College Football Is In Mid-Season Wackiness Form

            One of the things that makes American college football so addicting is that wealth of options and opportunities for great games, great stories and surprising outcomes. For every 41-9 Alabama beat-down of Arkansas and every 59-16 Oklahoma thrashing of a pathetic and winless Baylor club, there were great stories in what had looked (going into Friday) like a low-key weekend…

            Defending national champion Clemson was a 22-point favorite at Syracuse Friday night, a foe they defeated 54-0 last season. So, of course, the ‘Cuse beat the 6-0 Tigers, 27-24, in a game where every bounce seemed to go the Orangemen’s way. But the silver lining for Clemson was the chance for Dabo Swinney, one of the classiest coaches in existence, to prove it again by going unbidden into the Syracuse locker room to congratulate the SU players first hand after the game.

            Next up on Friday’s doubleheader, in the smoke and haze from the massive wildfires north of the San Francisco bay area that have killed dozens already, Cal-Berkeley drubbed #8 Washington State. It was this kind of game: WSU quarterback Luke Falk had thrown two interceptions in the entire first half of the season. He threw five Friday night. Here’s another example of the football gods working in Cal’s favor: Cal QB Ross Bowers was hit at the 2-yard line while trying to score the final touchdown of the game; instead of going to the ground, the tackle flipped him into a vertical 360 and he landed on his feet in the end zone to make the final score 37-3.

            Their mates across the state, the University of Washington, somehow managed only one garbage time score against an Arizona State defense which had allowed 30 points or more to every other opponent this year. Just when UW must’ve thought its path to a Pac-12 title and a CFP berth were paved by the two Friday night losses, they tossed a loss of their own that arguably was worse than either of those. Chris Petersen is my all-time favorite coaches, having spent fifteen years in Boise where I lived, but even he serves up a stinker once in a (long) while.

            Along those same lines, Louisville has the once-in-a-generation talent Lamar Jackson at QB… and not much on defense, apparently, because Boston College managed to put 45 points on the board against the #17 team in the country Saturday after failing to break thirty against anyone else this year. Florida State at least has an excuse – their top QB went out for the season in their first game – but considering they were not only ACC favorites but expected to make the four-team national finals, it’s strange to realize that not only are they just 2-3, but those two W’s each required them to knock down last-play passes in the end zone to secure the victories over traditional lightweights Duke and Wake Forest. The ACC is so upside down that the best record in the conference is the consensus mid-pack Wolfpack of North Carolina State at 4-0. The two other undefeateds are Miami (which had major luck on its side for the last two wins) and 2017 pre-season consensus conference wooden spoon winners Virginia.

            It was a great month for wildlife in football. A jackrabbit (not a South Dakota State football player, the real animal) ran onto and across the Stanford university field Saturday night and scored three touchdowns before it was (humanely) corralled by players on the Oregon Duck bench. The graphics people on the broadcast noted that the rabbit outgained star Cardinal running back Bryce Love on the night, and scored more touchdowns that Oregon would score all game. Personally, my favorite touch was that Stanford’s home cheer crew set off the “touchdown cannon” after the jackrabbit scored its final touchdown – and to the rabbit’s credit, it didn’t spook because of it. (If it hadn’t spooked in a stadium of seventy thousand fans, I suppose the cannon wouldn’t do it, either!) This follows Louisville’s victory over Kent State a couple of weeks ago, which was highlighted by the length-of-the-field touchdown run by a tree squirrel, who sprawled out in the end zone afterwards, huffing and puffing from exhaustion, cheered by the entire crowd. Which followed Baylor’s hosting of a few foxes, native to their west Texas locale, both on the field and in the stands. There’s a joke there about it being safe for the foxes to congregate in Baylor’s end zone because they weren’t using it, but let’s move on…

            Such is life in the shadow of Alabama in the SEC that LSU and Texas A&M are both 5-2 – and their fans are both hosting GoFundMe pages sites to pay for the buyouts of their “failing coach” contracts. (So what hope do Bret Bielema at Arkansas or Butch Jones at Tennessee have, both 0-3 in conference already?)

