The irregular and disjointed rantings and ramblings of a lifelong inside-the-loop Houstonian, dedicated urbanist, enthusiastic traveler and loyal University of Houston Cougar fan, who also roots for the University of North Texas Mean Green.
This is something I've always wondered about. Earlier this week, usatoday.com's Ben Mutzabaugh answered it for me:
That would be the Barcelona-Madrid route, according to Travel Daily News, which cites data from OAG BACK Aviation Solutions. The data looks at the number of "flight operations" per week to determine the busiest routes. The Barcelona-Madrid route had 971 weekly operations, "closely followed by Sao Paulo Congonhas/Rio de Janeiro (894 per week), Jeju/Seoul Gimpo (858 per week) and Melbourne/Sydney (851 per week)," according to Travel Daily News.
Amsterdam-London Heathrow was the world's busiest international route with 350 operations per week. In North America, the busiest route is Honolulu-Kahului (639 weekly operations) followed by Las Vegas-Los Angeles (553) and San Diego-Los Angeles (514). Tied for fourth are routes from New York LaGuardia to both Boston and Washington Reagan National.
Of course, this list is based solely on frequencies, not actual passenger capacities; an airport pair served 400 times a week by a 44-seat Embraer Regional Jet still carries far fewer actual passengers than an airport pair served 200 times a week by a 240-seat Boeing 757. Also, the list is based on individual airports, not cities; the number of flights between two actual metropolitan areas might be larger due to the presence of multiple airports in each area (indeed, somebody commented on Ben's blog that the busiest domestic metro pair would actually be Los Angeles area and the Bay Area, with 840 weekly flights between the two).
Nevertheless, I've always wondered how Southwest's every-half-hour service between Houston Hobby and Dallas Love stacked up in relation to other heavily-traveled routes. According to Southwest's flight schedule, there are 372 commercial flights between the two airports every week.
Some of their accolades are spot on. Banh Mi Hoang Son does indeed make the "Best Cheap Sandwich" in town; I know this because I've been a regular customer of theirs for at least fifteen years. They also correctly identified the city's best Thai restaurant, the best Houston Dynamo player, the city's best liquor store and Houston's best landmark (although these last two are really no-brainers). Other Houston Press laurels, however, were a bit off: sorry, but Onion Creek is not the city's best coffeehouse. It's great, you're a yuppie in the Heights who buys into the "Austin is way cooler than Houston" mythology and enjoys mediocre food and lousy service (I'll never forget the time they managed to completely forget my food order). I'll stick to Cafe Artiste near the Menil, thank you.
One award, however, made me wonder exactly how much research the Press's writers do when they compile their annual "Best of" issue. Take the "Best Bar Atmosphere/Decor" award, which I otherwise agree with:
The details give Leon's the character and charm that keep customers coming back to sit at the long wooden bar that stretches across the first room. A second bar is surrounded by comfy leather seating, and the pool room is complete with dead heads — no, not Jerry's — we're talking deer and goats, people.
Completing the appeal is a well-stocked jukebox of new and old hipster favorites. Oh, and they have a shuffleboard table, too.
Yes, Leon's Lounge is a great place. I consider it and the Doghouse Tavern to be my two "neighborhood" bars (even though I no longer live in Midtown) and I go there often. But the write-up makes me wonder if anybody from the Houston Press has actually stepped foot in that place recently. The game trophies in the pool room were removed months ago, as was the shuffleboard (which now hangs on one of the walls; apparently, it was getting warped because people were using it as a place to put their drinks and it was no longer a playable surface).
Speaking of Leon's Lounge, the Press also whiffed on the Best Bartender category: no offense to whomever won the award, but Leon's Jason Green is, hands-down, the city's best bartender.
City Star Executive makes history in the North East of Scotland today, with the announcement it will launch the first ever Inter-continental business only scheduled service between Aberdeen and Houston.
The service will operate four times a week between Aberdeen Airport and George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, with operations commencing in January 2008.
City Star is a small airline that flies from Aberdeen, Scotland to several Norwegian cities (check out the map on their home page) using Dornier turbo-prop aircraft. These short-haul routes between North Sea energy centers are designed to serve the region's oil and gas industry. This is, likewise, the intention of City Star's first trans-Atlantic venture, as City Star CEO Atli Arnason states:
“There has been a growing demand from North East-based business markets to revolutionise the concept of business class travel with the introduction of a direct link connecting two hugely important economic regions - Aberdeen, Europe’s Oil & Gas Capital, and Houston, the United States’ Oil & Gas Capital."
