The first day of any season for any sport offers one thing for every team: optimism. Every team starts on even ground. Despite every prediction, every past record, every player transition, no prediction can accurately measure what the future holds for each team. This is true more so in professional football more so than any other sport. The National Football League breeds parity. Every 3-13 and 4-12 has the hope of a rags to riches story. Every 13-3 or 12-4 team can feel the ground beneath them crumbling, even if they appear to be standing on ten feet of solid concrete. Unlike basketball or baseball, every professional football team has a realistic shot at the Super Bowl. How many Kurt Warner, Tom Brady stories are out there in basketball and baseball? How many running backs emerge from obscurity to rattle off a 1,500 yard, 12 touchdown season? The National Football League breeds parity. In baseball, even though there are teams like the Giants and the Rays who make a run, year in and year out the contenders are always the teams that spend money. In basketball, the notion is that teams need to take their “playoff lumps” and need to learn how to “win” in the playoffs. In football, everything from the past is thrown out and taken with a grain of salt. Random teams make unthinkable runs. Stars are born and stars die with reckless abandon. The football field is a battle field, and mental strength outweighs physical strength.
All 32 teams have a shot at being crowned champion. As unrealistic as that sounds, take the tormented Buffalo Bills, a team that may have finished in the bottom of the pile, but a team that nonetheless went toe-to-toe with countless playoff teams, and the only thing that separated glory from despair is those bad breaks that haunt every unlucky team, and luck goes hand-in-hand with strength. Every team that is able to stick around through the New Year has many instances of the ball bouncing the right way, a fumble bouncing right into the arms of a teammate, a punt resting perfectly inside the 5 yard line instead of squirming into the end zone. It's more than skill that separates the good from the bad, and the cliché “that's the way the ball bounces” rings true in the sport that features such an oblong ball. Lightning doesn't strike in the same place twice can be revamped for football speak into a football doesn't bounce the same way twice.
Is it even important to make predictions for the National Football League? If my predictions ring true is it something I can put on my resume for future sports writing jobs, saying that I've hammered 73% of my predictions year in and year out? In that case I should switch back to gambling on sports, which is something I'm definitely not opposed to now that I have steady money coming into my bank account.
I will say this though, I hope the Patriots win the Super Bowl, so Tom Brady can fully establish the claim as “Greatest Quarterback Ever”, which is something I will fully discuss at the proper time and place. I hope the Colts do terrible and Peyton Manning doesn't play, but not bad enough that they get the first pick and the rights to Andrew Luck. Then again, the Colts weren't very lucky, pun intended, the last time they tried taking the “sure-thing” quarterback prospect from Stanford. I have no hopes for the Vikings, and expect them to win 5 games this year and Adrian Peterson bolts in free agency. I hope Colin Kaepernick gets a chance to showcase the skills I've come to witness at Nevada. Other than that, the only thing I hope for from the NFL is that it continues the trend that it has established over the past decade: that each season is better than the last.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
College Football, and a new favorite
To paraphrase some Tecca Nina, it feels as though I haven't written in a column since 2001. Then again, I did write a few words on sports when I worked at the Elko Independent, so there's that. Anyway, I figured what better time to start up writing again right as the first week of college football wrapped up and the pros are starting in about fifty hours. Approximate from whenever you read this. This first column will be college football talk and I'll have my pro talk tomorrow.
First thing's first though, I would like to welcome myself onto the good graces of the Notre Dame bandwagon. Throughout the past, I've done nothing but hated on Notre Dame. I hated Charlie Weis, I hated Brady Quinn, I rejoiced when they lost. My vehement hatred peaked, or I guess for Notre Dame... whatever the opposite of peaked is, when Reggie Bush bulldozed Matt Leinart from behind into the end zone.
Why all this hate? I really have no viable explanation other than I loved going against not only one of my good friend's teams, but also her university. As my hatred mounted, what really gave way was my undeniable jealousy. I didn't hate Notre Dame, I was jealous that my friend went there.
Back to the story, I've always had a favorite team for professional sports. I even have a favorite Major League Soccer and English Premier league team, even if they are the Yankee/Cowboy version of soccer teams. I've always been a UNR fan (for the layperson that's University of Nevada-Reno), but I've always known there was no way that they could compete for a national title. So I found myself cheering almost objectively for the cream of the crop in college football and basketball, taking each game on a case-by-case basis and cheering for who my heart wanted to win, not to get all Notebook/Walk To Remember when talking about football.
