(Sort Of) Spanning The Empire--Your Black Friday Open Thread

Hi kids!  How was everyone's Thanksgiving?  Here in the Land Of Ted, we had a pretty good one.  Two of the three kids were home, we had some relatives in from Springfield (IL), so we had a house full of family, turkey, and football.  It was a good time.  Oh, and beer.

If you're out in the Black Friday shopping crowds (or, if you're a married man, you're now probably paying up your end of some hideous deal that allowed you to do something that you are now thinking wasn't worth it) be safe and don't get trampled.  I hear Best Buy was selling small, healthy babies for $30.

Hate Week kicked off yesterday, as Texas beat Texas A and M 27-25 on a field goal as time expired.  One of the by-products of all this conference realignment is that rivalry games like this won't be occurring anymore, but it's also spawned some new ones.

Like, for example, Nebraska and Iowa in The Heroes Game (11 CST, ABC).  It's our only conference game today, but I love the fact that the B1G scheduled it to stand alone.  It's a great way to highlight a new rivalry, and a new trophy game.  The theme is pretty cool--identify two hereoes from each fanbase, recognize them at halftime, and engrave their names on the trophy.  The heroes for this year?  Per the B1G blog at ESPN:

Gary Launderville of Storm Lake, Iowa, and Kathy Griess of Fremont, Neb., were selected by Red Cross staff and volunteers from a pool of more than 200 nominees.

Launderville was chosen as the Iowa hero for his selflessness and devotion to children. The Buena Vista County sheriff and his wife, Sandy, have fostered 125 children, seven of which they eventually adopted. Last January, Launderville was hit by an SUV and thrown 20 feet into the air when he was rescuing a mother and a child stranded in a raging snowstorm.

Griess is the Nebraska hero for her efforts to save the lives of two children. She was driving home one day when she noticed thick, black smoke coming from a mobile home park. She pulled off the highway and drove to the park where she found two children trapped by a fire. She pulled the boys, ages 3 and 1, out of a window to safety.

Oh, and Griess is a three time breast cancer survivor.  I think this is where I would put in the slowclap.gif.

Not a big fan of the Heroes Game trophy that looks like a Monopoly game piece, but at least it's better than the new Cy-Hawk trophy that was rolled out earlier this year.  That thing looked like a State Fair, 4H nightmare.  Thankfully, that was scrapped with a new trophy to be named later.

Besides our game, there's a lot of college football on TV for today.  The two marquee and/or rivalry games are #3 Arkansas at #1 LSU (2:30 CST, CBS), which will go a long way in determining the BCS National Championship, and tonight we have one of the better rivalry games in the country, as Pitt will play WestByGod Virginia in The Backyard Brawl.

In other games of interest, Colorado and Utah play for the first time as Pac-12 foes, and Boston College travels to South Beach, where they will try to out field goal each other.  Flutie to Phelan this isn't going to be. But this was. 

And has Brent Musburger called every college game ever?  I'm starting to think that he has.

If you're new here, welcome. We've only got a couple rules, so consider this our legal disclaimer. We have a pretty hefty legal department here at OTE, so don't cross us on this: No racism, sexism, homophobia, pornography, personal attacks, politics, religion, or illegal Internet streams of any of the games.  Speaking of the lawyers and Black Friday, they're out back enjoying some leftovers after braving the shopping crowds.  Apparently, Graham found some Nebraska roadkill in a ditch road leaving The Big House, and thought it might be a nice substitute for turkey today.

Enjoy the games, everybody!