Maddux Sports Blog

- Dave Wannstedt death watch? - Pitt was ranked to start the season (for no good reason, but that’s another story), but they did what they have done in the entire Wannstedt era - they disappointed. Bowling Green is among the elite in an underappreciated MAC, and they delivered a real setback to a Big East conference that already struggles for respect. Surely Pitt won’t tolerate the ceaseless mediocrity of this coaching regime for much longer.

- Virginia Tech was my pick to win the ACC. That could still happen, but not if they keep doing what they did on Saturday. Nine point favorites do not lose to teams like East Carolina. Don’t get me wrong - I respect East Carolina. There’s just absolutely no reason why a supposedly legitimate team like the Hokies should get themselves in a position like this. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt good about trusting the Hokies. Come to think of it, I’m not sure that I ever really have.

- Speaking of the ACC, it is just not going to be a very good league this year. That’s the only conclusion to draw after seeing Alabama crush the life out of Clemson, a team that some thought would be in the national title picture. There’s a lot to take from this game, but the biggest question I have is when was the last time that a team coached by a Bowden lived up to its potential.

- Jim Tressel probably almost choked on his sweater vest when he saw Beanie Wells go down with an injury. The x-rays are negative and it appears that he will be fine, but that certainly won’t do anything to address the concerns about fragility that people have about Wells. If the guys from Youngstown State can make him break then what happens when he faces the beasts that USC has?

- Michigan. Ugh. I knew that there were going to be speed bumps on the road to a national championship under Rodriguez, but I’m not sure I was totally braced for that. It wasn’t that close, and it could have been even worse if Utah had have been more disciplined and had have avoided some of the costly penalties that they took. It could be a long year for me and the rest of us who bleed blue and maize. I guess I can take solace in the fact that the second half was much better, and we showed signs of life throughout. Mostly, it was just the continuous sacrificing of the big play on defense in the first half that was the problem. The silver lining in the dark cloud is that if we can play that troubled a game and only lose by two then there is hope. It will just take patience to realize that hope.

- I guess Florida, Ohio State, Arizona State, South Florida, and Georgia all looked good, but I don’t think that playing patsies can teach us anything at all. USC and others like them deserve credit for avoiding the temptation to schedule a pseudo-exhibition game or two.

- Missouri got a big win over Illinois, but this shouldn’t turn people entirely off of the Illini. Their defense wasn’t up to the test of the Tigers, but then few teams would be. What we did learn was that Juice Williams is certainly ready to take his game to the next level - he had 458 yards passing and five touchdowns. The team is coping with life without Rashard Menenhall, but if they can find a running game somewhere then they can make some noise in a Big Ten that is open for someone to claim number two.

1. Georgia might be first now, but they aren’t going to still be there by January.
2. Matthew Stafford will not be the number one pick in the draft.
3. USC has not been profitable against the spread in three seasons. I don’t expect that to change.
4. Notre Dame’s bug season is not going to materialize this year, and Charlie Weis is going to be in trouble because of it.
5. Missouri is the real deal. Their schedule doesn’t have a lot of obvious losses on it. None, really. Two games should be tough, two more could be a problem if they don’t have their act together, and the rest should be wins. Missouri is a real contender.
6. The winner of the Ohio State - USC game will play in the national championship
7. Michigan will win nine games this year. I wouldn’t touch them ATS, though.
8. West Virginia will not be in the BCS.
9. BYU will run the table ad be in the BCS.
10. Tim Tebow will not repeat as Heisman winner.
11. Colorado will be the best team with a bad record in the country. Their schedule is absolutely brutal, but they will continue to improve.
12. Stanford will finish higher than UCLA in the Pac-10 standings.
13. Nick Saban will annoy me at least 37 times this season. Charlie Weis and Jim Tressel will exceed that total. Steve Spurrier won’t quite make it to 37 times, but he’ll be close.
14. South Florida will win the Big East
15. Virginia Tech will win the ACC
16. Ohio State and USC are absolutel locks to win their conferences
17. Missouri will win the Big 12
18. I’ll take Florida in the SEC, but I don’t feel too good about it
19. Dan LeFevour of Central Michigan will, once again, be the most underappreciated player in the country.
20. Arizona State will lose twice, but will look very good otherwise and will be a tough bowl opponent.
21. It’s going to be a really long year for LSU.
22. Hawaii won’t be very good, but they will be much better ATS than they were last year.
23. Joe Paterno will be forced to retire after yet another frustratingly mediocre season.
24. This is the last season in a long while that Lane Kiffin won’t be a college coach.

