Years from now, this game may turn out to be a torch passing game. In many ways, the game appeared that way to me as it unfolded Sunday night. It was the Saints, the new kids on the block, taking down the Colts, one of the most dominant teams of the last decade, to become champions of pro football. It was Peyton Manning and not Drew Brees who made the game-clinching mistake as one would expect the younger, inexperienced Brees to make such a mistake considering Manning has already been to a Super Bowl—in the same stadium as Sunday’s. It was Drew Brees and not Peyton Manning who bumped his game up to that necessary next level to boost his team. And it was the Saints, not the Colts, who made the most out of what their opponent gave them.

This Sunday, football season ends in Miami with Super Bowl XLIV and for the first time in years, there’s a Super Bowl where the sides are pretty even on who people think are going to win. Last year, Pittsburgh was a pretty clear favorite, the Pats were supposed to run over the Giants, the Colts did run over Chicago, the Steelers were pretty safe favorites against Seattle a few years back, but this year people are still scratching their heads about a winner, and that’s even after Dwight Freeney became a story this week.

The wins not only propelled the Colts to their second Super Bowl in four years and the Saints to their first in franchise history, but also guaranteed that this year’s Big Game will be noteworthy before the opening kickoff. This will be the first Super Bowl contested between two dome teams, Jim Caldwell will become the first rookie head coach to coach in the Super Bowl since George Seifert (Super Bowl XXIV), and this will be the first Super Bowl to feature both one-seeds since Super Bowl XVIII.

The completion of the BCS and the college football season saw the nation get cheated out of the title game they expected with Colt McCoy succumbing to the cruelest of fates having to leave the game after a shoulder hit on Texas’ first possession and would not return. Amidst the Mountain West’s great bowl season, Boise St. became the “small conference” representative by completing another undefeated season with a close, defensive Fiesta Bowl win over TCU (a game that went much like last year’s except change the setting and winner)

A lot of people will credit Ingram’s Heisman win on his performance against Florida matched against Colt McCoy’s off night against Nebraska. If that is the case, the award is just as meaningless as it is if people are putting their ballots in at the season’s half-way point. This year’s vote deserved to be the closest in history and Ingram and Gerhart deserved to be the two that were being agonized over.

As a whole, it was a more eventful Thanksgiving weekend than has been the case in recent years without being a Thanksgiving weekend that burnt down the football world, a few of which we’ve seen in this decade.

but it was Matthew Stafford’s guts and determination that people walked away remembering, the QB getting his shoulder popped out of place on a hail-mary throw, Stafford was able to throw the game-tying touchdown after the Mangini timeout and a pass interference penalty on the hail-mary set the scene.

There was one hint of controversy in this one (another in a long stretch of controversial calls in the SEC this year). On the possession that resulted in Bama making the score 24-15, LSU cornerback Patrick Peterson made an interception by pulling in what appeared to be an incomplete pass by Alabama. Instant replays showed that Peterson got his left foot clearly in-bounds and was able to drag his right foot onto the field before stepping out of bounds. However, the play was ruled an incomplete pass and Alabama kept the ball.

I will admit that I hadn’t heard of Jasper Howard until his death, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t feel for his family, for his friends, and for his team. And for that team, it is just another speed bump in an otherwise glorious ride that saw Uconn go from division I-AA to division I-A to the Big East to Big East contender all within a decade.

But dumb luck in the game of football usually means good things for the fans and truly this weekend provided a little something for everyone wherever the eyes of the football world would gaze.

The earth seems to shatter just about every week now.
The term “earth shattering upset” is thrown out there for those wins that are incredibly unexpected and may have even been branded impossible. Most of the time these upsets are in the college football world concerning top ten teams or teams with name recognition being beaten [...]

The unpredictability that encompasses the beginning of every football season has given way to the unpredictability of what will happen next week.
During the first year of this column, I commented that nobody can be counted on in college football; that year LSU won the national title with two losses to their record as there [...]

As a compilation piece to last week’s preview of college football’s top 25, here’s my look at the NFL and what my proverbial crystal ball sees for this season.
NFC EAST
Philadelphia Eagles
The addition of Vick does give the Eagles an added dimension (Wildcat, possible backup for McNabb if he gets injured). Taking into account that this [...]

That time of the year has returned.
As we enter September, football returns to daily life after its yearly time away. This year marks an off-season that has been almost overloaded with stories in both the college and pro ranks, with stories ranging from the good and triumphant to the tragic and sad all the [...]

The Super Bowl had become an event of mythic proportions not just for sports, but for the country as well; it’s practically a holiday. The hidden reality of that myth is the fact that the game’s excitement does not usually match the pre game excitement. And while last year’s did have a thrilling finish, Super Bowl XLIII featured a much better game than Super Bowl XLII with a better finish to boot.

