Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/UniWatch/~3/JKiSVq8SZeY/
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
LA Kings' slump busting begins with Doughty, Johnson
Yeah, good times.
Having lost seven of their last eight games, the Kings now find themselves sitting 11th in the West and tied with San Jose for last in a Pacific Division separated by three points.
What's gone wrong in the City of Angels? For starters, their power play is 1-for-31 in their past eight games. Dustin Brown and Justin Williams have not provided much scoring help for Ryan Smyth and Anze Kopitar, with a goal a piece over that same eight-game stretch.
Also, Willie Mitchell and Alexei Ponikarovsky have been missing from the lineup, meaning 22 minutes of ice time on the blueline needs to be spread around as the Kings' depth has been tested.
And that blueline is now getting noticed, specifically the play of Drew Doughty and Jack Johnson. After LA's 2-0 loss to the Anaheim Ducks last night, head coach Terry Murray said if the Kings are to get out of their funk, his two young defensemen need to step up their games.
From Helene Elliott of the LA Times:
"They need to be better. They need to be better," Kings Coach Terry Murray said with more than a hint of exasperation.
"Everybody's battling a little bit. A little fumbling of the puck and maybe a little bit of nervous play with the puck at times but we need those guys. The only way you get out of anything is with your best players taking charge. And we need them to be out best players, the two kids in the back, Doughty and Jack. We need them to be A-plus every night and certainly right now."
Doughty and Johnson have a combined five points over the past seven games, but have also struggled defensively. Last night, Doughty had just left the penalty box before tripping Corey Perry and allowing the Ducks to score on the ensuing power play. Later, a Johnson turnover allowed Teemu Selanne and Jason Blake in on a two-on-one before Blake gave Anaheim a two-goal lead.
At practice this morning, Murray made changes to the lines, putting Williams up with Anze Kopitar despite saying last night, "I'm not going to fool around with the line combinations right now. I'm starting to see some good chemistry develop."
The Kings don't play again until Thursday night against the Florida Panthers (a "must-win" according to Doughty) and all but two of their games in December come against Western Conference opposition -- including three in a row against Pacific Division foes.
The standings out west come Jan. 1 will look drastically different than they do today once the Kings and Sharks, two conference favorites in the preseason, stop underachieving. Despite two tilts with the Detroit Red Wings, the first half of the Kings' December schedule looks favorable for them to break out of their slump.
The jumbling of lines may be what helps spark the offense, but the play of Los Angeles' top defensive-pairing is most important if the team is to take that "next step" this season.
Kicking, collapse dethrone Boise State, king of the underdogs
Nevada 34, Boise State 31 (Overtime). The concentric circles radiating outward from the Broncos' second half collapse affect the college football landscape on every level, on up to the national championship game, and we will get to them all. But at the center, there is a kicker: Kyle Brotzman, a senior with 65 successful field goals to his name over four years as Boise State's primary kicker, who will be forever linked to the two he missed tonight in Reno.
The first was a 26-yard chip shot with one second on the clock at the end of regulation, immediately on the heels of arguably the diving catch of the year by Titus Young to save a game the Broncos had nearly let slip away twice. Instead, wide right and overtime. The second came in OT, when Boise failed to make a first down on offense, and Brotzman pulled the go-ahead attempt wide from 29 yards, setting up a successful boot for the win by Nevada's Anthony Martinez. Within minutes, "Brotzman" was a trending topic on Twitter, where he was gleefully – and with painful accuracy – dubbed the new Ray Finkle.
With the Broncos' fall comes a hail of broken winning streaks: Twenty-five straight in all games, 37 straight in the regular season, 22 straight in the WAC. With the head-to-head tiebreaker in the Wolf Pack's favor, the conference championship will go to a team other than Boise State for just the second time in nine years. It's the first time the Broncos have ever lost a WAC game they were favored to win. Their hopes for a fifth perfect season in seven years are finished.
As are their hopes – shared by Cinderella lovers and BCS haters everywhere – of crashing the BCS title game. Given the comebacks by Auburn and Oregon earlier in the day, those odds were already much longer by kickoff than they'd been 12 hours before. But they won't be crashing the Rose Bowl, either, a coveted consolation prize that now falls to TCU, which won't be nudged out of the on-deck position, after all. The Frogs are shouldering the underdogs' burden alone. For Boise State, the debate is over. The dream is dead. The beast is taking its best hope for a breakthrough back to the Humanitarian Bowl.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Alabama fires pregame P.A. hand for musically taunting Cam Newton
Auburn quarterback Cam Newton had never played in the Iron Bowl before last Friday. But it didn't take a veteran hand to know frenzied Alabama fans would go out of their way to remind the Heisman frontrunner of the lingering pay-for-play allegations against Newton and his father, Cecil, the pastor of a small church and bishop over four others in Georgia. 'Bama students delivered, raining dollar bills featuring Newton's mugshot from a 2008 arrest at his feet before the game.
TUSCALOOSA | The University of Alabama terminated an employee Monday who played unauthorized music over the Bryant-Denny Stadium public address system prior to Friday's Iron Bowl.
[Rewind: Anchor fired after controversial NFL interview]The staffer was part-time, according to UA Public Relations Director Debbie Lane, but has not been named by the university. Two of the pre-game song choices were "Take the Money and Run," by The Steve Miller Band, and "Son of a Preacher Man," recorded by Dusty Springfield in 1968 and later by recording legend Aretha Franklin.
The song choices were apparently directed at Auburn quarterback Cam Newton, whose father is a reverend and is embroiled in a recruiting scandal amid reports that he sought payment during his son's recruitment in violation of NCAA rules.
This explains Newton's disastrous first half as Alabama ran up a seemingly insurmountable 24-0 lead: He was distracted trying to figure out how a Catholic school girl from London managed to sound like she was pulled out of a basket in the Mississippi River by a Beale Street bartender.
