Thank God for Bye Weeks

I spent three dollars last weekend washing the stains out of my pants. Oklahoma lost to Colorado. Texas lost to Kansas State. West Virginia lost to USF. And Cal/Oregon was too much to handle (speaking of too much to handle, my lunch that day...actually, you don't need to hear that). So when I realized that my Golden Bears were going to be ranked third in the nation -- their highest ranking since the 1950s, when our coach's nickname was PAPPY (note how he looks like your gran'pappy) -- I think you can connect the dots to how I'm three dollars poorer.

But College Football 2007, codenamed Project Mayhem, didn't stop there. The upsets continued to pile up like bad drivers on the 405 with Wisconsin (but seriously, that should've happened a while ago) losing to Illinois, Kentucky to South Carolina, UCLA TO NOTRE DAME (in a bout for the title of "who is the more overrated coach"), and Georgia to Tennessee. When not one of the 21-25 team maintain their spot in the AP poll after one week, you know something's wrong with the season.

But nothing was more tragic this past weekend than USC's fall.



As you know, I'm a Golden Bear, and an ardent supporter of my team. I take pride knowing that my neighbor Alex Mack and the rest of the Offensive Line are one of the best in the country, and one of the key reasons we're currently ranked number 2 in the nation. But USC's tumble this past weekend was one of the worst things I could have seen. Sure, Jeff Tedford's Bears have played the Wes Mantooth, while Pete Carroll's Trojans year in and year out assume the role of Ron Burgundy, but too many things are wrong here. USC lost to the same Stanford that won 1 game last year in the Coliseum -- ironically the last school to beat them at home, though 35 games and 6 years ago. John David Booty just crumbled during the game, throwing four picks and ending his Heisman campaign -- although it was a bad weekend for lots of quarterbacks, from Andre Woodson to Brett Favre to Tony Romo. And Tailback U, with more running backs than I have fingers (no, it's just 10), was held to less than 100 yards rushing. At times like this, any self-respecting human being has to sit back and ask himself "WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!?"

So this has me spinning in circles. Appalachian State is a distant memory. Syracuse over Louisville is but dust in the wind. Cal's arch-nemesis Stanford has toppled the Pac-10 giant (for the time being), and for the first time since I can remember, Cal is ahead of USC in the AP poll. I should be enjoying the limelight, because ESPN is finally forced to give us our dues. We've played well when we were in the spotlight against Tennessee, and stunned all the critics with the win at Oregon (Cal must to build a statue of Marcus Ezeff in Sproul Plaza). But I'm scared. This season is bat-shit insanity, and if USC falls, what's to stop Cal from losing four straight to Oregon State, UCLA, Arizona State, and Washington State before playing USC on Nov. 10 (well, Karl Dorrell, since he's still coaching UCLA)? November 10 was supposed to be the circled matchup on my calendar. The Battle of the Unbeatens. Now? Not so much.

Now I'm also looking ahead to December 1. And I'm embarrassed to admit that I'm scared of how my Bears will play against a tree.