Having seen the game at Autzen, I went home and watched my recording of it. And I was surprised to find that if you watched this game on television, you did not see what happened. It appears that ESPN -- which, along with ABC, is owned by Disney -- wanted to present the game as a family show. So while LaMJ lay on the ground, they broke to commercial to spare their audience the ugly stuff.
And it got ugly.
While LaMJ was lying on the ground trying to decide whether he was conscious or not, both teams momentarily vacated the field and stood on their respective sidelines. Arizona had been flagged for a helmet-to-helmet penalty, and that sent Arizona Coach Mike Stoops into orbit.
While LaMJ lay on the ground, Stoops launched a tirade at the officials about the penalty. Fans saw this and started to boo.
While LaMJ still lay on the ground, Arizona's defense took to the field and lined up as if they were ready to play some more. The chorus of boos grew louder. Stoops continued to yell at the officials.
While LaMJ still lay on the ground, the referees told Arizona's players to get back to their sideline. They did. But moments later most of the team left their benches and joined together in a tight mosh-pit style circle on the sidelines, chanting and jumping up and down. It was the kind of thing you would see before a game starts, not while an opposing player lies on the field with a potentially serious injury. Other AZ players threw up their arms, egging the crowd on.
At this point the booing crowd grew to consensus. It was the loudest boo fest I had ever heard at Autzen. While AZ's players continued to show incredible insensitivity and disrespect and the crowd threw up a chorus of boos you could hear from Spencer's Butte, Mike Stoops was still pacing the sidelines, bathing in his own personal hot steam bath, yelling at anyone who came within earshot.
His red bulging eyes were unable to see the bigger picture. A player lay hurt on the field, and his team was out of control.
 |
| "Don't make us get the straight jacket, coach." |
 |
| LaMJ was back. |
It wasn't hyped vengeful anger that drove the Ducks (They left those emotions for their fans.), just confidence and resolve. This is the difference between Chip Kelly's Ducks and Mike Stoops' Wildcats.
I was listening to the radio postgame talk on the way home, and one announcer pointed out that he could walk the Oregon sidelines at any time in the game and not be able to tell by the looks on the players' faces whether they were leading or trailing. Oregon's players follow their coach's lead and stay even keeled and quietly confident throughout the game.
You think you could say the same thing about Arizona? Some people might say that Stoops is very intense, very competitive. He gets all purple faced and yells at his coaches and players and anyone else who will listen throughout the entire game. Sometimes you see the players and assistants yell back at him. Sometimes you see them cower. I think Stoops is just an idiot. He doesn't realize that all of that negative emotion just comes back to bite his team.
The radio announcer went on to say that this is a huge factor in Arizona's second half collapses. Their mindset is chaotic and panicked. Their temperament is angry and fearful. They're good players. But they're unfortunately following the cues from their coach to their own detriment.
After the game, Stoops had this to say. From the Oregonian:
“We tried to stay in as long as we could,”Arizona coach Mike Stoops said. “They put a lot of pressure on you in a lot of different ways and we really couldn’t handle it in the second half” . . .
“Just too many mistakes when you’re playing a team like Oregon,” Stoops said.
Gracious words. But Stoops if you still want to yell at anyone about this loss, you need to look in the mirror. Your coaching style is polar opposite to Chip Kelly's. The result: Oregon is in position to go to the national championship, and Arizona is lucky to be going to any bowl at all. Photos from Oregonian.
 |
| Darron Thomas on a keeper for a TD. |
 |
| Senior Casey Matthews offers up his last rebel yell in Autzen after a tackle for a loss. |
 |
| Arizona didn't realize how fast Josh Huff was until after this 85 yard TD to start Oregon's second-half rout. |
 |
| Spencer Paysinger surprises Nick Foles with a safety blitz and sack. |
 |
| Fourth quarter fumble of a kick return adds to Arizona's misery. |
 |
| You wouldn't know Oregon became eligible for the Rose Bowl by this post-game celebration. Not a single rose anywhere. Oregon's fans and players have something else in mind. |
 |
| Kelly: "Nick I know your coach is a butthead. But I'm sorry. It's too late to transfer to Oregon." |
MEET THE SCOOTER LIBBY OF THE CAL BEARS.
 |
| Tosh Lupoi. Totally his idea? Completely his fault? |
Cal athletic director Sandy Barbour made the announcement after the Bears' 16-13 loss to the Huskies. Of greater embarrassment is the admission that the team feigned injuries in an effort to slow down the Ducks in Cal's 15-13 loss two weeks earlier.
Barbour also said that coach Jeff Tedford plans to keep Lupoi on his staff. Tedford had denied that his players faked injuries against the Ducks, but the video evidence was too incriminating.
In that game against Oregon, defensive lineman Aaron Tipoti was caught on camera in a comical display that was lampooned on numerous talk shows on radio and television.
Tipoti was seen walking normally after a play before turning his head toward the sideline and then grabbing his leg. He then stumbled and fell on the ball, forcing the officials to call a rhythm-disrupting timeout.
NCAA rules do not call for on-field penalties, even if officials have strong suspicions that a team is feigning injuries. The rule book does, however, cover the issue under the heading of ethics, calling the teaching of such a ploy "indefensible.''
The Pacific-10 Conference issued a statement Saturday, saying the league "takes the integrity of the game very seriously'' and that instructing a player to fake injury is "an unethical and unsportsmanlike practice in violation of coaching ethics as outlined in the NCAA Football Rules and Interpretations.''
The statement commended Barbour and Tedford for "the forthright manner in which they have addressed this issue and for the positive example they are setting by reinforcing the importance of the principles at stake.''
We'll talk about the Civil War in my next post.
A note to my readers:
While we were all watching the Arizona game either at Autzen or on TV, an unfathomable, horrific event ALMOST happened in downtown Portland.
Thanks to our law enforcement officials and alert citizens, a 19-year old did NOT blow up six barrels of explosives parked in a van nearby a tree lighting ceremony where thousands of men, women and children had gathered. There were no explosives to detonate.
I bring this up because the terrorist was an Oregon State student. It would have been too easy to bring in his name and add humorous fodder to my Civil War posts. But after talking to a few people and thinking about my OSU friends, I came to the right decision.
It's not funny.
The word "hatred" that we Ducks, Beavers and other rivals throw back and forth is good natured and limited to a game on the field. The hatred inside this young man's heart is sorrowful, evil, and beyond comprehension of decent human beings including Muslims and Islamists.
Let us use football the way it is meant to be used -- to allow us to engage in the human elements of competition and rivalry with the spirit of sportsmanship and good natured ribbing. I use college football as a vehicle to get away from the daily grind of life and fears of the world.
I will not give this sad, miserable young man a place in my fun forum that I share with you, whether you're a Duck, Beaver, Cougar, football fan in general . . . . even a Hhhh . . . Hus. . . . . Husssssky (Relax Dawgs. It almost killed me, but I said it.).
God bless and keep you all.
--KB
No comments:
Post a Comment