            I wonder if consensus pre-season Group of Five favorite South Florida thought their chief competition for a New Year’s Six bowl game wouldn’t come from San Diego or Boise, or a directional Michigan school or a city in Ohio, or even the American West division’s triumvirate of traditional strength in Houston, Navy, or Memphis, but within its own division, even its own state: recruiting rival Central Florida is also undefeated and awaiting the Bulls in Week 12 for what’s looking more and more like a winner-take-all game for the East title, the AAC title, and a New Year’s Six bowl berth.

            Two years ago, UCF was 0-12. I didn’t expect to see them here so soon!

            I didn’t expect that the Big 12 would have TCU on top at 6-0 (above the two Oklahoma powers, both with a loss) and rival Baylor at the bottom at 0-6 (below even Kansas, who won in week 1 against an FCS team. You scoff, but Baylor lost to their FCS opponent!)

            I didn’t expect that the two most famous football programs north of the Mason-Dixon Line (look it up!), Michigan and Ohio State, would each earn their 500^th conference victory on the same day! Michigan’s was a nail-biter at Indiana that they won in overtime, and Ohio State pummeled Nebraska 56-14, badly enough that Big Red then fired their athletic director.

            I didn’t expect traditional and now-independent powerhouse Brigham Young (BYU) to have an offense so bad that I feel the need to check their calendars to see if they’re all a day off. (See, 1-6 BYU is an LDS-religious institution which famously refuses to play games on Sunday, and they’ve only scored nine touchdowns all season, playing most games on Saturdays, and… You know, jokes that have to be explained are just not worth it…)

            I didn’t expect Alabama-Birmingham’s first year back on the field, after a two-year enforced exile imposed by the state’s Board of Education, to be so successful! At 4-2, including 2-1 in Conference USA’s wildly exotic West Division, where North Texas (of all teams) sits at 3-0 on the top rung of the ladder after a 67-second, 98-yard drive with no time outs to finish off an upset of favored UT-San Antonio Saturday, 29-26.

            I didn’t expect Kennesaw State, in just its third year of playing football (ever!) to have waxed Liberty (the only FCS team to beat a Power 5 school this season) 42-28 to go to 5-1 on the season and sit atop the Big South conference. And I really didn’t expect the other 5-1 team there to be Monmouth, which entered the season on a five-game losing streak!

            Speaking of surging FCS teams in 2017 which were steaming piles in the past, how about Elon (on a five-game winning streak after ending 2016 on a seven-game losing streak!), or Central Connecticut State (riding a four-game winning streak after winning just two all of last year!), or Campbell (currently 4-0 in the Pioneer League; the Camels haven’t won four league games in any entire season since 2011!), or our oft-praised Austin Peay (which has followed its legendary 29-game losing streak by winning four of the last five, the only loss coming at top ten Jacksonville State).

            And while I didn’t expect it, I’m more than pleased to see the Ivy League doormat Columbia Lions start the season 5-0 heading into a showdown for first place in the league at Dartmouth on Saturday (a matchup of the only two remaining 2-0 teams in the league). Columbia’s five wins matches their total over the last four seasons, when they went 5-35 (including a 24-game losing streak, not to mention their famous 44-game streak back a couple of decades). The Lions last won an Ivy title in 1961, and since then have had just three winning seasons in the intervening 55 years, none in this century. The difference? Pennsylvania’s former coach, Al Bagnoli, who retired from coaching in the winter of 2015, decided three months later he missed it – only to realize Penn had already hired his replacement, so he applied and got Columbia’s job. (Columbia defeated Penn last week 34-31 in overtime, by the way.)  After three wins last year, he’s apparently changed the culture sufficiently to make Lions football fashionable aga- no, not AGAIN. For the first time! Good luck Saturday, Columbia!

            Here’s some of what I do expect in 20 of the most notable of the 113 Division I college football games across the U.S. in Week 8:

            Florida State at home by 7 to 11 points over Louisville.

            Penn State by 10-11 at home over Michigan.

            Oklahoma State should beat Texas on the road by about what OU did: five to seven points.

            Notre Dame will hold its three-point home field advantage over similarly skilled Southern Cal.

            We predict Memphis at Houston to be a toss-up. (The winner has a leg up in the AAC West, alongside Navy.)