City Star is following in the footsteps of severalotherairlines, offering all-business-class international service using specially-configured Boeing 757 aircraft: the planes have about 50 seats, as opposed to the 200 seats that a standard 757 carries. The premium fares commanded by business-class service will offset the smaller number of passengers. Or at least, that's the theory; time will tell if it works out. Even though I'll probably never need - or be able to afford - to use this service, I hope it does work because it's obviously good for the local energy economy.
This service will bring the number of European cities served nonstop from Bush Intercontinental to five.
Continuing on the theme of Appalachian State's historic upset of Michigan last weekend: was it really, truly, the biggest upset in the history of college football? And what, in fact, are the top upsets in college football? In the wake of this game, I've yet to come across an updated definitive list by ESPN or anyone else, although CSTV's Eric Sorenson takes a good shot at it (putting Appy State's feat second behind Navy's upset of Army in 1950).
So, I've decided to come up with a list of my own.
To me, the "biggest upsets" are those which occur when one program is so thoroughly outclassed and so overwhelmingly outmatched by another in terms of stature, resources, and/or athletic potential that it shouldn't have a snowball's chance in Hades of winning, yet actually pulls it off. These could be either instances of really bad teams defeating really, really good teams, or teams from a lower subunit of the college football world that, against all odds, jump up and bite the elite, high-end programs in the ass.
Instances of a good team beating a better team from the same general level, on the other hand, don't qualify as "big upsets" in my book. #9 Boise State over #7 Oklahoma in last January's Fiesta Bowl might be on my list of the ten greatest games of all time, but not on my list of the ten greatest upsets. The same can be said for #2 Penn State over #1 Miami in the 1987 Fiesta bowl, or #10 Texas A&M over #2 Kansas State in the 1998 Big 12 Championship, or #2 Ohio State over #1 Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl, or #13 Kansas State over #1 Oklahoma in the 2003 Big 12 Championship, or even #17 Boston College over #1 Notre Dame in 1993. All good games, all upsets. But not quite as earth-shattering as, say, Appalachian State over Michigan.
Thus, I bring you the Mean Green Cougar Red List of
The Ten Greatest Upsets in the History of College Football
(By the way, I apologize for the length of this post. If Blogger offered a "jump" feature, I would have used it right here...)
10. Louisiana Tech 29, # 18 Alabama 28 (1999)
Yes, I know that the Bulldogs, led by prolific quarterback Tim Rattay, were a decent team in 1999. But I put this on my top ten for one reason: only two years before, Alabama had been upset by LA Tech 20-26. Bama should have known better than to take the obscure I-A independent from Ruston lightly for a second-straight time.
The 1997 Crimson Tide team had a excuse: they were not very good, finishing the year at 4-7. But the 1999 team, whose only other regular-season loss would be to Tennessee and who would go on to win the SEC championship, had no such defense. To paraphrase an old saying: upset me once, shame on you; upset me twice, shame on me.
Alabama seems to have learned their lesson the second time around, however: they haven't scheduled Louisiana Tech since.
9. North Carolina State 24, #2 Florida State 7 (1998)
Florida State was a college football juggernaut during the 1990s. Consider, for example, that from 1987 through 2000 the Seminoles finished in the AP top five every season, including two national titles. FSU's dominance was also felt in the Atlantic Coast Conference; coming into this game the Seminoles carried a 47-1 record against their ACC conference mates. The Wolfpack had particularly been victimized by FSU during this time, losing games by scores such as 3-62, 17-77, and 17-51. By September 12, 1998, North Carolina State had had enough.
The Wolfpack, who had gone just 12-25 over the past three seasons, entered the game in Raleigh as 25-point underdogs but savaged FSU quarterback Chris Weinke, picking him off an astonishing six times and allowing him to complete only nine of this 32 pass attempts. Weinke's 74-yard bomb to Peter Warrick was all the offense the Seminoles could muster that day; otherwise, it was all North Carolina State. When it was all over, Florida State had suffered only their second loss in ACC play. "Yeah I'm Pretty stunned," Seminole coach Bobby Bowden said after the game. "To get beat like that, I'm very surprised, surprised how we fell apart."
The Wolfpack, inexplicably, would follow up their astounding victory over Florida State by losing to lowly Baylor (!) the following week. The Seminoles, on the other hand, shook off the upset and lost no more games that year until they fell to Tennessee in the Fiesta Bowl. And they got revenge the following year, drubbing the Wolfpack 42-11 en route to their second national championship.
