But moving on thank you to my 3rd Period class for the personalized Christmas gift. Nothing says you look like a disoriented alcoholic with a busy schedule quite like a monogrammed flask. Well at least I know someone is reading the blog.
And finally are we done with the interminable Peanuts Christmas Specials anyway. A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's Christmastime, Charlie Brown, Charlie Brown's Christmas Tales, You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown...enough already. How 'bout making It's Called Alopecia, Charlie Brown. I mean he's 8 years old and has a hairline that makes Homer Simpson look like Ross from Friends...alright I'm better now, so let's get to football...
CFB
--This year's College Coaching Carousel reminds me of the movie Good Will Hunting where we are supposed to be excited because the lead character forsakes a life of fame and fortune to chase after his true love. But when it turns out that it's Minnie Driver's moon-face that has hit his eye like a big pizza pie...well, that's annoying.
Similiarly CFB writers are trying to stir up enthusiasm over the offseason hirings of retreads like Charlie Weis (Kansas) and Rich Rodriguez (Arizona) or unproven newcomers like Kevin Sumlin (Texas A&M) or Larry Fedora (North Carolina), but I'm not buying it. For my money though the offseason hire that may have the biggest immediate impact is one that has surprisingly flown under the radar-Mike Leach at Washington State.
Leach,as you may remember, was fired at Texas Tech for treating Craig James' son's concussion symptoms by keeping him locked in a closet like the love child of Anne Frank and Elian Gonzalez. One high profile lawsuit later and Leach was in the analyst booth, but it can't tarnish his record in Lubbock. Over 10 seasons Leach went 84-43, never missed a bowl and twice had the Red Raiders ranked in the Top 10 reaching as high as #2 in the latter half of the 2008 season.
The only problem was Leach's squads perenially fell short against the bigger, faster Blue Chip-laden powerhouses at Texas, Oklahoma and Nebraska against which he went 9-17. In the Pac-12 however this shouldn't be as much of a problem. This year the conference could not even fill its bowl allottment and with LaMichael James moving on at Oregon, Stanford finding itself Luck-less and USC still dealing with the Reggie Bush probation 2012 doesn't figure to be a dominant year out West.
The Cougars went a mere 4-8 in 2011, haven't topped .500 since 2003and will be breaking in an untested sophmore under center next year. But Leach has turned skinny nobody QBs like Kliff Kingsbury and Graham Harrell into NCAA record breakers so the potential is there for a turnaround in Pullman. They won't be BCS bowling, but still keep Washington State in mind as a potential play-on team in 2012. It's not worth chucking a Nobel Prize for, but even Minnie Driver's good for a roll in the hay every now and then.
Turning round a program like Washington State is never pretty.--On the list of the worst people of 2011 there's the New Jersey couple who had the youngest of their three children taken away when it was discovered he was named Adolph Hitler Campbell and then there's Todd Graham.
Last week Graham was named head coach of Arizona State after only one year at Pittsburgh in a move that could make Bobby Petrino look like George Halas.
Making this doubly bad is that Graham also pulled the same one and done stunt at his first job as HC of Rice which he left to take the job at Tulsa where he lasted a whopping 4 seasons before heading to Pitt. You can read all the ugly lies and promises here http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=pf-forde_graham_quits_pitt_asu_121511 and while we see a possible "Rise of the Third Tyke" in New Jersey Graham better hope he hits it big in the desert as his sincere then see-ya act will only last as long as he's a big winner.
--In case you missed it the Bowl season started yesterday and continues ad nauseum through mid-January. Fred of Fred's Picks will be tossing out an occasional play, but beyond that and some pithy commentary when warranted we're going to stick to covering the NFL. As for our own early observations with an eye toward posted lines we see two teams that we feel are outmatched physically in their games-Notre Dame and Stanford. The Irish played 2 teams this year, Michigan and USC, who could match the size speed balance of FSU and lost both, the latter badly. And while Florida State has no real dominant win this year they did finish up 6-1 after QB E.J. Manuel got healthy in mid-October with their only loss coming by 1 point to Virginia in a sandwich game between rivals Miami (FL) and Florida. The line currently stands at FSU -3.
