Monday, October 10, 2005

Let's write two...

I'm back for the second installment of the day. What can I say other than...it's my birthday so I'll do what I damn well please. In the spirit of doing what I damn well please I'm going to give my thoughts in the oh so familiar bullet point format. These are in no particular order. Again, deal with it:

- Fuck Vinny Testaverde. Of course he wins yesterday, why wouldn't he? He's made me "throw the remote control angry" since I was a kid so why would that stop now? Despite what I wrote on Thursday I wasn't overlooking the Jets. I was just alot more excited about the prospect of playing a Testaverde led Jets team than I would've been about the idea of playing the Jets with a healthy Chad Pennington. It really didn't matter who was playing QB for the Jets yesterday. Not when Brian Griese plays like that and definitely not when the defense misses that many tackles. The Bucs will have trouble winning against anybody when the defense allows so many yards after initial contact. None of this is meant to take anything away from Vinny. As much I hate to admit it, he played pretty well and did just enough to get the J-E-T-S the victory. I still hate him though and the Bucs would still have won in they could score more the four field goals.

One last thing about the Bucs: Throw the ball to Michael Clayton. He's really good, if you don't believe me than look at some tapes from last year. There's no excuse for him having only 196 yards receiving after 5 games.

- Purdue sure has the market cornered when it comes to Caucasian wide receivers. Seriously, it's always like a 3-1 ratio in favor of the white guys in the receiving corps. Where does Joe Tiller find all these guys? In an interesting note (to me at least), I actually played basketball in high school with a guy who went on to play receiver at Purdue. Of course, he was black.

- As I was watching the UGA-Tennessee game it occurred to me that the SEC may have the worst offenses among it's top tier teams (excluding Alabama) of all the BCS conferences. Think about it Florida, LSU, Tennessee, even Georgia all have average to below average offenses. There is certainly alot of talent on all of these teams but none of them are consistent enough in both the run and pass games to be labeled a "good" offense. Other than Tennessee, these units may all get there eventually, they are just not there yet. As for the actual game, I still think DJ Shockley is awfully shaky. Even with that, Georgia has to be the favorite in the SEC East this year due to a solid rushing attack and a dominating defense. Tennessee, on the other hand, is in trouble and it isn't going to get any easier now that All-American Jason Allen is out for the year with a hip injury...Hahahahaha...Oh! Was that out loud? Excuse me.

-Why do coaches continue to run reverses for Keyshawn Johnson? I can't figure it out. He's so slow that even when the play works he gets a minimal game at best. It was a good play when he was younger and a little bit quicker but he's lost enough now that it's time to stop calling it. Seriously, give up the ghost already.

- I don't watch alot of Iowa football. I know it's a shocking revelation. Because of my lack of immersion in all things Hawkeye I never new that Abdul Hodge was from Ft. Lauderdale. Now I know that there is a TON of high school football talent in Florida but how do some of these guys get out of the state? Off the top of my head I can think of three players (and I'm sure there are plenty more) who are near the top of their postion in the entire country that are from Florida. Yet, somehow they ended up playing somewhere far more north and far more cold. Other than Hodge I'm referring to Santonio Holmes and Omar Jacobs.

-The two best games of Saturday were both broadcast on TBS. Hey, they don't call it the Superstation for nothing.

Watching games on TBS is a different experience from your normal, everyday college football viewing. Because TBS isn't in the college football business, per se, they don't have great announcers (Charles Davis is jaw droppingly awful) and they are often not guys who regularly do football. Add to this the in-studio shots of Ernie Johnson sitting all by himself in some half TV studio-half Chili's and it leads to a feel for the viewer that could only be described as uncomfortable.

