Winter of our Discontents

After being blessed with a week and a half of the latest Indian Summer on record, low pressure and rain has moved into the great plains.  With it comes a cold, bitter wind that slaps your face and yanks at your ears, reminding you that winter is just around the corner.  Time to finish all the outside work, time to bring the corn in, and time to put away the mower.  By Thanksgiving next week, we will be snuggled warm and toasty within our prairie homes, a roaring fire in the hearth and a succulent turkey in the oven. The end has come to the season.

Winter has also descended on Pete Carrol's era of dominace in the Pac-10.  To a man, all ten head coaches agree in a conference call this week that the rest of the league has caught up to the talent of the Trojans.  Being eliminated from the BCS hurt.  Losing the third game of the season hurt.  Getting smacked by a whopping 55 points hurt a lot.  Losing at home to an in-state rival really hurt.  But the worse part of the loss to Stanford for me is that Pete's last remaining streak came to an end: the No- Loss November is finally no more. Why is this significant?  Because in past years, if USC had a shot at the league title but needed to "win out", we could count on a November run.  The ability to turn it up a notch in what USC fans call "the playoffs" of November was a defining characteristic of Pete Carrol's teams.  Finish the season, Pete.  Beat UCLA, be happy about the Sun Bowl, then purge the assistant coaches.  I wonder how much Norm Chow would need to bribed to move 7 miles east. . .

Hats off to Toby Vandenburg's son for his amazing performance against Ohio State that exceeded everyone's wildest expectations.  Toby is an ER doc in Keokuk, Iowa and sometimes teaches at our program.   Sure, Toby's son threw a couple of game-losing interceptions, but if he recievers hadn't dropped a couple of the bullets that almost ripped their hands off the Hawkeyes would be smelling roses about now.

Speaking of roses, I traditionally give my wife a dozen roses on the day (usually around now) that USC clinches the Rose Bowl.  Oh well.  So I was going to get them to celebrate Iowa beating Ohio State.  Oops.  Of course, if Stanford manages to climb out of the scrum in the wild west of the Pac - 10, she'll get her roses after all.  (Here's a surprising stat: Oregon State controls their own destiny for the Rose Bowl.)  There are so many possible scenarios remaining for the Pac - 10 title, I almost hope Oregon beats Arizona next week just to make it clear.  Maybe I should just get her roses anyway.

I really hope Texas gets upset (not likely) in one of their remaining games because I would love to see TCU play the SEC champ for the national championship.  The Frogs are playing amazing football right now.  If you watched College Game Day's Broadcast from Fort Worth this weekend, you saw the Horned Frog's hand sign: an index and middle finger bent like you're going to poke someone's eyes out.  This got me thinking about all the hand signs for Texas football teams.  It turns out that pretty much eveyone in the old South West Conference has a sign:  Hand Signs of the SWC.  When I saw TCU, now the media darling of the underdog world, flashing a sign I had never heard of, it made me think that they just came up with something recently because now they're hot and want to be in the same sentence with Texas (see the first sentence of this paragraph).  Well, I was partly right.  Burka's article linked above suggests that TCU was the last to adopt a sign.  Classic sign that everyone can do: Texas.  Coolest sign if don't live in an area plagued with handgun violence: Texas Tech.  Hardest sign to make: Houston (even Spock would have trouble with that one).

I was looking forward to writing an article on football hand signs.  I am also working on one about the schools with horses as mascots.  Too bad Traveler has to go away for the winter.

Fight On,

Hans