BCS Buster Weekend

Week 1 of college football and already the BCS Busters have taken center stage. In fact, once you sift through all the BCS vs FCS games from the 3 day weekend, the two defining games from week one have to be TCU vs Oregon St. and Boise St. vs Virginia Tech (notice both BCS busters).

If your not a BCS Buster fan, then there is one positive. I can guarantee (I think) that the National Championship will not be between Boise St. and TCU. The NCAA is motivated by cash money and those two schools head-to-head will not bring in the revenue that a major D-1 school will bring (insert sobbing horned frog fan here because there is no way TCU jumps Boise St. unless the Broncos lose a game).

So, if you had to accept one of the two BCS busters to play in the title game, who would it be. My vote is for Boise State and here is why. TCU DOESN'T deserve to go to the National Championship, and I question whether they even deserve to go to a BCS bowl. TCU's defining game this season (if they go undefeated) will be a relative home game, against a good (but not great) Oregon St. team. TCU didn't dominate the Beavers despite having dominating statistics (almost twice as many yards and twice the time of possession). Domination in those two categories usually leads to a blowout, so considering the end result, TCU's win over OSU it really isn't that impressive of a victory.

So TCU...obviously I'm not much of a fan. Now for the Broncos. This is a an interesting topic. Do I think they would go undefeated in any of the major conferences...NO! They would certainly slip up a least once and depending on their schedule they would be expected to lose a number of road games at schools such as Florida, Alabama, Texas, Oregon, Ohio St, Miami, Penn St, etc. But they aren't in a major conference so most likely they will go undefeated. But unlike any of the previous years that the Broncos have been in the BCS Title conversation, I am actually semi-ok with the talk this season. Boise St. went on the road, cross country and beat a top 10 team. Sure Va-Tech isn't an SEC or Big 12 powerhouse, but they are good, they are legit and it was an impressive win. Secondly, Boise hosts a good (but not great) Oregon St. team from another major conference. So both those wins will be very high quality wins to add to a resume come December. I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but one thing that we cannot do is use Oregon State and try to figure out which team is the best based on the result. In other words, if Boise St. beats Oregon St. by 3, that doesn't mean TCU is better since they won by 11. TCU just doesn't have the resume to justify a National Championship game and its unfortunate, but its how it should be. They can manage a spot in a BCS game and that is understandable, but it should take an extra level of competition and strength of schedule to catapult a team in the title game and TCU doesn't have that this season.

So for now, if I had to chose a BCS Buster to make a title game I would go with Boise St. over TCU.

It's college football season, so why not get back into blogging!

This is my favorite time of year...football season. And I'm kind of a rarity because I follow high school (Friday nights), college (Saturday) and NFL (Sunday). In other words, from the first week in September until at least Christmas, I will waste away almost all of my weekends. The weird thing is I see this coming, I know there will be several Saturday nights where I look back on my day and call it a complete waste, yet I couldn't be more amped for football season! So be ready, to get a tad of high school football news, a ton of college football thoughts and some very skewed fantasy football projections! And who knows, with the Ryder Cup and the Lakers trying to repeat, I may even dabble in other sports topics, especially since my weeks now consist of SpongeBob and Dora instead of Kobe and Manny (the former have a much less dramatic life than the latter). So lets go!

Did Wood's Really Roar...A Cover-Up?

Sorry, the Tiger Woods farting video was taken down off of YouTube by the PGA Tour. I got a notice on my account today that it violated copyright laws, so until this slows down I can't repost it. However, people are continuing to put up videos (no HD quality like mine, but it will do). So do a little YouTube search and you should find something if you really want to see Wood's Roar!

Could It Be...Tiger Passes Gas on National TV!

Tiger Woods won the 2009 Buick Open by 3 shots today, but the buzz around Tiger's 4th round was really based on his Sunday play, but instead on some "sounds" coming from Tiger's area on the 28th fairway today.

After putting his drive in the fairway, Woods and caddie Steve Williams walked up to his ball and waited on Woods' playing partner to hit. While Woods was standing in the fairway, he seems to move side to side and lift a leg a few times appearing uncomfortable. Then, as his right leg bends upwards, a noise (roar or squeak...call it what you want) comes from his area. A CBS cameraman and mic happened to capture the moment and if you listen carefully after the sound is heard, Woods says "are you serious" seemingly in reference to the cameraman telling him that they heard that. Tiger and Williams precede to have a laugh and as expected, Tiger goes on to par and win his 69th tournament in his career and 4th this year.

