COTTRELL COLUMN: A true ‘Christmas Story’ beatdown

We all remember that bully who talked a good game, but could never really back it up.

Take Scut Farkus, for instance.

The big bully from the movie “A Christmas Story” with yellow eyes spent plenty of time terrorizing Ralphie Parker and his buddies, then didn’t fare so well when Ralphie decided to stand up for himself.

Playing the role of Farkus on Saturday? None other than Oklahoma State.

The Cowboys and many national and local (read: me) pundits called for a huge season in Stillwater, Okla., and they seemed well on their way after a win over Georgia last week.

By late Saturday afternoon, they were on their backs in the snow with their noses bleeding, while a screaming, cursing and crying Houston leveled blow after blow upon their heads.

Now, of course, with the season being so young there’s still a lot we don’t know. Houston could be the greatest mid-major since sliced bread, and Oklahoma State could be just as good as we thought.

Odds of that, however, aren’t great.

Let’s just hope the Cowboys find their coonskin hat.

The Anti-Farkus
Playing the role of the bully who doesn’t have to talk because he’s too busy beating you to death every time: The USC Trojans.

Not a lot of bluster comes out of the L.A. campus, but the Trojans have been almost unbeatable in big games over the course of this decade.

Since midway through the 2002 season, when the program really began to hit its stride under Pete Carroll, USC has played 29 games against teams ranked in the AP Top 25, and has lost a grand total of two of them.

One of them was thanks to a superhuman performance by Vince Young, while the other came in 2007 when a banged-up USC squad traveled to a very good, still-Dennis Dixon-having Oregon team.

In other words, if USC is coming to play, you aren’t going to win.

Ohio State found that out the hard way Saturday night in a game it had every chance to win, but couldn’t manage to do.

Heading into the season the conventional wisdom was that this is the year to beat the Trojans, and it very well still may be.

But it might take their now-yearly indefensible upset for it to happen.

Walkin’ The Mile
After Al Groh cemented his spot on coaching’s death row with a loss to William & Mary last week, then just added extra spice with a pitiful performance this week, he at least found some company.

Colorado’s Dan “It’s Big 12 Football, Brother!” Hawkins fell to 0-2 on the season with an ugly loss at Toledo, and he still hasn’t even faced a BCS team yet.

Hawkins’ tenure in Boulder has been underwhelming, at best, and he probably needed a big year to save his job.

That’s not happening.

But I’m sure there’s a job coaching intramurals out there for him.

When’s basketball season?
The ACC, its “We’re a football conference, too!” experiment already in shambles, may have hit rock bottom in the first two weeks of this season.

Virginia’s troubles have been well-documented, but the ACC has another loss to an FCS school (Duke to Richmond), two near-misses (Florida State and Maryland against Jacksonville State and James Madison, respectively, on Saturday), a horrific road blowout (Maryland at California), two bad home losses (Wake Forest to Baylor and N.C. State to South Carolina), two near-losses that should’ve been relatively easy wins (North Carolina at Connecticut and Wake Forest vs. Stanford) and, of course, Virginia Tech’s flop in the Georgia Dome against Alabama.

We’ve been hearing for a few years now that all this stuff would work itself out, but we’re going on six years of awful football since the conference expanded.

Much like the Jim Haslett-era New Orleans Saints, who had all the potential in the world but could never overcome their boneheaded play or boneheaded coaching, despite years of assurances that this would be the year things turn around it hasn’t.

At some point, you are what you are.

Turnaround Check, Week 2
Michigan came up with the first big win of the post-apocalypse for our Spread 3.

The Wolverines, not quite as talented as Notre Dame but probably better coached, managed to pull out a win over the Irish in the final minute thanks to a huge day from freshman quarterback Tate Forcier, who looked like a budding star.

Auburn’s offense under Gus Malzahn is now doing all the things Tony Franklin said it would do a year ago after two impressive wins over middle-of-the-pack competition.

Tennessee, however, remembered how to stink on offense in a loss to UCLA on Saturday after forgetting in the prior week’s win over Western Kentucky,

And now the Volunteers get to walk into Urban Meyer’s House of Pain and Suffering this week. And lo, there will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Fun With Contract Extensions
Kansas State was enjoying Bill Snyder Part II: Electric Boogaloo so much after just one game they decided to give the 69-year-old coach in his second go-around with the school a five-year contract Friday.

Snyder promptly rewarded their confidence in him with a listless, pretty much awful-in-every-way loss at mighty Louisiana-Lafayette.

Something tells me Snyder’s not going to recapture the magic.

Tim Cottrell is sports designer of the Opelika-Auburn News. He will write a weekly column on college football during the season. You can also read him on the O-A Sports Blog at oanow.com. He can be reached at 737-2511 or .