Sports/Music Crossover: Soundgarden

Well, considering it is Monday, I was going to preview the week's NBA Action. However, I totally spaced out and didn't realize that there was an NBA triple-header today. My Bad.

However, I am going to run a column whose concept has been floating around in my head for the last couple weeks. Ever since the announcement that one of the more prominent 90s Seattle Grunge Bands Soundgarden is planning to get back together after a 12 year hiatus. Time to vaguely connect some of their songs to what's going on in the Sports World.

"Power Trip"--Me being 1-0 in Vegas

Last weekend was my first time in going to Las Vegas. Normally, I don't gamble or bet on sports but under the thinking of When In Vegas combined with the Bucks playing Golden State on Friday, I decided to place a wager on the game.

It didn't look good at first considering the Bucks were giving 3 1/2 points and they were down by as many as 13 at one point. Fortunately for myself and the Bucks this ended up being a smart investment as the defense-optional Warriors folded and the Bucks won by 9, doing more than enough to cover in the process.

"Ugly Truth"--Brett Favre/Vikings

In light of the Vikings rout over Romo and the Cowboys, the Ugly Truth is that the Vikings are one win away from winning the Super Bowl and two wins away from what would be by far the worst sports fan moment in my life. To see Favre and his disloyalty be rewarded with a Super Bowl victory......Drew Brees seriously needs to step up not only for the Saints but for the state of Wisconsin as well.

"Outshined"--UC Davis Basketball

A couple weeks ago, I was randomly surfing the internet and saw that ESPNU was airing a UC Davis basketball game against UCSB the next night. Not only was it a chance to see a basketball game between colleges located in two cities that I had visited the week before, it was a chance to see the college I went to on national TV (it might have been the late game on ESPNU with like 2 other people watching...but I gotta take what I can get)

Thinks didn't look too bad in the first half as the Aggies and Gauchos were tied at halftime despite sloppy play on both ends. Then the second half happened. Then that tie game turned into a 20-point deficit. Fail.

"Rusty Cage"--Chargers

The Chargers had lots of time off between the end of the regular season and their fail against the Jets. They must have been extremely rusty since they somehow found a way to lose to what has got to be one of the worst, most mediocre teams to ever make a conference championship game.

"Half"--Tim Tebow

When will Tim Tebow's Super Bowl Ad run? First Half, Second Half or Halftime? Either way, finding out that Tim Tebow will be in a Super Bowl ad is not something I consider good news. The last time I was watching a live event involving Tim Tebow, things did not end very well for me. I thought we had seen the last of him (for now) but he gets one more high profile spot before he becomes the next Ryan Leaf. I just hope this isn't used as an excuse for announcers to replace a given team's name with Tebow on their scoreboard. I hope they don't randomly show him randomly screaming from the stands and then cutting away to someone's defense coming on to the field. I hope i'm not dumb enough to drink every time the word Tebow is mentioned......again.

"Black Hole Sun"--2010 Royals

Wow, Dayton Moore really wants to be known as the most inept General Manager in baseball. He has taken great strides to get this title with some of the players he is bringing on to his team in 2010. With stars such as Scott Podsednik and Brian Anderson I don't see how the Royals are going to take the baseball world by storm. They even signed 3-time all star Jason Kendall to a two-year contract. I don't know how this could possibly go wrong. Oh wait, yes I can.

"Never Named"--Packers-Cardinals Playoff Game

With Arizona finally having that habit of giving up 45 a game catch up to them, we should reflect on the bizarre, wild playoff game the week before and come up with a nick-name for it. Should it be the "Defense Optional" game, the "51-45" game, the "facemask-no call" game or is there a better name for it?

"Zero Chance"--Jets

Or what it looked like they had. A month back, it looked doubtful they would even make the playoffs. Somehow, they are now a win away from the Super Bowl. They catch a few breaks here, a Colts team resting for the playoffs, a Bengals team that tanked because they didn't want to face the Texans, a Bengals team that no showed in the playoffs, a Chargers team undone by some bad kicking (and the accompanying tactless Wikipedia edits) and now they face the Colts team that rested everyone early that allowed this snowball chain of events to start. But c'mon they have Mark Sanchez at QB, they still got zero chance.

College Football: Houston, Big 11and other observations

Well, a second week of college football action is in the books and now it's time to reflect on the state of College Football

What happened to Oklahoma St.?

Well, helping their national championship hopes is NOT amongst these answers. In all fairness, the Ok St.-Houston game was more entertaining than the 45-35 final score indicated. Oklahoma State put up their fair share of points on the scoreboard but did not have what it takes on defense to stop a high octane Houston offense.

While, if they were a team like Florida, Oklahoma, or USC they could probably get away with losing a game early and still have national title hopes. However, with they twisted way college football decides their championship, Oklahoma St. doesn't have a large enough pedigree to get all the way back to the top.

Well, Oklahoma St. was on the Cover of SI this week, you know what this means

That being more insufferable banter from SI Cover curses conspiracy theorists. I hope this gets past most of these because even if there was such a thing as the curse, they would have lost their first game to Georgia (they were on the cover last month) and also the way Case Keenum was playing, they would have beaten anyone. Also, giving up 2 4th quarter touchdowns on 4th and goal means your defense is terrible and has nothing to do with curses.

Speaking of Houston and Case Keenum, where does it put them for the rest of the year?

Obviouslly, Houston has turned at least a few heads as they made it into the AP top 25 for the first time since 1991. If Houston can play some better D, they could get themselves ranked high enough to sneak into a BCS bowl. Going on the road to Oklahoma State is definitely much more challenging than anything they'll face in Confrence USA, if they can go into T.Boone Pickens Stadium and take care of business, I would be suprised if they lost another regular season game.

