8:00 PM CSN Baltimore has video of Marcus Smith, a U.S. soldier who dressed as a minor league umpire to surprise his children at a Bowie Baysox game with a home visit from Afghanistan.
7:45 PM A Japanese Harley-Davidson motorcycle that was swept out to sea during last year's tsunami washed up on a shore in British Columbia last month. The bike's owner asked that the motorcycle be displayed at the Harley-Davidson Museum in Milwaukee as a memorial to the tsunami victims.
7:30 PM Buffalo Bills receiver David Clowneytweeted the results of his HIV test which came back negative. And to the critics of his decision to share his results, Clowney added: "Some people are Ridiculously stupid ... And can't see the bigger picture about things that are important in this world."
Sports media is abuzz today about the botched contract of Michael Crabtree, who Mike Florio of PFT reports will get a full $2M per year less than Darius Heyward-Bey.
For past two seasons, the once-mighty Michigan-Notre Dame rivalry has been mighty crappy. There was ND’s 35-17 wipeout of the Wolverines in South Bend last season, and then there was UM’s 38-0 a$$-whooping of the Irish in Ann Arbor the season before that. So you’d figure that today’s matchup in the Big House would be a big bore.
Big mistake to assume that. Like two aging heavyweights whose glory days appeared to have been behind them, Michigan & Notre Dame traded punches all afternoon (figurative, not literal) as the score see-sawed back & forth. But it was the Maize & Blue who managed the final knockout blow, as Tate Forcier tossed a 5-yard TD pass to Greg Matthews with 11 seconds left. So Hail to the Victors in a 38-34 thriller.
Dennis Hopper’s warnings from those admittedly awesome Nike commercials were an apt metaphor for the perils of Week 1 in college football. In this case, while Georgia and Virginia Tech couldn’t overcome tough opponents in hostile territory, Oklahoma was the real loser of the weekend.
(”Coach said to rub some dirt on it. Wait… we don’t have dirt; this is field turf! MEDIIIIIIC!”)
But first, about the Georgia loss: With the score 17-10 OSU in the third quarter, Zac Robinson led Justin Blackmon on a crossing route over the middle. The pass sailed and bounced off the receiver’s hands, at which point Blackmon was immediately met with a violent hit from safety Reshad Jones. Flags fly, unnecessary roughness call, 1st down for the Cowboys.
Except… that was, by all accounts, a legal hit. Jones had begun his move before the ball bounced off the receiver’s hands. His technique was legal: he didn’t lead with the helmet, just a high shoulder. But since he hit Blackman so hard and there’s the emphasis on caling unnecessary roughness, three flags fell at his feet. Even Matt Millen was apoplectic. After all… what the hell was Jones supposed to do? Not play defense? If Blackmon makes that catch and Jones lets up, Jones probably loses his starting role for bitching out and being afraid of contact. It was an idiotic call and a bad precedent for the rest of college football. Video is after the break.
And we thought the worst news to come from Oklahoma State this week would be their refusal to hold a pregame handshake with Georgia. But it turns out a former Cowboys TE is facing rape allegations.
Jamal Mosley had left the OSU program on Tuesday, due to what coach Mike Gundy called “personal reasons”. But those reasons were apparently tied to Mosley supposedly sexually assaulting two women at two different times.
Nice to see the college football season get off to such a dramatic start. Actually, it wasn’t that nice to see Oregon RB LeGarrette Blount slug Boise State DE Byron Hout after Thursday night’s contest. The whole ironic thing about Blount bopping Byron is that the game began with a ceremonial handshake between Ducks & Broncos players - a gesture designed to help promote sportsmanship.
But seeing how such a show of goodwill concluded with a player coldclocking an opponent, Georgia and Oklahoma State have decided not to hold their own pregame handshake.
The conventional wisdom is that the Pac-10 was having an exceedingly down year. In fact, that’s probably the main reason that USC was left out of the National Championship discussion: their one loss against a Pac-10 school was far worse than a loss to an SEC or Big 12 team.
So what do we make of Oregon’s 42-31 victory over Oklahoma State in last night’s Holiday Bowl? Yes, the Ducks featured an explosive offense, which you would expect from an Oregon team and is apparently mandatory to play in the Holiday Bowl. But the story was their defense in the second half, which put the clamps on the Cowboys’ star QB Zac Robinson.
It was just a big day all around for Oregon sports teams. Along with the Ducks winning the Holiday Bowl, the Portland Trail Blazers did the improbable on Tuesday night, taking out the defending champion Boston Celtics 91-86 without the services of injured All-Star guard Brandon Roy.