About two and a half years ago, I blogged about my search for a favorite college basketball team. I settled on UCLA but that went about as well as... something that didn't go that well I guess (I'm definitely in mid-season form with my puns and metaphors here, maybe I should write more often...). That lead me to thinking, “Well, I don't really want to be a UCLA basketball fan and then have another college I root for solely for football.” My logic here was that it wasn't very logical to have to not only buy memorabilia from multiple colleges, but also have all of this memorabilia. I know I've been in college for a fairly long time, but still, my wardrobe shouldn't reflect that.
Of course, I will and forever be a huge UNR fan with anything they do. If I catch word about UNRs tiddly-winks team I'll cheer for them till my face turns blue. The point here is that I want to have my UNR homerism/fandom, because that not only reflects my love for the college and their athletics, but it also represents me being a true, blue and silver Nevadan (Sorry Vegas, but for one, even though your color scheme of red and silver kinda meshes, it definitely is not as good as blue and silver. Plus, UNRs, logo and jerseys altogether are some of the best in college sports. I'll match the Wolf Pack logo with any another big time school. It's just bad ass. Plus, even though Nevada's never really been this widely, successful athletic university, their jerseys and colors don't reflect that. It's not like they're hopping off the bus wearing Eastern Carolina uniforms with a logo that would come straight out of a fictional movie like New Mexico State's. Point being, if Nevada ever became a powerhouse like Boise, they have the logo and color scheme to at least look the part. Oh, and to complete my tangent, The Runnin' Rebels just sounds old. Vegas should take a page from the Tampa Bay Rays and call themselves the Las Vegas Rebels. Or take it a step further, as I suggested the Rays should just be the Tampa Rays, Vegas should be known simply as the Vegas Rebels).
Yes, UNR has had flashes in both football and basketball. I can remember the Kirk Snyder Sweet 16 run, the Nick Fazekas era and getting a top-25 ranking in basketball. Colin Kaepernick is my all-time favorite college football athlete ever. But all in all, UNR just isn't in that position to fully establish themselves in the world of college sports. Yes, Boise has, but I just don't think that UNR is in that position to take the steps that Boise made that led them to being a top-10 program.
Simply put, when it gets to January, I want to have a team that has a realistic shot at playing in a BCS bowl year in and year out. Take a quick look at a little over the past decade, which is about how long the BCS has ran. Ohio State has been around for the past decade. Florida State has at least been competitive. LSU, USC, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Florida, Texas and Auburn. There's nine teams off the top of my head (and I can only go off the top of my head for now cause I can't get on the internet while I'm writing this) that since the inception of the BCS have played in multiple BCS games or have at least had a shot at competing. Really only Florida State on that list is the only team that couldn't be grouped in the “Multiple BCS game” group. Nebraska is slowly making their way back there, and Penn State always is frisky for no reason other than it's Penn State and Joe Pa and they seem to either win double digit games or lose double digit games. I can realistically find a team that will be able to compete for at least a BCS bowl game, and that's not that bad of a let down considering the BCS can go any way. I don't want to have to pick a team and jump on the bandwagon each season. Wisconsin would have been my team for that this year. But where does that leave me? I hate bandwagon jumpers, but yet I've done nothing but jump on bandwagons following college sports.
Where does this leave basketball? Well, when it gets to March Madness, I want to have a team I can follow when it gets to March. Yes, there is nothing better than March Madness, and I think the entire GBC apartment complex can attest to just how crazy it got this past March (in an homage to Aqua Teen, we had the Quad-Screen going with four games on four different screens all going at once). But there was always something that felt a little distant. I would see those true fans sitting in the stands on TV with the same emotion that I used to have seeping through my pores during high school pep rallies.
I want that feeling again. I don't want to continually lie my head on my pillow wearing a USC, or Oklahoma, or Texas hat because those were the teams I picked to win a meaningless game, only to wake up feeling like I would after a one night stand. I want to go through the whole rigamarole that I do with my favorite professional teams, and experience the payoff at the end of following the team the entire season (Oh, wait, the closest I've had to experiencing the actual payoff from following a team unconditionally is when the Pens won the Stanley Cup a few years back, only now I'm basically in a coma waiting in limbo and the only way I'll come out of this coma is when Sid steps out on the ice for the first time in who knows how long). To quote Holden McNiel, “When, Lord, when? When's gonna be my time?!”
