Weak 12

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Now I've been one who has expressed concern about this habit of schools playing split squad games like they're in baseball spring training.

Which reminds me, this is the nicest time of the year, no baseball for another three months. I told my good friend Lee Corso that the worst sports day of the year is when pitchers and catchers report. He said he liked to both pitch and catch. I don't understand Lee at times.

Anyway, I've seen teams split into two teams, like Miami splitting its squad to play against Florida State and some MAC school.

But this weekend the Trojans went even further and I don't know what Coach Carole is thinking.

You had three Trojan teams playing last Saturday. One of them knocked off Stanford. Thankfully the Cardinals have gotten rid of the "N C" on their helmets, leaving just the "S", they shouldn't be claiming to be national champions.

The second USC team got reamed by Florida. I'm guessing it was the third string squad.

But the most interesting split squad effort came down in Baton Rouge, where the men of Troy blew a big lead and lost to LSU. They must have let coach Tollner handle that one.

Another interesting game was Notre Dame's win over Navy. Apparently they played it under college all-star game rules where the trailing team gets to receive all kick-offs, because Navy kept on getting the ball even after Navy scored.

Because it's November, rivalry games are coming to the forefront. Wisconsin came from behind to knock off Minnesota and grab a piece of Paul Bunyan's Ass.

We're only a couple days away from the most exciting rivalry games. I for one can't wait until that Apple Cup showdown to see who will triumph and be declared the second worst team in major college football.

One of the great things about college football is its history. Another is all the famous names that show up throughout the last 140 years.

Back in my childhood, one of the great coaches was Pop Warner. He first became famous at the Carlisle Indian school. They had a big game against Harvard on the last day of October in 1903. They scored a touchdown on a play where the quarterback shoved the ball in the back of a lineman's jersey and the lineman scored a long TD run on the "hidden ball play".

At least that's the story. The reality was that the quarterback, a guy named Johnson, was a pagan celebrating the fact that the game was being played on Halloween and the football contained his demon seed. Forget those recent stories about "the first man to ever become pregnant", this evil pregnancy occurred over 100 years ago.

Pretty soon the first devil football player was born. His quarterback father Jimmy was so proud at his son's fat little head and red eyes that he decided to name the child after himself. And that's how noted pork-faced Satan Jimmy Johnson Junior was born.

And now you know the rest of the story.