            We also see surprising Florida Atlantic to stay unbeaten with a four to eight-point win over 3-0 North Texas in Conference USA.

            Akron will suffer its first MAC loss at Toledo, who’s also unbeaten in conference, by 12-15 points.

            Boise State and San Diego State will further define the Mountain West division races, focusing towards a rematch of Saturday’s 31-14 Bronco victory, by defeating their main division rivals, Wyoming and Fresno State (respectively), by one to two touchdowns apiece at home.

            Troy should knock off upstart Georgia State from the top of the Sun Belt ladder by 6 to 9 points.

            Two big Missouri Valley games should go to form: North Dakota State should hand Western Illinois its second loss by 15, and South Dakota will do the same to Illinois State by four.

            Duquesne hosts St. Francis, in a battle of the two most recent Northeast Conference champions, and the winner moves to 3-0 in conference. We like the Dukes by 11 at home.

            The two Ohio Valley battles read like a boxing ticket: On the undercard, in the red corner, 3-1 Austin Peay is a two-point favorite over visiting 2-1 SE Missouri State. And in the Main Event, 3-0 defending belt holder Jacksonville State goes to 4-0 Eastern Illinois, where we expect the reigning champs to go home with a 13-point victory on all cards!

            Two teams looking to win another Pioneer Football League title: Jacksonville goes across the nation to play at San Diego (note the lack of “State” on both names – these are the “little brothers” on the football scene, just as the PFL is as a whole), and is a 12-point underdog.

            Two potentially great games include four of the top five teams in the Southern Conference: Samford @ Wofford (bet the home team by one to remain unbeaten on the season) and Mercer @ Furman (we like this home team by two).

            We mentioned the Columbia @ Dartmouth showdown in the Ivy League (we see the home Green winning by five), but on Friday night, three-point favorite Harvard hosts Princeton for a chance for the winner to be 2-1 in conference and stay within striking distance.

            Finally, Grambling State (3-0 in the SWAC West) hosts Alcorn State (4-0 in the SWAC East) in what seems very likely to be the first of two meetings this season, the second to come in the SWAC title game in December. That will decide the conference’s representative in the Celebration Bowl, likely against North Carolina A&T, mowing down all comers at 7-0 in the MEAC, to determine the HBC (“Historically Black College”) National Champions! (By the way, we like Grambling by 11.)

[Originally published in the Roar]

What if you "take the bull by the horns", and he skewers you?

When last we talked, I told you about the decision to "take the bull by the horns", take control of the classroom and the rest of the issues instead of letting life run me. Right?

I did that Monday. I patrolled the classroom regularly, demanded focus from the students who hadn't been, and taught the way I knew I needed to teach.

And I'm still paying for it physically two days later. I simply can't handle doing that any more. It's what needs to be done, but this myopathy I've been burdened with will not allow it.

So - now what? I don't know.

The combination of battle strikes against me has me down and against the proverbial wall. Dana came over tonight and I was too depressed to be much company. That seemed to be okay with her for tonight, but I feel like I'm going to have to choose between her and my children - I lost my oldest son when I married Melissa, and he's never returned. That precedent scares me too much to not seriously consider the possibilities when my four with me now rebel so vehemently when I suggest marrying again. And the report I've got to give to the School Board for this month is going to contain a rather scathing assessment of the system, and a frank evaluation of my own role within it.

Is it possible that God is trying to help me sever my ties to this world so that I can serve Him, and Him alone? 

I would trust Him to keep me afloat - He's done that already when finances got tight, several times. Perhaps by shutting off the avenue to either my children or my girlfriend (or both?) and the avenue to teaching in a secular classroom, God is telling me that time's getting short, and here in the last days I need to fully devote myself to Him and only Him.

The battle has already been won. I need to keep reminding myself of that. Romans 8:28-39 tells me that. 

28And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. 29For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

We are already glorified.

31What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with him graciously give us all things? 33Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

What human threat can possibly overcome God? Whatever threatens us, the only parts that reach us are the ones God allows to reach us, because they will benefit us in the end.