[Related: NFL star blows up at reporter after loss]Newton, of course, had the last laugh, leading the Tigers on a 28-3 run from the middle of the second quarter on to complete the most improbable comeback of the year, moving Auburn within one win of its first trip to the BCS Championship Game. If Newton gets to Glendale with his eligibility still under question, might I suggest Flirtin' With Disaster, or perhaps Don't Fear the Reaper?
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
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Tiger Woods might want to skip this week's 'Law & Order: Los Angeles'
So you remember a couple weeks back, when Tiger Woods told the world how he likes to watch television with his kids? Here's hoping they're not all crowded around the TV when this promo comes on:
Huh. That storyline seems familiar somehow, but I can't quite place it. Let's all watch the episode Wednesday night and see if it jogs any memories.
Used as intended, Ohio State's alternate unis are a 15-yard penalty
Nike was obviously very proud of the retro "Pro Combat" look it dreamed up for Ohio State to wear in today's rivalry match with Michigan, in honor of the Buckeyes' 1942 national championship team. Part of that look included lightweight "Vapor Jet" gloves featuring "premium Magnigrip CL technology" and custom art specifically designed to display a block 'O' when the palms are brought together. Nike has put a similar design on the gloves for every team in the Pro Combat line, including a script 'A' for Alabama in last year's BCS Championship Game.
The only problem? When Ohio State receiver DeVier Posey brought the gloves together to form the 'O' after taking in a touchdown pass from Terrelle Pryor to put the Buckeyes up 24-7 in the second quarter, he was hit with a 15-yard unsportsmanlike penalty. OSU was subsequently forced to kick off to the Wolverines from its own 15-yard line instead of its own 30. Later, when offensive lineman Mike Adams flashed the 'O' to the crowd to celebrate a 32-yard touchdown run by Boom Herron that extended the OSU lead to 31-7 in the third quarter, he was flagged for an unsportsmanlike penalty, too.
Fortunately for the Buckeyes, the score was too lopsided by the middle of the second quarter for the extra yardage to matter. (It didn't matter, either, when a 98-yard touchdown run by Herron in the third quarter – the longest play in the history of Ohio Stadium – was negated by a lame holding penalty at the end of the play, slashing the gain to 89 yards and forcing OSU to eventually settle for a field goal instead.) Next time, maybe they'll get the novel handwear approved by the Big Ten officiating office before signing off on it.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Pom Spin
This is to make up for me adding Michael Vick to my fantasy team.GIFSoup
No, Terrelle Pryor still hasn't caught up to the hype. But he's staying alive.
Ohio State 20, Iowa 17. Terrelle Pryor didn't go into much detail about the game plan he loved so much this week, but whatever it was, it certainly didn't catch anyone by surprise, least of all Iowa's defense. For almost three-and-a-half quarters, Pryor looked like the same guy who showed up for last month's loss at Wisconsin – that is, the inconsistent, indecisive underachiever critics have kicked throughout his career.Then, after Iowa turned his second interception of the afternoon into a go-ahead touchdown for a 17-10 lead with 12 minutes to play, he turned into the hero.
Of course, the real hero of almost any Ohio State win is the defense, which showed its backbone again today: The Hawkeyes finished with a measly 279 yards and went nowhere fast with the game on the line on their final two drives in the fourth quarter. But when Pryor took the field after serving up the pick that gave Iowa its late lead, he was well on his way to another week – and really, given the stakes, another offseason – of prime goathood. Instead, he completed three passes on the subsequent possession to set up a long field goal that cut the deficit to 17-13.
And after the defense stoned the Hawkeyes to get the ball back, Pryor made arguably the two biggest plays of the game: The first, a 14-yard, do-or-die scramble on 4th-and-10 that kept the drive alive in Iowa territory, followed two plays later by a 24-yard strike to Dane Sanzenbacher that set the Buckeyes up at the Hawkeye two-yard line. Boom Herron took it in from there for the go-ahead touchdown, and the defense finished it off.
The play before Pryor's clutch fourth-down scramble, receiver DeVier Posey dropped a wide-open touchdown pass from Pryor with no one around him in the end zone on 3rd-and-10, which seemed like as good a moment as any for Ohio State to concede that today wasn't its day, and 2010 isn't it season. On the next snap, with another high-profile road failure looming like the Sword of Damocles, Pryor went off-script, reversed field and let his athleticism carry him past the sticks. It was his most "Leap"-worthy moment of the season, and up there with the best of his career in big games.
The game plan he was so excited about before the game gave him chances to run, and to get the ball downfield. But the Buckeyes wouldn't still be in the thick of the murky Big Ten race going into the final weekend of the season if their quarterback wasn't faster than everyone on Iowa's defense. Pryor's not always great, and at this rate, may never be stacked next to the hype. But today he was resilient, and that and raw talent can still get you within whispering distance of the Rose Bowl.
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Scroll down or click here to join the Doc's game day live blog, covering every game, all day long.
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Monday, November 29, 2010
7-on-7: Adrian Peterson says ankle pain was 'unbearable'
We can only imagine the numbers he might have delivered if he'd been given, say, 18 of Toby Gerhart's 22 carries. But instead, Peterson was sidelined by right ankle pain that he later described as "unbearable."
Here are the essential details, via the Minneapolis Star-Tribune:
Peterson had his ankle re-taped and tested it on the sideline, but he was unable to return. He will have his ankle examined Monday to determine the extent the injury.
"I would have tried to go out there, that's just the mentality that I have," Peterson said. "Trust me, if I could have went, I would have been out there. But it was just unbearable."
