Sunday, October 12, 2008

Suday 10/12 (Very) Quickie: Who's No. 1?

Nope, no baby yet. Meanwhile, did you hear Eric Mangini named his new baby after Brett Favre? Seriously: That makes even a half-serious consideration of naming my kid after Tim Tebow seem legitimate.

CFB Mania: Wow, as bad as I felt when Florida lost to Ole Miss two weeks ago, it felt sooo good watching them rout LSU last night. That was about as well as I have ever seen them play a regular-season game in the Meyer Era. It should also make the following debate fairly clear-cut:

Who's No. 1 in college football? Who's No. 1 in the polls, and who will be No. 1 in the initial BCS ranking?

My pick: Texas. Yes, Alabama has 2 wins over then-Top-10 teams (including on the road at Georgia), but Clemson now gets heavily discounted. And Texas beat the No. 1 team in the country (and Oklahoma sure looked good enough to be the 2nd-best team in the country).

I'll get the BlogPoll ballot up this morning, hopefully, but here's the Top 10: (1) Texas; (2) Bama; (3) Penn State; (4) Oklahoma St; (5) Oklahoma; (6) Florida; (7) BYU; (8) Texas Tech; (9) Utah; (10) USC. Georgia, LSU and Missouri are 11-12-13.

Here's the reality: As long as Texas and Bama keep winning (big big assumption), they will meet for the national title. Can't say the same thing about Penn State, which looks dominant, but is doing it against feeble Big Ten comp (see Ohio State, either of the last two years). What does it say that Penn State's best win was against a .500 Pac-10 team? Here's what I expect: Penn State will go unbeaten; the Big 12 and SEC champs won't, and one of them will be unfairly bumped for the Nittany Lions.

Anyway, for me, it's: (1) Texas, (2) Alabama, (3) Penn State -- then Oklahoma State with a huge jump into the Top 5 (SO impressive to beat Mizzou on the road), followed by Oklahoma, which hardly looked bad in defeat.

And then everyone else (including unbeaten BCS-crashers Utah and BYU -- who play each other eventually -- and Texas Tech, who plays Texas, among others in the Big 12 gauntlet). Among 1-loss teams, it remains a scrum between Georgia, Florida and USC, with LSU now the SEC team needing help.

MLB: Big win -- HUGE -- for the Rays in 11. They HAD to have Game 2. The walk-off ending was, of course, dramatic (though who exactly was up to see it?) All those HR, including one by Evan Longoria -- his 3rd in this postseason.

NFL: Will the Chiefs trade Tony Gonzalez? That's less interesting than the ways we'll see the Wildcat from the Dolphins -- and perhaps other teams? -- today.

NBA: Warriors suspend Monta Ellis for 30 games. Wow. That's like "punch-a-fan-in-the-face" time. Even though most of those will be spent injured, that's a big statement. Considering they just gave him that huge contract, that's going to make things fairly awkward between Ellis and the team, don't you think?

Memo to the NBA: Um, no more outdoor games. Yikes: Ugly. (And I was as big of a fan as this idea as it got. It did NOT come off nearly as well as the NHL's outdoor game.)

NHL enters Election '08 fray: Sarah Palin drops the puck at the Flyers game -- and she wasn't met with universal cheers (as you -- or anyone -- could have guessed would happen). Not sure why she'd do that, except that the hockey mom and sports fan in her couldn't resist. Because the story isn't that she dropped the puck -- it's that she got a mixed reception.

It's not that Carl Edwards choked Kevin Harvick -- it's that it was caught on camera, which is just glorious.

And it sucks to be a Michigan fan this morning. Things will turn around, but this season is going to be painful. As long as Blue fans understand that their team will suck this season, they'll be fine. At least McGuffie looks like the real deal.

-- D.S.

3 comments:

WuzUpG said...

I was there at the NBA Outdoor game and you are correct, it was not as spectacular as I thought it would be.

1) The NHL played their game during the season, when it mattered, so the starters are in the game longer. Yesterday, I saw a bunch of bench players or scrubs trying to make the team in the 4th quarter because this game was held in the preseason. The Suns starters were in there longer because it seemed that they wanted to win the game in front of their fans. And, where was streetballin' AI?

2) The weather was nice at the start, but when the breeze kicked in, it was cold. I checked the weather on my phone at it said 68 degrees (really?), but it felt much colder. They should've played the NBA game at 3pm PT because the weather was so nice. Hockey was made for the cold (and snow, as is it did during the NHL game), enough said.

Unknown said...

As a Michigan fan (cry) I honestly wanted to punch so many fans at the Michigan fans at the game yesterday.

"The world is falling" crowd are killing me.. The funny thing, even if Lloyd was still around this team we probably be 3-3 or 4-2 (at best). The issue isn't just that RR came in and is installing a new offense. The issue is we had a total of two returning starters on the offensive side of the ball (One of them being the TE, which is now buried on the bench).

So, I was expecting this year to be rough, but every so often you see a small glimpse as to what this offense is going to be like... when I see those I get very happy.

Chris said...

Dan, stop being Big 12 and SEC bias. Penn State has been rolling over everyone they have faced. This is a team that is in the top 10 in both scoring offense and scoring defense. Ohio State has been overrated the past 2 seasons, but don't just hate on Penn State because they play in the Big 10. 2 years ago while everyone was saying the Big 10 couldn't hang with the SEC, Penn State underdogs to Tennessee went ahead and smacked them right in the mouth and beat that SEC speed.