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…

Weekend Recap

What a weekend it was. Obviously, I already went over what happened on Thursday night between West Virginia and Louisville, so we’ll leave that alone.

Friday had me traveling to Jackson, WI to visit the new member of the Lang family, Phil, the English Bulldog. The puppy is quite cute and fun to play with, but there were other things going on that needed my attention. One being the full case of beer I had with me and the other the Bucks game against the Raptors.

Now this game was fairly big because it marked the first time that the two teams would be playing each other since the off season trade which sent Charlie Villanueva to the Bucks and TJ Ford to Toronto. Now, I’m no Bucks historian, but I don’t know if there has been a bigger off season trade than this in the past decade, unless you count the draft day trade of Dirk Nowitzki for Robert Traylor.

So what happened? Well, the Bucks got crushed, that’s right, crushed. From what I saw of the game, there wasn’t much good to talk about, so hopefully Hucklebuck can fill us in on the rest.

Here’s a tip for when you are spending a night at a friends house and doing some imbibing, don’t commit yourself to anything you may not remember the next day, as I told Hucklebuck I would go to the Bucks game with him on Saturday night, and completely forgot about this, more on that later. I also called Michelle 15 times in the span of about 25 minutes, but that’s neither here nor there, and I have once again lived on the edge and not heeded the old adage, beer before liquor never been sicker, so all in all, a solid night.

Anyway, woke up at 6:30am Saturday and headed home to get the day started. Here’s what I was thinking, quick nap until 9:00, watch college game day, Badgers game then the LSU/Tennessee game, nightcap of Oklahoma at Texas A&M, with the requisite video game playing in and recharging the batteries for a long day of football on Sunday.

Here’s what happened; I couldn’t sleep, woke up again at about 8:00, cursed why I couldn’t sleep, played Tiger Woods, watched countdown, watched the Badger game (good win for the Badgers. It wasn’t sexy, but they did what they had to do in order to win the game. I’m glad Donovan even got some reps for the injured Stocco. Do I think they can finally beat Iowa and go 11-1 this season? Probably not, especially after Iowa lost at home to Northwestern. I do feel bad for Joe Pa that he broke his leg, and I can’t believe he even tried to stay on the sideline, he is one tough cookie), at about 12:15, got a call from Ballbach telling me about going out downtown and then heading over to the Bucks game. What? Then I recalled what happened, hopped in the shower and was ready to go, except for the fact that I received a call during this time to go help my uncle with some work. So, didn’t end up going to the Bucks game. Fast forward to 2:30, I’m about to leave for my uncle’s when my brother calls to inform me he is coming into town for the night. Well, there goes helping my uncle, so I’m back to sitting on my couch watching football.

A few notes:

Michigan and Ohio State are both definitely looking ahead. There is no other explanation for their games on Saturday, both out of focus. Maybe ESPN should stop running a countdown to kickoff when the game is more than 300 hours away.

Tennessee looked really good, but LSU looked even better. This was a fantastic game and came down to LSU scoring a touchdown with 4 seconds to play, just an unbelievable game from start to finish. Another classic in this rivalry which is getting right up there in the can’t miss rivalry games of the season.

Alabama lost again, shocking.

Notre Dame is getting away with far too much for a team with no discernable defense. Didn’t Charlie Weis learn last year that he isn’t going to win a national championship with a defense that needs its offense to put up 35+ points per game? I know it takes more than one year to recruit, but come on, that defense is terrible.

Colt McCoy looks good, I mean really good. He may be my new heterosexual man-crush if he keeps playing like this. Too bad he goes to Texas.

Oklahoma/A&M lived up to all of the billing and went down to the final minutes. The Sooners have really done a lot to convince themselves they can win without Adrian Petteron which will just make them better if he comes back for the bowl game.

So, a good day in college football leads to Ben coming over, us playing video games, listening to music, and enjoying beverages of a spirituous nature. John and Jenny decide they are going to come over as well. So then, the calls start being made and before I know it, a few co workers are over as well. Flip cup, Moosehead, Cup of Death, football on the tv, The Rock playing in the background (solid background movie by the way, don’t need sound, you know what’s going on without it, and it keeps people entertained), and some Richard Cheese helping us get through the evening. Another solid night capped off by me defeating John in 2 consecutive games of MLB MVP 2004 (Devil Rays 14 Yankees 4 and Padres 7 Expos 5).

Sunday morning woke up, turned in my picks for the week, made my fantasy adjustments, and sat down to watch football for another 10 hours. Here’s my recap of that:

Packers/Bills- what can be said, it was ugly. There is no way the Packers should have lost that game, but they found a way to lose. Most people see this as a bad thing, I don’t, especially with some other teams winning, their draft pick is still hovering right in that early-mid first round level.

Dolphins/Bears- really? Did this game really happen? No, seriously? And I don’t want to hear that the Bears are better off having lost and all this and that they aren’t as good as everyone thinks. Look, this is a very, very, very good team. They had 6 turnovers and the Dolphins scored 28 points off of those turnovers. It wasn’t like the defense was getting the Dolphins pinned inside their own 15 every drive, quite the opposite actually. It has to be tough to play a game when you run to the sideline after stopping a team, take your helmet off to get a drink of water, and then before you can drink, you have to run back out onto the field because your offense or special teams turned it over again. By the way, random betting note here, never bet against the Miami Dolphins when they are playing an undefeated Bears team after 6 games into the regular season.

Broncos/Steelers- can we stop now? How about everyone stops talking about the Steelers and Roethlisberger? The guy almost died this summer, got hurt 2 weeks ago, give the guy a break. He’s 24, he’ll rebound, but let’s stop all of the Ben is back and so are the Steelers crap. See, see what happens when they play a good team?

Colts/Pats- I am angry today about this game and can’t summarize, this needs its own posting and it will come when I calm down.

So, as you can tell, a very solid weekend. Now, I get to chillax and wait for Louisville/Rutgers on Thursday night. Man, it’s a great time of the year!

-Until next time…