A riddle: What do a pulled hammy, a Trojan horse, a Catholic prayer, a Hoosier tap dance and a Venezuelan history lesson have in common?

Your answer: My favorite sports weekend in recent memory. Let's walk through it together.

Saturday - Noon - Temple at Buffalo, UB Stadium
If there was a danger in my sports weekend, it was here. The UB Bulls have a pretty nice history against Temple. The Owls have been the victim of Turner Gill's first win (9-3 to open the season in 2006) and the Bulls eye-opening 42-7 throttling of Temple in Philadelphia last year.

The problem here is that the Owls are no longer a doormat, and sandwiched between road games at Pittsburgh and Missouri on the Bulls schedule. They also have a versatile quarterback in Adam DiMichele, and posed a serious threat to the Bulls' MAC title hopes during the teams' conference opener Saturday.

It went according to Temple's plan for the most part, but the Bulls rallied in the fourth quarter to take a 24-21 lead on a 25-yard field goal from A.J. Principe, the normally-reliable kicker who was anything but in the Bulls' 27-16 loss to Pitt last week. Pretty gutsy turn-around for a kid.

Yet on came the Owls, as DiMichele lead a thing of beauty in Amherst, finishing the drive with a punctuating 11-yard touchdown pass to put Temple up, 28-24 and on the road, with 38 seconds to play.

Ballgame? Hardly.

Senior quarterback Drew Willy heaved a final-second Hail Mary into the sky, and local hero Naaman Roosevelt grabbed that prayer like a St. Joe's boy should, tucking it away and falling into the end zone as the Bulls emerged victorious. The crowd went bananas, ESPN paid attention, and the Bulls have some fond memories heading into a Saturday afternoon showdown at Missouri, a team that hasn't scored under 50 points this year and is now ranked in the top five in the country.

To be honest, the Bulls needed almost holy help, and got it. I love my college football team, and you should go see them soon (Oct. 11 - Western Michigan, Oct. 18 - Army, Nov. 4 -Miami (Ohio), Nov. 28 - Kent State).

(Have you seen the game-winning TD yet? You can find it and vote it as the ESPN game-changing play of the week: http://promo.espn.go.com/espn/contests/pontiacgcp/?evar24=ponredirect)

Saturday - 8:05 p.m. - Ohio State at Southern Cal, the Memorial Coliseum
Oh, the plight of one Nick Mendola here. A lifelong Michigan supporter - even if the slimy Rich Rodriguez has me rethinking my allegiance - I hate Ohio State perhaps more than any other athletic team in the world. Unfortunately, I love the Big Ten. What could work out in my favor here?

Well, Jim Tressel could be embarassed on a national stage by a team that looks better than any other in the country save Oklahoma and Florida.

This wasn't about the Buckeyes' ineptitude, it was about complete and robotic destruction by a USC team that had me wondering how they'd fare against the St. Louis Rams. Linebacker Ray Maualuga is the best player in college football, and the Trojans defense keyed a 35-3 win. Get ready to hear his name from me in perpetuity -- he's my new Limas Sweed -- because the idea of Kawika Mitchell, Paul Posluszny and Ray Maualuga makes me want to cry tears of football joy.

That said, perhaps ol' Tressel learned his sweater-vested lesson. Don't keep your star running back in the third-quarter of a pounding against lowly Youngstown State, and try to look like an actual football team against the Ohio Bobcats before you take your "Top-five" program into USC. Yeah, there's some hate here, but the Trojans were machine-like, and I get to pretend that Penn State and Wisconsin would put up a better Big Ten fight for several weeks.

Saturday - 10 a.m. - CS Italia at Buffalo City Football Club, Ellicott Creek Park
Hey, it's my weekend, and I don't feel like talking about my Newcastle United FC circus over in England, so how about the first ever win for the Trumpets of Buffalo City FC. Ryan Edwards (Niagara Falls) headed in a Scott Lombardo (Sweet Home) corner kick, and we took down CS Italia, 1-0, in a super hard-fought home game in a mess of grass and mud. I left the game with one of the most painful injuries I've had in my life, and now totally understand why Howard Simon doesn't risk his hamstring. If any Bills player ever missed a game with a hamstring pull, I get it. You can still walk, but any quick movement whatsoever feels like your upper leg could disconnect from your knee.

