alot going on, little to talk about

It was, as usual for this time of year, a pretty busy weekend in the world of sports. However, I really did not watch as much as I would normally and for good reason. It was Bulldog Bash weekend in Starkville. That is always our second home game of the season where we have live entertainment (though usually not that great, and this year was no exception) but any excuse is a good excuse to go to the old cotton district, eat a lot of food, kick back a few, and walk around bumping into people and not remembering girls' names. We got kind of a late start that night because baseball was on. And it turned out great, Sox won and the Yanks lost. It's just about as good a night can get right? Anyway that brought the magic number to clinch the division down to 7 (it is down to 6 presently) and then we hit the town.

Saturday, we headed over to a friend's place where his little brother (currently in culinary school) decided he would cook all day. We didn't stop him. After watching Ole Miss lose to Florida and bits of other college games, we headed to our own night game versus Gardner Webb University.


Yes, Gardner Webb. Power House of the Atlantic Sun Conference, and sometimes the Big South Conference. How are they in both, one can only guess. Not to be too cocky though, it wouldn't be the first time a small school had an upset (a la Michigan) but considering it would not be that big of an upset, we did not fret too much.

In good fashion, our dawgs decided to show up and play. Henig is out with his broke "fill in the blank" so we have freshman barely out of cap and gown throwing the ball. Compared to Henig, they look okay (better footwork, slightly better arm, same bad pass decisions) but where we decided to shine this game other than on defense was our run. Sure in true bulldog form we would try a run right up the center tailend and get all of 1.3 yards. But when we would option outside or anything we would carry a good 5 yard minimum. This goes back to years ago when we would throw to the tight end maybe twice a game and get 12 or 13 yards everytime. Why not do what works more often? Either way, with defense in great form as usual (except for a couple of drives) we squeaked it out of the Runnin' Bulldogs.

Did I forget to mention that? It was the MSU Bulldogs vs the Gardner Webb Runnin' Bulldogs


How great is that? I won't harp too long, but it is very nice to have 3 wins in our first 4 games. Granted our schedule becomes invinitely more difficult from here on than our last three games. Even UAB for our homecoming is a bit daunting. But hey, for first year our suspension I think we are looking very promising, especially considering the age of our not broken QBs.

Weekend Update with Norm Macdonald

2-1. That's the MSU Bulldogs' football record right now with the one loss coming from #2 LSU. Granted the wins have been over Tulane and Auburn but both are teams we have lost to in the past year. Maybe Croom is on to something this year. In each of the three games are defense has looked good and with each game our offense has looked better. Henig is out 4-6 weeks with a broken (fill in the blank). I'm okay with that because I'm not too hot on the guy. He looks scared in the pocket, has bad foot work, and more often than not makes very poor pass decisions. Our two little guys that filled in for him Saturday both looked more comfortable behind the line, although did show signs that they were indeed freshman. I am completely satisfied with the way our defense has been playing, especially versus Auburn. We look like we once did, and for what reason we became known as the bulldogs. Very agressive on the line with a hard hitting back.

Quick NFL side note. The Patriots rolled over the Chargers yesterday. Wasn't even that interesting to watch. Videos or not, the Pats are stacked. Now if we could just get the Chargers back into their baby blues and dress Belichick like a head coach instead of a bum trying to find half a hamburger in a refuse bin. The Bengals and Browns had a record breaking game though. Both QBs threw for 6 TDs in one of the highest score NFL games ever, if not the highest. I should probably look that up, but it's the NFL so I don't really care.

Painful three game series between the Red Sox and Yankees came to fruition yesterday. With the Yankees taking two of the games following two top of the eighth inning charges. Ironically enough a buddy of mine was over at the apartment for those two games but not the one Saturday in which the Sox won 10-1. So long story short, he's never invited over during Sox games again.


I love this kid. Jacoby Ellsbury is everything a minor league prospect call up is suppose to be and more. He is the fastest thing around the bases I have seen in a long time, steals bases so well that Reyes looks bland, can hit for yard, and uses those wheels effectively in the outfield. I repeat, I love this kid. Actually I love all our rookies. If the Sox can manage to hold on to all of them for a few years, we are going to be dynamite. Pedroia is nearly a shoe in for Rookie of the Year and Dice-K is still making an argument for a Cy Young if not Rookie of the Year. I think the Cy will go to our boy Beckett though, which is fine because he is on top of his game this year.

Notre Dame is 0-3. Ha ha ha. I wish Michigan would have lost though. Ole Miss drops the ball to Vandy. Florida and LSU aren't worth mentioning, we all know how they fared. And USC held up their end versus Nebraska.

Go Dawgs.

Don't be Sad Wally

Yeah, I don't know what happened either Wally.

Last night the Red Sox held a commanding five run lead over the Bronx Bombers until the top of the eighth. In retrospect I probably ran my mouth too much because usually getting into a bullpen battle with the Yanks can only end well for your team and we had Petite out by the sixth inning. None the less in true New York fashion the first eight batters reached for the Yanks in the top of the inning topping it off with the go ahead run which Boston was not able to redeem in the following two innings. Boston needs these wins badly, but not as badly as the Yankees want them. Two more nights, two more games. Tonight the two clubs' aces (Beckett, Wang) face off and tomorrow the old guys hit the mound in their first face off in six years (Schilling, Clemens).

For now, the magic number holds at 11.

Go Sox

Money in the Bank. Well, Out of it

500K out of your personal pocket would more than bankrupt most. But not Mr. Belichick. Granted that is still a huge sum of money it isn't going to keep the Patriots' head coach from eating at fancy Boston restaurants. Throw in another 250K that gets docked directly from the team and you would think that would hurt the once glorious dynasty, but I'm going to disagree. The fans will end up paying for that. Either in ticket price gouging or increased food and beverage prices.