But who cares about the win, we all want to know about the wind!

Is Phelps' Run Over?

Today, FINA (the swimming governing body for those that don't follow swimming) ruled that those new, fancy, way too tight swim suits that athletes have began swimming in will not be allowed in future meets because they provide an unfair advantage. Thank God for this ruling.

Its not the unfair advantage that I am against...its that I don't want to see the Men's 4x100 relay team in anything tighter than what they are already wearing. These new suits make spandex look like a rain parka.

So the question is...was Phelps breaking world records because of the equipment he was using or because of his skill level? I'm sensing a steroid like scandal on our hands that will shake up the swim world more than baseball has been shaken up. Well, maybe not that much, but I could be on to something.

Regardless, since this will probably be the only time I write about swimming, I have also attached and old Ryan Parker gem from last August that I just came across. It might seem random, but I feel its relevant since the FINA World Championships in Rome are approaching.

ENJOY!!!!

Tiger Gets Ripped...But Is It Fair?

ESPN.com writer Rick Reilly published an article today entitled "Woods needs to clean up his act" in which he precedes to explain why Tiger Woods needs to stop with his outbursts of disgust and rage on the course because it sets a bad example for the kids. I found this article interesting and here are a few observations.

First, Reilly brings up a lot of good points regarding Tiger often slamming clubs and cussing whenever he hits a bad shot, but at the same time I feel that Reilly tries hard to throw in several sentences here and there about the good that Tiger does in hopes of still landing the coveted Tiger one-on-one interview for his next video essay. Reilly is in an odd place because he works for ESPN and puts together cheesy, albeit entertaining essay's and blogs for their various shows thus he needs access to players, coaches, caddies, owners etc. In order to do that he has to play nice and put together fun, soft stories that won't offend people. So when he steps out and completely rips arguably the most famous athlete of our generation, he is wadding into waters that he rarely travels into. Reilly isn't T.J. Simers or Mark May or any of these sports "journalists" that make a living on tearing apart and highlighting the negatives of athletes as opposed to the good things going on. So this article comes across as a bit of an angry diatribe that has boiled up inside Reilly for awhile. What is going to be interesting is at next years U.S. Open when Tiger shows the competitive emotion and win at all cost attitude he often puts on display and Reilly suddenly decides to spin it around to make another entertaining essay promoting himself...this business has a fine line of getting a story and being two-faced and Reilly might end up tip-toeing that line in the near future.

The second problem I see with the Tiger anger issue is this...Tiger has injected golf with a passion and a vigor that the sport was missing for the better part of 2 decades (if not longer). Part of that interest is undoubtedly stirred by the passionate fist-pumps, dramatic yells and pure competitive spirit of Tiger. We loved the "seek, kill and destroy" attitude that we saw in the 2008 U.S. Open when Tiger hunted down Rocco. And when Woods ran wild on the entire field of golfers in 2000 winning 9 tournaments and 3 Majors, we all couldn't take our eyes of the fierce drive of this young golfer. So to only care about a sport because of how passionate and successful one man is and then to write about how tired we are of his over the top and sometimes angry emotion is unfair.

If we want to watch golf because we are in awe of Tiger's passion and drive for victory then great, but we can't pick and choose what aspects of a champion we want Tiger to have. Ask Kobe, ask Michael Phelps, ask Lance Armstrong...these athletes are just as passionate about winning and perfection as Tiger is and they too would slam their club down if given the chance.


Go ahead and check out Reilly's article and let me know what you think.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/columns/story?id=4347419

Look What Leaked Out!

Remember that huge scandal a few weeks back. No, not whether or not Michael Jackson was killed. And no, not the questions surrounding Sarah Palin's resignation. The one that really matters, the one that if true, would shake our world as we know it.

The video that Nike confiscated of Xavier's Jordan Crawford dunking on King James (thus proving Lebron is simply a pauper [gasp]). Well, guess what, a version of the video has leaked out onto the web and now we can surely see how Crawford "owned" Lebron.


***Does anyone think this whole idea that someone dunked on Lebron is extremely blown out of proportion...I mean what professional basketball player has never been crossed over, blocked or dunked on? COME ON NOW****

With that said, here is the video so that you can say you saw it!