College football packs in the thrills, a special flight from Chicago to New York and wacky hijinks at the Colorado governor's mansion

- If you were looking for one of college football’s top teams to be upset this weekend, you were looking in the wrong place. Third-ranked Texas already wrapped up an undefeated regular season Thursday by eking out a 49-39 win over lackluster in-state rival Texas A&M that was every bit as unimpressive as the score indicates. Sadly, Colt McCoy threw three touchdown passes and ran for 100-plus yards and another TD, which then provides false ammo for those who would argue that his season overall is good enough to win the Heisman. Likewise, No. 2 Alabama finished off a perfect regular season by furiously rallying from an early 14-0 deficit to archrival Auburn and winning with a last-minute touchdown, 26-21. That sends the Crimson Tide into the SEC championship game against similarly unbeaten Florida, which was the lone team among the top three to play today. Of course, the Gators had little more than a glorified scrimmage against a hapless Florida State team that provided a perfect summation of the case as to why coach Bobby Bowden should be fired/forced to resign after the season by laying down for a 37-10 beating. Tim Tebow had a nice, easy day in his final home game at The Swamp, throwing for three touchdowns and rushing for two more in a nice coronation to his time as the king of Gainesville. My favorite win came from No. 4 TCU, which curb-stomped an incompetent New Mexico team by a 51-10 count that barely begins to illustrate the distance between the two teams in terms of talent and quality. That gives TCU a 12-0 season and cements a BCS berth, but unless Nebraska can upset Texas in next Saturday’s Big 12 championship game, TCU has no hope of making it to the national championship game. That sucks because TCU is very much on the level of Texas and Alabama, yet they were never given a legitimate chance to make the title game. Another non-BCS qualifying conference leader, Boise State, saw its BCS hopes buoyed by a) beating Nevada 44-33 Friday night to clinch the WAC title and b) having No. 12 Oklahoma State, the Broncos’ top contender for an at-large BCS spot, fail to even show up for their rivalry game against Oklahoma. The Sooners crushed the Cowboys 27-0 as Oklahoma State turned in its worst offensive performance in a decade while representatives from the Sugar, Orange and Fiesta bowls looked on. That should hand Boise State a BCS berth, assuming they can beat hapless New Mexico State next week. Today was also coaching carnage day, with two Div. I coaches losing their jobs before the day’s action even kicked off and Notre Dame coach Charlie Weis preparing to take to the sidelines at Stanford in what was undoubtedly his final game as the head man for the Fighting Irish. Louisville fired head coach Steve Kragthorpe after he failed to live up to his reputation as an offensive genius and managed only a 15-21 record in three seasons at the helm. Likewise, the University of Akron canned J.D. Brookhart after he posted his fourth consecutive losing season in six years as head coach. As for Weis……he was going to be fired win or lose, so it was only fitting that the Irish came from ahead to lose 45-38 in a game that showed the one perpetual weakness that plagued Weis’ teams at Notre Dame every single year: a porous defense. Athletic director Jack Swarbrick pulled the plug on Weis’ planned West Coast recruiting trip, scheduled for next week, and told him prior to the game to come straight back to South Bend after the game. Weis knew he was done, we all knew he was done and watching him suffer on the sideline was not much fun. However, considering the smugness with which he treated everyone around him during his ND tenure, perhaps such a spectacle of suffering was in order. The most exciting game of the day took place in Moscow – Moscow, Idaho, that is. Utah State and Idaho staged a barn-burner that tallied 101 total points, 1,063 total yards of offense and thrills down to the last second. Utah State won 52-49, but it is Idaho that will be headed to a bowl game for the first time in forever after concluding a great 7-5 season. The scoring was nearly as plentiful in Houston, where the Houston Cougars were supposed to play the Rice Owls, except that no one told Rice about the game. Considering both teams are based in Houston, you’d think Rice would hear talk about the game at some point over the past week, but clearly not. If they had known, I’m sure they would have at least bothered to show up. As is, they were behind 59-0 at halftime, having surrendered 465 first-half yards to Houston. The final score was 73-14, but I’m assuming those were two pity touchdowns granted to Rice to make things more respectable. All in all, a great Saturday of college football and with only a handful of games left to play before bowl season, things are starting to fall into place………

- How about a good, uplifting story to brighten your weekend? No joke here, it’s actually a happy tale. A very special load of cargo arrived via plane at New York’s LaGuardia Airport Friday afternoon. On board were more than 50 dogs rescued from Missouri puppy mills, arriving in Long Island in the hope of finding loving homes. The flight was operated by Pet Airways, a non-profit organization that seeks to protect abused and neglected animals. The flight, dubbed "Operation Thanksgiving Day Flight to Freedom," (clearly Pet Airways is a very literal, unimaginative group), carried dogs ranging range in age from about four months to three years old from Chicago to New York, where they were taken to the North Shore Animal League in Port Washington and put up for adoption. "They're in great shape," said Dan Wiesel, founder of Pet Airways.. "They come from a traumatic experience. ... they don't know what's going on...but they've got 15 people hugging and kissing them." The trip to New York actually began on Thanksgiving Day, when the dogs were transported by bus to Chicago where they were given a rest break and fed special Thanksgiving meals. This particular group of dogs was rescued in large part because of an aggressive campaign launched last summer by the state of Missouri to probe and prosecute unlicensed dog breeders. The campaign paid off in September, when 100 dogs were reportedly removed from unlicensed puppy mill in mid-Missouri where they were living in filthy, unsavory conditions. Best Friends Animal Society partnered with Pet Airways to coordinate this week’s rescue mission and Wiesel said part of the airline's corporate responsibility is to find these pets new homes. "Whatever we can do to help with that cause is what we'll do," he said. See, I told you this was a good story and one that would brighten your weekend……..