8. Oregon State 21, Washington 20 (1985)
This game belongs in the top ten simply because it is the biggest upset in college football history in terms of spread reversal. The Beavers, a perennial Pac-10 doormat who hadn't sniffed a winning season since 1970, were 2-4 heading into this game. One of their losses was to Division I-AA Grambling State, and they had been shut out in their last two contests. Needless to say, nobody gave this team a chance when they traveled to Seattle to meet the 4-2 Huskies on October 19, 1985. Washington, having finished the previous season with a win over Oklahoma in the Orange Bowl and a #2 final AP ranking, was expected to make quick work of the hapless Beavers. Vegas certainly thought so; the point spread was +37 for Oregon State. However, the Beavers gave U-Dub all they could handle, finding themselves down by only six points late in the game when they forced the Huskies to punt from deep within their side of the field. The Beavers blocked the punt, recovered it in the endzone for the game-tying touchdown, and kicked the extra-point to seal the win and to notch, in the eyes of the sports-betting world, the greatest college football upset ever.
Unfortunately, Oregon State was unable to use this upset to better the program. They won no other games that season and, in fact, didn't secure another winning football season until 1999. Washington, on the other hand, recovered from the stunning upset to go to their seventh-consecutive bowl game.
7. Cincinnati 17, #9 Wisconsin 12 (1999)
This is an instance from a bad team from the "mid-major" tier of college football beating a good team from the top "BCS" tier. The Badgers were coming off an 11-1 season which saw them tie for the Big Ten title, secure a Rose Bowl victory over UCLA, and end the season with a #6 ranking. With Heisman favorite Ron Dayne at running back, the Badgers were poised to possibly go all the way in 1999. After beating their first two opponents by a combined score of 99-20, the 8th-ranked Badgers made the trip down to Cincinnati (then a member of non-BCS Conference USA) to face a team that had only won two games the previous season and had just lost to Division I-AA Troy State.
Perhaps the Badgers weren't used to the small-but-rowdy confines of Nippert Stadium. Perhaps they were looking forward to next week's showdown with Michigan. Perhaps they just weren't taking the Bearcats seriously. For whatever reason, and in spite of 231-yards rushing effort from Dayne, the Badgers could only manage a single touchdown against a spirited Cinci defense. An apparent score late in the game that was negated by a false start penalty sealed the deal for Wisconsin, and Bearcat fans stormed the field and tore down the goalposts.
The Badgers would finish the season with a 10-2 record (they lost to Michigan the following week), a second-consecutive Rose Bowl victory, and a #4 ranking. Ron Dayne would go on to break Ricky Williams's rushing record and win the Heisman. But the loss to Cincinnati remained a blemish on a season that could have been even better for the Badgers. The Bearcats, meanwhile, reverted to their losing ways after the win, ending the season with a 3-8 record.
6. Kansas 23, #2 Oklahoma 3 (1975)
Oklahoma was, without question, a powerhouse of the 1970s. At the time of this game, Oklahoma was working on a 28-game winning streak (dating back to a tie against Southern Cal early in the 1973 season) and a 37-game unbeaten streak. Despite being on probation, the Sooners claimed the 1974 AP title and had their eyes on a second-consecutive championship in 1975. The Jayhawks, on the other hand, were a rather mediocre program, having enjoyed only two winning seasons out of the previous ten. They were 5-3 and unranked when they traveled to Norman to face the #2-ranked Sooners, a team they hadn't defeated in over eleven years, on November 8, 1975.
But, on a day where everything seemed to go right for Kansas and wrong for Oklahoma, the Jayhawks shocked the Sooner Nation. KU's wishbone attack was so successful that quarterback Nolan Cromwell didn't even need to throw a single pass. The Jayhawks also capitalized on Sooner miscues - a whopping eight turnovers and disastrous special teams play - to seal the win.
The upset earned the Jayhawks a spot on the top 20, but it was short-lived. The following week they lost to Colorado, dropping out of the rankings. They eventually ended the season with a loss to Pittsburgh in the Sun Bowl and a 7-5 record. Kansas settled back into their pattern of mediocrity the following season, managing only two winning seasons out over the next fifteen. They wouldn't beat the Sooners again until 1984. The Sooners, meanwhile, shook off the embarrassing loss to win their final three games, including a 14-6 victory over Michigan in the Orange Bowl - and claim their second-consecutive national title.
5. Carnegie Tech 19, Notre Dame 0 (1926)
It's hard to evaluate upsets that occurred so long ago in relation to more recent upsets, because college football has changed so much over the years. But what is now known as Carnegie-Mellon University's upset Knute Rockne's then-unbeaten Fightin' Irish in Pittsburgh on November 27th of 1926 can fairly be considered the Appalachian State - Michigan of its day, especially considering that Rockne was so sure of a win that he didn't even bother to show up:
Notre Dame was a 5-to-1 favorite against Carnegie Tech, a Pittsburgh-based engineering school that started playing teams outside its region only a few years before. Tech had fewer than 30 players, did little recruiting and was coached part-time by a Chicago-based judge, Walter Steffen. Its football budget was about that of Notre Dame's travel budget.
