Andrew 22, version 5.0* (*First one of these in over a year)

This is the fifth edition of the column, which is a blatant rip-off of (1) Pat Forde's "40 Yard Dash" column that he pens during the college football season. (He also does a college basketball one, but it is his pigskin one that coaches, players and fans anxiously wait for each week.) Of course, our version comes with a twist. Instead of 40 things pertaining to college football (Forde's runs the gamut from coaches and players to cheerleaders and college bars), ours is 22 things pertaining to...well, whatever is on our mind at the time. As for the name of the column? It honors (2) Andrew Toney, the single greatest under-6'4"-offensive-threat in history of the NBA.

In the olden days we’d get up on New Year’s Day and watch all the bowl games, starting with the Cotton Bowl at 11 and ending with the Sugar and Orange Bowls simultaneously at 8. In between there was the Fiesta Bowl and, of course, the Rose Bowl. It was always a beautiful day of games. Around 2 PM we would start eating the homemade cold cut platter, along with gargantuan calzones from the local market.

Some 25 years later, the New Year’s Day bowl format has been turned upside down on its head. And the cold cuts and calzones have long since been replaced. Yesterday, it was (3) Chinese Food. We watched parts or all of the five game schedule yesterday. We can’t remember a more entertaining New Year’s Day worth of games. Here’s our take: (And if you don’t want to read it, we promise not to have (4) Our Dad call and use his power and influence to try to get you to. On the other hand, we also promise not to (5) lock you in a dark closet.

We actually want to start with one game from New Year’s Eve. It had been four years since Oklahoma last won a bowl game. So long, in fact, that Sooner Bad Boy/Attempted Program Wrecker (6) Rhett Bomar was the starting QB. And so it was that we had little hope of the Sooners reversing their downward trend this bowl season. They were awful away from home this season and beyond the injuries to 2010 first round draft picks Sam Bradford and Jermaine Gresham, they were forced to start a third string guard and a fourth string center. Factor in Stanford coach (7) Jim Harbaugh’s penchant for beating Big Programs and irritating Big Name Coaches (hello, (8) Pete Carroll) and we picked against the Sooners in both of our Illegal Brent Bowl Pools. We were happily wrong (though we actually won the game in one of the pools, as The Cardinal covered the +9 spread while losing, 31-27). Even better, the game gave us Great Hope for the 2010 season. Freshman QB Landry Jones was 30-51-418 and 3 TDs. (Interesting side note: JUCO QB Cameron Newton is a former 5 star recruit who “left” Florida not because of Tim Tebow, but because he got caught “borrowing” someone’s laptop without asking. Anyway, after a year in the Tri Valley League minor leagues, he is ready to sign with one of the 50 schools offering him a full ride. As Landry Jones was brutally inconsistent this season, OU moved to the top of his list along with Auburn, which had two great things to offer: a job vacated by senior QB Chris Todd and an offense created by offensive coordinator (9) Gus Malzahn, who definitely gets one of our Five Dinner Invites. But when Jones tore Stanford to shreds, Newton committed to Auburn that very night.) In addition to Jones, two other freshman came up LARGE. Redshirt rookie DeJuan Miller (hailing from, of all places, New Jersey) had his best game of the year with 6 catches for 84 yards. And true frosh Ronnell Brewer had a monster game at defensive end. Factor in a recruiting class currently ranked number one by Rivals.com and Oklahoma should be back on top next fall.

Onto January 1, 2010 bowl games. (10) The Outback Bowl was probably the most entertaining game of the season. Certainly the fourth quarter was the best quarter all season. Auburn had a 14 point lead with under five minutes to play before Northwestern tied it on an Auburn fumble, a stupid Auburn penalty, a missed Northwestern extra point, a two point conversion, a missed Wildcat field goal and another missed Wildcat field goal that was saved when Auburn, gulp, ran into the kicker. Unfortunately, the kicker, (11) Stefan Demos, was injured on the play. Later in overtime when Northwestern needed an extra point to tie, coach Pat Fitzgerald opted for a fake. Alas, holder Zeke Markshausen was tackled at the 2-yard line. What a game. Oh, yeah – Wildcat QB Mike Kafka attempted 78 passes. Repeat…78 passes.

Following that, we zipped out for the Chinese food and left The Playmaker home to monitor the games with his grandfather. When we returned home with the grub, they were watching West Virginia sprint out to an early lead over Florida State. Having picked FSU in both pools, we were not the least bit worried. There were two (12) Stone Cold Locks yesterday. The Seminoles weren’t losing Bobby Bowden’s last game (not with close to 300 former players on the sidelines or in the stands), nor was Tim Tebow going out a loser. Two random items: Watching Bowden throw down the burning spear before the game (a site that caused pandemonium among his players) was spine chilling. And CBS sideline reporter (13) Tracy Wolfson is downright yummy looking – a fact that no one else seems to recognize.

