DAILY DOMER: SEPT. 29

**************

Also, it was lost in all the 2nd-half offensive exploits and the underclassmen performances (i.e., Allen, Tate, Floyd), but once again senior safety Kyle McCarthy deserves special mention for the touchdown-saving play he made in the first half against Purdue. The Irish were down 7-0 and there was a Keystone Kops-tackling drill along the Boilermaker sideline. The ballcarrier, Greg Orton, somehow eluded three Irish defenders along the sideline. He looked home-free and a very flat Irish team was about to go down 14-0 in the first quarter.

McCarthy raced over from the opposite side of the field and caught Orton with a shoestring tackle at the Irish 10. A few plays later Purdue missed a field goal and it remained 7-0. Game-saving play? Maybe not, but who knows what might have happened?

Recall that it was McCarthy who helped force the San Diego State fumble at the goal line with the Irish down 13-7 to the Aztecs in the 4th quarter. And now this. He's clutch.

********************

Explain to me, again, why isn't Alabama ranked No. 1? Oklahoma is scarygood, yo', (as the kids say), but who has been more impressive against quality competition on the road so far? The Tide was up 31-0 on Georgia in Athens at halftime on Saturday night. The same team most everyone had as their national champion pick. My top five would be:

1. Alabama

2. Oklahoma

3. Penn State

4. Texas

5. Missouri

(until proven otherwise)

****************************



 Knowing that it's a bad idea to look ahead, but Notre Dame's two road games in October (their only games in October after Stanford) will come against a pair of teams who have lost their starting QBs. North Carolina lost T.J. Yates until November with a fractured left ankle when he was sacked by Orion Martin of Virginia Tech on Sept. 20. Yates's backup, Cameron Sexton, played well in the Tar Heels' win at Miami last Saturday.

And then there's Washington, who have lost Tim Tebow-West, i.e, Jake Locker, with a fractured right thumb (Locker is a righty). The Huskies are 0-4 and lost Locker when he threw a block on a reverse in Saturday's loss against Stanford. Locker is by far the best player on a team that is ranked 99th in scoring offense (19.75 ppg) and 114th in scoring defense (40.5 points allowed per game).

Two unlucky breaks for those teams...two lucky breaks for the Irish.

About U-Dub. The non-conference schedule to begin the season did Tyrone Willingham no favors: at Oregon, and then against a pair of Top 10 foes at home in BYU and Oklahoma. That said, when you look at how U-Dub is doing statistically, it's across the board awful. The Huskies are 119th in the nation, or last, in four different disparate categories:

Punt Returns.............. minus-1 yard per return

Sacks.........................zero

Tackles For Loss........2.75 per game

Pass Efficiency D........185.6

In addition, the Huskies are rated below 90th, or in the bottom 25% of all FBS schools, in the following categories: rushing offense, total offense, scoring offense, rushing defense, total defense, scoring defense, kickoff returns, pass defense, sacks allowed.

I have been critical of Charlie Weis. As recently as this season. But I never wrote one of those Charlie vs. Ty comparisons that were so popular to scribble, especially last season. In three-plus seasons in South Bend Weis is 25-16. In three-plus years in Seattle Willingham, under a much softer glare, is 11-29. Someone please write me the first time you see a sports writer pen a mea culpa on this one.

By the way, if you had to provide one reason for the difference in the records (and as long as both retain their jobs, the chasm will only grow wider): recruiting. Weis's staff has busted their tails the last two seasons and it is beginning to bear fruit. Twelve of the 14 TDs the Irish have scored this season have come from underclassmen.

U-Dub? They have one awesome recruit, Locker, and he chose the Huskies primarily because he has family athletic history at the school and, as a local, he wanted to help right the ship.

On "College Football Live" this afternoon, Joe Schad reported that the Huskies coaches are contemplating putting Locker in at safety before his thumb heals enough for him to return to QB. It's that desperate on the banks of Lake Washington.

***********************

Jumping the gun a little here, but about a week from now you may be seeing the term "Texas Two-Step" a lot in terms of college football. For two reasons...

1) Because on consecutive Saturdays No. 5 Texas will meet No. 1 Oklahoma (Oct. 11, in Dallas) and No. 3 Missouri (Oct. 18, in Austin).

2) Because the second weekend provides every college football writer ample opportunity to plead with his editors (as I will) to be sent to Texas for a two-games-in-three-days doubleheader in the Lone Star State. On Thursday, October 16th, BYU (which should be 6-0 by then and maybe even higher than its current No. 7) visits TCU who, though currently unranked, has only one loss and that at the No. 1 Sooners. So you have BYU at TCU in Fort Worth on Thursday evening, and then No. 3 Missouri at No. 5 Texas in Austin on Saturday.

If Texas beats OU the Saturday before, this will be huge. Tigers-Longhorns could be a 2-3 matchup, while BYU-TCU would pit a Top 7 versus by then a Top 25.

*************************************** 

And, finally, for now, in culinary news...

Here's to Denny's, the first restaurant I've come across that is overtly courting the 2 a.m. drunken diner. I walked in at about 1 a.m. on Sunday morning (not drunk, and not driving...don't want the Indiana State Excise Police on my tail) and happened across something called the "Rock Star Menu".  

The idea is that certain bands (All-American Rejects, Taking Back Sunday, etc.) each provide a recipe of their favorite late-night munchies. The result are confections such as the one I tried, the Taking Back Bacon Burger Fries, a smattering of grease, chopped beef, cheese, mustard, ketchup, french fries and more cheese.

Oh, it hit the spot all right.

The All-American Rejects have contributed the All-American S.O.S., a concoction of hamburger, cheese, grilled onions, and gravy on top of grilled Texas toast and hash browns. They should have called it "Your Diet, It Ends Tonight".

I've seen the All-American Rejects in concert. From what I saw, their midnight snacks consist of barely legal high school seniors. Dishes, yes, but Denny's can't sell those.