Sept. 27, 2009 Weekend Wrap-Up (Part 1)

This weekend was a dandy for sports fans. There was another set of upsets in college football, upsets in NFL football, and a golf tourney worth $10 million.

First, the upsets in college football. In every week thus far, a Top 5 team has lost. That trend continued this week. On Thursday, #4 Ole Miss lost to South Carolina 16-10. The score was closer than the game itself. Ole Miss looked tentative on offense while confused on defense. The team never got the stop it needed, and never had any continuity on offense. And because of that South Carolina defeated Ole Miss for the second straight year.

That game was only the first of many upsets. The #5 team in the nation, Penn State, played Iowa, and again lost. Quarterback Daryl Clark had another dismal game against Iowa, throwing three interceptions, after starting the game 5 for 5. The #6 team, Cal, got caught looking ahead to its showdown with USC, and was dismantled by the University of Oregon, 42-3. Javid Best saw his Heisman candidacy come to a screeching halt. After averaging 137.3 rushing yards per game, Best only had 55 yards, while his team could only muster 206 total yards as a team.

The final Top 10 team to lose, the Miami Hurricanes, was making its first appearance in the Top 10 since 2005. In a steady rain in Blacksburg against Virginia Tech, the Hurricanes played sloppy and lost 31-7 for the team's first loss of the season. Jacory Harris was another player who saw his early Heisman hopes end. His early turnovers led to a deficit that his team couldn't recover from.

These upsets have the new Top 25 looking very unusual. Boise State makes its first Top 5 appearance while one loss teams USC and Ohio State make a return appearance to the Top 10. ....... To be continued.....

Week 3 Picks

NFL Week 3 is here!!

Before I get into my week 3 picks, lets recap how I'm doing so far...

Week 1 I went 11-5, and I was sitting high. Week 2 I came back down to Earth a bit, going 9-7 while missing on picks, such as Browns over the Broncos, and the Bucs over the Bills. I did pick the 49ers to get to 2-0, and also got the Raiders pick correctly. Of course I thought the Jets would lose, and that the Steelers would win. Both of those picks were wrong, but I am not deterred.

This week I'm going with the following picks:

Ravens over Browns

Titans over Jets

Giants over Bucs

Packers over Rams

Eagles over Chiefs

Patriots over Falcons

Vikings over 49ers

Texans over Jaguars

Redskins over Lions

Saints over Bills

Bears over Seahawks

Steelers over Bengals

Raiders over Broncos

Chargers over Dolphins

Colts over Cardinals

Cowboys over Panthers

Now after Week 4, I'll do a quarterly report of the NFL season, in which will check in on my playoff picks, give thoughts on the early MVP race, and the surprises of the league.

This week is buzzing about the return of Michael Vick to meaningful football action. Vick prolly isnt ready to play quarterback full-time, but the excitement level when he enters the Wildcat (or Wild Eagle) formation wil go through the roof. I will be tuned, and blogging my thoughts on it.

Until then, peace!

Week 2 Picks

So... I went 11-5 in my Week 1 picks....

and here are my week 2 picks.......

Redskins over Rams
Ravens over Chargers
Patriots over Jets
Cowboys over Giants
Falcons over Panthers
Vikings over Lions
Packers over Bengals
Cardinals over Jaguars
Raiders over Chiefs
Saints over Eagles
Titans over Texans
Bucs over Bills
49ers over Seahawks
Steelers over Bears
Browns over Broncos
Colts over Dolphins

Lets see I have better luck this week.

Week 1 NFL Picks

My week 1 NFL picks are as follows:

Giants over Redskins
Ravens over Chiefs
Falcons over Dolphins
Texans over Jets
Saints over Lions
Bengals over Broncos
Cowboys over Bucs
Vikings over Browns
Eagels over Panthers
Colts over Jags
Seahawks over Rams
Cardinals over 49ers
Bears over Packers
Patriots over Bills
Chargers over Raiders

PS: I would have chosen the Titans to beat the Steelers, so my week 1 record stands at 0-1, so far. Check back Tuesday, to see how I do.

Saturday Sports (Sept. 12, 2009)

Wow... one day before the NFL season gets underway an action packed Saturday of sports took place. Mainly the stories resulted from college football games, but one major story came from the US Open.

Defending champion Serena Williams played her semifinal match against Kim Clijsters. Both former champions, the match was widely regarded as the unofficial championship match. The match itself didn't disappoint, as Clijsters really pushed Serena to her limit. She won the first set 6-4, and was leading the second set 6-5, 30-15 with Serena serving.

Here is where the match takes a crazy, crazy, crazy turn. Serena was called for a foot fault, on her second serve, which resulted in a double fault. (The call appeared to be the wrong) Serena is not pleased and gives the line judge a piece of her mind. Serena gets ready to serve and then decides to continue her rant. At this point, the chair judge calls the line judge over and asks her what was said to her. We still don't know the specifics of what was said, (I watched it live, and still couldn't tell) but at the end of it, Serena was penalized, on match point nevertheless, and lost the match.

I am not condoning what Serena did, but come on? To lose a match, any match, but the semifinals of the US Open in this way is ridiculous!!! Especially when there are several far worse offenders of smashing rackets, and some of these are celebrated.