Yet, during one of those star-crossed moments when a huge underdog finds a tactic or motivational edge that works so effectively it fells a giant, Carnegie Tech was the confident aggressor and Notre Dame was a fumbling, confused and leaderless loser.
Blame it on Rockne for making one of the greatest coaching blunders in history.
Notre Dame had beaten Tech so convincingly the previous four seasons - by a combined score of 111-19 - Rockne chose to watch the Army-Navy game played before a crowd of 100,000 in Chicago. Historians have long spun a tale that Rockne was scouting Navy for the following season, but that appears to cover up his true motives.
The Tartans, fired up at the fact that Rockne didn't take them seriously enough to show up to the game as well as the fact that Notre Dame start its second string against them, opened a halftime lead of 13-0 and kept the Irish out of the endzone for the entire game to notch a 19-0 victory. The loss cost Notre Dame an undefeated season and a possible national title, as they defeated Southern California 13-12 the following week.
After World War II, little Carnegie Tech left the world of big-time college football. They now play non-scholarship football in NCAA's Division III. But their upset of Notre Dame lives on:
Carnegie Tech's brief glory days aren't forgotten. Today, Carnegie Mellon players walk from the locker room to the playing field through the Howard Harpster Hall of Fame, where the 1926 Notre Dame game ball is displayed.
4. Navy 14, #2 Army 2 (1950)
According to Beano Cook, this is the biggest upset in the history of college football. I rank it lower because in rivalries, especially ones as full as tradition and emotion as Army-Navy, anything can happen regardless of the relative strength of the two teams. Nevertheless, it certainly belongs in the top five.
Dating back to the beginning of the 1946 season, the Midshipmen managed an abysmal record of 7-34-2. Army, meanwhile, had gone 39-2-4 during that time period and were on a 17-game winning streak when the two teams met in Philadelphia on December 2nd before a crowd of over 100,000 (including President Truman). The 21-point favorite Cadets, however, had a bad day as they fumbled the ball five times and never found their way into the endzone. Navy quarterback "Zug" Zastrow, on the other hand, had a good day as he ran for one touchdown and passed for another. Army's winning streak was broken, as was their invincibility: the following season, they only won two games.
3. Centre College 6, Harvard 0 (1921)
Another monumental upset from the Roaring Twenties. Harvard was one of the nation's dominant football powers during this time. When they hosted tiny Centre College of Danville, Kentucky (total enrollment: 254) on October 29, 1921, they were working on a 25-game unbeaten streak, a run which included a 7-6 victory over Oregon in the 1920 Rose Bowl.
But, in front of 43,000 fans in Harvard Stadium, the "Praying Colonels" pulled off a miraculous upset against a Crimson team that might have been thinking too much about that showdown against Princeton the following week, and too little of their guests from small-town Kentucky. Centre quarterback Bo McMillin scored the game's only touchdown, a 33-yard run in the third quarter. Centre's extra-point attempt was botched, but in the end it didn't matter. Harvard could not find the endzone, and the game ended with the score Centre 6, Harvard 0. The result, needless to say, was stunning.
Neither school is a member of college football's elite these days; Harvard plays in the Ivy League of the (I-AA) Football Championship Subdivision, while Centre plays NCAA Division III football against the likes of other small southern liberal arts colleges like Hendrix, Oglethorpe, and Southwestern. But the upset lives on. In 1950, the Associated Press named "C6-H0" the greatest sports upset of the first half of the 20th century. In 2006, ESPN Classic declared it the third-biggest upset in the 138-year history of college football (behind Navy's 1950 win over Army and Notre Dame's 1957 victory over Oklahoma).
2. Temple 28, Virginia Tech 24 (1998)
Pete Fiutak at collegefootballnews.com claims that this game is a bigger upset than Appalachian State - Michigan, because the Temple Owls of 1998, in spite of being a I-A program, were much worse than the Appalachian State Mountaineers of 2007:
No, Appalachian State didn't pull off the biggest upset in college football history. ASU, as a program, is a winner. We’re talking about a two-time defending national champion. You don’t do that on any level without having a special something. Of course, there might not be anyone on the ASU two-deep who cracks the Michigan starting lineup, but there have been far worse teams in the history of the sport that have pulled off shockers.
