Weekend Review

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Big 10 Basketball. What? Did you think you’d be talking about the Big 10 as one of the better conferences in the land this season? It’s looking that way right now. The teams went 5-6 in the ACC/Big 10 challenge, as well as they have ever done. Other than Indiana, almost every time has had some good success this season. Illinois almost beat Clemson and followed it up by beating Georgia by almost 30. Iowa has a win over K State and almost beat BC at BC. Northwestern has wins over Florida State and DePaul, and even lowly Penn State has a win at Georgia Tech. The top three teams heading into the season are the ones who are struggling to win marquee games, with a Badger win over Virginia Tech, a Purdue victory vs. BC, and a Spartan win over Oklahoma State their only good wins, with big whiffs in other major matchups. The two teams who are really helping to elevate the national profile for the conference are Ohio State and Michigan. The Wolverines beat #4 Duke 81-73 on Saturday, making the Blue Devils the second #4 ranked team they’ve knocked off this year after beating UCLA earlier in the season. They managed to hold Duke to 7-33 shooting from three, and this shows the UCLA win was no fluke. Michigan has put themselves in great shape to get to the tournament, with just four cupcakes remaining on the non-conference schedule before Big Ten play begins (they will also play UCONN in Feb), if they can manage to go 9-9, they’ll be in. That leaves…..

2. Ohio State Hoops. The Buckeyes had a HUGE week, beating two ranked teams on the road. They won at Miami in the Big 10/ACC Challenge 73-68, and followed it up by beating the #7 ranked Irish of Notre Dame in South Bend 67-62 on Saturday. Swingman Evan Turner is turning into the sort of all-around player they need, averaging 17 points, 8 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 3 steals and a block per game while shooting 56% from the floor, 50% from three, and 90% from the line. Wow. These are numbers I always expected from Lighty, not Turner, but I’m sure the Buckeyes will take it either way. The scary thing is that they aren’t getting a major contribution from either of their stud freshmen, BJ Mullens or William Buford. If either fo those two really get it going this season, they’re going to be quite dangerous.

3. Baylor Hoops. Remember last week how I said Baylor was looking quite good this year, but I was interested to see how they played against Washington State and their size since the Bears are so guard oriented? Well, the answered the question – their guards are good enough so that it doesn’t matter. The Bears waltzed into Pullman, WA and walked out with a 58-52 victory, showing they can handle a slow pace as well as their quicker one. The Cougars bigger guys (Klay Thompson, Aron Baynes, Daven Harmeling) all played well and also held the two big guys for Baylor, Kevin Rogers and Quincy Acy to 2 total points, but the Baylor guards were good enough to pull out the win, and the team outrebounded Washington State. Good win, especially on the road. I’m mentioned it before, but I’m officially announcing Baylor as a sleeper final four candidate.

4. Gopher Hoops. They played awfully sloppy at times in both games this week, but wins against Virginia by ten and Cornell by seventeen makes for an excellent week, no matter how you slice it. My thoughts on the Virginia game are elsewhere, so I won’t spend a lot of time on that, but the Cornell game was certainly interesting. A very sloppy first half that led to a 40-28 Big Red lead mainly behind Ryan Wittman was erased in a hurry in the second half, where the Gophers end up outscoring Cornell 43-14. What really helped Minnesota was the Big Reds complete contentment with hoisting threes all second half, and completely ignoring both anyone posting up and dribble penetration in general. The ended up shooting just 6-28 for the game, and that, along with a massive rebounding advantage (35-24) helped lead the Gophers to a big win. Such a big win, Ralph Sampson actually showed some emotion after dunking on some big white doofus’s head. Next up is a mostly useless tune-up at Williams against waste of time South Dakota State (2 of their 4 wins are against non D-I teams) before heading to Arizona to end their unbeaten streak and get stomped by Louisville. I also want to mention that the student section did an outstanding job with their chants with Wittman on the line, particularly “Fire Wittman” and “Where’s your daddy” when Randy had already left. Excellent work.

5. Miami Dolphins. Miami's 16-3 win at Buffalo, the second straight game the Bills could only muster 3 points, brings them to 8-5 and in a three way tie for the division lead with the Jets and Patriots. A huge change from last season, when they finished 1-15, and somehow someway just managed to luck into an OT against the Ravens to avoid going 0-16. Now they may have the inside track to the division crown. With their three remaining games against crappy San Francisco and on the road at crappy Kansas City before closing out against the Jets, they have the easiest schedule of the three contenders. It's hard to believe that noodle-armed Chad Pennington is the one leading them to this success, but he's getting it done. He's not throwing for a ton of yards, but is fifth in both completion percentage and QB rating, and has a 2-1 TD/INT ratio. Give Parcells credit, the man builds winners wherever he goes.