Just earlier this week, Novak Djokovic performed imitations of various tennis players. One of the imitations he performed was of John McEnroe, and it included a rant imitation. Or if you wanted a current high strung player, then look no further than Marat Safin, who is notorious for throwing and breaking rackets.

My point is that Serena had an outburst, but this should not be viewed at some large event. I hear some saying that this taints her image. I ask how? She showed emotion that she wanted to win. The whole situation has me irritated.

Onto college football. USC-Ohio State delivered a classic game. OSU was leading 15-10 with just about 6 minutes left. USC was struggling to move the ball, either by air or on the ground. However, one 21-yard pass to Joe McKnight and USC was back in business, moving the ball downfield to score. Super sophomore T. Pryor had one last chance to score, but he was unable to run the 2-min drill efficiently.

Oklahoma State showed that they aren't fully ready for the upper echleon of college football, losing to unranked Houston the week after rising to #5 in the polls.

ND-Michigan also played a great game. Notre Dame came in felling good about themselves, as their offense looked really good against Nevada. Michigan felt good after scoring close to 30 points. J. Clausen looked good against Michigan's secondary, but in the end it was Michigan's freshman quarterback Tate Forcier who made all the plays. Forcier led the Wolverines down the field and despite having one of his receivers drop a touchdown pass, he kept his compsure and found Greg Mathews for the game-winner with 11 seconds left. Charlie Weis took some heat for not running the ball on tehir finall possession, allowing Michigan to keep two timeouts which came in handy for Michigan.

Weis' seat will now get a little bit hotter as this was a game that Notre Dame should have won. Entering his fifth season, Weis now has no reason for the Irish to be in a BCS bowl. Will it happen? We shall see, but watching this and all of the other college football stories will provide lots of Saturday excitement.

Sept. 10, 2009 (Part 3)

Check back later for my playoff picks... As well as my Week 1 game picks... Football is back!!! Let's welcome it with open arms!

Sept. 10, 2009 (AFC Picks)

AFC: New England, Indy, Pitt, San Diego w/Baltimore and Tennessee as the wild cards.

Sept. 10, 2009 (NFC Picks)

Real quick... NFL picks for the season. NFC: Philly, Chicago, Atlanta, Arizona w/ Dallas and NYG as the wild cards.

College Football is here!!! And the best sports time begins....

Its here!!! Other than my birthday (August 15th), this has to be my favorite time of the year, definitely my favorite time of the sports calendar.

After Labor Day I begin my 4-5 month affair with football. College football started this weekend and gave enough information to discuss until the NFL season starts on Thursday. There were upsets, near upsets, injuries, and the BCS debate has already started. Here are my thoughts on the first weekend.




On Thursday, the college football season started with a bang, or a punch rather. In a video you've prolly seen 100 times (if not see above), Oregon RB LeGarrette Blount punched Boise State DE Byron Hout after the game ended and after Hout slapped Blount on his shoulder pads. In what can be best described as pouring gasoline on his fire, Blount then proceeded to go after a couple of fans who were heckling him on the way to the locker room. He needed to be restrained by several teammates, a coach, and security officials from the stadium. Add to this, that Blount was already suspended earlier this season, and its really a no-brainer that he was suspended for the year.

Although its a very sad situation because Blount was a senior and now can't play his senior year, but you can't do what he did, and expect a small punishment. Now if he only punched Hout, he probably would've gotten a couple of games. But the actions after the punch make the suspension right. I saw the event happen live on ESPN, and that was my initial reaction, that he was suspended for the year.

Luckily that wasn't the defining moment of college football's opening weekend. The Saturday games more than made up for the notoriety of Thursday's games.

First, there was Syracuse vs. Minnesota. Normally, this wouldn't be a game to talk about, but it marked the first time that Syracuse QB Greg Paulus took snaps. Yes, that's the Greg Paulus who used to be the PG at Duke University. Paulus looked good in his first real football action in 4 years. Syracuse also looked better with him running the QB. He did make a crucial mistake, throwing a interception during Syracuse's overtime possession. That caused Syracuse to lose the game, but gave much optimism for the season.

Saturday also gave us three match-ups of Top 25 teams. These match-ups are usually rare because of the BCS implications that result from them. However, we were treated to match-ups of Oklahoma State vs. Georgia, Virginia Tech vs. Alabama, and BYU vs. Oklahoma. Georgia wasn't able to hang with Oklahoma State, and Alabama outlasted Virginia Tech to seemingly put the Big 12 at the top of the conference rankings, followed by the SEC then the ACC. However BYU threw a hitch into the whole season, not just the first weekend. BYU won the game 14-13, which only is part of the story. Oklahoma was considered a favorite to return to the BCS Championship, and several pundits had a rematch of last year's BCS Championship game (Oklahoma vs. Florida). But not only did Oklahoma lose a game (and valuable ground in the BCS), they may have lost their Heisman winning QB, Sam Bradford, for a lot longer. (At upload time, it was reported that Bradford was out indefinitely)

That injury will be discussed throughout the season. Bradford returned to school, despite talk that he would have been a top-10 pick in last year's NFL draft. He, and several of his teammates, returned to earn another trip to the BCS championship and this time win it. Well that process just got a whole lot harder, and now we'll have to see if his shoulders can handle it, figuratively and literally.

Last thing.... check out my friend Justice's blog. You'll definitely learn some things.