Nice day for the Big 10 yesterday. The only win in five tries was Northwestern's triumph over the eighth-best team in the SEC.

In case any of you haven't seen the hit

http://deadspin.com/5972378/jadeveon-clowney-decapitated-vincent-smith-then-palmed-the-football

artie_fufkin wrote:

Nice day for the Big 10 yesterday. The only win in five tries was Northwestern's triumph over the eighth-best team in the SEC.

See?  The SEC is way overrated!

forsberg_us wrote:

In case any of you haven't seen the hit

http://deadspin.com/5972378/jadeveon-clowney-decapitated-vincent-smith-then-palmed-the-football

Wow!  Utterly brutal. 

One thing to be said for the RB was that after that hit he still had the presence of mind to try to slap the ball away from DaClown.

Max wrote:

artie_fufkin wrote:

"there were plenty of B1G fans telling the world how inferior the SEC was because Georgia and South Carolina "almost" lost to Nebraska and Michigan."

I would have also expected the usual bleating about how much of an advantage Stanford had playing a "home" game in Pasadena and/or Wisconsin had a difficult time adjusting to the 70-degree sunny weather.

Jet-lag!  That and wearing themselves out visiting LA tourist attractions before the game.

Speaking of California tourism, I'm wondering how the Stanford band's "Ode to Cheese" halftime show went over with the visitors from Madison.
Musburger described the band as "well-behaved" during the National Anthem. Of course, it's all relative. This is a band that has, in the past:
- Staged a formation of a sperm swimming to an egg;
- Mocked Ohio State by spelling out "Shit," complete with a Sousaphone player dotting the "I;"
- Performed a tribute to USC alum Joe "Girls Gone Wild" Francis at the L.A. Coliseum;
- Waved dollar bills at the USC band during its performance;
- Performed a tribute to the spotted owl in Eugene;
- Performed a halftime show entitled "These Irish, Why Must They Fight?" in South Bend.

To say nothing of their costing Stanford the '82 Game against Cal by running onto the field ...

Max wrote:

Unless my mind is playing tricks, the one I remember was them forming a penis, complete with urethra, and having one member then run the length of the urethra and "ejaculate" onto the field..

As for the infamous Cal "victory", the illegal forward laterals and other blown calls by the refs had at least as much to do with the Stanford defeat as did their band.  It's a cool play, and fun to watch, and I have no stake in it one way or another.  But a close friend at the time was a freshman at Stanford that year and he made me sit down and watch each blown call.

I'd never heard that one, but it wouldn't surprise me. A fun thing to do is ask someone who was in a marching band at another school what they think of the Stanford band, and the universal response is utter hatred.

The "his knee was down" claim that Stanford has maintained for the past 30 years is plausible, but you know if you've watched the video that many times it's inconclusive.
My brush with greatness in the episode is that my roommate at ASU and Kevin Moen - who scored the disputed touchdown for Cal - were friends in high school, and he hung out with us after the game when Cal came to Tempe in 1980, before he was famous.

Max wrote:

knee was down. multiple forward laterals.

I'm not as inclined to condemn the officials. Remember, this was the first time we'd ever seen the strategy of lateralling (if that's a word) the ball until you're tackled in a desperation situation. And there was no instant replay review system back then. The officials had to call the play on the fly, not expecting it was coming, with all the chaos that occurred before and during the kick return, in the midst of the emotions of a rivarly game.