What a diverse (if you will) sports week. Larry Cooker (Miami), John L. Smith (MSU), and Mike Shula (Alabama) have all been fired recently, and John L. already had a replacement in Mark Dantonio. I know nothing about this guy except that TSN said that he’s the same-old MSU guy, so I think that calls for some more losing for those Spartans. This Dantonio guy was at Cincinnati doing well, but that’s not a BigTen school expecting something… ANYTHING! He was also an assistant at OSU from 2001-2003, so even more reason to hate the guy! The rumor going around is that Miami will hire the defensive coordinator, Randy Shannon to replace Cooker since they are in the red like $17 mil or something. I haven’t heard anything about Shula’s replacement. Keep you informed on that one.
From the negatives of college football to the bowls and positives that occurred this season, especially in the last week. All the talk around here has been about CMU’s amazing season, and they capped it off by winning the MAC title for the first time in 12 years. They beat Ohio 31-10 at ford Field last night. They will both be playing in a bowl game; CMU in the Motor City Bowl against an “at large” team, and Ohio in the GMAC Bowl against the loser of the Houston-Southern Mississippi game. WMU is also bowl eligible, playing in the International Bowl in Toronto, Canada against an undetermined Big East team.
LSU has this brilliant idea that they have been invited to the Rose Bowl. When I read this story I just about fell off of my chair laughing. There is no guarantee that they will even go to a BCS bowl, yet their fans are requesting 32,000 tickets. Someone needs to give these guys the memo that they haven’t been invited yet!
The last weekend of the BCS debate is here, and Michigan still has an outside chance to play in the National Title game in January, but here is the situation. #2 USC has to lose to UCLA no matter what. If this doesn’t happen, it’s all over. Michigan could also benefit from a #4 Florida loss to #9 Arkansas since the Wolverines are done, but it isn’t as important as that UCLA win. So if you bleed Maize and Blue, you’ll be a Bruins fan tomorrow. This will close the debate about who is going to play where, but open the debate about who is worthy of the spots and how crappy the BCS system is – and if things don’t play out how I want them to, I may join in that debate!
From college football to NFL ball now. The Lions are playing the Patriots this weekend. You may ask, “Who cares” and usually I wouldn’t, but we live in Michigan so we are supposed to be Lions supporters, but the Pats are my team, so it will be nice to see them smack the loser Lions around. Maybe Matt Millen will be fired soon? All I have to say is GO PATS!
Tony Romo has taken over for Drew Bledsoe, so I think Bledsoe’s career is over. TO likes this move of course because he gets the ball twice as many times as Glenn does. Under Bledsoe, Glenn got the majority. We all know that TO is a ball hog. What ever. Another QB swap happened in Denver where Jay Cutler is taking over for Jake Plummer. I am not quite sure that this is the best move, but I do agree that Denver needed a shake up.
One of my friends asked me if I had been paying attention to the NBA East, and I said no and he told me that like 11 of the 15 teams are below .500, so I decided to look into it. Wouldn’t you know that was the main story on the ESPN home page. I read the article and some of the stats amazed me (because I am a stats person). The Orlando Magic are leading the division. Yea that’s Darco’s team. The Celtics are leading the Atlantic and they are 5-8, and last weekend they were going to fire their coach. If the season ended now, the Atlanta Hawks would be in the playoffs as the 7th seed and the Knicks are 1 game out for the #8 spot. How wacky is that. If I may say so, I think that the East is the worst conference ever in the history of sports. Another goofy number out of the east – $1.7 million. That’s how much the Charlotte Bobcats need to spend to reach the minimum salary cap. YIKES!
Well that’s the new happenings in the sports world. One day I will go all out NHL, but not today.
Just an Average Nerd 