It is so, so, so great to have college football back underway. I never really realize just how much I miss it until it is back again. As I said yesterday, I went to the Buffalo-UTEP game. It wasn’t an all-time clasic, but it was thoroughly entertaining. My quick notes:

1. Parking was free at the stadium, it wasn’t that far away, and it was easy to get into and out of. All of those things were a first for me.

2. Buffalo is going to be tough in the MAC this year. Drew Willy passed for four touchdowns, including two long beauties right on the mark. He was very accurate and very solid last year, and he seems to have moved forward this year. James Starks is a ferocious running back who just keeps finding ways to get open. This team is going to be able to score a ton, and their defense has potential. I am surprisingly bullish on them.

3. Mike Price came out of the tunnel about four feet from our seats and tried to fire his team up at the start of the second half. It didn’t work - they scored three points in the half and lost 42-17. Price looked like a guy who was sick of being a coach and just wasn’t into the game. I think his days are numbered in El Paso and perhaps in the game. The team certainly doesn’t look to be benefitting from his experience.

4. There are few things simultaneously more frustrating and stimulating than sweating a close total. Though it eventually dropped to 56.5, I had the total in this game at 58.5 because I had to get it before I traveled. With less than five minutes left UB was up 35-17 and was just killing the clock by running on every possession. They started well within their own zone. They moved it okay, but always took three downs to get the first. The game was long since over, but I desperately needed that last meaningless score. It was the kind of fun only a sports bettor can understand and love.

5. UTEP lost badly on the field, but they won the cheerleader contest so easily that t wasn’t even fair.

6. Turner Gill might as well put his house on the market now, because there is no way he will still be in Buffalo next season. Much bigger fish will be beckoning him.

There were, of course, lots of other games on the schedule last night. As I perused the stat sheets to see what I had missed, a few things popped out:

1. How the mighty have fallen - Last year Ryan Perrilloux was the MVP of the SEC championship game. This year his unknown, irrelevant team got crushed by Georgia Tech and their new, annoyingly gimmicky offense.

2. South Carolina crushed NC State 34-0, but that score doesn’t tell the real story. SC looked pretty scary at times, wth four interceptions and some sloppy play. They benefited from playing a terrible team, but they have some work to do before they are ready for prime time. This score will inflate their line next week thanks to the public, too, so I will be especially careful in dealing with them.

3. Vanderbilt at Miami of Ohio was an odd one. The Rehawks were favored by 3.5 at home against an SEC team, and obviously they shouldn’t have been. The Commodores destroyed them, winning every facet of the game including the score, 34-13. I don’t think I will overreact on either side on this one - I still don’t think that Vandy is any good, and I think that Miami was overappreciated in the MAC by a lot of the preseason experts I saw.

Later on this evening I will be sitting in UB Stadium at the University of Buffalo watching the Bulls play the Miners of UTEP in what is scheduled to be the first college football game of the year to kick off. I have never been to a Bulls game, and I don’t much care about either team in the grand scheme of things, but I happen to be in the area on a trip, and I love everything about college football, so I figured I would check it out. Besides, despite what may be the first instinct of most people looking at this game, it has the real potential to be an interesting showdown. Here’s a look at the four top storylines:

1. Turner Gill - The former star QB at Nebraska has only been a head coach for two years, but it’s already incredibly obviously that he is destined for bigger things. He took over a terrible one win team in Buffalo, turned them into a slightly better 2-10 team in his first year, and then jumped forward to 5-7 in year two, including the first ever winning record for the team in the MAC. Gill is a star on the rise, and he’s showing now that he can recruit as well as he can coach. Catching him here is a chance to see him before he moves up to the big(ger) time. He was a finalist for the Nebraska gig last year, and he’ll have more offers this year.

2. Mike Price - Price’s fall from grace in Alabama is one of the most fascinatingly horrifying things in recent sports history. After the fall he found himself in El Paso. The story doesn’t so far have a Hollywood ending, though - he’s domne only an average job with UTEP, and the team has just nine wins in the last two years. Price is a spectacle these days, and a fascinating contrast to Gill.

3. Offense - Buffalo returns 18 starters this year, including their QB, the conferences best running back, their top receiver, and 4/5 of their line. UTEP also returns four of their linemen, and a quarterback, James Vittatoe, that had a very good year for a freshman. Or any QB for that matter (3100 yards, 25 TDs, seven picks). THe MIners lose their top running back and second receiver, but both teams should still be able to move the ball, and the reasonably high total of 58.5 should be threatened.