So that's my rationale for wanting to pick, what I call my “favorite team that actually has a shot at winning a championship with no disrespect to UNR because I'll love them forever” team. If that makes sense. Now that I've placed out my rationale and reasoning, which only has to make sense to me, I then had to pick a team. When it came to that, I'm a huge fan of tradition and history, as pointless as that may sound (let's face it look at how well baseball has fared following the “tradition and history” of the game”), I think it applies to individual sports team far more better than the sport itself. When I'm picking teams to start dynasties with on Madden or NBA 2K, I tend to pick teams that have been around for awhile and have some tradition and history. Case in point, I want to pick a college team that has some tradition and history. Sorry, Auburn, but you're just not that historical enough.
Is there any college team that has more tradition and history than Notre Dame? Of course with college football, but even basketball? Wait, does Notre Dame have tradition in basketball? Even if Notre Dame basketball has no tradition, the football program alone gets them a total score of 10/10 on my hypothetical scale.
Aside from tradition, I had a revelation and epiphany and a whatever other synonym for those two words when I was watching the Notre Dame/USF game. To explain this, I'll provide a little history lesson. A few years ago, I remember reading or hearing reports about how Florida State football recruits were able to D-Rose the system and get by the whole SAT/ACT scores and grades thing. Whatever that is. There were FSU football players who had IQ scores in the 70s. Well, that's definitely not something I would condone. Also, this whole Miami, Ohio State, Auburn scandal and issues really got my gears grinding. I would definitely not want to associate myself even as just a mere fan with football programs that are mired in controversies and scandals. And it's not like I'm even going to be a student at one of these schools, I'm just a fan.
Say what you want about the Catholic Church, but I just realized, during pregame of the Notre Dame/USF game, that they condone everything that I would in a university. Years from now, when I have a high profile football recruit as a son, or a few of them hopefully, I would want them to go to Notre Dame or a school like Notre Dame (that list for “schools like Notre Dame” is basically Notre Dame, Penn St or Stanford I guess). This is the football/basketball program for me. Plus they have bitchin outfits and logos.
Shoot, I've already attended some sort of rally for people who like Notre Dame or went to Notre Dame or are somehow associated with Notre Dame about five years ago in Reno. That's gotta count for something.
Quick Hits:
I wouldn't care if Boise St beat Georgia by 50, fact is, over the past two and a half years Georgia has been nothing but a .500, mediocre football team. 14-13 in their past 27 games. It's not like Boise was playing in Cowboys Stadium this past weekend against another top 5 team. Georgia's not even top 5 in their conference.
I apologize in advance for any Notre Dame fan, as teams/players that I'm fans of basically have derailed over the past few years. Joe Mauer's legs, Justin Morneau's entire body, Rubio is basically a back-up point-guard for a Big 10 team at this point, Sidney's head, Brett Favre. Let's just say I feel partly responsible for Notre Dame's performance, and I think it was Touchdown Jesus telling me personally to not root for Notre Dame with the whole lightning storm thing.
Would anyone believe me if I said that when I listed LSU as my Top-5 team that won't be ranked at the end of the season, that I actually debated pretty hard about listing that team as Oregon? It was basically going to be the loser of the LSU/Oregon game, and of course I thought Oregon was going to win, so therefore I listed LSU as that team, but I really did debate putting Oregon as that team.
Speaking of LSU, all you need to do to beat Oregon is match their speed, which is something that plenty of SEC teams can do. Auburn proved this. LSU strengthened the argument. Considering the Pac-12 isn't fielding the fastest teams, I think an asterisk needs to put on Oregon.
Having said that, let's not just so fast to ranking LSU 2nd in the land. Slow down. Oklahoma and Bama are at least, at this point, more stable than LSU is. Nobodies going to have a clue how those dudes who got arrested are going to affect the team from here on out.
Besides that, uh, I can't wait for the Notre Dame/Michigan match, as well as UNRs season opener.
First thing's first though, I would like to welcome myself onto the good graces of the Notre Dame bandwagon. Throughout the past, I've done nothing but hated on Notre Dame. I hated Charlie Weis, I hated Brady Quinn, I rejoiced when they lost. My vehement hatred peaked, or I guess for Notre Dame... whatever the opposite of peaked is, when Reggie Bush bulldozed Matt Leinart from behind into the end zone.
Why all this hate? I really have no viable explanation other than I loved going against not only one of my good friend's teams, but also her university. As my hatred mounted, what really gave way was my undeniable jealousy. I didn't hate Notre Dame, I was jealous that my friend went there.