The draft picks is where they are going to get hurt, no doubt. Having to give up a first round draft pick is huge, except that it will only go into effect if they make it to the play-offs. If they don't, they still lose second and third rounds which will sting but not like it will if they lose their first pick. So, will Bill make the boys take a dive to keep that pick and take the hit later in the draft?

I have to say, $750,000 is a lot of money and losing picks is a pretty big penalty for cheating. Honestly though, I expected more given the new commissioner's attitude toward his noble sport. I don't know why but I was expecting something like:

• The Patriots only get three downs
• Tom Brady must play blind folded the rest of the season
• Pats touchdowns only count for 4 points with no extra point attempt

or something along those lines.

Funny how in a sport that requires perhaps the most physical contact, people are getting in trouble for stealing signs, and then in baseball (one of the least physical contact sports) where there are 1,000,000 signs given every inning people are getting caught trying to bulk up.
Go Figure.

Tom Brady's Home Videos

If you have three Super Bowl rings, play for an alleged "dynasty" in football, and date the world's most beautiful women and get caught having inappropriate video tapes, let it be of the bedroom with Giselle and not of stealing signals from the Jets.

THE JETS? Come On


Okay so it wasn't really Brady's doing, but I think you get my point. After one whole week of regular season play the team to beat is cheating. No wonder they are so good. As soon as the Jets story broke, we heard that the Pats might have cheating in the Packers game too. Just how long do you think it is going to be before speculation starts flying that they cheating in one of the Super Bowls? I give my over / under at one day, and that's assuming Skip isn't talking about it as I write this.

I'm going to go with my gut and say they haven't been cheating all along. I think they tried something stupid because of last year's upset or some idiot tried to rationalize it by thinking that if you can steal signals with your eyes (which is legal) why can't you use a camera lens. Even before this, the Pats were a fan favorite to go all the way this year regardless of the end of last season.

It is kind of nice to have a little bit of the spotlight out of MLB's eyes and onto another sport dealing with breaking the rules. Although the steroid hype has died down despite two players being found guilty of using HGH and testosterone in the last couple of weeks. I wonder why that is? Couldn't have anything to do with Bonds breaking the all time home run record and now it's not hot news because the Giants still suck? No, of course not.

This week's prediction: Patriots get docked some draft spots and maybe a fine (although that is pointless and just hurts fans) and A-rod belts two more homers, at least one off the Sox this weekend, but Red Sox still take at least two games from the Yanks by that time putting the magic number into single digits.

Cheers

Tulane's Green Puddle

A week after being torn a new one by the LSU Tigers, my Bulldogs took a trip down to New Orleans to take on in-state neighbor Tulane. So the competition isn't quite the same, but seeing as how Tulane came to MSU last year and beat us it was still an important game.

Take note, the game was held in the Superdome and other than this sentence there will be no mention of hurricane Katrina.

Man does New Orleans stink. Literally. It's actually quite odd. I do not think there is another city in the country that you can walk down the street and within four seconds go from saying how the street smells like urine to following your nose to some of the best smelling food in the world. Then immediately back to smelling fecal matter and beer induced vomit. No matter, I love New Orleans.

I was surprised with the fan base that showed up for the game. MSU usually has a pretty good showing in LA, but I would say about 70% of the attendance was clad in maroon and white. Glad we can still rally behind a football team that just got it's tenth win over the past four years.

Our offense had improved from last week. Henig still looked a little poor with his footwork and definitely made some bad pass choices but still it was not a seven interception game. Our run looked much better, particularly the blocking for the run. Defense was more or less stellar with one TD off an INT. However, after our first two TDs our defense let Tulane score the equalizer on the very next possession.

I'm glad we won, the team needed it badly going into next week's game at Auburn (ouch). If Tulane had shown up more though, I do not believe we would be celebrating the win. We owe the Green Wave as much appreciation for only playing up to the level of a moderately deep puddle for our win as we do to our dogs.

But here's to New Orleans for always knowing how to show college students a good time.

My NFL Predictions

I am by no means the biggest NFL fan. When you don't have a team in state (granted N.O. isn't that far away) it is just hard to really adopt a team when they play such few games (what is it now like 7 games a year?). But it is football and I love to watch it none the less, unless there is a more interesting *read "any" college game on. I'm actually heading to New Orleans tomorrow for the MSU v Tulane game, which hopefully will at least be a good game, unlike the likes we can look forward to against Auburn and West Virginia. Either way, Gardner Webb: Bring It On.

Enough bull, here are MY NFL PREDICTIONS

1. Announcers make too many mentions of how the Saints have revitalized New Orleans since Katrina
2. Only 22 Pro athletes get arrested for violent crimes this season
3. Everyone still doesn't know that the Cardinals are also a football team (and just barely a baseball one)
4. Romo cries, again
5. Though sentencing isn't until Dec. no one shuts up about Vick
6. Nearly all of the college drafted players will be disappointments, most notably Quinn
7. Seriously, Reggi Bush rushes for 100+ yrd in more than 5 games
8. The Super Bowl will include two of these teams, Colts, Bears, Cowboys, Pats, or Saints (it isn't going to be that exciting, all the good teams last year are the good teams this year)
9. Favre surpasses Marino in many records making him "the best QB of all time", but Peyton will set pace to eclipse Favre's records if Brett ever does retire
10. And finally, Eli will learn to count to ten without using his fingers

And there you have it, my 2007 NFL predictions.

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