I wrote last week that Tennessee had two tough games at the start of the season; and if they lost both of them by big scores, the wheels might come off the wagon. No danger of that happening now. Tennessee clobbered a Cal team that was ranked in the Top 10 in several places. The final score was 35-17; and if you look at the stats, you'll see that Tennessee clearly dominated the game. That is not a good way for Cal - ranked at #9 in a couple of polls - to start their season.
However, Colorado's season opening has to be an even worse downer. They scheduled Division 1-AA Montana State to come to Boulder for the opener. All Colorado did was to lose the game. That's not a good way to start a season - or for a new coach to start his regime at a school. Remember, Colorado got a new coaching staff after losing its last two games of last year by a combined score of 100-6. This loss spells big trouble because the rest of the schedule is in-state rival Colorado State, Arizona State, Georgia and the Big 12 conference foes. The season could get butt-ugly very quickly for the Buffaloes.
And Duke lost to Division 1-AA Richmond over the weekend. No one would confuse Duke with a good football program but losing to a Division 1-AA school is never a good way to start off a season. Oh, and in case you didn't pay attention to the score, Richmond shut out the Blue Devils. It will be a long season for the Dookies.
Ohio State scored the first four times it had the ball and trounced Northern Illinois. Everyone knew that Ohio State would be able to move the ball this year but imagine how much extra firepower they would have if Maurice Clarett were on the sidelines cheering on his old squad?
Sunday night, TCU and Baylor played football. These would have to be two unlikely participants in any Sunday night sporting endeavor, but it shows how times change and how TV money alters thinking. There was a time not all that long ago when dancing was verboten on the Baylor campus; now they're playing Sunday football games.
Mobile ESPN still isn't selling nearly as much as it needs to in order to be a break-even business proposition. So now, the network is offering a "premium package" where phone owners/subscribers can watch 25 "high visibility" games a month on their phones. Sounds good until you think for a moment and realize that the typical mobile phone has a 2-inch diagonal screen without any pretense to high definition. The games may be "high visibility" ones but watching them on a phone will be a "low visibility" activity.
In case you haven't noticed, the Boston Red Sox pitching staff has been a bit shaky as of late. The Sox traded David Wells to the Padres over the weekend and that is tantamount to a Sox surrender in terms of the playoffs this year. If you think that's an overstatement, consider that the Sox just acquired a 36-year-old right-hander, T.J. Matthews, who hasn't been in MLB since 2002 and who "impressed scouts" with his work at Bridgeport in the Independent Atlantic League. Yeah, that'll do the trick.
Saturday a week ago, the Saints played the Colts in Jackson, Mississippi in a meaningless exhibition game. The game was a disaster for fans because of poor stadium management and virtually non-existent traffic control leading to massive delays. Watt Whatley oversaw the stadium aspects for the game and tried as best he could to put a good light on all of this. Said Watt, "We were not prepared for everyone to get here at the same time." Now tell me, what other arrival schedule might one expect for a football game?
To make that game experience more embarrassing, the NFL gave the state of Mississippi an award for being the "best football state in the country". How they determined that is unknown to me and of no concern to me. But you'd think that the best football state in the country would have stadium managers who could deduce that fans will tend to show up for games in the hours just before the games start.
The San Francisco 49ers media guide is 790 pages long. That's not a typo. Imagine how long it might be if the San Francisco 49ers had actually achieved anything of a positive nature in the past half-dozen years.
When the NFL teams reduced from 75 to 53 players on the rosters last weekend, it put over 700 players out of work/looking for work all at one time. That does not give any of their agents much leverage in terms of negotiating deals and points out once again the wisdom of Charles O. Finley when MLB came under free agency rules. His idea was to limit all contracts to one year making every player a free agent at the same time to reduce the player/agent negotiation advantage. He was ridiculed and ignored at the time.
One of the players released was the Packers' Najeh Davenport. You may recall that Davenport was the guy who was arrested several years ago after he entered the dorm room of a college co-ed while she was sleeping and "dropped a deuce" so to speak in her laundry basket in her closet. So, on the assumption that his NFL career is drawing to a close, I guess it's time for some talented screenwriter to try to put together the script for The Najeh Davenport Story. That's gonna take some real creative writing to get around the "potty incident". Notice I didn't say the Packers "dumped him".
The secondary market for NFL tickets is an interesting thing to watch. When the Giants and Colts play this year, it will be a game between two highly regarded teams and it will be Peyton against Eli. Not surprisingly good seats for this game are going for more than $600 a seat at TicketsNow.com. Here's something far more surprising. The final game of the season in Green Bay will be just before Christmas against the Vikings. Some tickets for that game go for $400 a seat. I don't get that. No one can look at that game now and call it a critical game in the season and no one can look at that venue and think it will be a balmy day. So you have to decide that what you really want to do on that day is to go out and freeze your buns off in order to watch a game with likely zero import on the NFL season. Sounds like just the way I want to spend $400…
Andre Agassi's tennis career is over with his loss in the US Open over the weekend. For an excellent column explaining Agassi's importance to the world of tennis, please read Bernie Lincicome's column in the Rocky Mountain News.
Finally, a comment from Jim Armstrong in the Denver Post regarding Andre Agassi:
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"On second thought, getting old isn't so bad after all. Or maybe you haven't seen those 1980s big-hair pictures of Andre Agassi making the rounds as he approaches retirement. I haven't seen lettuce that bad since Miss Kitty on Gunsmoke…"
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