Sports/Music Crossover: Foo Fighters

So...I was channel surfing last night before I went to bed and VH1 was doing a story-tellers episode with the Foo Fighters involved.......y'all know what this means........time to cross-pollinate sports and music based on some Foo Fighters songs

"Exhausted"--Media Coverage of Tim Tebow

Ok I get it, Tim Tebow is the greatest college football player....he's won Heismans.......national championships (possibly another in the pipelines)......and apparently he's a decent human being (as far as we know).......its just the media's love affair with this guy is something that's gotten beyond even the John Madden/Brett Favre zone........well he's graduating to the NFL so this over saturation either move up another level if he makes it in the NFL or transfers on a yet to be determined freshman in 2010.

"No Way Back"- Steve Kragthorpe

It's official, Steve Kragthorpe is not being retained as the coach at Louisville. Kragthorpe's time at Louisville ranks a 12 on the epic fail scale. He inherited a Louisville team that had legit elite status/national title hopes when he arrived in '07....he failed to even place them in a bowl game....they've become doormats in the Big East and their window for greatness was slammed shut in 3 short years. Honestly I don't see him head coaching for a BCS conference team for a long time (if ever).

"The Pretender"-Oklahoma State/ Georgia Tech

Both teams had chances at a BCS berth coming into today and could help themselves a lot by pulling wins over bitter rivals in down seasons. Instead, both teams failed to step up in their big rivalry games and showed themselves as elite pretenders.

"Low"--Rice

The performance of their defense. Granted Rice dropped to 2-10 this year and were playing a Houston squad that has been putting up video game statistics against their Conference USA opposition. With that being said, giving up 59 in one half is so bad that most teams couldn't give up that many even if they tried. It's insane to think about....Houston scored 8 touchdowns in the first half....one touchdown every 3:45.........not the best way to finish out the season.

"Long Road To Ruin"-- Whoever takes the Notre Dame Job

Are you a successful college coach in high demand? Are you tired of winning all those games.....well we got the job for you. In 4-6 years you can go on your Long Road To Ruin by coaching a Notre Dame team that won't win more than 7 of these new fangled games a year. Also, your epic fail has its own tv contract with NBC........I can't wait for their TV contract to not get renewed

"Up In Arms"--The BCS establishment to anyone suggesting they go to a playoff system

Not sure which is more absurd.......that College Football is the ONLY organized sport at any level without a playoff......or the BCS has gotten so self-conscious about the venom spewed towards them for the ineptness of their system....that they set up a Twitter account to spread the propaganda about how complicated a playoff would be

"Home"--Tiger Woods

How much trouble and controversy can surround a person who has an incident outside their home...say hitting the fire hydrant outside their home....and what if said person was the most dominant player in a fringe sport such as golf.....well we've definitely got the answer to this in the last couple days.

It's been bizarre seeing this story go from Tiger Woods was in a car accident to the soap opera of his wife busting out the windows to let Woods out to the couple both declining to talk to the cops to this becoming a TMZ hot topic.

In two short days this story has gone to the Twilight Zone (not the TV show......this refers to stories that are beaten into the ground that are unavoidable)......in other words expect this to be the first and last time I reference this event.

"Breakout"--Oklahoma City Thunder

If last night is any indication, 09-10 looks to be a breakout season for the team formerly known as the Sonics. The Thunder have been improving exponentially since they fired P. J. Carlesimo.....its not like any of his player tried to choke him (again)....its just that this team was a joke until they cleaned house, fired Carlesimo and he had to go back to covering games for TNT.

The Thunder look to be in the playoff hunt this year. They probably won't win it all this year but they will get some playoff experience under their belt. With Kevin Durant to build around, a solid young core, several draft picks and lots of cap room....If they play it smart they could have a Portland-esque nucleus with the sky as the limit.

"Next Year"-- Auburn

Close but no cigar....Next Year is how long Auburn will need to wait for another chance to take down Alabama and to spoil a prospective championship bid.

