Broken Prmoises 1.0

I know that I only gave a half of a wrapup on the weekends events on Sunday, and promised to recap the rest of the weekend's action in a later post. Well, this is said later post and I've decided that I just don't have the time to give a blow-by-blow of all the events that occurred from Saturday evening on. In place of a comprehensive rundown of my ever more pathetic existence, I will provide some brief comments and/or observation from the weekend that was...enjoy:

- The America Express commercial featuring Andy Roddick's "Mojo" was just about the most obvious example of utter panic that I've ever seen from a company whose star endorser shit the bed in an oh-so public way. I give the guys and gals over at AmEx some credit for trying to spin something, anything positive out of Roddick's rusty coat hanger performance in the first round of the U.S. Open, but the commercail comes off as exaclty what it is...Desperation. I mean, can't you just see a group of young execs sitting around a table for an emergency brainstorming session last Wednesday that ultimately birthed this pile of crap?

-On the other side of the commercial coin, the Burger King commercial where the King picks off Drew Bledsoe (Why not? Everyone else has.) and runs it back for a touchdown had me doubled over in hysterics earlier this week. It also made me awfully hungry for some Chicken Fries (?), but that has alot more to do with my own personal habits than any sort of marketing genius at work.

- In all the coverage of the Notre Dame-Pitt game this past week the media missed out on the one key element of this matchup...Wanny. C'mon now, is anybody really surprised that a Wannstedt led squad came out sloppy and uninspired? Have these people watched the NFL at any point in the past ten years? As my buddy Vitas stated when the ABC crew was showing all of Wannstedt's career stops, "They should just put huge flames around both Chicago and Miami." Mind you, I'm not saying that Dave and his crooked mustache are going to do the same thing to Pitt that he did to the Bears and 'Phins, but it's a hell of alot more likely than him turning the Panthers into USC East.

- Does Chuck Amato play poker in the lockerroom before and after N.C. State games? Is there any other rational explanation for him wearing his sunglasses at all times. For Christ's sake, he even took them off just as the game was decided on Sunday night.

- Boise State couldn't have looked more outclassed against Georgia. Two factors really conspired against the Broncos here. (1) SEC speed. I realize that these same players at Boise State went up against a quality Louisville team just last season and more than held their own, but let's be clear on one thing. Louisville is a nice team with a great offensive system who can't hold a candle to the average amount of speed on your typical upper echelon SEC team. It was painfully obvious from the kickoff that Boise (most notably Jared Zabransky) hadn't ever seen a defense with the ability to swarm to the ball like Georgia. Georgia may have lost more defensive playmakers than any team in the country this past year (Pollack, Davis and the terribly underrated Odell Thuramn), but their is a reason that all of their backups were High School All-Americans. The reason of course being, they're really good. (2) Reverse Upset Factor: Georgia's players had to sit in Athens all summer hearing guys like Jay Mariotti and others of his ilk predict a Boise State victory, to the point where nobody would've admitted to being even the least bit surprised by a Boise State victory. One of the keys to a mid-major upset of a good major conference team is the surprise factor. This didn't apply to Georgia because, well they had to hear about how great Boise State was all summer. Georgia players had been looking forward to this game since June and certainly weren't going to look past the Broncos towards a less talented South Carolina team. Was Boise State as bad as they showed? Almost certainly not. Were they as good as so many talking heads had predicted? Obviously not.

- I must admit to not watching the Georgia game as closely as most after about the first ten minutes, but I had a very good reason...Urban Meyer. I'll be back later in the week with a more in-depth analysis of this year's Gator strengths and weaknesses From what I can gleen thus far). Until then, I'll just say that the offense still has a long way to go and the defense (for the first time in at least 5 years) has a real shot at being a dominant unit, provided that everybody can stay healthy. Luckily, Urban and the boys have another week to get ready for Fat Phil and the Vols' bi-annual trip to the Swamp.

-Was anybody else surprised to learn that Serena Williams was born in Saginaw, MI? I'm not trying to accuse Richard Williams of anything unethical in this space but I think that we all know a story about two young black girls who grew up in Compton playing tennis is a hell of lot more intriguing to the media than the same story about two girls who grew up in some shitty city in Michigan that nobody has ever been to.

- Miami-FSU was an intriguing game simply because of the rivalry, and the intensity on the field. No matter how badly Brent Musberger and Gary Danielson tried to spin it, it was what it was...a bad football game. At one point, Musberger remarked, "This is your Grandaddy's football". Umm, no actually it's not. Games were 10-7 during my Grandfather's day because all anybody ever did was run the ball and play field position, not because an inept freshman QB went 6-21 with 4 of those completions being screen passes. Both of those defenses were very solid, I will grant you this, but a better, more experienced QB would've taken full advantage of FSU's young secondary. This alone should've resulted in at least one more touchdown for the 'Canes. For FSU, young Jeff Bowden further cemented himself as the least imaginative (if not worst) Offensive Coordinator in all of College Football with his playcalling after FSU blocked a Miami punt and recoverd on the one. Two straight handoffs to your fullback? Really? I know it worked the first time you were down there but don't you think that maybe Miami might be ready for it the second (or third) time around? Jeez, there were drunk Cubans in little Havana last night who would've had the Miami defense prepared for that.

When you factor in the absurb number of drops on both sides of the ball, you get exactly what this game turned out ot be...a sloppily played football game. Here's my prediction for both of these teams:

FSU: Two conference losses and a second tier bowl game.

Miami: They'll run the table until they meet Va. Tech later this fall where they'll lose in embarrasing fashion.

Moral of the story: It's next to impossible to win in major college football with a freshman QB running your team. Just ask Auburn.

Alright, I've got work to pretend to do so I'll leave it at that and get back to more half-asses punditry later on in the week (hopefuly tommorrow).