Back to the story, I've always had a favorite team for professional sports. I even have a favorite Major League Soccer and English Premier league team, even if they are the Yankee/Cowboy version of soccer teams. I've always been a UNR fan (for the layperson that's University of Nevada-Reno), but I've always known there was no way that they could compete for a national title. So I found myself cheering almost objectively for the cream of the crop in college football and basketball, taking each game on a case-by-case basis and cheering for who my heart wanted to win, not to get all Notebook/Walk To Remember when talking about football.
About two and a half years ago, I blogged about my search for a favorite college basketball team. I settled on UCLA but that went about as well as... something that didn't go that well I guess (I'm definitely in mid-season form with my puns and metaphors here, maybe I should write more often...). That lead me to thinking, “Well, I don't really want to be a UCLA basketball fan and then have another college I root for solely for football.” My logic here was that it wasn't very logical to have to not only buy memorabilia from multiple colleges, but also have all of this memorabilia. I know I've been in college for a fairly long time, but still, my wardrobe shouldn't reflect that.
Of course, I will and forever be a huge UNR fan with anything they do. If I catch word about UNRs tiddly-winks team I'll cheer for them till my face turns blue. The point here is that I want to have my UNR homerism/fandom, because that not only reflects my love for the college and their athletics, but it also represents me being a true, blue and silver Nevadan (Sorry Vegas, but for one, even though your color scheme of red and silver kinda meshes, it definitely is not as good as blue and silver. Plus, UNRs, logo and jerseys altogether are some of the best in college sports. I'll match the Wolf Pack logo with any another big time school. It's just bad ass. Plus, even though Nevada's never really been this widely, successful athletic university, their jerseys and colors don't reflect that. It's not like they're hopping off the bus wearing Eastern Carolina uniforms with a logo that would come straight out of a fictional movie like New Mexico State's. Point being, if Nevada ever became a powerhouse like Boise, they have the logo and color scheme to at least look the part. Oh, and to complete my tangent, The Runnin' Rebels just sounds old. Vegas should take a page from the Tampa Bay Rays and call themselves the Las Vegas Rebels. Or take it a step further, as I suggested the Rays should just be the Tampa Rays, Vegas should be known simply as the Vegas Rebels).
Yes, UNR has had flashes in both football and basketball. I can remember the Kirk Snyder Sweet 16 run, the Nick Fazekas era and getting a top-25 ranking in basketball. Colin Kaepernick is my all-time favorite college football athlete ever. But all in all, UNR just isn't in that position to fully establish themselves in the world of college sports. Yes, Boise has, but I just don't think that UNR is in that position to take the steps that Boise made that led them to being a top-10 program.
Simply put, when it gets to January, I want to have a team that has a realistic shot at playing in a BCS bowl year in and year out. Take a quick look at a little over the past decade, which is about how long the BCS has ran. Ohio State has been around for the past decade. Florida State has at least been competitive. LSU, USC, Oklahoma, Virginia Tech, Florida, Texas and Auburn. There's nine teams off the top of my head (and I can only go off the top of my head for now cause I can't get on the internet while I'm writing this) that since the inception of the BCS have played in multiple BCS games or have at least had a shot at competing. Really only Florida State on that list is the only team that couldn't be grouped in the “Multiple BCS game” group. Nebraska is slowly making their way back there, and Penn State always is frisky for no reason other than it's Penn State and Joe Pa and they seem to either win double digit games or lose double digit games. I can realistically find a team that will be able to compete for at least a BCS bowl game, and that's not that bad of a let down considering the BCS can go any way. I don't want to have to pick a team and jump on the bandwagon each season. Wisconsin would have been my team for that this year. But where does that leave me? I hate bandwagon jumpers, but yet I've done nothing but jump on bandwagons following college sports.
Where does this leave basketball? Well, when it gets to March Madness, I want to have a team I can follow when it gets to March. Yes, there is nothing better than March Madness, and I think the entire GBC apartment complex can attest to just how crazy it got this past March (in an homage to Aqua Teen, we had the Quad-Screen going with four games on four different screens all going at once). But there was always something that felt a little distant. I would see those true fans sitting in the stands on TV with the same emotion that I used to have seeping through my pores during high school pep rallies.