In 1998, Virginia Tech was 5-0 with wins over Clemson, Boston College (who weren’t nearly as good as they are now) and Miami on the road, along with wins over East Carolina and Pitt. Temple was 0-6 and coming off a loss to D-IAA William & Mary. Tech beat BC 17-0, while Temple lost to the Eagles 31-7. The Owls had only won one of its previous 11 games, and that came the year before against a Rutgers team that went winless. A 36.5 point underdog, Temple stunned the Hokies 24-22 in what’s still considered by “investors” as the biggest upset in recent college football history. Had there been a line, Michigan wouldn’t have been favored by more than 30 over ASU.
This upset is even more amazing when one considers that Temple, which is one of the worst programs in major college football and which hasn't had a winning season since 1984, was down 0-17 early in the game. Furthermore, the Owls were playing the Hokies in front of a hostile Blacksburg .
1. Appalachian State 34, Michigan 32 (2007)
But the more I think about it, the more I think that what happened last weekend is, indeed, the biggest upset in the history of collegiate football. While I think Fiutak has a good point about Temple 1998 being a worse program than Appalachian State 2007, I think the relative distance between the programs is what's most important when evaluating the magnitude of this upset. And clearly, the distance between the Michigan and Appalachian State programs in 2007 is greater than the distance between the Virginia Tech and Temple programs in 1998.
Temple, as abysmal a program as they were (and still are), was at the very least a I-A program that awarded 85 scholarships that was a member of a top-tier BCS conference (they've since been booted from the Big East and now play in the non-BCS MAC) when they scored their upset. Appalachian State, on the other hand, was none of the above. When you throw in the fact that Virginia Tech, as good as they've been over the past fifteen or so years, is not to be confused for Michigan in terms of historical prestige, budget or fan support (the Wolverines averaged 110,026 fans last season; the Hokies, 66,233), it becomes clear that there is a greater gap between Michigan and Appalachian State in 2007 than there was between Virginia Tech and Temple in 1998.
Michigan is the winningest program in college football history. Dubious though preseason rankings might be, they were ranked in the top five and given a legitimate shot at a national title. They were playing at home in front on an announced attendance of over 109 thousand people.
And they got beat by a school that shouldn't have even been on the same field as them. As Stewart Mandel notes:
This was a team with at least 22 less scholarships and one-tenth as much funding as its opponent (according to public data, Michigan’s football program raked in more than $50 million in revenue in 2005-06; Appalachian State pulled in less than $5 million) walking into a 110,000-seat stadium and knocking off a team chock full of Rivals.com five-star recruits and future NFL draft picks.
Appalachian State's upset of Michigan was not your garden-variety upset. It was seismic. Consider this: as a direct result of this outcome, the Associated Press has decreed that Football Championship Subdivision (I-AA) teams can now be ranked in the AP top 25 poll.
No, this one belongs at the top.
Honorable Mentions:
Troy 24, Missouri 14 (2004): This is actually Lee Corso's pick for the biggest upset in college football. But I don't think it's big enough to belong in my top ten. Yes, Troy had only recently made the jump from I-AA to I-A and was playing its first season in the notoriously-weak Sunbelt Conference. And yes, #19-ranked Missouri was coming off an 8-5 season with vaunted quarterback Brad Smith at the helm and was looking forward to making some noise in the Big XII, if not nationally. But this Thursday night, ESPN-televised game from raucous Movie Gallery Stadium in southeastern Alabama had "upset" written all over it, as if the folks from ESPN had scripted it. The game certainly played out as if it had been scripted, with the sky-high Trojans rattling off 24 unanswered points after falling behind 0-14.
An upset? Yes. A feel-good story? Absolutely. The greatest upset of all time? No. It wasn't even the biggest upset of 2004: 2-5 Baylor's 35-34 defeat of 6-1, #16-ranked Texas A&M and 3-4 North Carolina's 31-28 win over 6-0, #3-ranked Miami qualify as more stunning upsets. As it turns out, Missouri was not a very good program that year, finishing the season with a 5-6 record. Troy, on the other hand, managed to notch seven wins and go to their first-ever bowl game as a member of I-A.
Columbia 21, Army 20 (1947): With the entire nation militarized to fight the Germans and the Japanese, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the United States Military Academy fielded the nation's best football program during and shortly after the Second World War. By the time they traveled to New York City on October 25, 1947 to face Columbia, #6-ranked Army had a 32-game unbeaten streak going and was looking to score an easy victory against the unranked, 2-2 Lions. And, as Army led 20-7 in the fourth quarter, that seemed to be the case. But, in a miraculous finish, the Lions scored three unanswered touchdowns to win the game, and end Army's undisputed dominance of the college football world.