37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Bookmark Romans 8 in your Bible for times like mine. You and I are already on the winning side. No matter what we face in the world today, it's not so much that it will be overcome but that it has already been overcome! 

So, what do I do about my distresses? I trust God, and pray, and stay faithful to Him. The rest will take care of itself. As the answers become obvious, I'll implement them with the help of the Holy Spirit, and keep moving in whatever direction He provides me.

God bless you, friends. I pray that you know God the way I do - if you have any doubts, pray a prayer of salvation, and contact me in the comments if you don't know how to do that. I'd be glad to help you through those first steps. 

So, if I hate my job, what can I do about it?

Thursday, I wrote about my frustration with my current job assignment, which is running a detention facility...excuse me, an alternative school for our school district. The mistake is Freudian, of course, because my frustration involves the students which are being sent our direction. "Students" may be a misnomer, because the majority, perhaps slightly less, don't actually care whether or not they learn, graduate, or anything else academic, which makes them not only unteachable but a distraction at best and a hazard at worst to the remainder of the students who are actually trying to accomplish something.

In the meantime, God addressed the frustrations I feel.

He put my sins in front of me to be addressed: In my frustration, I've pulled back from the students, moved into working on other projects unless a student is actively seeking my assistance, which of course this type of student rarely does. In my frustration, I've stopped assuming the best about my students, and started assuming the worst. In my frustration, I've let my dominant emotional state become the one that I function the poorest in: Anger. 

Therefore, I have work to do.

One of the things I learned a long time ago that I've apparently forgotten in dealing with this is the following truism: It's amazing how much you can change your own behavior, and how little you can change anyone else's behavior. I can whine about the students they're sending me all I want, but if I want anything to change, I need to start by changing MYSELF first.

So, rather than quit, I've been guided by the Lord to try some other methods to deal with the problem I've been having with the situation (NOT the situation itself! Notice the difference!). One thing I'll need to do is get off my butt more often and move around the classroom more, even though it will tax my health more (with the twins gone this week to their mom's house, I hope to have more strength this coming week to work with). Another method that I think will help is to expand the organizer system I use to make sure I'm not stressed by the lack of things I get accomplished in a day or week or whatever. It's inspired by the "bullet organizers" that I've seen brought to my attention over the last couple of days (gee, I wonder Who brought those to my attention?) except that I'm going to use a binder and make it more flexible and applicable to my situation.

God has also pushed me on other fronts - He has challenged my perception of certain things within my personal life, and is forcing me to step up and deal with them in ways that make me uncomfortable.

But I thought God was supposed to be there to HELP me. 

He is. The issue is how He helps you. Romans 8:28 reminds us that He can make ANYTHING work for the betterment of those who love Him. But more appropriate might be Zechariah 13, verses 8 and 9:

8In the whole land, declares the LORD,
two thirds shall be cut off and perish,
and one third shall be left alive.
9And I will put this third into the fire,
and refine them as one refines silver,
and test them as gold is tested.
They will call upon my name,
and I will answer them.
I will say, ‘They are my people’;
and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”

Like all Christians, I am being refined by fire. These are my trials by fire. I've been battling my myopathy for seven years now, and its symptoms were my first refinement from God. There have been other tests from above as well, not that all or even most "bad" things that happen to us are tests from God. When you come to Christ, you aren't freed from your earthly troubles: you're guaranteed freedom from troubles when you DIE, of course, but on earth, accepting Christ puts a big target on your back. Now, you're a threat to the Devil.

And it doesn't get better as you advance in the faith. As Richard Ellis points out, Moses was perhaps the man who walked most closely with God, more closely than any man since Adam. Yet he was punished by not being allowed into the Promised Land with the people he led into Israel. Why? He hit a rock twice instead of once. Not exactly the reason, but that's about it. He disobeyed God, however trivially, but the margin for error becomes so small as you move up the Lord's 'ladder' that punishments and tests come fast, furious, and sometimes fatal. Mind you, he didn't lose his salvation, and Moses was still the Man (along with Elijah) God trusted at the Transfiguration and (will trust) as one of the Two Witnesses during Revelation. And failing these 'tests' does not remove your salvation. But you won't GROW in His Grace without going through that fire.

