Lynx Before that fluke play it was still anyone's ball game.

Well, OK. But I don't think it was a fluke play. It was a backward pass that got knocked down. Bad play offense, good play defense. No more flukey than any non-tip interception. And isn't it always anyone's ballgame before the key game-changing play?

boston-josh . f Romo had just gotten to the 1 yard line, wouldn't he have had the first down giving Dallas four more chances to score?

Yes! Great point. I had missed that. What Parcells said when on-screen looked to me not like "First down?" but rather "That a fumble?" The answer was no, Romo was down, but you're right, Babineaux's tackle was even more spectacular because Romo only had to get to the 1, not the end zone.

Wes I'd guess in that situation, if the defense stuffs 3 running plays followed by timeouts and a punt, an NFL team will get a field goal over 50 percent of the time. A good field goal--- a field goal attempt maybe 75 percent.

Another good point. You're right you can never just blame one guy, for the reasons I stated. If the Cowboys had played better, that field goal might have been to make an 8-point lead an 11-point lead. But still, if there's ever any such thing as a goat, Romo's a goat. How would you feel if you were Romo? Like you just lost the game for your team, pretty much single-handedly. Not really true, but not really false either.

According to the Footballcommentary.com model, a team taking over at its own 50 with a minute to play and down by less than three with no timeouts has about a 45 percent chance of winning the game. That'd be roughly the situation if the Cowboys had stuffed three running plays quickly. Maybe a little less than a minute to go. With 30 seconds to go at the 50, the chance of winning is about 30 percent. Your estimate of Dallas' chances looks a little high, but it's a good point all the same. Different ending if they don't let Alexander waltz through for 25 yards or whatever it was.

laynegt Also, blame the (slick) kicker-only ball the NFL instituted a few years back...at least I think it's still around.

It's still around, and it's crazy. A different ball for different situations? Insane and asinine. It's called football, not footballs. (Of course, I'd like to remove the foot part so I'm a fine one to talk.) Anyway, David Akers of the Eagles said it might be something the NFL should look into changing. And he's a kicker.

mike Angry King. Someone is having a 'seriously' bad day.

I'm having a pretty good day. I'm not angry at college football. I'm just bored by it.

magine a college football landscape where Akron could have drafted Reggie Bush out of high school, or UTEP could have taken Ted Ginn Jr, Vince Young to Vanderbilt, Warren Sapp to Tulsa, Tom Brady to North Dakota, etc.... That would make the game, I dunno, less 'predictable' but also unwatchable.

Yes, that would have been horrible if a great player like Tom Brady had been playing at North Dakota instead of sitting on the bench at Michigan. It would have just been awful if Tulsa had had a great tackle. I'm crying here, just thinking about it. Can't ... see ... to ... tpye.

Maybe you don't have a competative team King, but don't take it out on those of us who do.

My team has been unusually (for them) competitive in the last few years, just as I've grown thoroughly bored with college football. So that's not it.

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Re the timing error:

If the five-second rule applies even when a field goal is not kicked, then it's an even stupider rule than I'd previously thought, and I'd thought it was a stupid rule before.

The old rule was that the clock (if stopped) started on the snap and stopped when the ball hit something beyond the goal posts. It got changed because two or three seconds ticked off the clock after the ball hit the net on Adam Vinatieri's game-winning Super Bowl kick against the Rams. Instead of just instructing the time-keepers to get it right in the future, the NFL -- of course! -- added a layer of bureaucracy.

Still doesn't make sense, though. If it's the five-second rule, the clock would have started at the snap and stopped at 1:14, whatever was happening. But it didn't start till the play had been going for about 11 seconds. Then it stopped, I think by coincidence, five seconds later at the end of the play. For the five-second rule to have been the cause of the timing error, the time-keeper would have had to know in advance when the play would end, which is impossible.

It may have been that the error was noticed, but since it happened to come out correct, to 1:14, it was simply left alone. It worked out. I don't believe this, though, because it would take a team of NFL officials a five-minute conference to reach that conclusion, and the next play started right away.

I'll try to find out.