- Beware world. The Chinese are looking to seize control of the space race and with more citizens to spare for the effort, let’s say that the odds aren’t exactly against everyone’s least-favorite Communists. The Chinese government announced Friday that it will launch a second lunar probe next October. The probe, named Chang'e-2, will orbit 60 miles closer to the moon than the nation's first probe, which launched in 2007. Chang-e-1 was an unmanned probe that conducted a 16-month mission before meeting its end when it struck the moon in a controlled crash in. Chang'e-2 marks the launch of the second phase of China's lunar exploration program. The third phase isn't schedule to commence until 2017, at which point China plans to send a spacecraft to collect samples on the moon. All of this comes on the heels of China becoming the third nation to put a person in orbit - astronaut Yang Liwei – when it followed the example of the United States and Russia. Yang was hailed as a national hero and five years later, Zhai Zhigang became the first Chinese to make a spacewalk. Now it’s impossible to say how successful these upcoming phases of the Chinese space program will be and if this is merely a front for China to find new markets for its toxic toys, toothpaste, food and drywall, but the point is that the space race has officially become a three-nation race and we here in the United States need to step our game up if we are going to remain the leaders in exploring outer space……..

- It’s official and although I might be the only person under the age of 50 who will admit this openly, I am pumped that group The Who will perform at the Super Bowl XLIV halftime show at Dolphins Stadium in Miami on Feb. 7. Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey, the band's only remaining original members, will lead what should be a great halftime show for those who actually like good rock music, good songwriting and musical performances that don’t hinge on freaks in butt-ugly leather and vinyl outfits dancing like there are having epileptic seizures (i.e. if Britney Spears were performing). There will undoubtedly be renditions of classic Who tunes like “Baby O’Reilly,” “My Generation,” “I Can See for Miles” and “Magic Bus.” What’s amusing to me is that a band that is legendary for its drugs, sex and booze, rock ‘n’ roll ways and a member (Townshend) who has been convicted on child pornography charges is viewed by many as a conservative choice for the NFL. While performing a canned, sterile set at the Super Bowl isn't exactly the same as being one of the legendary acts to take the stage at Woodstock in 1969, it should be an interesting experience for The Who. I’d definitely put it ahead of a lame-tastic “honor” like being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990. Any time a hall of fame claims to have ties to rock and roll yet has the Mateiral Slut, Madonna, as one of its inductees, go ahead and assume that it has zero rock credibility. Needless to say, I’m much happier with this choice for halftime entertainment than with previous selections like Bruce Springsteen and the E Street band, Prince, Justin Timberlake, Janet Jackson and Spears. Typically I use halftime as a chance to go to the bathroom, get some snacks and do anything but watch the halftime show, but this year I might find a few minutes to watch The Who……..

- I don’t know who was responsible for tee-peeing the Colorado governor’s mansion Wednesday night, I just know that it’s freaking hilarious. Gov. Bill Ritter and First Lady Jeannie Ritter awoke Thursday morning to a sight that most of us have seen at one time or another in our own yard: streams of toilet paper dangling from every tree, bush and piece of decoration in sight. "I still have two kids at home that are teenagers," the governor said. "It could well be that they have been honored with being teepeed. It's very likely it involves high school students but we won't mention what their party affiliation might be." That certainly seems like the most likely explanation, but I’m hoping like heck that it’s not true. What could be better? If some disgruntled Colorado resident, ideally from hours away, decided that the best way to make his or her voice heard and to let the governor know what a terrible job he was doing was to go out and buy several family-size packs of TP, drive to Colorado and spend a few tense moments throwing the rolls back and forth through the tree at the governor’s mansion, hoping not to get caught. No word on whether the vandals also snapped off plastic forks in the front lawn, put shaving cream on door handles around the exterior of the house and covered the lawn in confetti, but if not, there’s an idea for not time around. No one is certain if this is the first time that the governor's mansion has been teepeed in its 101-year history. "I've got way too many high school kids coming in and out of here to think this is a political statement," Jeannie Ritter said. "Actually, political statements are made with a different kind of paper." The home, officially known as the Governor's Residence at Boettcher Mansion, has been the personal residence of every Colorado First Family since the early 1960's. Should you be looking to follow suit and decorate the front lawn with some Charmin of your own, it’s located at the corner of Logan and East 8th Avenue in Denver. Do what you will with that information, just make it interesting………