Peterson is headed for an MRI; his owners are headed for a sleepless week, monitoring practice reports. Minnesota will face Buffalo in Week 13, the NFL's worst run defense. The Bills have allowed 167.4 rushing yards per game this season and 4.6 per carry. If Peterson is limited, Gerhart obviously gets interesting. He's a bulldozer, just 8 percent owned. Add as needed.
It would be a mild surprise if Peterson couldn't face the Bills, but "unbearable" is a strong word. Not what any of us wanted to hear.
• If you tuned in just a few minutes late to the Chargers-Colts tilt on Sunday night, you missed Vincent Jackson entirely. His comeback lasted just two plays. Jackson was ostensibly sidelined by a "calf injury," but the local press doesn't seem to buy it.
Check the coverage in the Union-Tribune:
In the immediate aftermath of the game, Jackson obviously wanted nothing to do with anyone asking him what happened, referring all questions to a Chargers training staff that by team policy is not allowed to talk to the media. Asked to express whatever disappointment he felt at being sidelined by injury so soon after such a long delay to the start of his season, Jackson simply looked into his locker.
"No," he finally said. "Thank you."
The timing of the injury surely will raise eyebrows and more questions, just as the timing of his return to the team had underlying implications. In order to assure that Jackson would be an unrestricted free agent after the 2010 season, Jackson had to be on the roster for a half-dozen games, and Sunday night was the first of the Chargers’ final half-dozen regular-season contests.
So there's nothing reassuring in that blurb. We'll spend half our week tracking what might be a phantom injury. Awesome. The Raiders are on deck for San Diego; Oakland currently ranks fifth in the NFL in pass defense (201.5), but they've allowed 21 TDs via the air.
• We now have some clarity on the injuries to Oakland tight end Zach Miller, but the news isn't great. Here's the latest on Miller, via Jerry McDonald:
Zach Miller is confirming that is original “arch injury” was a torn plantar fascia, a very slow-to-heal condition. He hurt his right leg later in the game. Cable called it a “fibula” injury. Miller caught one pass for six yards and is currently a shell of himself.
• OK, at some level we probably all enjoyed watching Andre Johnson treat Cortland Finnegan like a birthday piñata. But if you own Johnson in a fantasy league, you were not awarded additional points for punches landed. There's a clear chance of suspension, and we should soon hear if Johnson is going to miss a game. The Texans travel to Philly for the Thursday night game in Week 13, so disciplinary action needs to come down quickly. If AJ is sidelined, Kevin Walter and Jacoby Jones gain some temporary value. But clearly no single player replaces Johnson's production.
• Giants receiver Steve Smith is reportedly targeting Week 14 (at MIN) for his return from injury. He's been sidelined for the past three weeks with a partially torn pectoral muscle. Smith says he won't be available to face Washington in Week 13, "unless a miracle happens."
• Pittsburgh head coach Mike Tomlin said that quarterback Ben Roethlisberger suffered a foot sprain in the messy win over Buffalo in Week 12. When asked about the injury, Roethlisberger talked about getting his knee "bent sideways." All we really know is that some part of the quarterback's right leg or foot is hurting, but he played through the discomfort in Week 12.
• OK, it's time to grade the Rams. Full report card right here. As expected, Bradford gets an A. They were rough on Steven Jackson again, but this time it's easier to understand. Wide receiver Danario Alexander had himself a respectable game (4-95, A-), and he's presently healthy-ish. The Rams get the Cards in Week 13.
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Photo via US Presswire
Shortstop Post
Tsuyoshi Nishioka can start negotiating with a North American major league team. The Chiba Lotte Marines announced Friday that a team from the U.S. major leagues has bid for the negotiating rights to Nishioka. Lotte was notified of the highest bidder following Wednesday’s deadline. The team and the amount of the bid were not disclosed. [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Baseballmusingscom/~3/ObIjULLBE_g/click.phdo
With Pronger penalty justification, more NHL rulebook hypocrisy
The silly thing about the "Avery Rule" violation called on Philadelphia Flyers defenseman Chris Pronger last Friday was the alarmist tone taken by those who claimed it had to be called, lest the NHL become infested with offensive players doing the John Cena "you can't see me" hand wave in front of goalie's faces.
The sillier thing was the notion, voiced by everyone from Don Cherry to Justin Bourne, that Pronger should be better than to flap his arm like a whooping crane with a one good wing to distract Miikka Kiprusoff. Suddenly, the guy who steals the game puck from the winning team should be a paragon of virtue? It's a miracle Pronger hasn't done this previously (or that it hasn't been caught on tape). Or that he didn't just drop an atomic elbow on Kipper and be done with it.
The silliest thing, however, was the NHL's explanation for the call, in which a League that adhered to a strict constructionist view of the rulebook on serious issues like hits to the head suddenly can ignore its own verbiage in order to justify a novice official's mistake.
In case you were in a food coma or on line at the local Best Buy last Friday, here's the Pronger incident from the Flyers' 3-2 shootout loss to the Calgary Flames:
And here's Pronger's delightfully combative comments on the penalty:
There's been some strife about the timing of the call vs. when Pronger committed the "penalty," but that sort of thing happens on goalie interference penalties from time to time.
Of greater concern is what's actually in the rulebook. Matt from The 700 Level emphasized one aspect of the Avery Rule that would seem to leave Pronger's actions above the law:
"An unsportsmanlike conduct minor penalty will be interpreted and applied, effective immediately, to a situation when an offensive player positions himself facing the opposition goaltender and engages in actions such as waving his arms or stick in front of the goaltender's face, for the purpose of improperly interfering with and/or distracting the goaltender as opposed to positioning himself to try to make a play," Colin Campbell, the NHL director of hockey operations, said in a statement.
Philadelphia Inquirer writer Sam Carchidi caught up with Terry Gregson, NHL director of officiating, and asked him about that disconnect:
The infraction is not in the NHL's 2010-11 rule book. Instead, under Rule 75, there are generalities listed under "unsportsmanlike conduct."
