Best headline so far this morning is from the local guys, "KU cools heels."  Followed closely by the subhead, "Kansas beats tar out of UNC."  I'm sure sportswriters who cover Carolina all the time have used these before, but this was my first exposure to it.

In case you missed it, read this recap of the game by Stewart Mandel of SI.  And this article by Pat Forde of ESPN is an excellent summary of the good and the bad of the game.

We could hardly believe it.  Those first fifteen minutes were pure agony.  Kansas ended that run up 40-12, and Tiffany and I were horrified.  All season we have had a way of blowing huge leads like that, of getting incredibly sloppy and nearly losing games.  Of showing how terribly immature we can be.  So a lead like that terrified us.  And rightly so.

But unlike all those years at Iowa, when Steve Alford would take a bad situation, coach his guys, and make it worse, Bill Self is actually a good coach.  He reset the game after UNC's stunning comeback, and had the guys playing well again.

I admit that I have not seen Memphis play all year, but from what I read and hear, they can beat us.  And maybe they even should beat us.  Just like Carolina.

On the "We Hate Roy Williams" front, even after being beaten by his former team, he reportedly spent a while on the River Walk in San Antonio last night, posing for pictures with Kansas fans and even spending a little time at a Kansas-fested restaurant, chatting with any and all.  If nothing else, that shows the idiocy of this supposed bitterness.

See you Monday night (or Tuesday morning, more like).

So that sucked. A lot. If KU had only played like they did in the fourth quarter throughout the whole game. Or, the second half. Or something.

Third quarter. This is awful. KU is playing like the team they were last year. Missouri is playing as advertised. I have offered a couple of times to stop watching and put on this week's Survivor instead. A Mizzou fan holds up the best sign of the game, "Kansas Football, a Tradition since September." I can laugh at it because it's funny. The KU radio guys are saying that KU has to be perfect from here on out to win. The score is 28-7 Missouri, and my wife adds, "And what, Missouri is going to have to go home?"

I haven't been so excited and nervous about a football game since... a long time... maybe since John Elway won his first Superbowl in 1997 (you can't blame me, my wife's family is Bronco fan-atic, and really, he deserved it). If KU wins, it'll be because of their defense. None of the pre-game discussion of Missouri has talked about their defense, so I'm assuming they have one, but it isn't much to go on about (at least not to a bewildered national audience still trying to figure out if Kansas City is in Missouri or Kansas). Oy, it's Brent Musburger.

Damn. The Kansas Jayhawks football team is now 10-0. They have not had a record this good since 1899. That's more than a hundred years ago.

I've been reluctant to talk much about these games (nary a word about the thrashing of Nebraska last weekend, aren't you proud?) because I am, at heart, a superstitious man. Do you hear me, Mom, don't you dare watch any of these games!

Okay, so, we started listening to the game on the radio (you can't beat local radio guys, man) while we were putting the boys to bed. Then we turned the TV on, and watched Brent Musburger and his partner talk about all kinds of things except the game. Several series went by while they chatted about Ohio State's loss to Illinois, the Big Ten, the big Oklahoma State donor they were going to have on later... so we stopped listening to them. We got a radio from the bedroom and plugged it in to listen to a couple of guys who were actually bothering to watch the game in front of them.

The game was exciting, no doubt, especially when Oklahoma State scored a couple of times on quick long passes, but they came through in the end. A little luck, a key injury on the other side (you hate to see that) and some excellent plays, and we're 10-0.

Wow. It is safe to say, even if we crash and burn against Iowa State next weekend, that I have never had a college football season like this one. It's fun.

A couple of notes:

• KU leads the nation in kickoff returns. One of the radio guys asked, after our returner brought one back past the 50-yard line, "Why would anyone kick to him?"
• Brent Musburger is making a smooth transition into grumpy-old-man, with a comment to Adarius Bowman on the sidelines grimacing at the camera shadowing his injury walk, "You play on Sunday, you better get used to the cameras, young man." Next for Musburger, a shotgun and a rocking chair.
• Doug Flutie has got to be tired of getting every small quarterback who runs for his life out of the pocket compared to him. He does speak with authority when talking about final-second victories, though.
• Mark Mangino (KU's coach) has never seen a two point conversion that he didn't like. The feeling does not appear to be mutual.
• The mid-third-quarter lecture on fluid dynamics was interesting. Not.
• Wireless radio communications do not prevent Mangino from having a cable boy. Instead of making sure the coach doesn't trip on the long cable allowing him to talk to the coaches up in the booth, this cable boy gets to hold the radio box... because Mangino just doesn't want to hang it on his belt? That job has got to suck.

This has been a great year to be me, sportswise. Of course, I'm going to curse it all now, but it may be that everyone needs a little humbling, right? (Nevertheless, I'm knocking on all the wood I can find.)

I'm not what you would call a sports fan. I like the competition, I like rooting for a team and seeing them win. I grew up overseas, and I remember a Mundial between Argentina and Germany. As it became increasingly clear that the Germans were handing it to the Argentines, I got so upset I took my bike out and rode around the neighborhood. It was crushing, and I was... twelve, probably. [And on doing research, I can't find a game I would have watched between Argentina and Germany that Argentina lost... so, so much for memory. Ed.] I used to watch some soccer, some basketball, but I was never a stats-tracking, game-going, fan.

Then i came to the US, and went to college in Rhode Island (a state that calls Boston teams home), and was steeped in New England sports. So I have been (and most certainly am today) a Boston sports fan. Watching the Patriots play undefeated football has been fun all season. Not that I get many of the games here, but some make it through. It is doubly fun because we were in Minnesota for the year of Randy Moss' breakout, and it is good to see him back. Watching the Red Sox last night was lots of fun, too, especially when it looked like the Rockies were going to spoil it. I used to watch a lot of baseball (and even attended some Pawsox game during college), and I have enjoyed the playoffs this year.

But I live in Kansas now, and watching the undefeated Kansas Jayhawks (KU's college football team) play football has been a blast. They played a powder-puff non-conference schedule, but in the last three weeks have played tough road games and still won. Last year, our first college football season in Kansas, the team lost a large number of games in the last quarter. This year, they are putting those games away. It actually reminds me a lot of the years we spent in Iowa, when Kirk Ferentz was just getting the Iowa football program back on its feet. Watching this little team that could was great. The wife and I have fond memories of weekends spent working on the house, or in the yard, with the game on the radio. And we're building that here, too.

[A note of condolence for the Iowa football fans this year... sorry about your season.]

And, of course, we have college basketball to look forward to, starting this next week! Would it be greedy to hope for their success, too?