10. Come on, Fat Man, DANCE!!!
“I love to see a fat guy score. Because first you get the fat guy spike, then you get the fat guy dance.”
-- John Madden, “The Replacements”

No, we didn’t get either Sunday afternoon after Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Mike Patterson grabbed a loose ball near the Eagles goal line and rambled 98 yards for a touchdown in Philly’s 38-24 win over San Francisco.

But, from the looks of Patterson afterward, we nearly got to see fat guy receive CPR. The 292-pound second-year player out of USC was apparently too tired to do anything but smile after giving diehard Eagles fans memories of Reggie White, who once stripped a quarterback of the ball and rambled 2/3 the length of the field for a touchdown.

The best, though, was Donovan McNabb’s thoughts after seeing the play: “He looked really quick for about a good 40, 50 yards, but I think reality hit -- how big he was.”

9. Seven plus seven ... carry the one ...
San Francisco 49ers quarterback Alex Smith graduated from the University of Utah in just TWO YEARS with a degree in economics. We know this because we heard about that during the 2005 NFL draft about as often as we heard about former Burns, Oregon and current Jets quarterback Kellen Clemens growing up on a ranch during his entire career with the Ducks.

Which kind of makes me wonder exactly how advanced Utah’s econ department is when their star child is heard saying the following after a 38-24 loss: “Fourteen points. Take a look at the scoreboard. Take away 14 points, and it's pretty close.”

Pretty close? Let me grab my calculator and make sure ...

8. Terry Bradshaw’s tribute was funny, but this borders on stalking
When ol’ T.B. was inducted into the pro football Hall of Fame, he said in his speech that he’d give anything to put his hands under Mike Webster’s butt just one more time.

Apparently, some centers feel the same way about their quarterbacks.

While toiling away my Sunday in an online poker game, I was dealt the big boys (A-A) and had the player to my right declare all-in. A card player’s dream come true. Then I noticed his screen name: BBOLLINGER.

Out of curiousity, I asked if his name stood for what I thought it did: former New York Jets and current Minnesota Vikings backup QB Brooks Bollinger, who earlier this summer was involved in the logjam competition with, among others, Kellen Clemens for a spot on the Jets’ depth chart.

As BBOLLINGER pushed his all of his remaining chips into the pot and showed his pocket 7s, he said that it was in fact for Brooks Bollinger, and that he had been Bollinger’s center in high school.

As an ace came on the flop, he was resigned in his hand. But I asked him if he thought that was just a little creepy to pick a screenname dedicated to the person who had had the back of his passing hand massaging his crotch for three years. When the turn and river both brought sixes to give me aces full, he admitted he’d never thought about it that way, and with that was knocked from the tournament.

Travis Pindell, if you ever read this, you won’t find me in the card room as TPINDELL. I mean, I liked you, but I didn’t “like you-like you.”

6. It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish
Big Mr. Mojo takes the field on the Central Panthers’ sideline, but he’s not exactly a very loyal teammate.

The 10th-ranked Panthers, who watched 21-point leads dissipate before winning back-to-back overtime games in Weeks 1-2, watched a 17-point lead get obliterated by No. 5 Scappoose in a 42-24 loss Friday night.

The Panthers led Tillamook 21-0 before winning 28-27 in overtime, then led Junction City 21-0 before winning 24-21 in overtime.

But this time around, Central couldn’t answer the Indians’ running game -- T.J. Crane finished with 200-plus yards and a couple of scores -- and couldn’t mount any scoring offense aside from TD runs of 59 and 40 yards by quarterback Justin Cuellar, who also returned a blocked punt for a touchdown.

If the Panthers can find a way to finish off opponents, they should have no trouble winning the Val-Co League. If they can’t, that title will be completely up for grabs.

5. Oregon should bring back 6-man football.
For a brief time back in the 1950s, Oregon fielded 6-man football. Granted there weren’t a ton of teams, but you could probably put together a classification of about 20-30 schools to play the 6-man level. And, not only would current co-op schools be able to field their own teams, but you could potentially renew the programs at schools that have long since dropped football due to a lack of turnout/interest.

Here’s how I would set it up:
In the current Class 2A, allow the 15-20 smallest schools the option of playing 8-man football, and put them in with all 1A schools with an enrollment of 60 or higher. Then give the remaining 1A schools the choice to play 6-man. Assuming every current 1A football-playing school smaller than 60 students agreed to 6-man football, that would give you a 6-man classification of roughly 25 schools, breaking up the many co-ops in Eastern Oregon and giving some of these schools with once-proud traditions their own teams again.

