Category: Sports

  • SDSU taking the field against Nicholls State

    Last night, Paul and I went to see San Diego State beat the tar out of Nicholls State. (It’s in Louisiana. I had to look it up, too)

    The final score was 47-0 but Paul and I left at the beginning of the 4th quarter when it was 30-0. If you listen to Brady Hoke, the head coach, they could have done a lot better. But I think it was their first shut-out in a very long time.

    Now, the video doesn’t show the level of excitement as the game got into full force. San Diego folks are late comers to all sports. In the end, nearly 26,000 people showed up… which is a big win for SDSU. (The next game will nearly sell out because of the annual “Sky Show” after the game.) The visitors side actually filled in a bit. I look forward to seeing them in late-September. If they have a few more wins and they put on a good performance at the next game, I think they will start to fill up the stadium more.

    As a person who grew up around the campus of Notre Dame, I really appreciated and “got” what coach Hoke was trying to do by adding a bunch of traditions. They had Marshall Faulk come out and spear the field at the beginning of the game. They somehow got every freshmen to come and fill the student section. And I love how they came into the stadium through the band and cheerleaders… nice and slow. They even introduced a secondary mascot, a panther. I kind of liked it but the alumni in my section were pretty ticked off.

    If you listen to Hoke’s postgame interview… this is all part of creating a winning tradition. And winning will draw more fans and make the whole thing more fun. The net result being that winning and more tradition will attract better quality recruits.

    Clearly, there are very talented underclassmen who got to play big chunks of the 3rd and 4th quarter.

  • College Football Season is Here

    All summer I’ve waited for college football. With the NBA and NHL completely irrelevant to me, both Phil and Tiger non-competitive on the PGA Tour, and MLB failing to find a storyline to draw me in, it’s been quite a sports draught since the end of the World Cup. In truth, I stop caring for the World Cup when the United States was eliminated.

    Back to football.

    This is a turning point year for the team college football teams I am most vested in.

    San Diego State University

    I’m not a native fan. But SDSU is a couple blocks from my house and for less than $200 I was able to get season tickets on the 50 yard line. (This year I moved back about 5 rows for a better view)

    With second-year coach Brady Hoke settling in the Aztecs were noticeably better last year. There is a tremendous amount of talent in high school football in Southern California and Hoke knows that if he can put a winning team on the field, establish some tradition, and get a couple players drafted high he can pull a lot more talent from the area. So I was excited to see that Hoke has added a couple of traditions for this year. Before they open against Nicholls State tomorrow players will make the “Warrior Walk” from the bus to the stadium. It’s not much, but it is a step towards creating a football feel around town.

    With a veteran QB in Ryan Lindley and star WR Vincent Brown… it will be clear that the Aztecs can move the ball. The question will be if they can hold teams under 20 points.

    My prediction: They will go 7-5, but will include one showcase victory against either BYU, Utah, or TCU.

    University of Notre Dame

    Photo by Ryan Greenberg via Flick (Creative Commons)

    Growing up near the campus has secured me as a life-long fan. And as a life-long fan it has been a tough decade. As much as I liked Charlie Weis and was sad to see him let go I think everyone knew he had given up and didn’t have any solutions to get the Irish back to prominence.

    In came Brian Kelly. A proven winner at every level of college football yet desiring the one thing that has alluded him– a BCS Championship. He seems to have figured out what both Tyrone Willingham and Charlie Weis missed, that winning and losing is only half the battle in South Bend. More than just winning and losing, the head football coach in the ambassador of the county’s largest employer. It’s a very big deal that the locals like coach Kelly.

    Two categories separated Notre Dame from a BCS bowl appearance last year. Their pass defense was horrid. And their red zone TD percentage was embarrassing. As I’ve kept tabs on the news stories it has become clear that these were points of emphasis for the new coach. Let’s hope they can get in the top 50 in both of these categories.

    Coach Kelly’s offensive scheme doesn’t really depend on talent at every position. He’s always lacked talent and found ways to win. It’s a fast-paced style that will confuse most of their early opponents. Even if Dayne Crist is mediocre as a starting quarterback, TE Kyle Rudolph and WR Michael Floyd are NFL quality and will score a lot of points. The key to the offense working is preventing the defense from loading up outside the box and slowing down the pass game by successfully running the ball and controlling the clock. It concerns me that the Irish are weak at RB.

