Sunday, January 03, 2010

Sports Shorts (01/03/10)

Sugar Bowl: Florida 51, Cincinnati 24 - A game that wasn't as close as the lopsided score indicated. At no point in this game did Cincy come close to challenging Florida. Missing Kelly (who called the plays) really hurt the offense. Were this a first round game in the playoffs it'd be tolerable, instead....


Pappa Johns Bowl: Connecticut 20, South Carolina 7 - For a couple of years now I've been of the mind that Steve Spurrier needs to consider hanging it up. He's obviously not having fun, nor putting in a full day any longer. His team's bowl record is atrocious.


Jerruh er..Cotton Bowl: Ole Miss 21 Ok. State 7 - The Ok. State offense, sans Dez Bryant, looked painfully like the 2004 Texans offense helmed by David Carr with plays called by Joe Pendry. That's not to say that Ole Miss played worth a damn either. Neither team wanted to win this game, and the Rebels ended up on top almost by default. On another note, calling this game the "Cotton Bowl" while playing it in the Jerruh Dome didn't feel right at all.


Liberty Bowl: Arkansas 20 ECU 17 (OT) - Fans of both teams were considering burning their kickers in effigy after this game. Just another bad, boring bowl game thrown our way by a system that's designed to produce somnambulant television in the name of sponsorship dollars.


Rose Bowl: Ohio State 26, Oregon 17 - Good win by Ohio State, the wife was finally happy on Jan 1. More importantly, however, it illustrated how overrated the Pac-10 has been this year. The argument against giving the Mountain West conference an automatic B(C)S bid is that the bottom of their conference is weak. Here's the question: Is playing New Mexico State & New Mexico any weaker than playing Washington State & Arizona State? I'm not so sure. I can tell you that playing BYU and Utah is a tougher test than playing Oregon State and Arizona.


Alamo Bowl: Texas Tech 41, Michigan State 31 - Well, a win against 1/2 a team is better than no team at all I guess. I was glad for Ruffin McNeil and the players who didn't have anything to do with this mess, felt sorry for Mich St. and all of their players who weren't involved in their mess. Pathetic game site: Some middle-aged soccer mom holding up an anti-Adam James sign. A woman in her 50's cracking on a kid playing football? You stay classy Tech fan.


Armed Forces Bowl: Air Force 37, Houston 20 - A bad game for Case Keenum equates to a whuppin' for UH, whose hampered-by-five-years-of-bad-recruiting-during-the-Briles-era defense didn't have the quality of personnel to stand up to the Air Force running game. Amazingly, after a 10-win season I read several UH fans calling for coach Kevin Sumlin's firing. The choice to replace? Tommy Tuberville. Were I king of football I'd say yes, let Sumlin head to Ok. State, Tuberville go to UH and the Pokes could be competing for the Big xII championship while the Cougars receded into irrelevance once again.


More on those classy Tech fans.


Unfortunately, Wes Welker appears to be hurt and it doesn't look like a minor injury. That sucks.


The UFC pulled off a stunner of a card last night despite injury-cased doubts. They're really the only game in town, but they're still quite a game. (That being said I'd like to see more Japanese fights get some attention over here. They put on great shows in The Land of the Rising Sun.)