"We don't list everything that constitutes unsportsmanlike conduct - because, to tell you the truth, there may be something we miss," Gregson said. "So, it's general and all-encompassing."
Gregson said when the rule was first created, after the Rangers' Sean Avery waved his hands and stick to block Devils goalie Martin Brodeur's view in a 2008 playoff game, it stated that a player would be called for unsportsmanlike conduct if he distracted the goalie illegally while facing him.
He added that the rule also applies if the player has his back to the goalie - as Pronger did. "It's about the act, not whether or not he's facing the goaltender," Gregson said.
Well, that's [expletive].
Lost in the controversy over Avery antics in 2008 was that he wasn't penalized for waving his stick in front of Martin Brodeur. That's because what he did was what Carey Price at the time called "an unwritten rule."
Which is to say it was bad form, but not against any rule.
Carolina GM Jim Rutherford reiterated that in an interview with ESPN after the Avery incident:
"That's not something that anyone writing the rule book has anticipated, and I don't think that we view that as part of our game," said Carolina Hurricanes general manager Jim Rutherford, an NHL goalie for 13 seasons. "With that being said, Sean Avery didn't do anything to break any rules.
"With every rule that is written or how we try to change the game, somebody gets creative. Sean has gone beyond being a little bit creative on this one," he said.
So save the "sprit of the rule" or the "open for interpretation" garbage. They needed to amend the rulebook for Avery, and did so by specifically defining the penalty as one called on a player facing the goaltender. Pronger didn't violate that rule.
If you want to say what Pronger did was illegal, then you have to make it illegal by amending the rules; just as the NHL did with Avery, and we haven't had someone swinging his lumber like a freshman in color guard since then.
As we said earlier: It's hard to swallow the NHL saying "it's general and all-encompassing" with regard to unsportsmanlike conduct having refused to be that liberal with its interpretation of charging when players ended up on stretchers on a one-per-month clip.
Until, of course, they changed the rules to make blindside hits illegal. Because when acts are outlawed, they can be whistled as a penalty. Otherwise, you're just making it up as you go along, or protecting the mistakes of AHL refs like Ghislain Hebert.
The Flyers were jobbed here. Case closed.
Auburn's championship climb has one more rung, and the last step is the biggest
To some extent, even three full months into the season, the 3½ to 4-point line in Alabama's favor today in Tuscaloosa is residue from August. Or at least from early October, when the Crimson Tide were the unquestioned No. 1 in the polls and rolling downhill toward another perfect season after wasting Florida, 31-6, to reach 5-0. At that point, 'Bama was the indomitable frontrunner, and Auburn the fringe top-25 upstart escaping close calls against the likes of Mississippi State, Clemson and South Carolina. That was the natural order of the SEC West and the Iron Bowl for two years. It can't be entirely erased in a little under two months.Still, it doesn't quite compute that an 11-0 SEC team featuring the Heisman frontrunner and four wins over teams in this week's polls – including both of the outfits that have stunned Alabama over the last eight weeks – could still have something to prove. The Tigers have outgunned other elite offenses in shootouts. They've rallied from behind (occasionally from far behind) in the second half. They've won in overtime and on long drives. They've survived the clash of titans and the trap game.
It's the Tide who had to rally late for their only win in three tries against opponents in this week's top 20. Auburn's done it that way and just about every other way.
Just about: The big caveat today is that the Tigers haven't survived a serious test on the road. They've barely even been on the road – all four non-conference games have come in Auburn, and the first two times they left the Plains, they barely made it out alive in three-point wins against Mississippi State and Kentucky. Their third road trip was to the division bottom dweller, Ole Miss, completing the tour of the smallest stadiums in the SEC outside of Vanderbilt. Bryant-Denny Stadium is an entirely different environment than Cam Newton has experienced as a starter, opposite the kind of first-rate defense he's only experienced against LSU.
In Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson and Julio Jones, Alabama is also attacking with the most complete set of offensive weapons the Tigers have seen this season. Jones is the third elite, first-round talent the Auburn secondary has faced, and its adventures against the other two led to career games for both Alshon Jeffery (8 catches, 192 yards, 2 TDs) and A.J. Green (9 catches, 164 yards, 2 TDs). Arkansas' emerging receiving star, Greg Childs, caught nine for 164 and two scores, too, and LSU's Reuben Randle burned Auburn for a 39-yard touchdown that knotted that game at 17 in the fourth quarter. All of the above, again, coming in Jordan-Hare Stadium.
More to the point, though, is the lingering question of whether Auburn is actually the kind of team that can finish this kind of mission. At the beginning of the year, if you'd have suggested to most people Auburn would be en route to the SEC Championship Game with a perfect 12-0 record – just two years removed from following a 5-7 flop with a widely mocked coaching hire – the typical response probably would have been, "I'll believe it when I see it." We've seen it from Alabama, over the course of 29 consecutive regular season wins. Before we really believe the Tigers are fit for the crown, we need to seem them take from the old king's own turf.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Amar'e Stoudemire accidentally poured a protein shake into his shoe
There's a stereotype that NBA players simply collect paychecks and put forth a minimum of effort to get playing time, but that's a load of hogwash. These guys care want to win, particularly when they're new signings expected to return glory to one of the league's marquee franchises.
So it hurt Amar'e Stoudemire when the Knicks fell to the Hawks 99-90 at Madison Square Garden on Saturday to end a five-game winning streak. But if you think Amar'e was upset after losing the game, just imagine how bad he felt after screwing up a new pair of fly kicks in the locker room after the game.
Tell us what happened, Frank Isola of the Daily News:
Amar'e Stoudemire was frustrated, angry and confused long before he accidentally spilled a protein shake into his shoes.
