The Post Mortem

God Bless Eddie "Guns" Hochuli. Is there a better official in the game?

The cheating St. Louis football team tried to pull a fast one over on Guns Sunday afternoon. Seattle was flagged for an illegal formation after quarterback Matt Hasselbeck spiked the ball with four seconds remaining in the game. And cheating St. Louis coach Scott Linehan tried to pull the A.J. Pierzynski and started celebrating because of the 10-second runoff. Or so he thought.

That kind of nonsense might fool Doug Eddings. It isn't going to fly with Eddie Guns, who correctly pointed out that there isn�t a 10-second runoff rule on illegal formation. Nice try, cheaters. You know what happened next. Josh Brown booted a 54-yard field goal to win the game. So long Cinderella season, St. Louis. This is what happens to cheaters.

Although that hardly explains why the White Sox were able to win the World Series last year and Pierzynski was able to gloat about it on FOX this weekend.

• Boy the SEC is impressive isn't it? No, not in the caliber of the teams. But the way the SEC annually fools the pollsters into believing that their conference is better than any other conference. This is not to say the Pac-10 is the best, or Big XII or Big Ten, but please enough with this nonsense of SEC superiority. It is a bigger fraudulent myth than the "Commitment to Excellence."
  
  Florida, as predicted here last week, blew their cakewalk to the BCS title game, losing to another of the anonymous teams in the conference. Face it SEC fan, you conference is just as mediocre as any other conference. It is like the SEC is filled with a bunch of Peyton Manning-like teams. They are decent enough in the regular season, but they are not going to be in the mix for a championship.
  
  But look for the pollsters to tab Kentucky as the No. 2 team in the country.

• The Miami Hurricanes have gone back to the basics of being the biggest a-holes in college football. But nobody cares seeing that Miami can't beat anybody of note. Remember when Miami had epic battles with Notre Dame and other national powers? Don�t feel bad, nobody else does either. Now they are resigned to �regain their swagger� by pushing around lowly Florida International.
  
  Way to go, tough guys.
  
  You really showed them. Is Florida International even a D1 school? Miami had tried something similar against Louisville earlier this season. Of course, the Cardinals came out and pounded them for it. It is just sad. Kind of like former hard-core rappers who participate in not one, but two Bachelor-style dating shows on VH1.

• Commentator Lamar Thomas openly cheered on the brawling Hurricanes players from his broadcast position. Thomas urged the fight to continue in the parking lot and even fought back the urge to jump in the elevator to go down to the field and join in himself. All of this, of course, was on the air. Thomas, of course, was on the Miami team that tried to fight the San Diego State mascot in the early 1990s. No wonder the Hurricanes are about as relevant as the 2 Live Crew.

• What happens first, the Bears lose a game or the Raiders win a game? The Broncos fans seem so disinterested in last night's game, they couldn�t even muster the strength to throw garbage at the Raiders sidelines.

• Boise State did not cover. The college betting streak has ended.

• So much for the Chargers platoon of LaDainian Tomlinson and Michael Turner. Chargers offensive coordinator Cam Cameron must have remembered that L.T. is the best running back in the business as he racked up four touchdowns in a beating of the 49ers. L.T. even stayed into the game really late. Obviously he was showing the world what he thought of the platoon. Or maybe he wanted to throw a bone to those fantasy players.
  
  Marty Schottenheimer also has taken that "Martyball" criticism to heart as he morphed into Steve Spurrier on Sunday. The Chargers were throwing the ball well into the fourth quarter, even though the game had been decided some time earlier. And hey, nobody is complaining.

• Terrell Owens can be taken off suicide watch now, after notching three touchdowns in the Cowboys romp over the Texans. T.O. is like your golf buddy that complains and curses when he is getting double bogeys, but becomes as glib as Ty Webb when he nails his first par.

• Has the NFL passed by Joe Gibbs? Probably not. He did guide the Redskins to the playoffs last year. But how did he think he could get any further with Mark Brunell will remain a mystery. Ditto for the Atlanta Falcons and Mike Vick.

• When the Tigers clinched the AL pennant on Saturday, one of the announcers proclaimed, "This town has been starved for a winner." Which is true because neither the Pistons nor the Red Wings have won anything in recent memory.

AND FINALLY
The FOX network has long had the reputation of canceling television shows before they even have a chance to prove how good or bad they are. Jay Mohr's series, Action, is evidence of this, as is the over-hyped Vanished that will vanish from your televisions because it has been canceled. Hopefully FOX will have a similar quick-hook with the Joe Buck experiment. Yesterday's studio show was the best pregame show of the season and hopefully FOX will realize that and cancel the traveling road show with Joe Buck. At least FOX has the common sense to keep Buck calling the National League series, where he has no chance of being seen by anybody. Kind of like how Ronald Miller was banished after his scheme with Cindy Mancini was uncovered in Can't Buy Me Love.

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