I want that feeling again. I don't want to continually lie my head on my pillow wearing a USC, or Oklahoma, or Texas hat because those were the teams I picked to win a meaningless game, only to wake up feeling like I would after a one night stand. I want to go through the whole rigamarole that I do with my favorite professional teams, and experience the payoff at the end of following the team the entire season (Oh, wait, the closest I've had to experiencing the actual payoff from following a team unconditionally is when the Pens won the Stanley Cup a few years back, only now I'm basically in a coma waiting in limbo and the only way I'll come out of this coma is when Sid steps out on the ice for the first time in who knows how long). To quote Holden McNiel, “When, Lord, when? When's gonna be my time?!”
So that's my rationale for wanting to pick, what I call my “favorite team that actually has a shot at winning a championship with no disrespect to UNR because I'll love them forever” team. If that makes sense. Now that I've placed out my rationale and reasoning, which only has to make sense to me, I then had to pick a team. When it came to that, I'm a huge fan of tradition and history, as pointless as that may sound (let's face it look at how well baseball has fared following the “tradition and history” of the game”), I think it applies to individual sports team far more better than the sport itself. When I'm picking teams to start dynasties with on Madden or NBA 2K, I tend to pick teams that have been around for awhile and have some tradition and history. Case in point, I want to pick a college team that has some tradition and history. Sorry, Auburn, but you're just not that historical enough.
Is there any college team that has more tradition and history than Notre Dame? Of course with college football, but even basketball? Wait, does Notre Dame have tradition in basketball? Even if Notre Dame basketball has no tradition, the football program alone gets them a total score of 10/10 on my hypothetical scale.
Aside from tradition, I had a revelation and epiphany and a whatever other synonym for those two words when I was watching the Notre Dame/USF game. To explain this, I'll provide a little history lesson. A few years ago, I remember reading or hearing reports about how Florida State football recruits were able to D-Rose the system and get by the whole SAT/ACT scores and grades thing. Whatever that is. There were FSU football players who had IQ scores in the 70s. Well, that's definitely not something I would condone. Also, this whole Miami, Ohio State, Auburn scandal and issues really got my gears grinding. I would definitely not want to associate myself even as just a mere fan with football programs that are mired in controversies and scandals. And it's not like I'm even going to be a student at one of these schools, I'm just a fan.
Say what you want about the Catholic Church, but I just realized, during pregame of the Notre Dame/USF game, that they condone everything that I would in a university. Years from now, when I have a high profile football recruit as a son, or a few of them hopefully, I would want them to go to Notre Dame or a school like Notre Dame (that list for “schools like Notre Dame” is basically Notre Dame, Penn St or Stanford I guess). This is the football/basketball program for me. Plus they have bitchin outfits and logos.
Shoot, I've already attended some sort of rally for people who like Notre Dame or went to Notre Dame or are somehow associated with Notre Dame about five years ago in Reno. That's gotta count for something.
Quick Hits:
I wouldn't care if Boise St beat Georgia by 50, fact is, over the past two and a half years Georgia has been nothing but a .500, mediocre football team. 14-13 in their past 27 games. It's not like Boise was playing in Cowboys Stadium this past weekend against another top 5 team. Georgia's not even top 5 in their conference.
I apologize in advance for any Notre Dame fan, as teams/players that I'm fans of basically have derailed over the past few years. Joe Mauer's legs, Justin Morneau's entire body, Rubio is basically a back-up point-guard for a Big 10 team at this point, Sidney's head, Brett Favre. Let's just say I feel partly responsible for Notre Dame's performance, and I think it was Touchdown Jesus telling me personally to not root for Notre Dame with the whole lightning storm thing.
Would anyone believe me if I said that when I listed LSU as my Top-5 team that won't be ranked at the end of the season, that I actually debated pretty hard about listing that team as Oregon? It was basically going to be the loser of the LSU/Oregon game, and of course I thought Oregon was going to win, so therefore I listed LSU as that team, but I really did debate putting Oregon as that team.
Speaking of LSU, all you need to do to beat Oregon is match their speed, which is something that plenty of SEC teams can do. Auburn proved this. LSU strengthened the argument. Considering the Pac-12 isn't fielding the fastest teams, I think an asterisk needs to put on Oregon.
Having said that, let's not just so fast to ranking LSU 2nd in the land. Slow down. Oklahoma and Bama are at least, at this point, more stable than LSU is. Nobodies going to have a clue how those dudes who got arrested are going to affect the team from here on out.
Besides that, uh, I can't wait for the Notre Dame/Michigan match, as well as UNRs season opener.
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