Keeping in mind it might be foolish for the Celtics to start panicking now - they are still 28-5 - but they have lost three of four. Oh hell, where the fun of having a sense of perspective: between this, the Patriots missing the playoffs and the Red Sox getting rejected by Mark Teixeira, let’s start wildly speculating about the end of the Boston sports dynasty.
Other sports news that happened as you prepare to get your drank on tonight:
LeBron James’ birthday wasn’t as successful as he would have liked, as he lost his showdown with Dwayne Wade’s Heat 104-95. Somehow you excuse me if I’m not too sympathetic. Still, the game was a lot of fun to watch - NESW SPORTS has highlights of some impressive blocks each superstar had during the game:
Most coaches are petrified of their players getting distracted by the glitz and parties that surround bowl games, especially if they are some place exciting like Miami. Which explains why the CINCINNATI ENQUIRER says Bearcats head coach Brian Kelly is debating moving his team from the hotel they are staying at ahead of the Orange Bowl because Sean “P. Diddy” Combs is having a New Year’s Eve party there.
DIME WARS has awesome video of the Pistons’ Rasheed Wallace doing what he does best: taunting and baiting NBA referees. What can you say? The man is the best of all time.
Wrestling legend/sock afficianado Mick Foley is upset with a Sports Illustrated review of the new movie “The Wrestler” that compared him to a homeless person, and he’s written an open letter on the TNA WRESTLING Web site about it. And then, for some reason, he fell 30 feet through three flaming tables to prove his point.
The LA TIMES reports that UCLA defensive coordinator DeWayne Walker, long considered to be a prime candidate for a head coaching job somewhere, is finally going to get his chance at New Mexico State. Of the seven African American head coaches in the FBS, two are in the state of New Mexico.
More from the Danny Villa mess: the BOSTON HERALD says that his wife has filed divorce papers against the disgraced former NFL player and HS football coach accused of raping an underage student. Hope he has a good divorce lawyer.
Against the wall, Texas Tech rallied to beat Baylor, 35-28, and hold serve in the growing madness that is the Big 12 South, effectively passing the buck to Oklahoma in Stillwater, Okla., tonight on ABC. Of course, there’s a pretty decent chance that Oklahoma State could upset the Sooners, which would send the Red Raiders to the Big 12 title game off the least impressive win a Mike Leach-coached team has had in a long time.
(Oklahoma and Baylor have smoked out Texas Tech as a pretender.)
Considering the fact that Baylor finished at 4-8, and that they’re most impressive win came against Iowa State, that’s not saying much. The Red Raiders had to rally for 21 points to squeak past the Bears … at home. Needless to say, this isn’t quite the same team that beat Texas and obliterated Oklahoma State three weeks ago.
Making things worse, Michael Crabtree had to be carted off the sideline with a right foot injury in the first half, and didn’t return, sitting out the second half in a walking boot. Naturally, all of this begs the question: If Oklahoma loses, could Texas Tech lose the Big 12 title game to Missouri? And even if they win, can voters really justify vaulting them above Texas in the polls and the BCS rankings?
Should Oklahoma State find a way to get by Texas Tech tonight, we’ll be set up for one of the great rivalry games in years when Oklahoma visits Stillwater in three weeks. Heck, even if the Cowboys don’t beat the Red Raiders tonight, it will still be a game that could decided the champion of the Big 12 South.
(Feel the excitement, Cowpokes!)
Good luck getting in to the game, though. I mean, it’s gotta be sold out, right? Actually, no. In fact, there’s at least 15,000 tickets available right now, and the way things are going, most of those 15,000 seats will still be empty on game day. Whaaaaaa?
Oklahoma State played like the second-best team in the nation this afternoon. There was one tiny problem, however, with Oklahoma State’s virtuoso performance, and that is that they were facing the best team, Texas. The Cowboys’ feisty resistance kept them in the game all day long, and Texas was only able to escape, 28-24, after a last-second Hail Mary fell harmlessly to the turf, batted down at the 10-yard line. Sure, superman WR Dez Bryant had gotten past the Texas secondary, but that’s mainly because the secondary was playing the ball, which was nowhere near Bryant when it came back down to earth. It was a gritty, gutty fight on both sides, though, certainly a better fight than (ahem) Oklahoma put up, and only the most careless of pollsters will drop Oklahoma State more than a spot or two for this loss.
Elsewhere in college football this afternoon… Read more…