I will learn through these tests, and I hope to grow through His teaching. He has been faithful to me, and I will continue to try to be faithful to Him. There are so many opportunities being presented - I cannot help but be thankful to God for believing in my potential for growth. None of these tests will be pleasant. I will need to step out of my comfort zone, something I have not done very much of recently. And I will need to be willing to upset people if it comes down to it, as long as I do so "Biblically", if you know what I mean.

And I need to be willing to do what He demands that I do. Because His parental punishments are not what I want in my life. (Especially this close to the End Times!)

I hate my job.

No, seriously. I hate my job.

I used to love it. When I got too sick to be a band director any more, I was offered the chance to take over the alternative school, and I took it. As a new Christian, it appealed to me as an opportunity to save souls - to save the children who had "fallen through the cracks" of society and the school system. Over the first several years here, I felt that on several occasions - more often personal salvation than Christian salvation, but it's a start. The kids had been exposed to a Christian teacher, who had a Bible at the desk and in his heart, who was willing to share the Gospel when asked (I'm severely restricted about how I can proselytize, which is fine because I don't want false religions preached to these children either, and there are tons more of those out there than the real Jesus Christ. And when I was joined by a teaching partner in my third year, as my health began to deteriorate, and she turned out to also be a full-blooded, born again Believer with a capital B, that allowed for our conversations to draw in students who might have had questions to ask.

Good times, good times...

So what's wrong now? Well, several things - my pain is increasing, for example - but there's one element in particular that makes this job no longer the pleasure it once was.

We're no longer an alternative education facility. We've become an adjunct detention facility. 

The students we're being sent are almost exclusively kids who've been suspended or expelled from the high school or middle school, but because they're on a special education plan, they're required to be taught per state orders. So we now have a population of mostly troublemakers who have either no interest or no ability where learning is concerned, and if the remaining few students who actually want to learn are going to learn, it'll mostly be on their own because our time as teachers will be spent as prison guards, not as educators.

And that's not what I want to do with my remaining years, nor is it a useful means of utilizing my strengths as a teacher. Nor am I the right person to work with these kids, for that matter - they need someone trained in special education, which I am not.

So, right now, I hate my job.

But that's a transient feeling. Feelings come and go. My purpose on this planet remains: to share the gospel with as many people as I can. And maybe this is a good place to do that, and maybe this is a good set of children to share Him with. 

When it comes to making decisions, we cannot base our rationality on feelings. It must be based on Scripture, on what the Lord tells us. 

And in the end, it may come down to the Holy Spirit leading you - leading me - to where we need to be. And us being willing to both listen and do what He says.

No more "thoughts and prayers", Christians: DO SOMETHING!

One of the recurring rants following the massacre in Las Vegas has been the huge inertia in our governing bodies against doing anything constructive in terms of changing the laws that determine the size of the arsenal a gun owner can amass, or the gadgets he can own to convert semi-automatics to fully automatic (and therefore already illegal) rifles that can produce the kind of slaughter inflicted on the Mandalay Bay concert last week.

"Stop sending your 'thoughts and prayers', Congress: do something constructive to help us prevent this kind of massacre!"

The response usually is some sort of analogy that killing could happen with other weapons instead - fertilizer bombs, poisons, and the like. No serious American government study is allowed by government decree (the worst offense Congress has committed on this topic, in my opinion - how dare you forbid us from learning the truth!), but independent research has seen a link between the mass murders and the mass destruction weapon sales - the usual expression of this is something like "no hunter or sportsman needs semi-automatic weapons".  At this point, the defense moves into Second Amendment territory, with the reaction that we must be allowed weapons that would defend ourselves against government assault, at which the fabric of a democratic society begins to break down.

So we stop fighting, return to the status quo, and return to our lives, silently waiting for the next mass assassination of dozens of civilians, the kind that only seems to occur on American soil.

James, half-brother of Jesus, told us the problem with settling for the "thoughts and prayers" avenue of acceptance of evil in our world → here is James 2:14-16:

14"What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?"

(James always was fairly direct!)

