Booze? Who needs booze when you've defeated the Irish?!
Recently, the folks at the WWL acknowledged the superiority of blogging as a form of journalism and commissioned their minions to report on college football by conference, with Ted Miller designated to cover the Pac Ten (read: USC). For the past few days, Ted has been running "Best/Worst Case" scenarios for each team. Today was Washington's turn. An excerpt:
From the best case: "No worries about a flat start with Notre Dame coming to town. The hyped showdown between Willingham and his former school and former genius coach Charlie Weis isn't much of a game, as the Huskies sack Jimmy Clausen five times in a 31-17 win."
And the worst: "The Huskies start 0-6 and talk of a winless season starts. But... the Huskies upset Notre Dame at home."
Please note, in this latter "the horror, the horror" scenario, Jake Locker sustains a season-ending knee injury in the opener, Tyrone Willingham is canned after losing at home to Stanford, and the Huskies go on to win no other games in 2008.
Is that all you got, Miller? Really? Washington, at its best, beats ND by two touchdowns, and in a bed-soiling nightmare of 2008... still beats ND. And by what, a touchdown? A field goal? You're contending the difference between the Super-Huskies and Bad-News-Bears-Huskies is approximately 10 points. As this blog's resident pessimist, I think I could do a lot better than that!
There is a grain of truth to Miller's prediction. If Locker goes down, he takes Willingham with him. He is the Lebron to the Huskies' Cavaliers. The Ben Bernanke to their Fannie Mae. The Justin Timberlake to their N*SYNC. Ok, you get the picture. After the carnage of last season, I can't guarantee an Irish victory in Seattle. But against a Locker-less Washington, I like ND's chances. I like last year's ND's chances. I like Penn High School's chances.
On second thought, maybe Mr. Miller is right: Tyrone Willingham losing to Notre Dame isn't Washington's worst-case scenario. It's the media's.