Additionally, it might ease the burden on some schools that struggle to field 8-man teams, such as Camas Valley and Paisley, whose game was cancelled this week due to a shortage of players for Paisley (and if Paisley hadn’t cancelled, Camas might have).

6-man football worked once before. It might just work again.

4. A little love for the kickers
Now, I don’t have detailed information on every 4A kicker in Oregon, but there are a couple who at least deserve a little mention in this column.

Central’s Peter Desmarteau has come up big for his Panthers in their two wins, hitting the game-winning extra point in the nailbiter over Tillamook, then the game-winning field goal in a 24-21 win over Junction City.

At Scappoose, Brian Moloney was a perfect 6-for-6 on extra points and is chasing former Indian kicker’s Kris Mooneyham’s single-season record in that category. But before Moloney’s game Friday, he also lifted Scappoose to its first two boys’ soccer wins of the season, scoring the game-winner in the final minute of a 2-1 win at Seaside and adding two goals in a 2-0 win over YC.

If anyone else has good kicker info, pass it on ...

3. A play you won’t see every day
So there we were on the sidelines watching the St. Helens defense lay the lumber to Century in their Class 5A NWOC opener Friday night, when I saw a play about as rare as a quarterback throwing a touchdown pass to himself.

Facing fourth-and-long, Century dropped into punt formation, but the Lions’ Ron Walters busted through to block the kick. However, the ball bounded free, the Century punter gathered the ball and was able to get a successful boot into the ball and avoid giving up a huge swing in field position.

St. Helens went on to win 21-0, the Lions’ first win in a league football game since last year’s 14-7 win over Oregon City in their Three Rivers League opener.

2. Has Newport found its niche?

 Well, I was just going to skip over No. 2 until I stumbled across the box score for Newport's 13-0 win over Seaside Friday night.

Newport struggles to gain 100 yards combined in its first two games, then puts three rushers over the 100-yard mark against a decent Seaside defense.

Hmmm, maybe the Cubs are on to something?

1. Wild Tigers, or Sigfried and Roy's housecats?

The post of the week on the OregonLive.com 4A football forum had to come from “jkg1956,” who said that Yamhill-Carlton should be respected for its strong start, and cited last year’s playoff performance -- primarily the second-round game against La Grande -- as apparently weight to back up the argument.

I’m not picking on you, “jkg1956,” and don’t take it that way. You're not the first to try to apply such logic, and you won't be the last. Sure as I'm writing this, the topic has been argued another handful of times. But I find it funny that in this now massive battle for respect in the polls, the eastside schools (above the Class 3A level) always scream about getting ignored, while the westside schools are somehow entitled to respect whether it’s been earned or not.

I agree that the eastside schools get the shaft in that regard, and the comments from “jkg1956” only went to back that up. La Grande won that playoff game in question and brought nearly as much back to the table this year as Yamhill-Carlton did. So, it would stand to reason that La Grande would still be the better of the two teams. Yet YC is earning top-five consideration by hammering what will prove to be Class 4A’s weaker sex, while La Grande is gutting out wins against their fellow eastsiders in the types of physical games that most westside players would cringe at when watching game film.

And then, “badman24” says that La Grande (or Baker, or Ontario for that matter; I assume he means all of those eastsiders forced to play out-of-state opponents due to geography) should not garner top-10 consideration until they play and beat another Oregon team. From a perspective of ranking teams, yes, it’s difficult when you have so little to go by as far as common opponents. But I believe (strongly enough to print it) that if La Grande’s nonleague foes -- Fruitland, Idaho, Weiser, Idaho and Grant Union -- were playing Class 4A football in Oregon, Fruitland and Weiser would be state playoff qualifiers in any league outside of the Sky-Em (and, maybe, maybe the Cowapa), and Grant Union would be in the playoff hunt in any of the other remaining leagues, including the Greater Oregon (at least as long as the GOL has a 75-percent playoff qualification rate).

Bottom line (and plenty of people say this every year): to be the man, you have to beat the man. So, if that logic holds any truth, LG is the better team until YC beats them, right? And in my own opinion, YC -- whose combined opponents this year boast  a lofty 4-11 record -- should at least put up their same powerful numbers against a team with a winning record before getting their showers of praise. Not saying YC isn't top-five caliber. I just want to see some proof through the flinging of the "pudding."