4. Looking ahead - This week UTEP plays in a city that most of their players will have never been to in front of a mid-sized crowd against a team that certainly isn’t a rival. Next week they host Texas in their sold out Sun Bowl. It’s a near certainty that the Miners will be looking past this season opener. That could give Buffalo and edge that I’m not sure that they needed anyway.

On Monday I went to a thoroughbred yearling sale. It was the biggest sale in the province, and the second biggest in western Canada. There were almost 200 horses on offer, and many of them were very well bred and well turned out.

Why am I sharing this? Why should you care what happens here, far out of the heartland of the thoroughbred business? Well, because the sale was a disaster. With just a few exceptions, the horses weren’t selling, and when they were they were mostly going well below what should have been a reasonable price for them. In the first 25 horses, for example, seven of them were withdrawn because of lack of interest, and nine more sold for less than $3,000. Even the top horses in the beginning of the session went for far less than hoped. It wasn’t a lack of people there causing the problems. Attendance was okay. It’s just that no one was buying. People were just sitting on their hands, and looking around at everyone else doing the same.

The thoroughbred industry here has some real problems - Calgary is in between tracks, and the new track is very delayed. That makes people nervous. More than that, though, people were saying that the reasons for the down market stemmed from questions about the economy, gas prices, and those familiar refrains that affect all of us in North America these days.

The reason I bring this up is that the negativity of the market was shocking, and it struck me that it could be a story repeated around the world of sports. For years now we have enjoyed a period of sustained growth and financial success in sports. All of the major leagues are making lots of money, players are mostly happy, and stadiums are full. We’re enjoying it immensely, but I fear we might be taking it for granted. We seem to have forgotten the days not so long ago when stadiums weren’t full, teams were going broke, and people were short of cash to bet. I’m not suggesting that sports Armageddon is around the corner, but I can’t help but feel that we might be in for a bit of a rude awakening in sports if things don’t start to turn around and brighten soon. It seems that we could be better prepared to deal with the problems if we were braced for them, and I certainly got my warning on Monday that braced is what we should be.

That’s my descent into pessimism. We’ll run back into the blissfully fake world of sports tomorrow.

The NFL preseason is pretty much a waste of time. The last game is a total farce. There are about a billion reasons why I hate everything about this week’s NFL games, but here are seven to start:

1. No one tries - Pretty much every team has answered their big questions by now. Those that haven’t don’t want to risk getting hurt. The rash of big name inuries in the preseason this year - Osi Umenyiora, Jason Taylor, Shawne Merriman, Chad Johnson, Tom Brady, etc. - will do nothing to help. The starters will start, but they will be on the bench so fast it will be laughable.

2. No one cares - the only reason anyone attends these games is that they have to pay for them with their season tickets anyway (at full price, no less). No one wants to be there, so the stadiums are dull and lifeless.

3. The spreads are ridiculous - As I write there are three games without lines. All the rest of the games have spreads between two and four. What a thrilling range. Not that it should matter anyway - you would have to be a serious degenerate to play this weekend heavily.

4. Unwatchable matchups - St. Louis at Kansas City. Oakland at Seattle. The Geneva Convention bans us from showing games like these to our worst enemies.

5. Thursday night games - This week’s schedule includes 13 Thursday night games and three on Friday. Nothing says NFL like Thursdays and Fridays.

6. More time for talking heads to talk - The TV experts are almost unbearable at the best of times. They are worse when they are faced with a dull, meaningless game and they feel the need to fill the time with their ‘insights’. There will be some truly idiotic things said and discussed. Of course, I’ll just do the fool proof approach to avoiding this certain loss of brain cells - I won’t watch any games.

7. Simplified playbooks - Coaches are paranoid, and they won’t want to give away any of their special plays this close to the season. Instead, they’ll borrow a playbook from the local Pop Warner team. Yawn.

As hard as it is to believe, the first college football games of the season kick off on Thursday night. Hallelujah. It has been far, far too long since we have been able to enjoy the greatest sport in the world. In my world, college football is king (and the kings ride around on thoroughbred race horses). A first glance at the schedule this weekend doesn’t giveus a lot of reason to be excited, but when you give it a closer look there is lots of intrigue to be found. Here are ten games I am intrigued by this weekend:

1. UTEP (+3) at Buffalo - I like this one for a lot of reasons, not the least of which being that I will be there. I’ll do a more in-depth preview on Thursday.