The time has finally arrived.
This is the day that football revels in every year: the day when there is nothing on anyone’s mind, but this one game. Whatever’s wrong with the world or even pro football in general is all put aside for a day when everyone is in the mood to just sit down [...]

The Cardinals earned their conference championship with a mix of doing what they’ve been doing (Larry Fitzgerald and Tim Hightower leading things offensively) and something they usually don’t do (play conservative offense in the fourth quarter). Pittsburgh on the other hand, saw their road to Tampa end with a war of attrition to get to that final destination all teams strive to get to.

Football’s version of the Final Four is upon us. And everyone is faced with the fact that the two pairings this weekend are very likely not what they envisioned a few weeks ago when the season ended.

This year didn’t prove that there needs to be a playoff in college football, quite the opposite. This year may have helped the point that the bowl system is the way to go because the selection committees collectively made this year a year where the anticipation for BCS games were off the charts and outside of the national title game the reason for this anticipation was the fact that three BCS games played before January 8 featured teams that people believed had a case to be national champion.

The term wild card rarely fit the round so perfectly.
After a photo finish of a finale to the regular season, the NFL playoffs began by throwing a monkey wrench into more than a few Super Bowl predictions with two home teams winning that few thought would and two road teams winning with might. The weekend [...]

Tim Tebow provided another example of why he will go down as one of the great college football players of all time and possibly the best quarterback to ever play college football this past weekend. With Percy Harvin watching from the sidelines and gainst the top-ranked team in the country, Tebow helped the Florida Gators to their second BCS title game in the last three years with a 31-20 win over Alabama for the SEC title.

The controversy came after the beating as a 61-41 win for the Oklahoma Sooners over in-state rival Oklahoma St. propelled the Sooners past Texas to the #2 spot in the BCS standings and thus giving the Sooners a birth in the Big-12 title game due to a three-way tie between Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech in the Big-12 South.

The second to last week of November has always been reserved as the week for those games that hold a special place in the hearts of fans whose teams are involved: rivalry games. The games that bring out the hatred and passion in players and fans alike whether they’re at the stadium participating or at home watching, these games incite emotion no matter who’s playing or what the stakes are. Most of the time there are trophies to go along with the bragging rights, and plenty of times there are national title and bowl game implications. This week saw a healthy mix of both.

For one of the few weeks of this football season, there wasn’t a truckload of upsets or close calls or shootouts. The week appeared to be tame by the standards of excitement and entertainment set so far this year. However, hidden below all of this was the reality that the teams most in the spotlight were consistent this week and refused to let the wave of unexpected events and miracle plays and scores enter into their outings. That and the Big-12 stopped its implosion for one week at least.

Things are going to get more real and a lot more confusing from here on out.
After a week that saw an offensive explosive rare amongst top 25 teams as well as this explosion extending to the pros with San Diego & New Orleans lighting up London and the Colts and Titans scoring more than a [...]

Still, all of that is only second chair to the two big games in the Big-12 acting as an appetizer to the next six weeks of pure intensity and suspense that will come out of that conference. If you need proof, think about this: Texas still has Oklahoma St. next week and still has to play A&M, Kansas and Texas Tech, Kansas has Texas Tech next week and finishes the year against Texas and Missouri, and Texas Tech’s next four games read like this: Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma St., and Oklahoma.

Sometimes it can be tough to keep up with so much happening.
With conference play beginning and the NFL’s early upsets out of the way, this past week made the football world almost look like the wild west with a healthy mix of upsets, shootouts, and dominating wins from Alabama’s close win against Kentucky to Vikings/Saints [...]

The Year of the Upset may have been condensed into one weekend.
Both college and pro football were plagued by this happened this past weekend, but college really took the brunt of the upset beating that occurred. Nine top-25 teams went down this past weekend with six of those losing to unranked teams with the circumstances [...]

The SEC’s conference play began with many happenings, the most surprising being #8 Alabama potentially positioning themselves as the team to beat in the SEC West with a thorough beating of Arkansas. Third-ranked Georgia went out west for the first time in 48 years and dominated Arizona St. and Rudy Carpenter to the tune of 27-10 with four sacks on Carpenter and only two total rushing yards for the Sun Devils. And these two teams play each other this coming weekend.

Now that both the NFL and college football seasons have begun, we have entered into the phase where the off-season becomes a distant memory and the regular season becomes a clear reality.
The Aaron Rodgers/Brett Favre debate is now just that: a debate. Both have played great football through the first two weeks as the [...]