Notre Dame 7, Oklahoma 0 (1957): A handful of pigskin pundits, including writer Dan Jenkins, have labeled this game the biggest upset of all time. ESPN Classic ranked it the second-greatest upset of all time last year. But I'm placing it outside my top ten for reasons I've previously discussed: a lower-ranked team (Notre Dame was 4-2 and ranked #20 coming into the game) defeating a higher-ranked team (Oklahoma was 7-0 and ranked #2) is not an upset on the same order of magnitude as, say. Appalachian State - Michigan. Especially when the team doing the upsetting is a traditional power like Notre Dame.
Nevertheless, it is noteworthy because it broke what remains to this day the longest winning streak in college football history. The Sooners had enjoyed 47 wins in a row going back to 1953, when they last played - and lost to - Notre Dame.
Oklahoma had won back-to-back AP national titles and had their sights set on a third straight championship when they welcomed Notre Dame to Memorial Stadium in Norman on November 16, 1957. The game turned out to be a defensive struggle, remaining a scoreless tie until late into the fourth quarter; Oklahoma coach Bud Wilkinson later admitted, "I was willing to settle for a tie." But, with only 3:50 left in the game, the Irish scored on a fourth-and-goal from the Sooner 3. That turned out to be all Notre Dame needed to break a winning streak that has yet to be surpassed.
Holy Cross 55, Boston College 12 (1942): The Boston College Eagles were 8-0 coming into this game. In fact, the impressive Eagle defense had secured five shutouts and only allowed a total of 19 points coming into this match. On the morning of November 28, 1942, Boston College was sitting at the very top of the AP rankings. Beat 4-4-1 Holy Cross, and the Eagles would have a clear shot at the national title.
Unfortunately, the wheels came off on the Eagles' perfect season this afternoon. After allowing only 19 points in their previous 8 games, Boston College gave up almost three times that much to the Crusaders. And their offense, which had averaged 28 points per game during their ten-game winning streak, could only manage a paltry 12 points against the Crusaders defense. The result was a Holy Cross victory, and the end of BC's national title hopes.
Southwestern Louisiana 29, Texas A&M 22 (1996): This is another wonderful example of an obscure "have-not" (now known as Louisiana-Lafayette) playing a football powerhouse (Texas A&M, with a 60-11-2 record over the previous six seasons, had generally dominated the Southwest Conference during its last several years of existence) and winning. It's actually a personal favorite of mine, but I leave it out of my top ten for the following reasons: first, the game was in Lafayette, not College Station (although much, if not most, of the overflow crowd of 38,783 was probably wearing maroon instead of vermilion). Second, the Ragin Cajuns of 1996 were not exactly a horrible team: they were 20-13 over the previous three seasons with two Big West conference championships under their belt. Nor were they bereft of talent: running back Kenyon Cotton, receiver Brandon Stokely and quarterback Jake Delhomme all ended up in the NFL. Third, the 1996 Texas A&M Aggies were not exactly world-beaters; they were barely ranked at #25 coming into the game, having lost to Brigham Young before, and they would end the season with a pedestrian 6-6 record.
However, given the disparities in budget, facilities, fan support, athletic talent, and overall prestige between the two schools, it's still an upset worthy of mention; proof that, on any given Saturday, anything can happen. It's too bad that the Cajuns couldn't leverage this upset to take their program to a higher level; they finished the 1996 season with a 5-6 record, and have had only one winning season since.
According to this story relayed by USA Today's Ben Mutzabaugh, Southwest Airlines is enforcing a dress code. At least, that's apparently what happened when a college student attempted to board a flight from San Diego to Tucson a couple of months ago:
Southwest is in the news in San Diego after a flight attendant apparently objected to the outfit worn by college student and Hooters waitress Kyla Ebbert. At least that's the word from San Diego Union-Tribune columnist Gerry Braun, who writes that Ebbert was "escorted off a Southwest Airlines flight two months ago" for wearing "a white denim miniskirt, high-heel sandals, and a turquoise summer sweater over a tank top over a bra." (Check out the Union-Tribune's photo of the outfit Ebbert says she was wearing for the flight.) Ebbert says that after she had taken her seat, a flight attendant asked her to come out into the jetway and asked her to change.
"I asked him what part of my outfit was offensive," Ebbert says to Braun. "The shirt? The skirt? And he said, 'The whole thing.' " Ebbert adds she was lightly dressed because she was taking a same-day trip to Tucson and back for a doctor's appointment. The temperature in Tucson that day was forecast to be between 100 and 110. Ebbert says she was asked to go home and change and return for a later flight with a less-revealing outfit. She refused, and the airline eventually relented.
