Behold, the St. Louis football sweep. For the first time since Halloween of last year, the Lafayette Lancers, Missouri Tigers and St. Louis Rams all picked up victories in the same weekend. I was lucky enough to be at two of those games and it was great to leave both of them excited rather than deflated.
The gridiron tripleheader started with Lafayette’s 40-0 blowout of Northwest on Sept. 24, which might have been the most one-sided game ever played. It was clear from the start that the Lancers weren’t about to fall to 1-4 on the season against an inferior opponent.
They came out firing on both sides of the ball, with the defense forcing three punts and a turnover to start the game and allowing the offense to jump out quickly. It was great to see the Lancers move the ball so well on offense and made for a more exciting game. With junior Dominic Bisesi at quarterback, the Lancers have looked like a new team and should continue to improve.
As for Missouri, the only problem with Saturday’s 51-13 win over Miami (OH) was that fans couldn’t even watch. For the third straight week, Charter TV charged $40 for fans to see the Tigers dominate a hopeless opponent. But from the box score, it appears that the Tigers have established a reliable ground game to compliment their explosive passing attack. That’s something they need to beat good defensive teams. And with Big-12 powers Oklahoma and Texas both struggling, the Conference appears wide open for the first time in years.
Finally, there was the miracle known as a Rams win. With Lafayette and Missouri already victorious, I went into Sunday praying that the Rams wouldn’t screw it up as they usually do. And what happened? They took a quick 14-0 lead and had the dome rocking within minutes.
But it wouldn’t be a Rams game without a little frustration. In the second quarter, they had first and goal at the Washington 1-yard line twice (TWICE!) and came away with no points after a blocked field goal. All of a sudden, the Redskins had a 16-14 lead and that feeling of déjà vu slowly came back. Without the leadership of quarterback Sam Bradford, the Rams would have fell apart after losing Steven Jackson to injury in the first half. But the rookie stepped up to lead a comeback with mostly backups around him. It was a great win for a team in need of momentum, but the Rams still have a lot of work to do.
Now that we can count on the Rams every once in a while, we should see these kind of weekends more often. Or at the very least, we won’t have to wait another year.
In other news…
The New York Jets missed a golden opportunity to teach a lesson about drunk driving when they let receiver Braylon Edwards play on Sunday, just days after being arrested for a DWI. Even though the NFL will likely suspend him after the facts come out, the Jets should have punished him immediately while the media was swarming the story. Instead, they benched him for a quarter and pretended like nothing happened when he caught a key touchdown late in the game. Once again, it’s clear that anything can be forgiven when winning becomes the most important thing.
