Rutgers, Matsuzaka, Marshall Airplanes, November 18th... It's the Ramblings!

- The Rutgers/Louisville game was outstanding and was even better than the Louisville/West Virginia game from just one short week ago. Rutgers looked like they were going to get blown out and like they didn’t belong in the beginning of the game (prime example was a blocked extra point the Rutgers players just let roll around on the ground to see a Louisville player pick it up and run into the end zone for the 2 point conversion to make the score 15-7). Whatever the coaching staff did at halftime seemed to work, though as the Scarlet Knights made all of the right adjustments and DOMINATED the second half. Yes, they ended up winning the game just 28-25 on a 28 yard field goal with 0:13 on the clock after an offside penalty gave their kicker another chance after he missed a 33 yard kick just a few seconds earlier, but they were clearly the better team in the second half.

A couple more points from this game:

The Big East can now forget about a team in the BCS Championship game. I’ve now seen Louisville, Rutgers, and West Virginia each play 2 games, and I can say that West Virginia is the only team out of the three I could see playing in the Title game. Yeah, yeah, they lost to Louisville last week, but Steve Slaton missed a lot of that game and made a huge difference when he was in, we’ll compare it to Terrell Davis in Super Bowl 32, except Steve never got back in the game

How stupid are these fans at Rutgers? I will give them that this was BY FAR the biggest game in school history and the highest ranked team they had ever beaten, but come on, not knowing there is still time left on the clock after the kick returner was tackled? This was just ridiculous, the fans swarmed the field to celebrate the victory, only there was still time on the clock (:02) and Louisville was lining up to run a play. Two reasons why this was stupid; first, the team could have received a 15 yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct and the ball would have been moved up to the Rutgers 45 (not field goal range, but 15 yards less of a Hail Mary), second the students running onto the field made the referees delay blowing the ready whistle and having the clock start, perhaps before Louisville would be ready to snap the ball.

I am wondering why the Rutgers coaching staff didn’t employ the Bret Bielema strategy of having his team run offside prior to the kick to run the clock (as it starts now when the ball is kicked, not when it is received, which brings up the point that the new timer rules weren’t added to NCAA 07, they better be in 08), have some time run off, then have to re kick. It would have been the perfect plan to end the game (by the way, this will certainly be a rule change in the off season in the last minute of halves). In the end, it didn’t matter anyway as Brian Brohm was sacked on the last play of the game.

- So Daisuke Matsuzaka is going to end up negotiating with the Red Sox. Matsuzaka was the MVP of the World Baseball Classic and is a highly regarded right handed pitcher coming from Japan. Here’s the thing though, it cost the Red Sox upwards of $40 million just to have the rights to negotiate with him.

- Other than Keith Olberman, (who is on the show everyday), there isn’t a better guest on the Dan Patrick show than Chris Simms. The guy is terrific, brings great things to the show and doesn’t hold anything back.

- Is it too early in his career to say I hate Vince Young? I don’t know what it is about him, or why I hold animosity towards him, but I really don’t like him, especially not on the Titans, just doesn’t seem like a good fit for him.

- So Marshall’s football team’s plane had to be evacuated after engine smoke was detected. A little eerie for the team who almost 36 years ago to the day (November 14, 1970) had its plane go down killing 75 people on board, which was almost the entire team. Maybe Costanza had the wrong sport.

- Some mid season NFL awards:
• Coach of the Year: With all respect to Lovie Smith, it is Sean Payton, especially if that team wins the division and makes the playoffs
• Rookie of the Year: Marcus Colston
• Defensive Player of the Year: Probably because of the record, it is going to be Brian Urlacher, and I can’t say there’s anything wrong with that
• Come Back Player of the Year: Daunte Culpepper (ha ha, just wanted to see if you were paying attention) how about Jon Kitna
• MVP: This is tough. You have LaDanian Tomlinson, who should win one eventually, Peyton Manning, and Tom Brady. Tomlinson won’t win it because he’s not a sexy pick, so then it is either Manning or Brady. Obviously Manning has the edge since he beat the Patriots last week, but who is really more valuable to his team right now? In the past, you could have made the case that if they didn’t have Manning, the Colts had James, but he’s gone and they don’t really have a running game. Brady has all new receivers this season and just keeps winning, and putting up pretty good numbers. Honestly, I would give it to Brady because he does more with less. If he went down, New England would be in huge trouble. If Manning goes down, Jim Sorgi can throw to two future hall of famers no problem.

- We are now almost 1 week away from the big showdown in the Horseshoe, and I can’t wait. I took on reffing a scrimmage that morning just to keep my mind off of the game for a little while.

- I’ll take Iowa this weekend, there’s no way they are losing 3 games at home this season

- The Lakefront Brewery tour tonight promises to be a good time, I am excited for this event. I have been on the tour before and am looking forward to my second go around.

- Unitl next time…