Was this woman dressed provocatively? Perhaps, although I can't really argue with the notion of a 23-year-old Hooters waitress dressing for attention. The question is whether her attire was "offensive" enough to warrant being taken off a plane. If you click through to her picture in the Union-Tribune article, it certainly doesn't look like she was dressed inappropriately. She's not wearing anything that I haven't seen young women wear in public places before.
Of course, there are always two sides to every story. Is the picture of her in the Union-Tribune article really what she was wearing when she was asked to step off the airplane? Or is the fact that her legs are crossed and her hands are in her lap indicative that she was, eh, missing something underneath? I'd certainly like to hear Southwest's take on this incident, but they apparently won't tell the Union-Tribune anything more than “there were concerns about the revealing nature of her outfit.” Really? What, exactly? Was her miniskirt too short? Was it shorter than this?
The bigger question is this: does this incident suggest that Southwest is going to start enforcing a new dress code? I fly Southwest regularly, and I'm all too familiar with the attire that a not-insignificant segment of their customer base wears. I'm talking about scruffy-looking men with tank tops (check out my underarm hair, y'all!) and tattered jeans. Women trying to fit into clothes three sizes too small (much more revealing - and offensive - than the outfit Ms. Ebbert says she was wearing). Folks wearing filthy t-shirts. Folks who put on too much perfume or cologne. These days people show up at the airport wearing pajamas and flip-flops. I know you should dress comfortably for flights, but come on! After all, if the short skirt of a 23-year-old college student doesn't pass muster, I can only imagine what Southwest's fashionistas would say about these types of dress. Right?
The Coogs' loss aside, the first weekend of the 2007 college football season certainly did not disappoint. Let's start with the big story:
Even though I-AA (or, if you must, Football Championship Subdivision) schools are generally considered to be a rung lower than I-A (Football Bowl Subdivision) schools in terms of athletic talent and resources, it is not at all uncommon for I-AA schools to score victories over I-A schools. It happened here in Houston last Saturday, in fact, as Rice lost at home to Nichols State.
Appalachian State's 34-36 upset of fifth-ranked Michigan in Ann Arbor, however, is a completely different story. It's simply unprecedented. It is, roughly, the equivalent of, say, Malaysia invading the United States and defeating all of our armed forces. It's just jaw-dropping.
Sure, Appalachian State is a good program with a winning tradition, having won back-to-back Division I-AA championships. Yes, Michigan has always had difficulty defending spread offenses with mobile quarterbacks.
But still. This is Michigan! One of the most storied programs in college football. The same Michigan that has been playing football since 1879. These same Michigan that has won nine consensus national championships. The same Michigan that plays in a stadium that seats 107 thousand people. The same Michigan that has gone to 31 consecutive postseason bowls. The same Michigan that hasn't suffered a losing season since 1967. The same Michigan that entered Saturday with legitimate national title hopes. And they lost to a I-AA school. At the Big House.
The Michigan program, players and fans will never, ever live this down. This is, after all, not just the most embarrassing defeat in the history of their program: it is the biggest upset in the history of college football. This is something that the sports world will always remember; fifty years from now, fans at Ohio State and Notre Dame and Michigan State will still be reminding Wolverine fans that their team once lost to a I-AA program. Indeed, the Wolverines can feel nothing but searing shame right now. Driving home that reality are the latest AP and USA Today top-25 polls. The Wolverines, sitting towards the top of them last week, have now disappeared from them completely.
Other schools had rough weekends, too. Perennially-overrated Notre Dame might be in for another tough season as they suffered their worst-ever season-opening loss - at home, no less - to Georgia Tech (but at least the Yellow Jackets are I-A, right?). Tennessee suffered a nine-spot drop in the AP poll after losing to Cal, 31-45; however, there's really no shame in losing to a very good Golden Bear team on the road. Texas slipped a few spots after an unimpressive season-opening victory over Arkansas State, and Florida State fell out of the top 25 entirely after losing on the road to Clemson. It's safe to say that the glory days of the Bobby Bowden era are over. Then there's North Texas. The Dodgeball era got off to a poor start as the Mean Green were RUTSed by Oklahoma in Norman, 10-79.
But none of these schools suffered quite as badly as Michigan.
The Wolverines will try to salvage their season, beginning this weekend against the same Oregon that defeated my Cougars last weekend. But it won't be easy for the Wolverines: the Ducks run the same spread offense that Appalachian State ran. And they, like the Mountaineers, have a highly mobile quarterback. Unlike Appalachian State, however, Oregon features Division I-A talent and depth.
At least the Wolverines can take solace from this fact: as rough as their upcoming games might be, no loss will be quite as shocking, embarrassing or pitiable as the one they suffered at the hands of little Appalachian State last weekend.