The first game featured the pass happy minds of Bill Callahan and Mike Leach matching wits in Lincoln. For much of the game I had this baby going on my second TV and I even (briefly) turned this game off as Texas Tech shot out to a 21-0 lead. However, I ended up tuning back in (on the main TV) to see a spirited Nebraska comeback and what looked to be the first big win of the Bill Callahan era. Of course, you've all seen what happened at the end as the Cornhuskers intercepted Cody Rogers' pass only to fumble it a few seconds later and give the Red Raiders one last chance, which they used to win the game. I had made the comment that Georgia Tech's loss on Thursday night was one of the cruelest I could ever remember. However, this loss was absolutely, positively, unequivocally the most brutal last second loss that I have seen in at least 5 years.

The second game on the docket was a classic PAC-10 matchup of UCLA and Cal. I don't know about you but I like my PAC-10 games to be full of fireworks and big plays with just a little defense sprinkled in for flavor. If you are, in fact, like me then you would've loved this game because these two teams went back and forth all night long. Both offenses feature big play backs in Marshawn Lynch and Maurice Drew (though his jersey reads "Jones-Drew", whatever?) who both had huge nights. This game was so good and entertaining that I had it on my first TV for a large portion of both the OSU-PSU game and the Cardinals-Padres Game 3. If (somehow) you get the chance to watch this game then I suggest you do it. Unless of course you don't like wide open offenses and two teams trading big play after big play. Finally, not to sound like Peter King here but, if Maurice Drew and Reggie Bush switched jerseys, you'd have alot of trouble telling the difference.

-Did anybody see Todd Zeile on the Fox pregame show on Saturday night? He looked like he was going to a pool party in the Hamptons. Poor Kevin Kennedy is sitting there with a tie and blazer on meanwhile Zeile is at least three buttons undone right next to him. I've got money on Zeile wearing flip-flops with that outfit.

-If you happened to miss the gruesome injury to Alabama's Tyrone Prothro last saturday,, here's a link to a picture of it happening. Prothro is a hell of player who I hope I'll see again (not against UF) in the near future.

-Torry Holt has the best hands in the NFL. I know this is not earth shattering news but there is not a single receiver in the league who catches the ball with his hands as much or as well as Torry Holt.

-Penn State-Ohio State was a good game and I'm sure that Penn State surprised alot of people (including me) but it's become clear that Ohio State isn't nearly as good (primarily offensively) as most once thought. Penn State has a very good defense and very well may win the Big Ten. However, I think that the inconsistency of Michael Robinson will catch up to them in at least one of their remaining games. He's just too shaky in the pocket and is due for a 4 turnover game... soon.

Finally the quote of the year from none other than former Florida Gator and current Toronto Raptor Matt Bonner, "I'd be selling out if I got a car. A car seems like a waste...I'd feel too lazy if I couldn't walk." So, in conclusion, all of you people out there who drove your car to work today...Matt Bonner thinks you're a sellout.

Oh yeah, in case you've been asleep all day tonight will give us a deciding Game 5 betwwen the Angesl and Yankees as well as the second appealling Monday Night game of the year between the Steelers and Chargers. Sweet.

3 comments:

CFunk28 said...

Matt Bonner's a hippie.

Luckily I was joyfully drunk Saturday night for the majority of the second half of Ohio State's bed shitting. If I had been sober, or even worse, beligerently drunk, I may have broken the TV then called Jeff and left him a horrible VM (I think you know what this would refer to).

Tell Kurt and JJ to go cry me a river about the Yankees. It'll be funny when Steinbrenner makes the team walk home from California.

Jerry said...

I can't believe you haven't seen the sappy ESPN feature on Maurice Drew. His grandfather, whose name was Jones, died this year so he hyphenated the name of the back of his jersey as a tribute. I've seen that segment twice.

I say Larry Fitzgerald has the best hands in the NFL.

Mark said...

I too can't believe I missed that feature, though I'm quite sure I'll get a chance to see it at some point in the coming weeks. If there is one thing that ESPN can do, it's run a sappy feature into the ground. If only I could set my recently purchased Tivo (I know, I know...about three eyars late on that buy) to record all the corny features that ESPN runs on a daily basis, especially the one narrated by Chris Connelly.