Two subjects today, including "Super Bowl XLI-I/II."
First, though, another Sign of the Apocalypse: The undefeated 9-0 Kansas Jayhawks football team (I never thought I'd read THAT in my lifetime!) annihilated the Nebraska Cornhuskers yesterday, 76-39. As the story notes, Nebraska had won 37 of the last 38 games between the two teams, and between 1971-2000, the average score was 47-7. When I was growing up, both Kansas and Kansas State perennially sucked at football, while Big Eight (now Big Twelve) conference rivals Nebraska and Oklahoma, which sandwiched the state on either side, would beat the woeful Sunflower State teams like a drum. The Jayhawks usually had a great basketball team, though, so there would often be some payback later in the year.
This year, though, Nebraska has fallen on hard times, and the Jayhawks were 20-point favorites going into the game! It must be rough for the people in Nebraska, because really, what do they have there except for college football? They eat it, breathe it, live it up there. On fall Saturdays, everything is red and white. Without a good football team, they might as well be South Dakota. But remembering all of the beatings they inflicted on us, I have a hard time mustering any sympathy for them. In fact, I'll pile on by telling a Nebraska joke:
Q: What does the N on the Nebraska football helmet stand for?
A: Nowledge.
Yeah, I'm enjoying it!
Next, today's titanic match-up between the New England Patriots (8-0) and the Indianapolis Colts (7-0), the latest in the season that two unbeaten teams have ever met. The Pats are a 6-point favorite, even on the road, because they've been beating teams this year the way that Nebraska used to beat Kansas.
Bill Belichick of the Patriots is the kind of coach that you only like if he's leading your team. He's gotten some criticism for running up the score on opponents in recent weeks. He's the kind of coach who leaves his first-string offense in the game in the fourth quarter despite having a 40-point lead, and while I really don't like seeing players get hurt, in a situation like that, if it were to happen, I'd think that they'd deserve it. With a big lead, you should pull your starters so they don't get injured and let the backups get some playing time. Tony Dungy, by contrast, is a genuinely nice guy. These are clearly the top two teams in the NFL, and the winner of the game will be the clear favorite to nail down home field advantage in the playoffs. I hope the Colts win.
Finally, a bonus non-football topic: What is it with these Peterson people? We had Laci Peterson murdered by her husband Scott a few years back, and now in suburban Chicago a young woman named Stacy Peterson has gone missing and her cop husband Drew is under suspicion, and in Mexico, cops just arrested a 25-year-old female middle school teacher from Nebraska named Kelsey Peterson, who had run off with a 13-year-old male student after people became suspicious of their sexual relationship. On the plus side, she didn't have to watch the Cornhuskers get walloped by the Jayhawks.
See? Everything IS related!
