What a glorious failure of a sports weekend we all just witnessed.
Never in my life of watching college and professional football have I seen two teams that I follow closely play two nearly identical games and with the exact same outcome: a three-point loss.
After waking up Monday morning, having about 12 hours to digest the Cowboys game Sunday, and two days for that wild finish here at Ford Stadium, I thought the only talk of the town would be on the absence of a defense in either case.
Clearly I haven’t been paying attention. The pundits, skeptics and mouthpieces for the biggest media outlets in America can only seem to focus on quarterbacking. The one position in neither of these games that failed to impress, but it’s the one thing they can’t seem to get out of their heads.
Men like Skip Bayless and ESPN Dallas’ own (and SMU professor) Jean-Jacques Taylor choose not to point the finger at the blatantly poor defense of the Cowboys.
Instead, it’s the record shattering signal-caller, whose “ugly” and “predictable” interception somehow overshadows a game defensive coordinator Monte Kiffin should be ashamed to watch this week.
How about here on the Hilltop, where another couple of records were destroyed in a triple-overtime defeat against historic doormat Rutgers? Never mind the fact that our defense made said doormat look like a gold-laced Persian rug.
I consider myself a bit of a snob when it comes to football, in that my favorite type of game plan calls for the old-school style of power running and efficient passing. To do this however, your team needs to have a rock-solid defense that doesn’t give up as many points as a high school basketball game.
We may not have any such luck here in Dallas, with our local pro team averaging nearly 30 points a game allowed, and the college we so lovingly follow ranked 124th in the nation with 43 per contest.
Unfortunately, I can admit my shame in placing my fair share of pointed fingers in Tony Romo and Garrett Gilbert’s direction in the past, but how can I now?
Romo has been almost picturesque this season never turning the ball over, and is now the fifth quarterback in NFL history with 500 yards passing and five touchdowns. He routinely guided his offense down the field on Sunday like only the elite throwers can.
Meanwhile, Gilbert set the all-time SMU record for passing yards with 484 points and seven total touchdowns, but as the man under center in June Jones’ system, how could that ever be enough?
These two men had to sit back and watch their defenses give up over 100 points combined this past weekend, and quite frankly, I’m not sure how this could get any better anytime soon.
For the Cowboys, welcome to the real meat of the schedule where the Redskins’ Robert Griffin III and Chip Kelly’s Eagles look for any defensive weakness and pounce like cheetahs.
As for the Mustangs, the move to the American Athletic Conference may have been the best thing to ever happen to this program since Eric Dickerson, because it can’t possibly be worse than the last three games defensively.
A bowl game seems a distant speculation at this point, while the Cowboys are letting any signs of the playoffs slip away like another Peyton Manning pass.