The game was closer than the score indicates; the Coogs were only down by three at the half and both teams were actually tied at 20 until late in the third quarter. However, a promising UH drive ended when Case Keenum's woulda-been-a-touchdown pass was picked off in the endzone. Oregon marched down the field in the other direction to score, and that cemented the game's momentum in favor of the Ducks. Oregon would later block a UH punt to set up another quick score, and Duck quarterback Dennis Dixon would scamper 80 yards for another touchdown to seal the game for the home team.
Interestingly, Houston ended the game with more total yards (545 to 473), more first downs (30 to 22), and more time of possession (32:50 to 27:10) than Oregon. But they also turned the ball over four times (two interceptions and two fumbles) and had that punt blocked. The Ducks, on the other hand, suffered no turnovers of their own. And that, quite simply, is why the Cougars lost and the Ducks won.
The Coogs were, once again, their own worst enemy on Saturday. The "Unholy Trinity" of turnovers, poor special teams play and penalties (11 total flags, including a defensive pass interference call away from the ball which negated what would have been an interception returned for a touchdown) along with, to a lesser extent, the "Schismatic Quartet" of dropped/overthrown passes, poor tackling, a lack of a pass rush and questionable play-calling inside the red zone, ensured a Houston defeat. Had those miscues not happened, the outcome of the game would have been much different.
It's very frustrating, especially considering how well the Coogs played in the hostile confines of Autzen Field when they did not make mistakes. Anthony Alridge was a beast, rushing for 205 yards and a touchdown and receiving for 88 yards and a touchdown. The Ducks simply had no answer for his speed. Although Blake Joseph started the game and had a better passing percentage, Case Keenum seemed to move the offense better, exhibited better mobility and threw the team's only touchdown pass. The offensive line played well, allowing only one sack on the afternoon. The defense held dangerous Duck running back Jonathan Stewart in check (67 yards total). T. J. Lawrence was reliable on kick-offs and field goals.
But with the good came the bad. Aside from the Unholy Trinity and the Schismatic Quartet, there were some bad or bobbled snaps, indicating that the center is still a position of concern for the Cougars. Mobile quarterbacks still give the UH defense problems, as was evidenced by Dixon's 141 rushing yards. The linebackers and the defensive backs looked lost at times, and, for all the buzz he generated during August practices, new punter Chase Turner's performance was disappointing. All in all, while the Cougars' performance revealed some positives, there nevertheless remain a lot of weak spots on this football team.
With all that said, there is room for optimism. First off, with the exception of the Alabama game the Cougars will not be facing any more teams with Oregon's level of athletic talent this season. This is not to say that the Coogs have a cakewalk schedule outside of Oregon and 'Bama - given their performances this weekend, East Carolina and Colorado State look like they're going to be tough - but the overall speed, athleticism and size recruited by Pac-10 teams, needless to say, simply doesn't exist in C-USA. Secondly, this game proved the simple fact that the Coogs are clearly loaded in terms of raw talent, especially on offense. If Anthony Alridge tore apart Oregon's defense, think what he could do to Tulane or Rice (which just started their season by losing to I-AA Nichols State at home) or UAB? Finally, the mental lapses that cost the Cougars their chance to upset Oregon - the lousy tackling, the dropped passes, the penalties, the special teams flubs, and most importantly the turnovers - are all problems that are correctable with the right coaching. It doesn't hurt that the Coogs have a bye week before they play their next opponent, and that gives Art Briles and his staff two whole weeks to work on ball-handling and tackling technique, to continue to evaluate and address the performance of the two quarterbacks (and it was a given that both Keenum and Joseph, given their inexperience, would make mistakes in this game), and to generally fix the problems that appeared during the Oregon game.
But therein lies the rub: will the mental miscues and other mistakes that marred last Saturday's performance ever really be corrected? The "Unholy Trinity," like it or not, seems to plague the Briles-coached UH football program year in and year out. Lousy tackling has become a hallmark of the Cougar defense over the past few years, as has the lack of an effective pass rush. A lot of Saturday's mistakes are things the UH faithful have seen all too often before. Will 2007 be different, or was the Oregon game just an indication that we'll see more of the same?
All in all, I think last Saturday's showing by Houston was respectable, and, as I noted in a previous post, I think that foretells of a decent season - a winning record and a third-straight bowl appearance - for the Cougars. But, at some point, the problems that have plagued UH football for too long - namely, the turnovers, the penalties, and the special teams miscues - need to be addressed. If they're not, the Cougars will never climb to the next level of the college football world.
Which is unfortunate, because absent those mistakes they could have beaten Oregon and taken a huge step up that ladder.