That messy postgame incident Saturday only added to Stoudemire's angst and delayed his exit since he planned to wear those sneakers for the trip to Detroit. So while Stoudemire was investigating why an employee would place a paper cup in a place where it could easily fall, the Knicks' $100 million man was also trying to figure out why his teammates would have such low energy on a day when they could've jumped over the .500 mark.
"We had no energy from the start," Stoudemire said after Atlanta's 99-90 afternoon victory at the Garden ended the Knicks' five-game winning streak. "With these early games, sometimes it happens that way. We can't make any excuses. We have to be mentally ready for these early games and we were not."
It sounds like the Knicks might need to add some form of energy drink to their pregame ritual if they were lacking in energy. Post-game protein shakes help you recover, but they can't give an energy boost (who no crash later, of course) to help you make the hustle plays that win games.
This is a silly story, obviously, but it's still worth imagining Amar'e getting really ticked off about the loss and then redirecting his attention to a poorly placed protein shake. You can envision the Knicks star focusing on missed defensive assignments, knocking over the cup, and then running around the locker room trying to figure out which worker should get yelled at. It's an emotional turnaround every person makes at some point in their lives: we get angry at unrelated things because we don't want to focus on the real problem at hand.
Luckily for the Knicks, they were able to bounce back and defeat the Pistons in two overtimes at the Palace on Sunday. Given athletes' love of superstitions, expect Amar'e to spill a protein shake into his shoes after every loss. Maybe the drink cleansed the Knicks of a lackluster performance instead of just making a mess.
Jeter?s exquisite timing fails him as Yankees play hardball
The spendthrift Yankees, whose $200 million-plus annual payroll is far and away the most in Major League Baseball, are playing hardball with the 36-year-old shortstop Derek Jeter.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
If Auburn can make it out of a 24-0 hole at Alabama, it can make it anywhere
Auburn 28, Alabama 27. Remember those old "Nothing But Net" ads for McDonald's, in which Michael Jordan and Larry Bird continued heaping layers of impossible obstacles onto shots to force a miss that never came in a game of H-O-R-S-E? Cam Newton doesn't, because he was like four years old when those commercials came out. But today was his version of those spots as he makes his own bid for the sports pantheon.
Down three touchdowns. On the road. To the defending national champions. In front of a hostile, 100,000-strong crowd baying for your blood. Against a top five defense selling out on every play to neutralize your bread-and-butter. With the national championship on the line. Nothing but net.
The answer may be that there is no blueprint for this guy. Alabama focused all of its defensive energy on penetrating the line of scrimmage to disrupt the running game, forcing Newton to make them pay through the air, and succeeded wildly. So he made them pay through the air. After a 1-of-4 start with three straight three-and-out series in the first quarter, Newton was 12 of 16 passing over the final three, with three touchdowns. He connected on three third down throws that kept eventual scoring drives alive and completed a critical 4th-and-3 pass in the fourth quarter that set up the eventual game-winning TD pass to Philip Lutzenkirchen (Bavarian for "scores in the clutch"). Faced with an obstacle as intimidating as the Crimson Tide front seven, Newton went over it to lead his fifth second half comeback of the year.
The Auburn defense had a lot to do with that, recovering from the initial shellshock of the first quarter to turn the Tide away on four red zone trips the rest of the way, which amounted to two 'Bama field goals and a pair of lost fumbles created by Tiger hustle. Auburn's offense, for all its struggles, scored a touchdown every time it crossed onto the Tide's side of the field. Sometimes, that level of opportunism is disappointing in a championship frontrunner, the lack of dominance a cause for concern. The Tigers still have a lot of work to do in the secondary, but today was not one of those times. It was the kind of day only a champion survives. With win No. 13 next week in Atlanta, the title will be official.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
After two small steps forward, Michigan takes a giant leap back
Ohio State 37, Michigan 7. in almost all the big ways, Michigan was clearly a better team in 2010 than it was a year ago, and certainly than it was in 2008. The Wolverines staved off another second half collapse with wins over Illinois and Purdue, must-win games they lost in '08-09, securing a winning record in the process. The offense found a cornerstone in prolific quarterback Denard Robinson, the spark for the No. 1 total offense in the Big Ten and the highest-scoring attack at Michigan in more than a decade. They'll be in a bowl game next month for the first time in three years, with a lineup set to return 18 starters in 2011. This is a better team that should be better still in nine months.But again today, on the biggest stage of the season, against the most important measuring stick, the Wolverines came up woefully short. The losing streak against Ohio State – now at seven years, and nine of ten since Jim Tressel arrived in Columbus in 2001 – is torture enough. The gnawing part at this point, years after the losing became an ingrained reality, is that the gap shows no signs of closing.
This beating was worse than last year's in Ann Arbor, and on par with the rout in Columbus in '08. The Buckeyes won the yardage battle by 128 yards. The Michigan offense was plagued by dropped passes. Three more giveaways today pushed it past Purdue for the worst turnover margin in the conference. With a chance to sustain a bit of momentum in the second quarter, the kickoff team followed a touchdown to cut the Ohio State lead to 10-7 by allowing an 85-yard return that immediately restored the Buckeyes' advantage to ten. A pair of shanked punts set up the OSU offense in Michigan territory for two more scores. Robinson channeled his worst tendencies, fumbling away an early scoring chance in the red zone and later exiting the lineup with a hand injury just before the half, leaving the offense to be shut out in his absence the rest of the way. In three hours, the only hint of progress is that it took the Buckeyes an entire quarter to formally begin the onslaught.
Even before the game, roughly half the fan base and some segment of the local press either thought that Rich Rodriguez would be gone or should be gone with anything less than an upset to close the regular season. Athletic director Dave Brandon made it pretty clear that isn't going to happen. Rodriguez will be on the sideline for the bowl game, wherever that is, and the fact that there is a bowl game is a reliable indicator that he'll still be there in 2011, too. There are worse fates than an ugly loss to a one-loss conference champion ranked in the top ten.