And in the same vein Stanford proved to be little more than the right arm of Andrew Luck as they cruised through an embarrasingly easy early season slate only to get pole-axed for 103 points by the two most physically talented teams on their slate, USC and Oregon. Oklahoma State would be in the National Championship game, but for a inexplicable stumble vs. Iowa State and their survival in the high-flying Big 12 proves they have the speed that the Trojans and Ducks used to dominate Stanford offensively. The numbers are Okie State -4/74 in what could be the wildest shootout this side of a Slim Dunkin video set.
NFL
--First let me step out character to say thank you Tim Tebow for some exciting football...crappy football, yes...but nonetheless exciting.
Today Yahoo! Sports among others is billing the Pats-Broncos matchup as the Game of the Week and why not. There are plenty of other important tilts with playoff implications galore, but things won't be right in the world until we can explain or explain away this whole Tebow/Bronco mania.
Now usually I'm pretty good at this. Sure I overthink often and miss the obvious, but if it requires going outside the proverbial box I'm in my realm. For example when the answer was Ralph Manicotti in the Jeopardy! category Sitcoms everyone immediately thought "Who is Ralph Kramden's upstairs neighbor?" while I went with "What do the Olsen Twins do after eating Italian food?" An off-beat, but I'd argue equally correct response. Still there's really nothing I can come up with to justify this 6-1 Denver run other than coincidence meeting pure luck meeting shitty opponents in a house of cards that will come down sooner rather than later.
At 4 today in Denver we predict that collapse will come at the hands of Belichick and Brady. And if you're worried about the Pats D that got lit up for 463 yards by Rex Grossman and Washington last week don't be. First off the Patriots defensive problems come against the pass, but while Ron Jaworski was the Polish Rifle Tebow is more of the Mile High Musket taking his time between shots and ineffective at long range. Against the run New England is 11th overall and has held 8 of 13 opponents under 100 yards. Figure Belichick has some schemes prepared to mess up the spread-option and he may even have been preparing ahead of time which may explain the lackadaisacal effort vs. the Redskins.
The line is N.E. -7.5 and we'll have our pick below, but I don't care how much Tebowing the folks in Denver do this gridiron version of the Loaves and Fishes ends today.
Frankly it's late and I just liked this girl...yeah like I'm worried about sounding creepy at this point.--FRED'S PICK: And at 7-3-1 we're giving him all caps. Today's selection is the Jets +3 and for once in recent weeks we are skeptical. We agree the Jets should be able to move the ball via the ground on Philly, but after back-to-back weeks of 30+ points it just feels like Mark Sanchez is ready to go in the tank today. We thought we'd find some sort of home/away stat that would back this up, but we couldn't. Call it a hunch similiar to how we feel about the possibility of Michael Vick creating problems with his legs like Tebow did to the Jets late in the Thurday night game a few weeks back. Still Fred's on fire and we've been stabbing wildly so place your rooting interest accordingly.
--Today according to BeyondTheBets the public is pounding Green Bay and New Orleans. The Pack over K.C. is hard to argue with, but the Saints have had their road woes this year barely slipping past Carolina and losing outright to Tampa and St. Louis. They also get rival Atlanta next week with the division title on the line so don't discount Minny +7 or +8 there. Also remember Seneca Wallace starts today for Cleveland and while he's no long term fix he does have mobility and a career 80+ QB rate neither of which Colt McCoy possesses to this point so the hot Arizona Cardinals may not be a sure thing today. As for us New England and buy the hook down to -7. I can't keep writing about Tim Tebow every week. Hungover and humiliated.
Big Boobed Brits...when all else fails!
