Good morning! Not only did I figure out how to post and center video (wait for it), but the NCAA Tournament has erupted at just the right time. And by that I mean when all the preceding sports chatter passing for a “news cycle” was about how Tiger Woods will perform at the Masters. Guess what? I don’t give a shit until the Masters actually takes place. And I may not give a shit then. There’s really only one item from/about Tiger Favre that could keep me from grimacing and changing the channel at this point. And that’s if he dropped the whole “sex addiction” act (I do believe sex addiction exists; I don’t believe Tiger’s a sex addict) and gave a news conference this went just a bit like this:
It takes quite a feat to redeem an episode that had Jennifer Lopez in it. (more…)
So it’s been a tough week looking for a column. Chris Henry falling out of a moving pickup truck chasing his fiancée was pretty much a signed, sealed, delivered Armchair Psychology. Except for the fact that he died, which invokes the ever-popular Too Soon bubble. I don’t think I’d engender any sympathy writing about my first place Washington Capitals’ penchant for mental breakdowns and blown leads. Not even from myself. I only have one Thing That Should Be in the Public Consciousness Right Now instead of three, and, to quote Tracy Morgan, that premise is already sweaty to begin with. Right now I have plenty of half-formed or quarter-formed thoughts (not to be confused with Weed Against Speed’s half-baked and full-baked thoughts), but nothing fully-formed. Maybe I should expend less of my energy asking Santa for Alison Brie under my Christmas tree. (Props to Weed for beating me to the punch on that one). Or Kelley Jakle. (Someone’s been enjoying that a capella show a bit too much). So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m just going to throw all my spaghetti at the wall and see if anything sticks. It’s gonna be fun (for me), poorly organized, and just plain weird. Simmons calls it the “Ramblings.” (Does he still do that anymore? Not a rhetorical question. My internet access is pretty limited). In a former lifetime, I used to call them the “Musings.” But here, let’s bust out the Bag of Crap! W00t!
Okay. Well, that was an interesting week. That is, if you like chaos. Northwestern threw a huge wrench into the Big Ten cog, and might have the BCS muckity-mucks sidling up to the Boise State faithful to see how they’ll like Tempe.
We’ll review a couple of the games from this past weekend, look ahead to the huge events coming up this weekend, and reexamine the Big Ten Bowl picture.
With TCU down to one more hurdle, and Boise State clearing all their big ones, the question for the BCS is now whether or not two outsider teams can get in on the ten available BCS spots. Right now, I think the chances are pretty good. If they do both win out, and Boise is left out of a BCS bowl yet again, it might be the final nail in the coffin for the idea that bowl games are a reward for the athletes.
What we know for certain:
Barring a huge upset, Texas will play the winner of the SEC championship game in the BCS Championship (2 spots).
The winner of the Big 10 will play the winner of the Pac 10 in the Rose Bowl. (2 spots)
The Sugar Bowl will pick another SEC team, probably the loser of the Championship game (1 spot)
The Big East and ACC will send teams somewhere (2 spots)
The top rated non-BCS school will get an automatic bid (1 spot)
So right there, you have 8 of the 10 available BCS bids. We now have to try to guess who will be contenders for the last two spots. Let’s look at the BCS Top 16 as it stands now. (more…)
It was a wild, if not entirely competitive week last week for the Big Ten. Ohio State and Wisconsin won blowouts, and Illinois beat up Michigan in a games that wasn’t nearly as close as the 25 point spread suggested. Wild second halves made Iowa and Penn State winners in games that were close at halftime. And Minnesota had a big win against Michigan State, despite the loss of Eric Decker.
I know you’re thinking, what are you going to discuss? Well, let’s just see what a bit of stream of consciousness gets us, shall we?
The football this past weekend was, mostly, uneventful (Iowa-Michigan State notwithstanding). However, around the league, many more interesting things were going on that, for once, made me thankful that the schedule(s) that I keep have pushed this back towards a later in the week process.
So, let’s discuss the Iowa Hawkeyes, Eric Decker, and the rest of the Big Ten in the week 8 recap.
So normally you’re reading this to hear how the weekend rolled out. Well, it went mostly as expected. There were a lot of blow outs (Boise State destroyed Hawaii), some close calls (Mississippi State and Tennessee can revel in their moral(e) victories, if not real ones), and an upset, maybe two (Clemson took down Miami (FL)). More sentimentally (and I’m going out on a limb and assuming that sports fans are a fairly sentimental bunch), an emotional UConn team nearly upset West Virginia. I didn’t know Jasper Howard, but Robert Lunn, who did know him and who did play with him, wrote a moving piece on his tragic death. I will not cover that here because I will be unable to do it justice, not because it is a story unworthy of attention. My thoughts go out to his family and friends.
I’m not going to cover all of that in-depth today. Apologies all around, but this late in the season, people are starting to take a closer look at the rankings. Teams are for the most part developed at this point. The talent level has been gauged, kinks have been worked out (and new ones have been thrown in – let’s be honest, there have been some big injuries this year), and teams are entering the zone: next year, when we think “goddamn, this team was better last year”, this is what we’ll be thinking of. Oh I’m veering into sentimental again, but I have a point, I swear.
Look at that perfectly tanned face…. 
What you missed while giving your wife a house on a ring.