It would take a whole lot of ice, heat, Icy Hot and compression shorts for me to play Sunday, and my wife said I wouldn't.

Sunday - 1 p.m. - Buffalo at Jacksonville, All-Tel Stadium
My "Immediate Reactions" piece for this week deals with this game in depth, but how fun will this week be knowing the Bills could be 3-0 for the first time in 16 years if they can manage to shut down Darren McFadden and Michael Bush (a taller task than you think). I feel like the Bills are in danger of doing what I'm doing -- salivating at the thought of the Bills defense against the Arizona Cardinals offense in a battle of 3-0 teams -- but who cares? This was a big win.

A quick thought for those who thought Marcus Stroud didn't have a good game because he didn't register a tackle: You're not watching football correctly. Three-point-one yards-per-carry for the Jags' running backs, and more disruption in the middle than you believe. Go ahead and rewatch this one on DVR, TiVo or whatever, the line had penetration, it just couldn't haul down David Garrard. All-in-all, a good part of a great weekend.

Sunday - 8:30 p.m. - Chicago Cubs vs. Houston Astros, Miller Park, Milwaukee
After "The Final Whistle" show that I host after Mike Schopp and The Bulldog's post-game rendezvous on our airwaves, I was stuck at the station for an extra 25 minutes because my car wouldn't start, a feat the ol' ZX2 would repeat at 4:45 this morning, thank you very much.

It was a blessing in disguise, because I was about to "hit the hay" before checking the Cubs' score one last time. It was the top of the eighth in Milwaukee, and my favorite pitcher, Carlos Zambrano, had a no-hitter in tact against the Astros, with only one walk to show for it.

I called the wife out. I texted many friends that "Big Z was having a very very good game" and that ESPN was about to switch over to the ninth inning on Sunday Night Baseball. Lacey had never seen a no-no, so we sat watching our beloved Cubs chase history. They did. We yelled... and went to bed. She's well-versed in the curse and told me it would be the best moment of the year for the Cubbies.

I didn't speak to her for several minutes.

And oh yeah, don't bring it up to her, but...

Sunday - 10 a.m. - Delaware Spallers at Buffalo City Football Club, Ellicott Creek Park
Yeah, after she waited on my bum hamstring and ankle day-and-night Saturday, I took a couple pain relievers, bathed in Icy Hot and stretched just enough to play in our Sunday game... and we won again. It was sweet to put two together, but two side notes made the day more memorable.

A) During the game, the entire net blew over their goalkeeper's head, and landed around him. This was only funny because he didn't die. The rest of the game was played with metal garbage cans holding the net up.

2) After the game, I met up with the keeper, who is listener/caller to my show (so he's the one). Jim had emailed me years back when I was talking about Mike Foligno being my favorite player of all-time, and he delivered big time. He had a game-used Foligno stick he had no use for, and gave it to me, signed by Uwe Krupp, Mike Ramsey and Darren Puppa, arguably the three greatest Sabres of all-time. Suffice it to say, I'm trading him a sweet piece of memorabilia that will remain nameless until he receives it after our next game... that is if we win, Jim.

For the record, Scott Lombardo again scored in our 1-0 win, pounding in a Scott Frauenhofer (Kenmore East. Go Bulldogs) rebound, and BCFC takes on Lake Shore FC at 10 a.m. next Saturday at Ellicott Creek Park. Go unofficially-nicknamed Trumpets!

Miscellaneous- Sunday night
I also received an email and subsequent phone call from a great guy I used to wait tables with at Big John's during college, and he's moved on to really solid things. He and his wonderful wife have a 2-year old son (Nicholas, absolutely no connection unless Jay's an idiot. I mean, really, I once dented the ceiling at the restaurant by playing catch with a 20-pound ham), and he's working with kids full-time. Not to get emotional, but when you find out good dudes are living the right way, that's the perfect cap to a good day.

What a weekend! God, I'll take another!

Email: nick@wgr550.com

P.S. Oh yeah... hockey starts soon.