93-68?????

Sitting here watching the replay of the Wildcats' 93-68 win ... wait a minute, did I just write 93-68 win when talking about a FOOTBALL game??

Never in my life have I seen anything like what I saw Saturday at Shotwell Stadium. The ACU offense was not nearly unstoppable ... it was totally unstoppable, at least by West Texas A&M. ACU scored touchdowns on 13 of 15 possessions, missed one field goal and punted once. And on the punt, WT fumbled, ACU recovered for another possession and scored four plays later.

It was an absolute demolition by the Wildcats, who put up 810 yards of offense on only 56 plays, averaging 14.5 yards per play. After the game ended after what seemed like a five-hour game, I spent almost 90 minutes looking up all of the records that were broken in this game. A list of those records can be found at the end of the game story on www.acusports.com.

Let me just make a few quick points before I go to bed:

1). Without offense to any other person in the long history of ACU football, Bernard Scott is the greatest player to ever wear the Purple and White. The man is a threat to score anytime he touches the ball from anywhere on the field. The fact that he has the best offensive line in Division II football blocking for him only enhances that threat.

2). After his performance Saturday, if Bernard doesn't win the Harlon Hill Award this year, they should stop handing the thing out. No one -- and I mean NO ONE -- in the country is on his level.

3). This just in: Billy Malone ain't half bad, either. All he does is direct an offense to 810 yards and 93 points in the second round of the playoffs. Can we please finally put to rest all this junk -- mostly from WT -- about Billy not being tough? Ridiculous that it was ever brought up in the first place.

4). Keith Null and Charly Martin are absolute beasts, and we're all glad they're done at WT. Null was on-target all day, and the guy in the middle of the bullseye was Martin, who had 14 catches for 323 yards and 5 touchdowns. Unbelieve, eye-popping numbers.

5). Had a couple of pretty funny email exchanges with some SIDs from around the country after the game was over, and I'll share one of them with you. About two hours after the game ended I sent out to each D-II SID an email detailing Bernard's accomplishments on the day and asking for them to consider him their No. 1 player in the vote for the Harlon Hill Trophy.

A couple of hours later, I received this email from Tim Nott, the Associate Athletic Director / Director of Media Relations at Grand Valley State University:

Lance,

The only way I was going to vote for Benard was if he ran for over 300 today. 292 won't cut it. How many pages was your front page of the stat book? We couldn't get our head coach in the post game press conference because he was to busy keeping track of your game. He walks in and announces to the media the score midway through the third quarter and said make the questions quick or I might miss four scores.

Tim

My reply was this:

Tim,

I told Bernard after the game that he probably cost himself the Harlon Hill by not getting 300 yards. He was pretty incredible. I looked up after he scored with about 1 minute left to make it 72-47 and said, "Bernard now trails West Texas A&M, 47-42."

Lance

If my email inbox is any indication, the Harlon Hill Trophy will be coming home with Bernard on Dec. 14.

6). Unfortunately for the Wildcats, their defense will probably be roasted by fans on the d2football.com message board for giving up 68 points and 721 yards of offense to the Buffs. I'm pretty sure that no one on the defensive side of the ball -- from coaches to players -- is happy with their performance, but here's the thing: a win is a win is a win ...

Also take into account that the defense was on the field for almost 100 plays against the second-best offense in Division II football, and those things can happen. This is a defense that had allowed just 16 points and 290 yards per game going into the WT game and ran into one of the best passing games in Division II football at the top of its game.

One thing you can bet is this: defensive coordinator Jason Johns and his team will push hard this week to make the improvements they need to make to try and contain what will be a very, very good Northwest Missouri State team this week.

7). Make sure you take a good look at what's coming into town next Saturday because it's the program that we all aspire to become. Northwest Missouri has made three straight national championship games, and the Bearcats didn't get there by not being very good on offense, spectacular defensively and solid in the kicking game. ACU will have to play its best game of the year -- again -- to beat the Bearcats.

8). Enjoy the holiday week and the time with your families. But then get to Shotwell on Saturday at noon and help the Wildcats get a win against the Bearcats. Bring your family and friends. Heck, even invite a few strangers.

After all, there's no telling what you're going to see on any given Saturday.