WHO SUCKED

1. Ball State football. After going undefeated throughout the regular season, the Cardinals dropped the ball in the MAC title game, falling to Buffalo 42-24 and dropping their record to 12-1. They weren’t headed to a BCS game, since their schedule was pretty ridiculously easy with no ranked teams in sight, but this kills quite a few interesting things. They no longer are on of only three undefeated teams in college football, so that cute little story is killed. There were two possibilities for their bowl destination, either the Motor City, and having an undefeated team involved would have made that an interesting bowl for the first time ever, or a slim possibility that they could make it to the Humanitarian Bowl to play Boise State – another undefeated team that won’t be in the BCS. Whether or not they could figure a way to swing that matchup or not is now irrelevant thanks to the Cardinals five turnovers, including two fumbles that Bulls’ defenders returned for TDs.

2. Missouri football. What the hell happened here exactly? When I saw Mizzou was +18.5 to Oklahoma I had to take it. Too bad I turned out to be better on the ghost of a memory of history, as the Tigers got trounced by the Sooners 62-21 in the Big 12 Championship, ending what had to be a very disappointing season for fans at 9-4. Sure, they’ll end up playing in the Alamo Bowl and probably dismantling Northwestern, but this is a team that had National Championship aspirations and fell way, way short. Remember this team was 11-1 last year with a shot at the BCS championship game before losing to Oklahoma in the Big 12 championship, and had its stud, Chase Daniel, back for another year. The started this season ranked 6th and had a handful of first place votes, climbing all the way to #3 before starting their free fall. Now Daniel is graduating, and Missouri will likely plummet back into the depths of mediocrity from whence it came.

3. Kentucky Hoops. Wow, talk about a program completely falling apart, the Wildcats are really struggling and the same group of fans who essentially ran Tubby “The Black Jesus” Smith out-of-town would probably commit several violations to get him back at this point. Even Rivals.com writers are calling out Gillespie for the way the team is falling apart after losing once again at home, this time to the U of Miami 73-67 on Saturday. It wasn’t so much that they lost - Miami is at least ranked - it’s that they fell behind by 21 points right out of the shoot. This gives the Cats their second home loss this year, joining their loss to VMI in the season opener. Couple those with the home loss to Gardner-Webb last year, and things are shaky in Lexington. A few decent wins in a Vegas tourney over West Virginia and Kansas State made it look like they might have gotten things straightened out, but now more questions abound. Is Kentucky just “another program” and no longer should be considered one of the national powers? Has this already happened?

4. Green Bay Packers. Oh uh, faggy Packer fans, looks like your squad is pretty much dead and buried after losing, at home no less, to the Texans 24-21. This drops the team to 5-8, three games behind the suddenly better than mediocre Vikings - although it remains to be seen what happens with the QB and DT positions - and effectively kills any playoff dreams, other than those that come in an alcoholic stupor. The Pack would need to win out and have the Vikes lose out just to tie, not even going into what they would need from the Bears. Would they have been better off with Favre this year? No, no they wouldn't. Favre had a better completion percentage and that's about it, Rodgers outperformed him in every other measure. This, of course, is where morons come in and say, "No he didn't, Favre outperformed in the wins column and that's all that matters. Also Bert Blyleven should never make the Hall because he didn't win three hundred games and Bartolo Colon completely deserved the 2005 AL Cy Young award for winning 20 games even though Johan Santana's WHIP was under 1 and his ERA was almost a full run better." I love you guys, keep up the good work.

5. Fouling up by three. Disturbing trend alert. You know how some people believe that if you are up by 3 with less than 10 seconds left and the other team has the ball you should foul to put them on the line instead of giving them a chance to shoot a game tying three pointer? And even though it may actually be the right choice (it's certainly debatable) it's incredibly, soul crushingly boring as a viewer and removes the excitement of the last second shot? Well, I've now watched two games (Florida/FSU and one I can't remember) where this situation arose, and they both fouled, and they both ended up winning. In a copy cat world, this frightens and confuses me. Last season, if you'd care to recall, NFL coaches all started calling timeouts right before last second field goal attempts, effectively making the kicker do it twice. One coach did it (shananahan?) and then everyone started doing it. If this "fouling" thing actually catches on, I'm afraid we're in for a lot of boring endings to games that could be much more fun. Not to mention that it kind of seems like a cheap way to win. Legal and all, but kind of girly. I don't like it one bit.