k

While that was going on, we frequently checked on the Penn State-LSU game. The Capital One Bowl Game in Orlando was played on a field that was an absolute disgrace. (A fact that several national media pundits pointed out. In a huge coincidence, no doubt, the good folks in Orlando announced they were replacing the sod this week and that never again would such field conditions exist.) The other thing is (14) Our Guy Lester. It has not been a good season for Coach Miles down in Baton Rouge. His Tigers suffered four losses. Equally damning were the numerous times Miles was downright clueless with clock management in crucial spots. Beyond that, Lester looked literally disinterested for long periods of time during the fall. His defense looked un-Tiger-esque. And his quarterback, Jordan Jefferson, after starting for two years, is still no good. All of which spells more of the same next fall. LSU Nation will not take kindly to another four loss season. You read it here first: After next season we think Rich Rod gets booted from The Big House and that Lester leaves LSU for Ann Arbor.

The Rose Bowl is often a snooze fest, as the Big Ten entry annually gets abused by the more athletic Pac 10 team. Except that (15) Coach Pete’s SC Trojans decided to take the season off and were replaced by...wait for it...the Oregon Ducks. Ohio State and Oregon in the Grand Daddy of ‘Em All?!? ZZZ. But it actually turned out to be a good game (26-17, Buckeyes). Even more shocking was the fact that (16) Terrelle Pryor was frigging awesome. That statement has never been uttered in this space and we didn’t think it ever would. Instead, we have reveled in pointing out how Pryor is the most overrated recruit in the past 10 20 years. But for yesterday, at least, he was nasty. And it wasn’t even his running (though he did tote the rock for 72 yards) that did it. It was his passing. Terrelle Pryor throwing and completing long passes?!? Hell, Terrelle Pryor completing any passes?!? Who knew?!? Seriously. Who frigging knew?!? Yet there he was, completing 23 of 37 passes for 266 yards and 2 TDs. (Did (17) The Sweater Vest even let him throw 37 times all season?!?) The downside, of course, is the fact that Pryor will now be on top of everyone’s Heisman list for the next 8 months. Yes, people, his Rose Bowl performance, combined with the fact that Tebow can no longer play college football (much as he would like to), make Terrelle Pryor The New Face of College Football.

That led us to the final game of the glorious day. The Gators and the Bearcats in the Sugar Bowl. Actually, Fox announcer (18) Brian Billick would like you to refer to them as the University of Florida and the University of Cincinnati. And how do we know this? Because for the first two hours of the game, whenever Billick mentioned either team, he always added the prefix UNIVERISTY. It was irritating enough to make us want to shotgun mass quantities of bottled fluid intoxicants at rapid speeds. Then we remembered that the game was on Fox and that, well, Fox has no idea what it’s doing with college football because, duh, it doesn’t broadcast games during the season. Which gets it into uncomfortable situations like last night when Billick was broadcasting his first college football game ever. Ever! However, someone clearly got into his ear and said, “STOP effing using the word UNIVERSITY! Just do what EVERYONE else does: Call ‘em Florida and Cincinnati!” Once that happened, Billick was actually pretty good. He was at his best when talking about various players’ chances in the NFL. With one Super Bowl ring on his finger, he knows what he is talking about. (He’s skeptical on Tebow as an NFL QB, but likes teammate (19) Riley Cooper as a wide out.) As for the game itself, it was a dud. The University, errrrrrrrrrr, Cincinnati was clearly outclassed by the Gators. Still, they gave a spirited battle and made it a “respectable” 51-24. (If a 27 point loss can even be respectable.) There were two HUGE developments. 1. Tebow turned in a performance every bit above and beyond his norm as Pryor did. He completed his first 12 throws of the night. By the time he was pulled in the fourth quarter, he was 31-35 for a whopping 482 yards. For the greatest college player of all time, it was his finest game. 2. Other than that, the only real thing people cared about was whether (20) Urban Meyer would ever return from his “leave of absence” and get back on the Gator sideline. One high school recruit said Meyer told him he would “definitely” be coaching when the 2010 season starts in the fall. However, many media people are on record as saying he will never coach again. So it was that we stared a hole into the HD TV looking for the slightest sign from Meyer. For nearly the entire game the normally electric coach was placid, if not downright somber. At one point we wrote the following on our legal pad: “Meyer = subdued. Will not coach next season.” ***True story: Less than one minute later, Cincy scored to it 51-24 with 3:43 left in the game. Logic dictated that interim Bearcat coach (21) Jeff Quinn (the guy sporting the same gold chain around his neck that Jimmy Connors wore in 1980) would try an on-side kick. Suddenly the Gators called timeout and Meyer frantically called over his kick return team and screamed at them to defend the onside kick. Because a 27 point lead with under 4 minutes to play is never a sure thing! It was at that moment we knew for sure that Urban Meyer would be coaching next season. A fact that he confirmed 15 minutes later during the post game celebration to fish-out-of-water-sideline guy-Chris Myers. (By the way, Cincinnati didn't even bother trying the onside kick.)

A few minutes later it was almost 12:45 AM. After nearly 14 consecutive hours of watching college football, we went to bed.

(22) Happy New Year.