College Football: First things first: Oregon has one of the most exciting offenses in football so long as their quarterback (Dixon) is healthy. When he's injured they are just ordinary. Which brings me to this: Back in the Stone Age when referees swatted dinosaurs off the field, football was dominated by a formation known as the single wing. In it the qb was a quarter of the way back (and received most snaps), then there was a blocking back, a halfback, and then the tailback. The tailback is what made the formation go because he had to be a killer runner who could pass like hell. The formation was eventually superseded by the "T" mainly because a single wing team died if anything at all happened to their tailback--a not uncommon situation---while the "T" did not require the quarterback to ever run at all (in it's original form), thus cutting the injury prospect to near zero. When I was coaching a kids team a while back we had a great little athlete who could run like hell and pass like hell. The coaches all met and seriously discussed using the single wing for the kid. One of the coaches had some film of the single wing 1947 Michigan team which was killer back then. The deception was incredible. It was impossible to discern who had the ball because the quarterback who got at least half the snaps started spinning like a top and the backs criss crossed around him. The tailback, who got the ball the most, ran like a deer and passed pretty good too. He then had some more film of the 1954 UCLA single wing team, one that featured raw power and a monster tailback. We all knew the danger of putting a ten year old in harms way on virtually every play so we talked with his dad about using the single wing (or what is now called "the spread) and the danger of injury to his son should we go in that direction. Well, the dad knew that the kid was a sure Division I scholarship player down the road and didn't want to risk a broken leg or a damaged knee so we used whatever version of the "T" was in use at the time. Which brings me to Oregon. And Oklahoma. And Florida when Tebow was out. And a ton of other teams running the "spread" or variations of it, who lose their quarterback. The spread is an almost guarantee of a failed season because the quarterback is just the single wing tailback only he takes the ball under the center and will then either pass, run, or option. He gets hit on every play even when he pitches (the hit is to keep him "honest) and when he drops back to pass he's close to being naked. I predict that the "spread" ain't gunna last very long because of the risk of injury to an irreplaceable player, an injury that will end a season.

So for the BCS championship game get ready for another pitifully slow Big Ten team getting slaughtered by an SEC team, unless Kansas somehow runs the table. That Ohio State- Michigan game was boooooring, an olden days three yards and a cloud of dust game in which everyone was slow.