Weekend Review

WHO WAS AWESOME

1. Darren McFadden. Oh boy, here we go. It was said that McFadden might be on the same talent tier level as Adrian Peterson was last year, but due to his situation he wouldn’t be able to have the same kind of season despite similar talent. After yesterday, that might not be true. McFadden went for 164 yards in just his second career game and is now averaging better than 6 ypc in his two games. Of course, the 164 was against Kansas City, who also let Michael Bush, who I think has two fake legs right now, go for over 90, so take it for what it’s worth.

2. Buffalo Bills. It’s looking like my pick of the Bills as a sleeper team last season was one year too early, as Buffalo went to 2-0 yesterday with a win over Jacksonville. That, along with their week 1 victory over Seattle has people taking notice. Marshawn Lynch is a grinder, Trent Edwards is what I thought JP Losman could be, and the defense is playing very well. In a wide open AFC, you could be looking at a playoff team.

3. Aaron Rodgers. I was really, really hoping Rodgers would suck so that Green Bay would implode upon itself and we wouldn’t have to deal with those queers every again, but no such luck as it turns out he’s pretty freaking good. He followed up his dismantling of the Vikings by torching the Lions – granted not that tough but it still counts. Pain Killer addiction imminent. And let’s just go ahead and stop with the A-Rodge stuff right now, ok?

4. Denver Wide Receivers. Holy geez it’s like Jerry Rice and John Taylor running around on Tecmo Super Bowl right now up in Denver. Last week, Eddie “Casino” Royal hauls in 9 catches for 146 yards and a score, and this week it’s Brandon "Brandon" Marshall registering 18 catches, WHICH IS NOT AN NFL RECORD, for 166 and a TD. It’s almost like Jake Cutler is a really good quarterback all of a sudden, but that can’t possibly be true because look at that porn stache. For reference, Minnesota wideouts have 10 catches for 148 yards in their two games combined.

5. Me. Played in our family’s golf tournament over the weekend, and not only did my team win but I also took the prize for longest drive, netting me a cool $15. Not only that, but after two weeks my NFL sleeper teams are a combined 6-3, while my teams who will suck are 4-5 (remember, these teams were supposed to be playoff type teams).

WHO SUCKED

1. The Ohio State University. This could actually just read Big Ten Football in general, which has become an absolute joke. Ohio State has been head and shoulders above the rest of the conference in recent years, and every time they have a chance to make a statement nationally they get whomped, culminating in Saturday’s 35-3 thumping by USC. Luckily dirty Wisconsin was able to win by 3 at Fresno State, or this would be a thoroughly embarrassing weekend for the conference as a whole. Michigan got worked by Notre Dame. Purdue lost at Oregon, which isn’t that bad but still a missed opportunity. Minnesota and Northwestern beat I-AA teams, and Illinois almost lost to a Sun Belt opponent. Other than Wisconsin, the most impressive win here is Iowa at home over Iowa State, who sucks. I think it may be time to take the Big Ten out of the BCS and let the Mountain West or the WAC or C-USA in or something. It’s only fair.

2. Ron Gardenhire. Yes, I know they swept, but let’s talk about that doubleheader and Gardy’s lineup decisions, ok? When you are in a pennant race with only 16 games remaining, you cannot afford to take one of your only two good hitters out of the lineup in any game, you just can’t, yet Mauer was out of the second game on Saturday. Why not just DH you ask? Well no shit, that’s the obvious choice that any sane manager would choose, but it seems it was critical to get Randy Ruiz in the lineup instead. I get that catchers need days off, I do, but not DHing him is a decision so dumb it truly defies explanation.

3. LaDainian Tomlinson. What the F is going on here? It seems that toe injury may just be a much bigger deal than originally thought, as LT did almost nothing this weekend. He left the game at one point, they looked at his foot, he tried to come back, and then he was done. With Darren “Sproilies” Sproles filling in admirably, who knows how many games LT might miss, even with two last second losses making San Diego fans antsy. Also San Diego means Whale’s Vagina.

4. Minnesota Vikings. What a crappy way to lose a game. The Colts were thoroughly dominated pretty much the entire game, but because the Vikes and T-Jax were unable to actually score a TD and had to settle for five Ryan Longwell field goals the Colts were able to take the game away. I have no idea why he passed as often as he did, with AP running right through the Colts with ease. Now at 0-2, and confidence in Jackson at an all-time low, the Vikes could be in real trouble. Feel free to trade for Jeff Garcia, if only to get his wife, Carmella Decesare, here. Google is your friend.