The Vent: 11-21 Edition

I'm going to test out a new feature in this post......where I vent my frustrations about five random things that i've found irritating and/or wrong about the sports world....why? because....that's why.......

5- Lou Holtz

I was watching ESPN during the after the 12:30 game and before the 4:30 game (Pacific Time) games.......they were talking about how Notre Dame had a disappointing year (something that shouldn't be a shock by now since they seem to go 6-5 every year)....pretty much, i'm only paying partial attention to what they were saying but noticed quickly when Lou Holtz went on to claim that Notre Dame will be dominant again and they would be back in the title game.

Now if we were talking about a team that has been good recently bad had a bad season (i.e. Oklahoma) I could buy the argument but Notre Dame, we've been through this song and dance since the mid-90s. Seriously, the media has been so pathetically desperate for Notre Dame to be good every year the discussion comes up like clock work about how Notre Dame is coming back this year and this is the year that they re-claim their place in the BCS. Seriously, the more desperate they get about this....the more I want Notre Dame to lose.

Its nice that they have the tradition and WERE a great football program.....but their time has come and gone and having people like Lou Holtz proclaim that they will be great again is one of my bigger pet peeves (my take on the Notre Dame football debacle...one failed coach is an accident (Bob Davie) two failed coaches is a trend (Willingham) three failed coaches means why should we care (Weis).

4- Cupcakes in November

In all the talk about how some of the smaller schools have a weak schedule.... the two SEC teams that will fight for one of the title game slots (Florida and Alabama) schedule teams in November (UT-Chattanooga and Florida International) to run up the score and to appeal to voters. C'mon its one thing to do this in September when its indistinguishable from all the other one-sided match ups but in November.....Shame On You

3-Jack McDowell

Anyone that had the gall to flip off Yankee fans gets bonus points from me. However, he loses points for how much he values the useless win statistic.

In McDowell's discussion about the Cy Young Awards, he diverges into the "dangerous" slippery slope of recognizing great seasons from pitchers who lose wins due to poor run support....the most head-scratching part is this:

Now that they have officially allowed full season 15 game winners to represent the best in the game, you start to worry about perennial low ERA, high strikeout guys like Vasquez being propelled to the highest level of respect...when they shouldn't. What is the difference how many strikeouts a guy has if they can't ultimately win games?

Yes, while the object for pitchers is to play to win the game, there is way too much stuff out of the pitchers control to dictate the value of a pitcher based on the wins alone. Also, I don't know about the next person but I'd rather have the pitcher with a lower ERA, ERA+, FIP, etc. to get Cy Young Votes than a pitcher who is terrible in this area. While Vasquez getting a second place vote for the Cy Young seems a bit odd, he did have an excellent season and for McDowell to get all antsy because the best pitcher in the game won 16 games (because he was stuck on the Royals) and to write off Vasquez because he won only 15 and didn't get the recognition for having a great year just bugs. More stuff like this and we could have another Joe Morgan on our hands .

2- Bill Simmons suspended from using twitter

ESPN to me is one of those vices I can't shake. I know it's unhealthy but they do sort of control the Sports TV world and you can't just avoid it.

This is one of those moments where i'm annoyed by ESPN and can't wait for the day when they lose their share in the Sports Broadcasting Area.

If in fact the WEEI guys were ripping on Simmons, he has his right to lash back. It may not be the most professional thing, but to tell someone they can't post on their own Twitter account is overkill. For ESPN it doesn't seem to be the best idea as Simmons is one of the more recognizable ESPN personalities (for better or worse) and screwing over Simmons like this seemed like a bad thing. Plus...its a free country if he wants to tweet about whatever he shouldn't have big brother telling him not to do so.

1- Clippers Broadcasters

I thought that between their play on the field, their owner and the fact that Mike Dunleavy is still head coaching in this league, I thought there was no way for the Clippers to further embarrass themselves.