If a brother or sister is in need, and you say, "Go in peace"..."God be with you," ... "Our thoughts and prayers are with you"... when you have the means to HELP them? What kind of faith is THAT? James explains more in verses 19-21:

19You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!20Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? 21Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar?

Just because you tell us you "believe" means NOTHING! Prove it! You can no more fake being a Christian than you can fake NOT being a Christian! If you really are a man or woman of your beliefs, prove it! The Holy Spirit within you should be motivating you to do SOMETHING within your power to help in times of need! 

You see, it's NOT that it takes "works" to prove that you're a Christian. "Works" don't count towards getting into Heaven, "or else Christ died in vain", as we've said a thousand times. But if you really ARE a Christian believer, the Holy Spirit resides in you. He should be forcing you do help in whatever means you can, or at the very least making you feel guilty because you haven't!

Ephesians 2:8-10 reminds us that those works are placed in front of us by God once we've given our lives to Him!

8For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Just because you can't fix such a complicated issue yourself doesn't mean there isn't part of it that you CAN do to help. Get or stay informed on these big issues, and then let Him guide you to what you can do to share His Glory and alleviate suffering in this world. Most of the time, the Holy Spirit will prod you in the direction you should help, if you're listening to Him closely. Listen for that still, small Voice.

And don't be afraid that what you're doing "isn't enough". That's why God has so many hands on earth, why the Body of Christ extends around the globe. Consider the starfish (this story comes from one written by Loren Eiseley):

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing.He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions. 

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching.  As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea.  The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning!  May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!”

Make a difference - even if it's only for one starfish at a time...

Never saw that in a football game before...

[Originally posted in The Roar, Oct 10, 2017]

  There’s an old adage about a different sport that applies more accurately to college football: no matter how many games you've seen in your life, you see something new every time you go to the ballpark. Saturday was a great example of that, and here are some of the more interesting ones:

  Two minutes to go in the game, and all the Michigan State Spartans have to do is convert a third down against the vaunted Michigan Wolverine defense, and their 14-10 upset of their in-state rivals would be complete. Quarterback Brian Lewerke fumbled the snap, and the play was busted. Fortunately, the American football (less rounded than the Australian version, not intended to be bounced and caught) took two hops and bounced up to him like a baseball shortstop. Lewerke took off, his center Brian Allen blocking for him. Michigan’s linebacker Noah Furbush was right on his tail, and caught him two full yards short of the first down line to gain.

  Almost miraculously, the QB and his tackler came down on top of the blocker Allen, and then Furbush rolled over them both, landing so that Lewerke rolled on top of HIM as well, and by the time the ball carrier actually hit the ground, he was on the midfield stripe, a full yard PAST the first down marker. It took three yards of rolling atop other players, but MSU’s Brian Lewerke managed to take a fumbled snap and turned it into a game-winning run, upsetting the 18-point favorites.

  That was hardly the biggest upset of the day, however. Recently, I wrote a piece here about point spreads, and the near-certainty of winning games when the point spread stretched past three touchdowns or so in American football.

  A counter-example reared its head Saturday.

  Iowa State entered the Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium in Norman as 31-point underdogs. Here are some of the reasons why -

  > Oklahoma was ranked #3 in the nation behind only co-favorites and champions from ‘15 and ‘16, Alabama and Clemson. They were 5-0 and on a 14-game winning streak, the longest in the FBS. They had been the favorites for both the Big 12 title and a spot in the College Football Playoffs.

  > Iowa State, au contraire, was 2-2 but winless in its two Power Five games. The Cyclones’ two victories came against an FCS school and the MAC bottom-feeder Akron Zips. They’d been picked second to last in the Big 12, and hadn't produced any significant reason to question that forecast.

  > ISU had won in Norman, Oklahoma, exactly once since 1961. (They play there every other year.)

  > On top of all that, ISU didn't have its starting QB, Jacob Park, and started a “walk-on”, Kyle Kemp, who’d attempted a career total of two passes before Saturday. He was backed up and spelled by a linebacker, Joel Lanning, who’d played QB earlier in his career and played on both sides of the ball Saturday.  

  So, of course, Kempt threw for 343 yards and three touchdowns, including a game-winning precision pass from 25 yards to Allen Lazard to take their final lead with two minutes to go.

