This time, the Buckeyes didn’t beat themselves in a bowl game. Texas did it, and they deserve the credit. Texas won in the last 16 seconds, 24-21.

For the record, I thought the 4th down was a conversion, and I knew they won the game right there.

I’m very glad Todd Boeckman got involved, but Texas should have been anticipating that QB-QB touchdown pass. Duh.

Texas-Ohio State is becoming a rivalry, with never a bad game between the two. I hope they keep it going. Congratulations, Longhorns.

And I am rooting for the Sooners Thursday. Hey, I lived there for nearly two years.

Pr. Jeff Hemmer of Jerseyville, IL, has published a list of predictions for the college bowl season based on prooftexting from the Bible.  Some examples:

Alamo - Missouri Tigers over Northwestern Wildcats (1 Cor 10:24): Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.
Insight - Kansas Jayhawks over Minnesota Golden Gophers (Is 34:11): But the hawk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it. He shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plumb line of emptiness.

The BCS pick is a groaner:

BCS - Oklahoma Sooners over Florida Gators (Heb 13:18-19): Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner.

He expects to lose of course, and he should, because he picked Texas over Ohio State!

Enjoy.

Topeka, KS, TV station WIBW reports that the Kansas City Chiefs have contracted with a sports and entertainment company to sell the naming rights of Arrowhead Stadium.

I still call the other venue at the Truman Sports Complex Royals Stadium, despite the fact that they renamed it after the team’s former owner and philanthropist, Ewing Kauffman. That was 15 years ago. Arrowhead will always be Arrowhead to me.

As long as they don’t do something lame like “Invesco Field at Mile High.” Or Home Depot Stadium, where we would endlessly hear about the Home (Depot) Field Advantage. While Hallmark would be a nice local tie-in, I’m not sure it’s a good idea:

“While we take a time-out to tend to the injured player on the field, Hallmark would like to remind you that you can stop by one of our Gold Crown stores and send a Get Well Soon card to him at a discounted price!”

I’m originally from Missouri, but tonight Kansas gets the props. Rock Chalk Jayhawk, KU.

I enjoyed watching most of the acts, and I was very impressed with the abilities of the skaters. Sasha Cohen gets top billing, and my favorite program of hers was one where she didn’t wear skates at all. Three men (who did skate) did all sorts of acrobatic tricks with her and demonstrated how flexible she really is. She may be double-jointed in the hip.

Jamie Sale and David Pelletier turned in a couple of steamy performances; it was almost like they were married (they are). Michael Weiss and Todd Eldridge did back flips and other cool stunts. One program was a nice skit where they poked fun at each other: this one warms up but never skates, this couple are perfectionists, this one is the diva, and so forth.

Technically, the monster couple of the night were the Chinese duo of Xue Shen and Hongbo Zhao. They were perfect. Cohen was of course impressive, but Jennifer Robinson deserves honorable mention. Probably a foot taller than all of the female skaters, she didn’t look it when skating.

It was a good show. We enjoyed it.

Thank you, No. 4, for an incredible career, padding my fantasy football team’s stats on occasion and being a stand-up guy who played with all heart.

There was nothing crazy this time, but all of the 7-8^th grade boys’ teams were so bad at maintaining man-on-man defense that the coaches agreed to assess a point for repeated illegal defense calls in one period. That fixed some of the behavior, but we did assess a couple of points.

During the game I completely watched, my niece played guard for her dad’s team. She had a really good game, the best I’d seen her play, on both offense and defense. It’s very cool to see some of the basketball theory actually work. She needs to work on her free throw shot, because now she’s getting good enough to get fouled consistently.

The last game of the day was 6-8^th grade girls. The game started very slowly. One team then dominated the middle of the game, and the other team came back and started trading the point lead. The team that was undefeated the last six weeks won by four, and their coach’s mustache may come off if they go win next week.

Specter told ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio on Sunday, “The commissioner’s explanation as to why he destroyed the tapes does not ring true.”

I had a tiny bit of understanding for the federal government’s investigation of baseball and steriods because of Major League Baseball’s exemption to the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The NFL has had no such benefit from the federal government — we still remember the USFL and the XFL, even though they ended up failing.

The public can take its own recourse if it thinks the NFL is corrupt. Another football league can be formed. Other sports alternatives (basketball, hockey, etc.) can be pursued.

There is no need for the federal government to get involved, and if President Bush had not backed Specter in the 2004 PA primary where Pat Toomey could have beat Specter, this waste of federal resources could have been avoided.

Great Super Bowl, unlike some. Congratulations to both teams.

What a mess with one second left.

The league rules specify a man-on-man (person-on-person, in girls’ lingo ) defense all the time, except on break-aways or picks. The illegal defense call is the most difficult call for me to make, primarily because I place a priority on calling fouls to keep kids safe, but also because the way we show kids whom they are supposed to guard is hard for officials to see at certain angles. I actually got some good illegal defense calls in, not because I compared the tell-tale colored bands, but because I saw the actions of the players who were leaving their player to double-team someone else. It’s kind of cool when one picks up a nuance of the game.

Craziest play: We lined up the kids for a single foul shot. Because the kids aren’t usually good enough to make the basket when fouled, they are accustomed to shooting two shots. This was an “and 1″ situation. The ball hit the rim and drops down, caught by a defensive player still in her free-throw spot. She passed the ball to me, who was out of bounds, because she thought I needed the ball. I had to award the ball back to the offense on the baseline.

There is plenty of Law on the court, but not much Gospel and certainly no absolution.