    Another concern about Notre Dame this year is their lack of away games. While Notre Dame is an amazing place to play college football, it is actually a tough place for the Irish to win because of the national TV coverage. They only go on the road to play Michigan State, Boston College, and USC. In recent years they have gotten pounded at those stadiums. Their only hope for those games is at USC. With fewer professional athletes on the field USC’s offense was fine last night, but giving up 36 points to Hawaii shows they are a joke. The tradition lately has been that first-year coaches win 10 games. But I think Kelly is on more of a Lou Holtz trajectory than a Tyrone Willingham one. With a new QB and a completely new system, I see the Irish struggling early and often. (Unless the pace just outsmarts people)

    My prediciton: They go 8-4 and advance to a the Gator Bowl to play Cincinnati. I think they start off their first 5 games 2-3 but rally later with a schedule that includes Navy, Army, Tulsa, and Western Michigan. I do think they beat Michigan and USC– which makes him a winner in South Bend no matter what.

    USC sidenote: Anyone give Kiffin more than 2 years? That dude’s mouth would make Bob Knight blush. And how many more weeks until the NCAA reveals that Pete Carroll is under investigation? I have a feeling they have the death penalty coming.

  • 5 Ways to Make Soccer More Exciting for Television

    Photo by adem80 via Flickr (Creative Commons)

    Yada. Yada. Yada. There are those who think that soccer is an amazing game for watching on television. But for the other 95.7% of Americans I have five ideas for making it more palatable to the American market.

    1. Make goals worth 7 points. We get that. A game that ends in 1-0 seems pointless. But a game that is 7-0 seems like a defensive battle. But not nearly as good as a 42-35 throw down.
    2. Every time a team scores a goal, they lose a player. With fewer players on the better teams that gives the poorer teams the chance to score more often. That means that the more goals that are scored, the fewer players on the field, and more opportunities to score. Another alternative would be to substitute a small child for a player each time a team scores a goal. About 6 years old seems right.
    3. Add a little hill near the middle line and get rid of the offsides rule. Make the hill reasonable… but it’s important that there is a sightline issue so that a hidden forward can lay low enough to cherry pick for an easy shot on goal.
    4. If a game goes to overtime add an additional ball every five minutes. I don’t mind the idea of playing an extra period. I just don’t want to watch a bunch of tired guys pass it around and wait for a shootout. If it’s still tied inside of 5 minutes in overtime, both managers get to play too.
    5. Eliminate the red card and substitute in a penalty box. All of the weenie flopping is hard to stomach. If there’s a hard foul, give the offender a 5 minute timeout. Americans love the aggressiveness of hockey. But the acting on display at the World Cup reminded us of a soap opera.

    These are my ideas for making soccer more interesting.

    What are yours?

  • Women’s Soccer Gone Wild

    Dang! Thankfully, the Mountain West Conference took care of this. I can’t believe the referees only gave her a yellow card for this. My guess is that her soccer career just ended.

  • Ode to MJ

    On Friday, the greatest player in basketball history was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Here’s the video of his speech:

    For those, who like me, think that Mr. Jordan is washed up beyond belief. This is a friendly reminder that he can probably still beat 99% of the population in a 1-on-1 game to 10.

  • Notre Dame Recap

    Heading into the big game at the Big House (the only week I cheer against Michigan football) the Fighting Irish looked pretty solid. Lots of offense, lots of defense, and an entire 4th quarter played by 2nd and 3rd stringers.

    I found this video on YouTube. Also pretty solid:

  • Bring on College Football

    It must be August because I’m starting to think a lot about football. How will my favorite teams do? How dumb will the bowls look in January and why don’t we have a playoff yet? Will I get to see any good games this season?

    San Diego State– Let’s start local. Last year the Aztecs were horrid. After almost picking off Notre Dame in their second game things went downhill in a hurry. I watched a couple of games on TV and they looked fairly helpless. The off-season brought a change at head coach when Brady Hoke was brought over from Ball State. He helped turn the perception on them from BS-U to Ball State. I’m hoping they will at least be competitive in the 2009 season. I threatened to do this last year but their home dates didn’t work well with NYWC… but this year there’s only one game I’d miss so I did bite the bullet and bought a season ticket package. At something like $7 per ticket it ended up being about the same price as going to a high school game… so why not? Maybe I can convince Megan and Paul that football is worth watching in the process?