  HOW rare was this win?

  OU had not lost at all to ISU in 18 years (they play every year). They'd lost 20 straight against Top 25 teams, and had NEVER beaten a top five team on the road. Oklahoma had gone 89-5 against unranked teams over the last 20 years. And on top of all that, with the Sooners taking multiple 14-point leads in the first half, they garnered the unenviable distinction of becoming the first top three team in 208 opportunities to lose at home after holding such a lead.

  Florida scored what should have been the “tying” touchdown against SEC rival LSU with two minutes to go in the third quarter, on Lamical Perine’s second short TD run of the period. But as the supposedly “routine” conversion attempt began, long snapper Ryan Farr hiked off target to the right; holder Johnny Townsend caught it but then tried to spin the laces and felt the ball slip out of his fingers as kicker Eddy Piniero swung and almost missed the falling ball completely, belting a duck hook woefully left to leave the score 17-16 in LSU’s favor. That lonely point was the difference between the teams for the seventeen remaining minutes, and it was the margin of defeat for the Gators in the end. The conversion trio had not missed an extra point together in two years, but they never got the chance to redeem themselves against the Tigers on Saturday.

  Alabama-Birmingham bagged the biggest pelt of their comeback season Saturday because of Louisiana Tech’s kicking woes. Rather than leading 24-23, LaTech trailed by one because of TWO failed conversions in the fourth quarter. Their tying touchdown did not become a leading touchdown because an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Kam McKnight (who'd score the TD) pushed the conversion attempt back fifteen yards; the miss left the game at 16 all.

  After a UAB major with six minutes to go made it 23-16, LaTech drove seven plays in 2 ½ minutes and scored on a J’Mar Smith to DeJuawn Oliver 42-yard pass play. But that extra point failed too, after a false start pushed this attempt back as well.

  Finally, with their final drive down to Alabama-Birmingham’s 12-yard line, the Bulldogs played for a game winning field goal. Smith ran one of those “Center the ball between the hash marks” runs and fell to the ground, giving his kicker Jonathan Barnes the best possible chance to make the relatively standard 30-yard field goal (the length of an NFL extra point).

  This time, there was no false start penalty.

  There was no unsportsmanlike behavior.

  The snap and the hold were impeccable.

  No, there was simply a hand up in the middle of the defensive line that batted the kick right back at Barnes, who was promptly tackled with the ball in hand. So the loss fell as the ball did: into the hands of their kicking game.

  Bowling Green won its first game of the season on Saturday, reducing the number of winless FBS teams to five: Baylor, U-Mass, Charlotte, Georgia Southern, and Texas-El Paso (which lost by just one in its first game for its new/old/placeholder coach, Mike Price). But the Falcons won in a very strange way.

  With 98 seconds remaining and down one point, Miami-Ohio was driving and was on the BG one yard line following consecutive 27-yard completions, ready to pound the ball into the end zone rugby scrum style, through brute force, and take the lead late. The announcers had given up hope for the Falcons defense, suggesting they let the RedHawks score in hopes of having time left to score themselves afterwards and take the lead back before time ran out.

  Instead, Miami bobbled the snap, fumbled the ball, and as a cadre of of Falcon defenders scooped the ball up and convoy it more than 90 yards the other direction for the game-clinching score. Bowling Green won 37-29.

  Unlike most of the games described so far, the seven-point favorite Western Michigan won their game over the Buffalo Bulls Saturday, as expected.

  Well, not entirely as expected.

  The final score was fairly high: 71-68. One hundred and thirty nine points. Had this been an AFL game, that wouldn't have been a weird score; in American football, though, it's outrageous. If you saw a line of 51 and bet the “over”, congratulations.

  After the game was tied at 31 at the end of regulation, the teams went into overtime. Overtimes, actually. Plural.

  Seven of them, to be precise. Tied the NCAA record.

  They were tied at 38 after the first and 45 after the second. Neither team scored in the third. It was tied at 53 after OT number 4 (teams are required to attempt two-point conversions after the first two OTs; both were successful), 59 after the fifth (both teams failed on their conversions), and 65 after the sixth (same).