One of those fates, unfortunately, is three ugly losses to a conference champion ranked in the top ten, which Rodriguez now has. If some semblance of "progress" out of the tangled wreckage of his first two seasons is enough to buy Rodriguez a fourth, at some point there has to be a clear, unmistakable step toward the final destination. Assuming that includes a win over Ohio State in the foreseeable future, it looks as far away right now as it ever has.
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Scroll down or click here to join the Doc's game day live blog, covering every game, all day long.
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Game day live blog: War of the Roses
Today is a proxy war for the Big Ten championship, but really, it's all very simple. If Wisconsin beats Northwestern, the Badgers go to the Rose Bowl. Unless, that is, Ohio State somehow loses to Michigan, in which case Michigan State would go to the Rose Bowl. Unless the Spartans also lose to Penn State, in which case we're back to the Badgers – you know, probably. But if Wisconsin loses, it's the Buckeyes all the way. Unless of course their patented slow-down strategy leaves the door open for Michigan State to leap them in the polls with a surprising blowout in Happy Valley. A close shave for Wisconsin could also leave room for Ohio State to make a move if things get ugly in Columbus.
See? Simple.
Essentially, it's this: If everything happens the way we think it's going to happen, Wisconsin is going to Pasadena via a) Its position in the BCS standings, and/or b) Its head-to-head win over Ohio State in October. And we're always right when it comes to this sort of thing, aren't we?
• What: Game day live blog, all games in play, all day long. All comments welcome.
• When: First kickoffs are at noon; blog kicks simultaneously, running through at least the colossal primetime tilts in Athens, Los Angeles and Stillwater. Come as you please.
• Who: You, of course. And your arch nemesis, just to get into the spirit.
• How: Hit "Watch Now," enter comments into the available box and do your part to accelerate the slow, agonizing death of conventional journalism.
• Why: It is the final regular season Saturday of 2010, blessed be its soul. Get your kicks in while you still can.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Check Out This Side Boob!
This could perhaps be the greatest use of viral marketing, ever.Although, I will probably never see the movie and have already forgotten about the ad altogether.
Source: http://brahsome.com/2010/08/20/check-out-this-side-boob/
?Pronate The Wrist? Heh, Heh ? Good One, Joe Buck
That ended up being one hell of an entertaining game, which is nice, because for a while it seemed like it was going to be nothing else but one long procession of slurping from Troy Aikman and Joe Buck every time Jason Garrett threw a challenge flag. I wonder why they weren’t whipped into the [...]
Source: http://kissingsuzykolber.uproxx.com/2010/11/pronate-the-wrist-heh-heh-good-one-joe-buck.html
At Harvard-Yale, thou shalt not sully The Game with vuvuzelas
Harvard and Yale haven't commanded much attention on the field for generations, but the old boys have always put on a ripping show of rancor, you know. This year, inevitably, that antipathy was to be personified in the prevailing novelty of the time: The vuvuzela.
A pair of Harvard students set out to bathe today's edition of "The Game" in Cambridge with the infamous buzz that drowned out the World Cup in July, under the very logical premise that Yale fans "sound like failure": "During the upcoming Game, Cambridge cannot afford to endure the noise pollution produced by so many whining Harvard rejects," they wrote on their Facebook page. At one point, they'd sold 2,000 of the noisemakers at $6-$8 apiece. Yale students countered by selling several hundred vuvuzelas of their that read "Harvard Blows" on the side, promising a non-stop, three-hour whine across Harvard Stadium.
The war between Harvard and Yale won't be filled with vuvuzelas, thanks to a last-minute ban passed at Harvard.
[...]
"In keeping with Department of Athletics' commitment to conduct athletic contests in a manner that promotes good sportsmanship, artificial noisemakers will not be permitted inside the ticketed footprint of Harvard Stadium," wrote Associate Director of Athletics Timothy Wheaton in a statement on Tuesday.The stuffy ban came after students introduced the Silence Yale campaign two weeks ago, a noise-making effort by two undergrads who planned on distributing the noisemakers before the game.
Actually, the initiative was led by students on Harvard's Undergraduate Council, who complained that "If you're on offense, you can't hear your own team" over the omnipresent hum. Bulldog quarterback Patrick Witt agreed in the Yale Daily News: "As quarterback, if I can't communicate in the line of scrimmage, the game won't take off." Most places, disrupting the offense's communication would be considered the point. Here, well, it's just not done.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Video: Nebraska tight end gets violated, then gets flagged
The theme for Nebraska in Saturday night's 9-6 loss at Texas A&M: Fury. Head coach Bo Pelini was furious at his quarterback and everyone in stripes. His brother, defensive coordinator Carl Pelini, was furious at a cameraman after the game. The entire state was furious over 16 Cornhusker penalties for 145 yards, including a third down roughing the passer penalty on safety Courtney Osbourne that extended the Aggies' drive for a game-winning field goal in the fourth quarter.
But no one in red had more justification for seeing red than sophomore tight end Ben Cotton, who was hit with two personal foul penalties in a five-second span for trying to kick Texas A&M defensive lineman Tony Jerod-Eddie in a second quarter pileup. Cotton got the laundry and a face full of angry Pelini on the sideline, but on behalf of the male species of earth, we've got your back on this one, kid:
I believe that is what they refer to, in technical terms, as "giving him the business." With any justice, A&M will be receiving notice from the Big 12 office this week over Jerod-Eddie's unsolicited probe, but Nebraska fans aren't holding their breath.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Pom Spin
This is to make up for me adding Michael Vick to my fantasy team.GIFSoup
Kicking, collapse dethrone Boise State, king of the underdogs
Nevada 34, Boise State 31 (Overtime). The concentric circles radiating outward from the Broncos' second half collapse affect the college football landscape on every level, on up to the national championship game, and we will get to them all. But at the center, there is a kicker: Kyle Brotzman, a senior with 65 successful field goals to his name over four years as Boise State's primary kicker, who will be forever linked to the two he missed tonight in Reno.
