Third annual thebowl.challenge: tackle somebody, guys!

We all knew CMU's defense was, shall we say, iffy at best. They gave up yards and points all year, most notably for our purposes in a September matchup with Purdue, who happened to be their bowl opponent last night. As expected, yards and points were plentiful, but there were two big noticeable things on top of that: Central provided plenty of yards and points this time, and Central's tackling, particularly in the first half, was atrocious, and added bushels of YAC to Curtis Painter's already magnificent day: 35 of 54 for 546 yards, 3 TDs and 2 INTs. Purdue got up 34-13 at the half and seemed to have the game in hand, but CMU put up a 28-point third quarter, tying the game at 41 going into the fourth. Then each team traded scores, Central knotting the score on an acrobatic 19-yard TD catch by Bryan Anderson. But? But: in the words of the imminently mortal Wayne Fontes, they scored too quickly. The Chips opted for a pop-up punt which gave Purdue the ball at their own 40, and Painter led them down the field for the winning kick as time expired. All in all, a good showing from the Chippewas. OT would have been fun, but I guess the game was kind of okay as it was.

Some shuffling in the standings: Kristin picked CMU, but only had 2 confidence points on it. That may prove costly, with the barrage of people who picked Purdue with a lot of confidence. Husband and wife team Ryan and Andrea had comparatively less confidence on Purdue, and as a result they have fallen a little bit in the standings. Jesse Palmer would be 7th in here, wedged between Sean and Matt.

Rank	Team	Owner	Record	PPR	TOTAL
1	Football in the Groin	J. Morgan	6-1	382	116
2	The Dur's picks = FAIL	J. Wise	6-1	389	111
3	Charlie Weiss Cat	Kristin	4-3	393	104
4	lick my houston nutts	Kevin	6-1	393	103
5	Do me, I'm gay	Todd	5-2	402	100
6	Westender	The Cave	5-2	391	98
7	Excelsior!!!!!!	Matt	5-2	405	89
8	Chereth Cutestory	Jack	6-1	413	85
9	Special Education Conference	Andrea	5-2	440	82
10	Simply The Vest	Jeff	6-1	421	75
11	The D	Dustin	3-4	391	73
12	Suck on Effervescent Cocks	Ryan	5-2	428	69
13	Joel defends hate crimes	The Dur	4-3	429	65
14	Bean	Christina	5-2	439	64
15	Tackle Football Picks	Fred	4-3	387	61

Up tonight: annual favorite for "best pre-January bowl of the bowl season," the Holiday Bowl, between Arizona State and Texas. I have no idea what's going to happen.