Case Keenum for Heisman?

Well it's not like Keenum putting up big numbers is that big of a suprise (he had 5000+ yards and 44 touchdowns last year)

However, that was done on a decent, but fairly annonomous team. This year, with a nationally ranked and more prominent team, if Keenum continues to put up these video-game type numbers.....his profile and Heisman hopes could get a serious (and deserved) boost.

So Michigan beat Notre Dame yesterday, wake me when they beat someone good?

At looks like Michigan is on the right track after a thrilling win over Notre Dame (after a disastarous 2008)..but let's put things in perspective.....this was Notre Dame. While this would have been an impressive win 20 years ago, Notre Dame has turned into a joke of a football program that gets a disproportionate amount of media attention for acheving the most menial of tasks (i.e. beating Nevada).

It's always a good thing when Wisconsin beats a team from California?

While i'm realistically not too high on Wisconsin's hopes this year, i'm glad they were able to take care of business against Fresno State. After last year's near-loss to Cal Poly, it was good to see a victory pulled out in double-OT. Admittedly, I didn't get a chance to start watching until the 4th quarter but I liked the resilience that they showed after Fresno State tied with a field goal with just seconds left.

Fresno State and Wisconsin have developed a pretty good rivalry over the years, the games are usually close and entertaining and this year was no exception.

OMG....An elite Big 11 team lost to an elite team from another conference......i'm so shocked....oh wait no i'm not

I will give Ohio State credit for at least not getting blown out. On the negative side, they did have a lead in the final minutes of the 4th quarter which they blew when USC methodically drove down the field with Freshman QB Matt Barkley to prove for the millionth time that the elite team from other conferences is superior to the elite teams from the Big 11

When will UCD break into the Win Column?

Soon, hopefully. They at least got onto the scoreboard and scored a touchdown. But blowing a 10-point lead at home to Montana, no bueno.

College Football: 2009's First Impressions

So, this weekend marks the beginning of the 2009 College Football season. With the first Saturday of action in the books, it raises some questions about the rest of the season.

Is Oklahoma State a legitimate contender?

Oklahoma State has been in the shadows of Oklahoma since pretty much forever. What I had read about the upcoming seasons suggested that 2009 could be their season to go from good to elite. Beating Georgia is a good first step. Oklahoma State plays in a deep and ultra-competitive Big 12 and they have already demonstrated that they can beat an elite team before we even hit Labor Day.....i'd say they have a fighting chance

Mark Ingram for Heisman?

In the Alabama-Virginia tech game, Alabama's Sophmore running back ran all over Virginia Tech's defense and stepped up when it mattered. If he can put up 150 yards against a strong Tech defense, it's just about guaranteed we haven't heard the last from him.

Alabama in the national championship ?

Despite being in the top 2 for much of the season and about 15 minutes away from playing in the BCS Title game last year, Alabama hasn't gotten as much preseason hype/love despite being ranked #5. The way the experts are talking, they sometalks talk about in the way that Florida is leaps and bounds against everyone else. They may be a great team, but they're not the only great team.

Will Someone finally give the Non-BCS conferences a shot at the title game?

Following up from last year when Utah was the only undefeated team (and dominated an excellent Alabama team in the Sugar Bowl). Utah definitely got disrespected due to not being a BCS conference and were not allowed to play in a national championship game that they deserved to play in. This leads to this first weekend where, two non-BCS schools (Boise State and BYU) upset nationally ranked BCS conference teams (Oregon and Oklahoma).

While Boise State is the only major player in the WAC, the Mountain West conference deserves more attention as an elite conference and arguably is stronger than two-BCS conferences (Big Ten an Big East at the moment). They have 3 perennial top 25 teams (TCU, BYU and Utah) one team chronically right below the top-25 (Air Force) and even "bottom feeders" aren't that bad and can play some competitve ball (Colorado St., San Diego St., UNLV, etc.). Point being running the table in the Mountain West is no small task and if you get through this unscathed, you definitely deserve the chance to play for the title

IS BYU over Oklahoma that big of a shocker?

The way ESPN was talking about BYU beating Oklahoma you'd think it was a shocker of the century. It's a mild upset but not a huge one. The rhetoric coming from this seems to be to discredit BYU for being a mid-major and trying to discredit it down to them having one good game as a whole.

I have two problems with this 1). This is a RANKED team. This wasn't Temple or one of those horrible directional Michigan schools (or Michigan for this matter). This was BYU. A BYU team that's consistently been in the top 25. A BYU team that even managed to win a national championsip once. A BYU team that annually fights Utah and TCU for Mountain West conference supremacy. If this was another big-12 team ranked 20th (say, Texas Tech for example) there is NO way we'd be hearing about how shocking this victory is.

2) It's not like Oklahoma has ever lost to a non-BCS team before....(Boise State anyone)

What happens to Oklahoma now?

Oklahoma had high preseason expectations placed on them with the return of Sam Bradford. Now both of these expectations are in question. Oklahoma lost a close game to BYU and. Also, it's remained undetermined how Bradford's sprained AC joint in shoulder injury will impact Oklahoma as a whole. How much will he play? How much will it affect his play on the field? Either way, things don't look as good for Oklahoma now as they did a couple weeks ago. On the bright side, they get to take their frustrations out on Idaho State next week.

Will UCD football score a touchdown and/or hold a team to under 50 this year?

Probably.....but neither of these things happening in the first game isn't a good sign. 51-0 to Fresno State.....ouch well at least they get another crack at an epic upset on October 3 against Boise State