The first was a 26-yard chip shot with one second on the clock at the end of regulation, immediately on the heels of arguably the diving catch of the year by Titus Young to save a game the Broncos had nearly let slip away twice. Instead, wide right and overtime. The second came in OT, when Boise failed to make a first down on offense, and Brotzman pulled the go-ahead attempt wide from 29 yards, setting up a successful boot for the win by Nevada's Anthony Martinez. Within minutes, "Brotzman" was a trending topic on Twitter, where he was gleefully – and with painful accuracy – dubbed the new Ray Finkle.
With the Broncos' fall comes a hail of broken winning streaks: Twenty-five straight in all games, 37 straight in the regular season, 22 straight in the WAC. With the head-to-head tiebreaker in the Wolf Pack's favor, the conference championship will go to a team other than Boise State for just the second time in nine years. It's the first time the Broncos have ever lost a WAC game they were favored to win. Their hopes for a fifth perfect season in seven years are finished.
As are their hopes – shared by Cinderella lovers and BCS haters everywhere – of crashing the BCS title game. Given the comebacks by Auburn and Oregon earlier in the day, those odds were already much longer by kickoff than they'd been 12 hours before. But they won't be crashing the Rose Bowl, either, a coveted consolation prize that now falls to TCU, which won't be nudged out of the on-deck position, after all. The Frogs are shouldering the underdogs' burden alone. For Boise State, the debate is over. The dream is dead. The beast is taking its best hope for a breakthrough back to the Humanitarian Bowl.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Matt Millen gets a nice surprise in the booth
Last week, we detailed the Twitter rage over Millen's style, and the Unintentional Comedy Alert status of the Theismann-Millen duo had reached DEFCON 5 proportions by the end of the first quarter of the Thanksgiving Day game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the New York Jets.
That said, there was one neat moment in the game, which happened near the end of the first half. The NFL Network broke away from the game for a moment so that a host of soldiers currently serving in Afghanistan could say "Hello" to their families. One of those soldiers was Lt. Marcus Millen of the 230th Infantry Task Force. Millen sent a holiday greeting to his wife, and then admonished his dad - "Don't make any mistakes tonight, because we're all watching!"
Uh, well ... too late for that. But it was a great moment, and seeing Millen getting choked up over seeing his son did present a different side to the man so many would love to drive from the many booths he works during the football season. I made a promise to myself that I was going to try and take a little of that holiday spirit with me, and avoid yelling at the TV nearly every time Millen opened his mouth. I lasted about two real-time minutes, which is a pretty good amount of time under the circumstances.
In all seriousness, we wish Lt. Millen, and everyone working with him and so many others overseas, a happy holiday and a swift and safe return to those who love them. Yes, even when one of those people is Matt Millen. We'll wish Millen a happy holiday season as well, blockhead though he may be, because he provides us with a near-endless stream of comedy fodder whenever he opens his mouth.
The Lineman?s NFL picks ? week 12
The Lineman is just about keeping his head above water. Can you better his NFL week 12 picks?
Source: http://blogs.reuters.com/sport/2010/11/26/the-linemans-nfl-picks-week-12/
Bourne Blog: How players sacrifice the holidays for hockey
As I watched a spectacular finish to last night's Edmonton Oilers/Colorado Avalanche game, stuffed full of turkey and ‘taters after a thoroughly satisfying meal with my family, I couldn't help but reminisce upon the hockey-playing years of my life, where each holiday was just another day on the calendar.
Maybe the team went with turkey instead of chicken for Thanksgiving Day's pre-game meal, but other than that, it'd be just like any other day.
You have to sacrifice the holidays to live the hockey player's life.
I went nine straight years without being able to attend a New Year's Eve party (including multiple 11:30 curfews). I missed out on all things Halloween for nearly a decade (including one where I was in Madison, Wisconsin). And now that I think about Thanksgiving, I can't recall being together with my family since I was 18.
The numbers would be similar for most hockey players.
For guys like Jordan Eberle and Taylor Hall, deciding to make hockey their lives is a no-brainer. The holidays may be a little tougher, but it's infinitely justifiable. I mean, if you're into being rich/famous/successful and all that other crap.
But for so many of my great friends spread out around the globe trying to make it in various European leagues and minor leagues and what-am-I-doing-here leagues, missing out on things most people get to partake in can be the straw that broke the camel's back.
It's quite the feat to play in most elite leagues in Europe, but being alone in your bare apartment on Christmas doesn't exactly sound like a great time from where I'm sitting. If I chose to continue playing, that's likely what my holiday would look like.
That, and I'd probably be single.
Long-standing NHLers might have homes and wives and kids and pets and all the great things that make the holidays enjoyable, but they're a tiny percentage of professional hockey players.
Most guys have Easy Mac, overdraft protection and the Internet.
It's not just the players that have to forfeit time with their families, but their loved ones go without too. My Dad has a couple stories about boarding flights on Christmas Day for hockey -- I can assure you, that wasn't easy on anyone.
When the clock struck 12 to mark the beginning of a new year, I've been sleeping on the floor of an Alaskan airport, on a bus in the middle of the country, in my dorm, and answering coach's curfew call while watching SportsCenter.
And, I've been hitting "ignore" on drunk dials from friends with lives.
The life that the game affords players is obviously not to be pitied, but there really is a big sacrifice there that weighs in on your decision to keep playing if you're not making the big bucks. I can't believe how much I missed being able to be at the big get-togethers I dreaded as a kid. They're far less painful as an adult (see: wine).
