A Monumental Collapse
On Saturday UCLA managed to do something no other team in the country could manage up to that point: lose to Notre Dame. This is not the Notre Dame of Rudy times. This is not the Notre Dame of even Brady Quinn times. This is the Notre Dame of 0-5 times. The Notre Dame that had only scored 6 touchdowns through their first 5 games. The worst Notre Dame team in history. And the Bruins got humiliated.

Granted, UCLA was without starting RB Chris Markey, backup QB Pat Cowan, and after the first quarter, starting QB Ben Olsen. This meant freshman walk on McLeod Bethel-Thompson quarterbacked most of the game. That's right. The Bruin with the longest name since Karim Abdul-Jabar was our quarterback, and he was about as bad as you'd expect a freshman walk on to be.

You could see his inexperience in his play. He telegraphed every hand off. He never looked off a safety. He turned the ball over. A lot. Whenever he took off his helmet you could see the deer in the headlights. He failed to "manage the game", as football talking heads like to say. The only thing he successfully "managed" to do was duplicate the Derek Lowe face, a feat also recently accomplished by John Lackey in Game 1 of the ALDS against Boston.

So now the Bruins stand at 4-2, the two losses being humiliating upsets by Utah and Notre Dame. They should easily be 6-0 and among the top 10 teams in the country. They destroyed Stanford, who just upset USC. So why do they completely lose themselves against inferior opponents? Is it the QB situation? Is it Jay Norvell's play calling? Is it Karl Dorrell? The answer must be a combination of those things.

Inconsistency has always plagued Bruin football, and this year seems to be no different. Instead of hopes of a BCS bowl berth, UCLA fans will have to look forward to the papajohns.com bowl or the Gaylord Hotels Music City bowl (actual bowls, I'm not making these up). Another promising football season has already gone down the drain. At least there's only one more month til basketball season starts!

Another Monumental Collapse (Kinda)
If you can remember, I picked the Browns to cover against the Pats, who were giving 16.5 points. It was one of my close calls of last week (scroll down). Well, all was looking good. In the 4th quarter with less than 2 min to play, the Browns had the ball and were only down 10.

But then tragedy struck. Derek Anderson completed a pass to Kellen Winslow, who had the ball stripped from him by Randall Gay. Gay then recovered and ran it in for the touchdown. New England by 17.

That score held up, and the Patriots covered by half a point. You cannot imagine how frustrated I was seeing this all go down. Part of me felt secure that all Cleveland had to do was hold on to the football and they'd cover. The other part just knew something terrible was about to happen. They are the Browns, after all.

Nevertheless, this result proved three things:
1) Never trust the Browns' offense to make a play.
2) New England is not invincible against the spread.
3) Gambling on football makes games infinitely more interesting (if gambling were legal, that is).

The third point is especially important. I'm not even putting any money on my picks, but playing against the spread makes watching football on Sundays much more fun. The CLE/NE game had long been decided, but I was still engrossed in the game. That never would have been the case otherwise.

The other close pick was San Diego over Denver, which didn't turn out to be close at all. I'll post my official record for the week after MNF. So far, it ain't lookin' so good.