    Notre Dame– I’ve got the Irish in my blood. Growing up just a stones throw from campus I’ve always had a thing for Notre Dame. Last season brought some hope back for 2009-2010. With nearly the entire team back and a very weak schedule, they should have a nice season. I think they will be 8-4 or 9-3. With their toughest road games being Michigan and Purdue, they really have a shot to do something memorable. The USC game gets interesting over the next 2 season as the Trojans begin to fall from dominence just as the Irish start to rise again. It’d be nice to string together 2-3 years of beating USC. I think they will lose to Purdue, USC, Washington State, and maybe Boston College. But I’ve been wrong before. As of right now I’m planning to see them take on the Cardinal of Stanford during Thanksgiving weekend. That’d be a great place to claim their BCS bid, wouldn’t it? But if they have a rough year and go 6-6, it’s the end of the Charlie Weis era for sure.

    Michigan/Michigan State– I still have an affinity for the Michigan teams. Other than the weeks they play Notre Dame I’ll watch and cheer for them. I think Michigan State should have a nice year. I’d love to see them earn a Rose Bowl invitiation. They are very athletic and fun to watch. I think Michigan still has a long way to go. I have a feeling that if Michigan doesn’t get to 8 wins they will fire their coach and continue the downward spiral that Notre Dame started 15 years ago. If you want to see a friendly schedule, look at Michigan. The furthest they travel is to Iowa and they don’t even leave the state of Michigan until week six. The Wolverines have a tough schedule of opponents this year despite the friendly home stands, I just don’t think they can compete against Notre Dame, Iowa, Michigan State, Wisconsin, or Ohio State. I hope they do better than 7-5, but I don’t foresee it.

    All-in-all, I’m not expecting any of my favorite teams to be contenders. The script is written for Tim Tebow’s Florida, Oklahoma, and USC. OK, let’s face it. I just hate USC. It would make my football season if Notre Dame can pull off a miracle and defeat them on October 17th.

  • Football, Church, and polls

    bowdenAugust 1st arrives and I find myself drawn to coverage of football. I’m not really into baseball. With 164 regular season games I struggle to care between April and September. The NBA playoffs last almost as long as the regular season so that has never interested me. March Madness is fantastic, but it only lasts a month. And I can’t get into watching hockey on TV so that is out. College football is, by far, my favorite sport to get into.

    The Pre-Season polls are starting to come out. This is the one thing that truly irks me about college football. So much is determined about the outcome of the football season before the ball is kicked off in September. It simply makes no sense to me that you pre-rank teams before they’ve played a game knowing that the polls will eventually determine who gets ot play in the national championship game. The same 25 teams are in the top 25 each fall. It’s as though the script for college football has already been written. Tim Tebow, back for his senior season, will play either Texas or Oklahoma for a national championship… depending on who wins the conference championship game. A playoff is the only thing that will fix this. And even that will be effected by pre-season polls.

    church-rankingsA few years back I was hanging out with some friends and we were discussing setting up a fantasy church league. You know, put out church rankings based on attendence, power of sermon, quality of worship service. Add to the mix some Church Center replays and postgame talk… we could probably get enough interest to put out weekly rankings. “Late in the sermon it looked like Craig Groeschell was losing his audience. Heads dipped and the internet interaction started to slow. But then he threw in an unexpected hail mary altar call and brought it down! What a pro finish!” or “John Piper’s delivery was flawless on Sunday. His precision in slicing and dicing that passage, tying in the joy application, that was a thing of beauty. Church Center play of the week nominee, for sure.” But then we thought it’d make the whole thing just weird if it blew up and pastors started spiking Bibles and dudes started getting endorsement deals. Can you imagine a postgame interview from Perry Noble? “First off, I need to give all the glory to Jesus Christ. Second of all, I couldn’t have done it without my Pepsi Worship Team and the Tommy Nelson Gospel Choir. Without them, we wouldn’t have won today.”

    Thankfully, we came to our senses on that one. The last thing anyone wants is for megachurches to start lobbying supporters for all-star votes!

    Football wouldn’t be the same without rankings. Church wouldn’t either.

  • Crazy bat trick

  • Ole`

    HT to Andy