Well, I was wrong. Their broadcasters attempted to make a joke out of the Grizzlies player Hamed Haddadi being the first player from Iran to play in the NBA. It was an epic fail.

Seriously, they resorted to bad Borat jokes? That is just wrong on so many levels. Anyone that knows me knows that i'm not easily offended but these guys should have enough common sense to figure out that they are there to broadcast a basketball game.....not to act confused about the country of a player's origin if they did their research they would have figured that out before the game and had conduct this poor attempt at humor beforehand when they weren't miked up...plus the the Borat analogy....Seriously? While its one of the better comedies this decade the Borat character and comparing people to that character is something that should not be loosely tossed around let alone during the middle of a Clippers-Grizzlies game....

Ranting and Raving About College Football

Well we've come into November and the College Football season is coming down to the wire........my thinking about todays action goes like this:

Iowa lost......not too surprised

Iowa had spent most of the season flirting with losses to teams ranked significantly lower than them. As much as I want teams to get their first crack at a title...if for nothing else to annoy people like this the reality is, Iowa has been more lucky than good this year. Its one thing if it happens once but Iowa barely escaped to often against medicore-to bad teams such as Indiana, Michigan State and Northern Iowa. Well now the only thing to hope for in the Big 11 is to attempt (with the emphasis on attempt) to not embarrass themselves in their respective bowl games.

We don't have to worry about the Oregon vs. Boise State BCS Rankings Controversy

Coming into Saturday, Oregon seemed poised to pass Boise State in the BCS Rankings this year. This wouldn't be a big deal other than the fact that Boise had embarrassed Oregon on earlier this year. This would have set a terrible precedent and given a notch of pride to those who are biased against teams just because of the conference they play in. The reality for Oregon is Loss To Stanford=Better Luck next year.

How many games do Notre Dame have to lose before people realize they are NOT an elite program

One thing that gets to me on a yearly basis is why do we have to hear about Notre Dame on a yearly basis and why do they get rewarded for their mediocre product with their own TV Contract. I understand that they were once a great program....but that time has come and gone. Sure there are other players/teams that get over-exposed in the media (Florida cough cough Tim Tebow cough cough) but at least they've accomplished something on the field and won championships lately. Considering the short attention span of our society...Notre Dame's loss to Navy could bring us one step closer to Notre Dame being treated like the 7-5 team that they are.

The most ignorant College Football phrase of the day goes to....

Matt Hinton of Dr.Saturday for this anti-outsider line

Now if Florida, Alabama and Texas can only keep winning and somebody can finally do something about Cincinnati, everything will be falling into the proper order.

If this doesn't say I love the status quo, i'm not sure what does. Seriously, what is wrong with given an outside the box team a chance for the title, assuming they take care of business on their end. Honestly, Florida has won their share this decade, the media is in love with Tim Tebow...if Florida lost their last couple days and settled for the Citrus Bowl, it wouldn't exactly break my heart.

Alabama has returned to the elite after doing their best Notre Dame imitation for about 15 years...I would rather see them than Florida in the title game..only problem is their coach Nick Saban is one of those coaches who only sticks around until he can find someone to pay him more money

Texas has already won this decade and it would be tough to top their battle with USC...

Which brings me around to my main point of equaling a non-traditional power like Cincinnati being snubbed being equivalent to proper order. If nothing else, it would be good for College Football as a whole. Cincinnati was a team that wasn't ranked to start the season. If a team like Cinci got in, it would show that if your dominant enough and take care of business, you had a chance to win it all regardless of preseason perceptions or how big of a name you are. Granted the problem with this analogy is Cincinnati plays in Big East but at the same time something like this would be a first step towards some of the non-BCS teams such Boise, TCU, etc. from getting a chance to play for a title sooner than later.....because really...in this case "proper order" isn't equivalent to fair.....

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.