28 November 2004

Stealing a page from Craig, here’s my 24 hours of football (from over the last 4 days):

HIGH SCHOOL
: While I didn’t see the game, it is my sad duty to report that the Manchester-Essex Regional High School Hornets fell to our hated rivals from Georgetown, thus tagging the Hornets with a 0-11 record for the season. I’m not sure if it’s the first winless season in school history, but I have to think it’s the first 11 loss season they’ve ever suffered. The team was very young, having graduated many of the players who led the team to the conference title last season. Better things have to be ahead for 2005.

COLLEGE: When did Craig James become the BCS’s bitch? It seems like every time I saw him talk he was spouting off on why the teams from outside of the BCS arrangement didn’t deserve to make it. He felt very strongly that BC deserved to make it over Utah or Boise State – this before BC got slapped around at home by Syracuse, keeping the Orangemen alive for a BCS berth at 6-5.

Nope, nothing wrong with the BCS at all.

I was rooting for Texas A&M against Texas, both because they’re my default Texas team and because it could get two non-BCS teams into the mix. I didn’t expect A&M to win, but I thought they played pretty well. I had the same reasons for rooting for Notre Dame over USC (ok, they’re not my default Texas team, but you get my drift), and they more or less went the same way as the Aggies.

Oddly enough, the BC-Syracuse game is probably the one I watched the most of, primarily because the result was so unlikely. I had resigned myself to seeing BC in the Fiesta, but should have taken my lesson from the Sox and kept the faith.

I felt badly about Louisville beating Cincinnati 70-7, as the Cardinals went the Bob Stoops route to trying to impress voters to hopefully make up ground in the polls. Because, really, it’s not going to work. Voters know that the Bearcats stink; you don’t get extra credit for pounding that sort of team (or shouldn’t). I suppose they may have had Texas lost.

And I’d like to call a quick truce with northern New England to give kudos to the UNH football team, who won their first 1-AA playoff game ever by handing Georgia Southern its first first round loss ever (and doing so in Statesboro, no less).

PRO: My viewing of the NFL today was impeded by the drive back from Maine and some playing of one of those vintage video game things that have the games loaded into the controller box (the wife got one for her birthday that includes Ms. Pac Man, Xevious, Galaga, and Pole Position – I’m not sure why Pole Position is included with a handset of Namco games, but I’m digging it).

I did see most of the Pats game, and the real story there was the field. It seems like every year at this time the pounding brought by the MLS and NFL make the field a quagmire when there’s rain.

And there was rain today. Boy howdy, was there rain (I think it was the rain the UNH got to play in last night).

The Revs have to find a new home. I happen to know a place where there’s a new turn field paid for by the WUSA. They’d need to put in some new seating, but it’s a nice Boston location in an area with a lot of students. You just have to make sure you don’t have any home games during finals, lest there be more riots.

Address all inquiries to Dr. Aram Chobanian, 2 Sherborn Street, Boston.

I did watch goodly portions of both Thanksgiving games, even that ugly Dallas-Chicago match up. I had picked Dallas as one of my teams in Craig’s cut-throat league, so it was the one time during the year that I lean for the Cowboys to score enough points to beat another team I don’t care about in a situation that will not lead to a playoff berth.

Then again, the way the NFC is going Dallas may still have a shot if they win out.

I also picked Miami in their tilt against the 49ers. I liked the way they played against Seattle the week previous, and figured I had to take them at some point. Why not now?

I’d considered taking both Miami and San Francisco as a strategic two points. Probably a good thing I didn’t, though at some point before the end of the season I’ll still have to take the Niners. Ugh.

I’d thought the Bengals-Browns game went to OT when I saw the score there, but then reminded myself that the NFL doesn’t use the NCAA tiebreak. It’s games like this that make fantasy geeks all tingly.

Now that Eli Manning is 0-2, are we ready for Warner’s second go ‘round? Will they try to get Kerry Collins back from Oakland? Do they have Vince Evans’ number in their Rolodex?

There’s also been an unusual amount of confusion by announcers today. Jim Nantz called Corey Dillon “Warrick Dunn” a couple of times, and Phil Simms had trouble keeping Chester Taylor and Travis Taylor separate. Mike Patrick also noted that it was still odd seeing Warren Sapp in any other uniform than Denver’s – I think the orange confused him.

2 comments:

Greg said...

Namco licensed both Pole Position and Xevious to Atari, hence the confusion.

James said...

Kurt Warner has already said he does not want to supplant Prodigal Sib as the starting signal-caller. It will be Manning's job for the rest of the regular season, unless he gets hurt.

For want of anything better to post, here's a breakdown of if I've been to the most populous 100 cities in the US, and if so for how...