5. Milwaukee Brewers. Pretty much gave away the NL Central after losing 3 of 4 to the Phillies over the weekend to fall 6.5 behind the Cubs, watching their team batting average fall to .219 in the month of September. Chief among the chokers is the super overrated Ryan Braun, who leads the Brewers in pretty much offensive category, who is now hitless in his last 18 at bats as Milwaukee completes their shame spiral. The good news for them is they still lead the Wild Card Race by a game over the Phillies. The bad news is that the Phillies are hot, and Milwaukee sucks as I previously alluded to.

Oh My Sweet Jesus

Wow. Tavaris is not a good QB. And there's no possible way anybody could think differently. Unless they're really dumb. Bogart probably loves him.

Actually, he'd be a really good college QB. Highly mobile. Can only make one read and if it's not there takes off running. Routes he can throw to are limited to slant, swing, screen, and fly. Questionable decision making. Perfect for like, the Gophers. A nice step up from I-AA. Good job, T-Jax.

Additionally, how much does Aaron Rodgers want to be Brett Favre? Let's see, you have the ill advised random toss deep downfield that works out. You have poor throws in the redzone that find where they need to go (that TD pass was either the best throw of all time or very lucky - you go ahead and guess which). And, even worse, you have the constant unsnapping of the chin strap after every single god damn play. Throw in a vicodin addiction and making his wife get cancer and you get Favre. But I miss the long hair, he looked exactly like Cook, a friend of a friend. But less pretentious. It's funnier if you know him.

So, my real issue here is with Vikings fans. What the hell is wrong with you people? You embarrass me. Here are my favorite people from tonight.

1. Guy in the Vikings Crocs. Crocs are pretty much the worst invention ever. Girls can kind of get away with them, but they have boobs so they could pretty much get away with anything. But on a guy? And Vikings crocs? Do you have zero self respect? At what point in your life do you not only give up on respectable footwear, but go with a team-themed version? And it's not like regular sandals are so uncomfortable you have to go with something else. Jesus, you make socks with sandals guy look like a fashion wizard.

2. The guy in the Rod Smith jersey. This guy was awesome, and I'm not kidding. it's nice to see someone else appreciate a top 5 receiver of all-time.

3. The dude in the Chris Walsh jersey. My feelings on Chris Walsh jerseys are well documented. I have nothing more to add. Except to say just stop it.

4. The chomo in the specially made #35 jersey with his own last name on the back. Honestly, if you know anybody with their own name on the back of a Vikings jersey, you should probably sit them down and have a long talk. There's so much wrong with this I can't even describe it. When I saw this dude, I thought "How sad." When Mrs. W saw him, she said, "What's wrong with that guy?" and when Snacks was told about him, he said "did you tell your daughter people like that can't be trusted?" I mean, it's a just a sample size of three, but I think if you take a poll of America, the overwhelming majority would call this guy a douche.

5. The dude wearing the Onterrio Smith jersey. I'm not even exactly sure how to react here. Snacks said, "That will never go out of style" and I'm inclined to agree. You know, it's a special kind of flame out that involves whizzinators and what not. Also that Brody dude from the Hills is a total ass. Heidi is so stupid for staying with him. I mean, come on.

6. The guy with the Troy Williamson jersey. You know, I feel like I'm being too hard on Bogart here, but if anybody I know would ever buy a Williamson jersey, it's him. You know, get super pumped about his potential and go all out and throw a bunch of money at him and get no payoff. Much like the Viking front office.

7. Every chick in a pink jersey. STOP.

8. The guy who needed to talk about 8 thousand decibels too loudly while telling his friend about the plays that the Vikings should have called or what T-Jax should have done. Look, I think Jackson is just as horrid a QB as you do, really he is, but you aren't better, and you wouldn't make better decisions. And no matter how poorly you think the play calls are, I'd bet Childress knows this shit infinitely better than you do. He's making millions. You're in a shitty ass bar, wearing your faded Culpepper jersey with your porn stache and ranting and raving like a crazy psychopathic lunatic. I was going to say more but now I'm distracted because Audrina and LC are arguing and I'm hoping they make out.

9. No such luck. And I can't remember all the other people I hated, but it occurs to me that the perfect burger may very well be a juicy lucy, but using pepper jack cheese and cajun spices on the burger part. Dear lord, I'm going to have to try that.