman talk that starts a month or two before the season starts. All have already lost to double-digit underdogs (two at home). Freshmen and sophomore QBs tend to show their inexperience a time or three each season. LoW rule: Don’t bill anyone as Heisman favorite until after they've had time to prove their promise.
Quietly, Ohio State is set for championship game. Who would have thought the Sweater-vest Buckeyes could rebound after the humiliating national-championship game last year? Off-the-radar from the get-go, and winning games with only a weak-ish Big 10 to go, they have (per LoW's underworked analysis) the best chance of the unbeatens to reach New Orleans that way.

Now back to glorious losing.

LoW 2nd String: Oregon
With half of the Top 15 losing this week, one surely has earned the ability to walk away head high, right? It’s Oregon, who played the best team of the Top 15 Losers (#6 California), led early in the fourth quarter, but gave up three turnovers on its last three possessions of the game, and still were 17 inches from a thrilling game-tying TD when receiver Cameron Colvin reached toward the goal line and fumbled the ball for a touch back to Cal. Dennis Dixon showed bounce-back-ability throughout the quarter, following a fumbled kick-off with a long drive for a game-tying TD, then his season’s first INTs (back-to-back) with a long drive that nearly tied it up as time ticked out. Oregon dropped only three spots in the rankings.

But the losing hero of the day is the Duck fans. Some 6000 fans — some camping out — greeted the sunrise for the 7am start to ESPN’s GameDay broadcast, a wilder spectacle than we've seen at eastern-time zone games all year. And Autzen Stadium — branded with Oregon’s ‘O’ logo (why don’t more stadiums have that?) — feels small with 60,000 seats, yet has recorded the loudest crowd noise in the country.

Oregon lost 24-31.

LoW Starter: Duke
Duke hadn’t scored a point in the fourth quarter all year. And Blue Devil football fans (I think there are some) must’ve been shaking their heads when Duke gave up a fumble and pass-interference call that led to a Miami fourth-quarter TD in the Orange Bowl. Miami up, 17-7: game over! Not yet. Duke, who ended a 22-game losing streak against Northwestern two weeks ago, drove 65 yards in two-and-a-half minutes on the ‘Cane defense (a week off their barnstorming win over Texas A&M) to close the gap to 14-17. Their defense answered too, stopping Miami and a 3rd and 1 and 4th and 1 on Duke’s 31, and Duke’s offense — led by Miami native Thad Lewis (who passed for 247 yards on the day) — drove to the Miami 30. Because Duke’s field-goal kicker was injured, they didn’t ask their punter to try a game-tying 47-yarder into the wind. Duke went for it on 4th and 5, and Lewis was sacked. Miami then drove for a game-clenching TD with two minutes remaining. Still, Miami had to sweat it out as Duke ran back the kick-off 70 yards.

According to an AP story, Miami running back Graig Cooper said, “I was praying to God, ‘Please don’t let us lose to this team.’” Duke’s last visit to the Orange Bowl ended with a 7-52 loss. This time, apparently, it took divine intervention for the Miami win. That’s losing well.

Duke lost 24-24.

LoW Penalty Box
Oklahoma’s Time-Out decision-maker. Before Colorado set up for the game-winning field goal, they let the clock tick down from 0:25 to 0:02 remaining. OU didn’t use their last time out to preserve a little miracle time. Last week Sooner DeMarco Murray ran a kick-off back for a TD. Why not save a few seconds for him just in case you need them? Turns out they did.

LoW Gives Thanks
The finest moment in sports since the 'Miracle on Ice' (during the 1980 Winter Olympics) came last week when Okie State coach Mike Gundy unleashed a stunning, Shakespearian tirade against a local sports writer. The length of Outkast's 'Hey Ya,' it is simply the press-conference equivalent of the perfect pop song. It's all there: ebbs and flows, rising tensions, the soft spoken follow by the belt-out scream, surprising twists, and the pay-off closer ('this makes me want to puke'). What's underrated in this masterpiece is that Gundy began it by saying who gave him the article, 'a mother of children.' Fond of his parental role (to his kids, his players), Gundy returned for a quieter press conference this Saturday with HIS SON NEXT TO HIM!

This is borderline art, and LoW thanks Gundy for making the ever-dry-and-dull post-game chat entertaining. We may not watch your Cowboys play, but we'll definitely tune in after the game.

Past LoW Losers
Week 4 Losers: Tulsa rebounded to beat UAB, 38-30. And Texas Tech blew out Northwestern State (who?) , 75-7. By the way, teams who have beaten past LoW Losers were 1-3 this week (with the lone win against a division-two team at home).

On the year, LoW Losers record after their attention-getting loss: