Weekend Wrap-Up: "PWNED!" Edition

Colleges

Big Story of the Weekend: UT; USC PWNED their opposition

For those of you not familiar with "'leet speak," (the language that gamers used to use to look cool, but is now sort of mainstreamed and looks dumb) "PWNED!" means "I just beat you badly". It's a form of electronic trash talk.

Basically, one day a gamer got a little overexcited after thrashing his competition, meant to type "OWNED!" and accidentally hit the "p" key instead of the "o" key (which are right next to each other on the keyboard). Hence, "PWNED!"

Where am I going with this? UT PWNED Colorado to the tune of 70-3. It was a beating so bad that Vince Young and the starters only played a little over half the game.

Not to be outdone, USC PWNED their crosstown rival UCLA, at the time ranked #12 in the coaches poll, 66-19. Reggie Bush, whom everyone is now comparing to Kansas's Gale Sayers, made himself not just the frontrunner, but the only legit Heisman candidate at this point after rolling up 260 yards on the Bruins. So you could say that Bush has "PWNED" his Heisman competition also.

Now it's 3 weeks of hype until the Rose Bowl.

Stay tuned.

Other Championship Week thoughts

• I had Georgia ranked ahead of LSU in my preseason poll, to which Tiger fans gave me no end of grief. Strangely, after Georgia beat LSU, which basically confirmed that they should have been rated ahead of the Tigers to begin with, the LSU fans are surprisingly silent.
• If Frank Beamer feels bad after his Hokies were upset in the first ever ACC title game, he can console with Tom Osborne. Osborne's Huskers were favored in the first ever Big XII title game and were upset by Texas.
• Microsoft's XBox 360 was a presenting sponsor for the Conference USA title game. Fittingly, Tulsa and Central Florida played a very EA Sports NCAA 2006-type game as the Golden Hurricane won 44-27
• What happened to Fresno State? They followed up a brilliant performance against USC with two inexplicable losses to Nevada and Louisiana Tech.
• Army-Navy, always a classic. Can't say anything bad about either team because they both got more important jobs than the NFL ahead of them.
• Congratulations to Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, who are in the semifinals of the I-AA playoffs. They take on Northern Iowa this Saturday at Bobcat Stadium. (Playoffs! In Football! What a concept!)

NFL

New York 17, Dallas 10

Speaking of PWNAGE, Drew Bledsoe was just absolutely harassed by the Giants' front 4 yesterday. He was sacked 4 times, fumbled twice and was forced into throwing picks twice, both the result of pressure.

Game Ball: Giants Defense

Normally, I give this to the best Cowboy, but New York's defense put on a clinic and you can't ignore a performance like that.

Baltimore 16, Houston 15

And, what discussion of getting "PWNED" in sports would be complete without mentioning the Houston Texans, who seem to have it happen to them every week. This week, they actually made Kyle Boller look like a competent NFL quarterback.

Game Ball: Kris Brown

Accounted for all of Houston's 15 points, which actually speaks to how bad the Texans are rather than how good Brown is.