Every Dog's Day

"Let Hercules himself do what he may, The cat will mew, and dog will have his day."

-Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act V, Scene 1



Saturday, September 29, 2007 will live on in Underdog Pool lore as the Day of the Dogs. The "mainstream media" such as ESPN may dub it "Insanity Saturday", but we poolers know that there is nothing insane about the underdogs of the world rising up and having the day the bard prophesied so long ago. Congratulations to everyone who drank from the bountiful harvest of underdog points this weekend, but no one benefited more than GoBuffs, who racked up an underdog pool all-time record of 44 points on one game. Yes, he actually had the audacity to double on Colorado over Oklahoma!

The weekend began innocently enough, with the widely-expected upset of West Virginia at the hands of South Florida. The Bulls had little time, however, to bask in the national spotlight, as their win became old news by early Saturday afternoon. Illinois demonstrated that their 4-1 record is not a fluke by beating Penn State. But the collective jaws of the college football world fell to the ground when Colorado came all the way back from being down 24-7 to punch through a game winning field goal as time expired. It was the kind of shocker that drives announcers to the heights of irrational hyperbole: the FSN play-by-play broadcaster called it "the biggest upset this year". Actually, it was the third biggest. Syracuse set the bar high beating Louisville as 37 point underdogs (which may be the biggest upset in history). Although no line was officially posted for the Michigan-Appalachian State debacle, most blogs report it to have been at 23 - 27 points. The Colorado Buffaloes were "only" 22 point dogs!

It turned out that Oklahoma's collapse was merely the tipping point, triggering an avalanche of losses by top 13 teams: 7 in all (counting Oregon's loss to the higher ranked Cal). It was the most top 10 losses since 2005 and possibly the most top 13 losses ever. After this wild day, two things are for certain: the rankings on Monday will look very different and the national title race got a lot less muddy. LSU will be playing the Pac-10 champion in New Orleans (or an undefeated Big-10 team if Cal, USC, and ASU lose one game each). At this point, with USC struggling not to beat themselves in Seattle, running the table in the Pac-10 looks like an impossible task. It's a long season-there are many days left for the dogs to have!

Fight On,
Hans