Hockey's a wicked game, but there's no shaking the fact that you're an eight month prisoner to an itinerary (seven, if you're an Islander or a Leaf).
Travel is such a big part of the lifestyle, and the foremost reason you get stuck eating Whataburger instead of holiday feasts. Only two teams played last night, but half of the others were in a bus or on a plane or in a hotel or somewhere markedly different than watching the Jets beat the Bengals with a belly full of pumpkin pie.
For me, I'm happy to be where I'm at. Today, I've got leftovers, a comfortable apartment, and a steadily-growing gut.
And I don't care.
It's great to finally be a part of the holidays again.
Enraged 'Huskers scare off commish, lock down the North, anyway
Not since the newly minted Los Angeles Raiders won Super Bowl XV 30 years ago has a league felt quite as chilly toward a potential champion as the Big 12 does this year toward Big Ten-bound Nebraska, and even then-NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle saw fit to show up long enough to hand the trophy to his rival, Raiders owner Al Davis. Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe, on the other hand, couldn't even make it as far as Lincoln today to congratulate the Cornhuskers on sealing their second straight North Division title with a 45-17 win over the conference's other outgoing member, Colorado.In part, maybe, the snub had just a little something to do with the 'Huskers' pending departure next year, which very nearly destroyed the conference last summer. Mainly, though, it was because Beebe and his aides in Big 12 offices were flooded with "very, very vile, vulgar, disgusting messages" from irate Nebraska fans who sensed conspiracy in the lopsided penalty total in the 'Huskers' 9-6 loss at Texas A&M last week:
Big 12 Conference administrators did not send any representatives to Friday's Nebraska-Colorado football game in Lincoln because the league feared for their safety, commissioner Dan Beebe confirmed to the Journal Star on Friday night.
Nebraska fans flooded the Big 12 office with negative e-mails and voice messages this week, some of which Beebe said were threatening. Those messages will be turned over to authorities, he said.
Beebe himself received more than 2,000 e-mails from Nebraska fans after Saturday's game at Texas A&M, when fans and coaches were upset with the officiating in Nebraska's 9-6 loss.
[…]
"…we had to take this stuff seriously until we figure out what's going on," Beebe said. "It took us a long time – of course, it's a holiday week – to sort through all of those and figure out which ones were threatening, and we're going to turn them over to the authorities and contact the people who left the messages, if we can figure out who they are."
Among the not-so-well-wishers, according to Beebe, was a message suggesting he "should be packing a gun," another threatening to hit him on the head with a bottle and stab him in the street and at least one targeting his daughter's Facebook page. Another came in from someone impersonating an officer who called to say Beebe's daughter was "unresponsive" and had to be taken to the hospital. Shockingly, an NFL security consultant sized up the situation and recommended Beebe steer clear.
That was just as well with Nebraska athletic director Tom Osborne, who swore off comment after the game. He's more concerned with accepting the big trophy from his nemesis after next week's Big 12 Championship Game in Dallas, anyway. But if Nebraska actually wins it, and departs for the Big Ten with the final championship game trophy for the foreseeable future under its arm, it's safe to say that coronation is going to be among the most awkward ever committed to film. And if by some one-in-a-million chance there is an anti-Nebraska conspiracy out of the conference office, they're going to feel the full brunt of it to keep that moment from happening.
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Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Friday, November 26, 2010
Cavs add police, ban anti-LeBron clothing for his return to Ohio
Since the moment he took his talents to South Beach last July, citizens of Cleveland have ramped up their hate for LeBron James to amazing levels. There have been websites, organized merchandise bonfires, and enough videos to clog up the YouTube servers, all to announce the Cleve's hatred for their one-time savior.
Yet all this righteous anger is little more than a run-up to LeBron's first game back in Cleveland on December 2. Anticipating an ornery crowd, the Cavs have decided to take new measures to ensure James's safety. From Chris Broussard on ESPN.com:
To ensure James' safety, there will be dozens of extra police officers on hand, both uniformed and undercover. Officers will be stationed inside and outside the arena, and many will be positioned by the Heat bench and at the tunnel where the Heat players will enter the court.
"Honestly, I'm a little bit afraid," one member of the Cavs organization said. "Some people don't care. Their mentality is '‘I've got to get this off my chest.' There's so much negative energy around this game. People aren't excited about the game itself. They're just like, '‘I can't wait to do something.' " [...]
The team has done research on the various crude and offensive James T-shirts in circulation locally, and officials will be stationed at entrances to make sure no fans enter with such shirts or signs that disrespect James or his family members. They'll also be in the stands, authorized to take away inappropriate apparel. Fans who have such shirts will be required to remove them and then will be given a Cavaliers-branded T-shirt to wear instead. All inappropriate signs also will be confiscated and officials will be on the lookout throughout the game for inebriated fans or fans who are preparing to throw things onto the court.
Kudos to the Cavs for not saying to hell with their former star and skimping on security. That would be irresponsible, of course, and a terrible thing for any franchise to do. But in the wake of Dan Gilbert's Comic Sans rant on the night of The Decision and various other attempts to say the franchise now won't sell out its morals for one player, any instance of the organization acting with maturity should be met with applause.
Then again, I can't help but think that Gilbert and Co. helped stoke the fires of LeBron discord this summer. Changing their mind is fine and a positive development, but the Cavs still justified and condoned the hate by acting like James was a no-good jerk who doomed the franchise with his greed and bad attitude. The reality is obviously more complicated: he helped put the Cavs back on the NBA map after years of wandering through the lottery.
Increased security measures are a necessary precaution for this game. But if something bad happens during the game, the Cavs shouldn't act as if they did everything possible to protect LeBron. If that were the case, they would have handled the post-Decision fallout much differently.
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