  Finally, after the Bulls settled for a field goal from the 8-yard line in the seventh overtime, WMU scored its tenth touchdown of the game, a 12-yard run by Jarvion Franklin, to end it.

  For an added piece of oddness, the sister of the Western Michigan tight end who scored their first OT touchdown apparently thought that TD ended the game and ran out onto the field to hug her brother. She was escorted off the field by security and tossed out of the stadium for disrupting the game.

  Never saw that before.

Life takes precedence - over everything but God

On Thursday, my twin daughters had nearly identical surgeries to screw 'shims' (for lack of a better term) into their kneecaps to counteract the knocked-knee-ness partially due to their cerebral palsy, as well as botox shots into their lower legs to stretch out the calves, followed by casting both legs on both girls to lock the ankle-angles in a stretched position for the next four weeks.

So, when they got home Friday afternoon (they're both "Shriner's babies", so the surgery was in Salt Lake City, three hours away), they were hurting, and tired, and marginally upset, and we had to get them up my stairs into my newish residence (it's flat, one story inside, but there are five steps to ascend to get to my front door). Thankfully my girlfriend was there to help me care for them Friday evening - and more critically, to retrieve my older son from work at midnight so that I didn't have to leave the twins while they were hurting so much.

This weekend has been the three of us camped out in the living room (I sleep here anyway, because with my myopathy I can't lie flat in a bed any more anyway), and for a change I was the caregiver, rather than the one who was catered to. My girls were laid out on the two couches, and their brothers and my girlfriend and I all serving as their nurses. But it was mostly me, and what I ended up doing was trying to ignore my own pain and fatigue as much as possible so I could take care of my children.

That's part of the price of having children. Their needs come first, before yours.

And that's what serving God means, too. His needs come first, before ours. 

So I didn't do much writing these last three days. I did write a piece for The Roar on the college football games on Saturday, in between ice bag trips and helping the girls to and from the bathroom. And I was able to get away for an hour Sunday morning to play piano at church and hear a sermon about the last verse of Psalm 23.

But my own needs had to be put behind the needs of my children, a sentiment every parent undoubtedly recognizes. My girlfriend calls it the cold meal rule - 'Mom always eats last, once the kids and husband are taken care of, and by the time she gets her food, it's invariably cold'. (She then adds, Thank God for microwaves!) Frankly, I'm exhausted from the work, because my myopathy doesn't spare me to care for anyone. I'm frighteningly dizzy right now, and generally exhausted (one daughter figured out how to get to her walker without any help because she couldn't wake me up in the middle of the night). But it's a sacrifice we're willing to make without questions because, "duh! They're OUR kids! 

So, why don't we do that with God? We're supposed to! We are created beings of His creation, designed solely to glorify His Name. Whatever it is we think we're supposed to do with our lives is by definition subordinate to what He has planned for us!

Everything.

"Jonah! Go to Ninevah and preach!"  I absolutely do NOT want to do that, God! They're evil people, and You're going to save them if you can, and they will continue to be a thorn in our side! "I said, go!" And no matter what Jonah may want, God's needs take precedence.

"Abram! Sacrifice your son to Me." Are you kidding me, Lord? After all I went through to get a child? At the age of 100? And yet, Abram willingly took Isaac to the mountain to sacrifice him, knowing in his heart that God would raise him from the dead if he had to.

"Moses! Lead My People out of Egypt!" Me? I can't do that! I st-uh-st-uh-stuh-stutter! And Aaron my brother would be SO much better than I am."No, Moses. I Want You to do it." And he did - despite his hesitation, Moses knew that God's priorities were more important than his own.

And so it is today. What are God's priorities for your life? 

Have you asked Him lately?

gps

Postscript : There was a strange manifestation of God's mercy Saturday night. One daughter woke up at eleven, in agonizing pain. Between pain meds, icebags,and prayer, the pain finally came down, and she fell asleep a few minutes after midnight... seconds before her sister woke up in exactly the same pain. She also received the pain med-icebag-prayer treatment, and an hour later she too was back in bed. 

   Thank you, Father, for holding the second one's pain off until the first was asleep. Had they both needed me at the same time, with me by myself to comfort them.