2. Virginia Tech (-9.5) vs. East Carolina - The Pirates played the Hokies tough last year. Virginia Tech has high hopes, but they are a team that has shown the capacity to underachieve when they don’t concentrate entirely. This could be a trap game if they aren’t careful.

3. Hawaii (+35) at Florida - This has all sorts of stories. Florida gets to see how they can deal with their Heisman success last year. They may have to deal with playing without Percy Harvin and Brandon Spikes because of injuries. Hawaii has to deal with a new coach, system and quarterback. It won’t be close, but it will be interesting.

4. USC (-19.5) at Virginia - The great Trojan machine hits the ground, and we get to see if they do it running. This won’t be a total pushover, but it could be a tour de force if USC is half as good as they think they are.

5. Utah (+3.5) at Michigan - As a diehard Michigan fan I am terrified of this one. Utah has BCS aspirations and real talent. Michigan hasn’t named a starting QB or RB yet, and their o-line is a massive question mark. Michigan should be able to win, but then I said that at this time last year, and I throw up in my mouth a little every time I think of what happened.

6. Appalachian State at LSU - Les Miles is a Michigan man. I’d smile a lot if he suffered the same fate as Michigan did last year in this game. It’s a tough task for LSU to break in a new QB here.

7. Northern Iowa at BYU - BYU is pretty vocal about their desire to play with the big boys and maybe get a shot at the big prize. If they are good then they will get a chance to prove it here against a totally outmatched opponent. This one could get really, really ugly. I have my fingers crossed.

8. Eastern Washington at Texas Tech - The Red Raiders could be very good. This is nothing more than a tune-up, but like the last game it could get ugly, and that’s always fun.

9. Alabama (+5) at Clemson - Nick Saban has been more secretive than the CIA, so it is hard to know what he has done to fix the obvious problems he had last year. Clemson has high hopes this year, and I don’t believe in them at all.

10. Washington (+13.5) at Oregon - This could be Jake Locker’s coming out party. Even if it isn’t, I love the novelty of conference play this early on in the season. The Pac-10 has two gamesthis week, but this is the more interesting one.

The last couple of years I have touted the Niners heavily at this time of year. That has only partly been a good thing. Two years ago I felt like a genius as they went 6-3 ATS down the stretch and looked like a real team on the rise. They rewarded my faith last year by going 5-11 ATS and looking like a team that could only be improved by folding. I’m too smart to fall for this team again, but I can’t help myself completely, so I will still pay close attention to this team I wish I didn’t like. Because of that, I am particularly intrigued by the ascension of J.T. O’Sullivan, the game one starter for the team.

O’Sullivan is the definition of a journeyman. He was drafted in 2002, and the Niners are his eighth team. He played his college ball in Division II at UC Davis. He was solid at that level for what it’s worth, and he set a record with six touchdowns in a single playoff game.

O’Sullivan came into the preseason as the third man on the depth chart behind Alex Smith and Shaun Hill. He had one big advantage, though - Mike Martz is the new offensive coordinator, and O’Sullivan had played with him in Detroit last year. That familiarity was enough to get him a chance, and he made the most of it. He has been clearly the best quarterback in camp. Though some of that is because both Smith and Hill seem incapable of sustained good play, O’Sullivan certainly deserves some credit.

I’m not at all optimistic about this team, and I doubt that O’Sullivan will stay behind center all season (especially given how expensive Smith is as a backup), but I think O’Sullivan has a better chance than many would give him credit for of making an impressive impact. Here are three good reasons why I think so.

1. Europe - NFL Europe obviously didn’t prove to be the fast track to NFL success for players. Still, I think that O’Sullivan deserves some credit for what he did over there. He sspent two different seasons in Germany - 2004 and 2007. The first time he led his team to the championship, and he repeated the feat in 2007 while being named offensive MVP. That doesn’t mean that he will be MVP here, but it does show that the guy does have some game, and he knows how to win if he is given a chance.

2. Martz - Martz obviously likes the guy, or O’Sullivan wouldn’t have had the chance to get where he is now. Martz has his share of issues, but he obviously has the ability to make a quarterback productive, and he isn’t afraid to run with an unconventional QB if he likes him. O’Sullivan won’t be the next Kurt Warner - largely because he doesn’t have the talent surrounding him that Warner did in St. Louis - but Martz could give us something worth watching.

3. Fate - Sooner or later the Niners deserve a break, don’t they? They screwed up by getting rid of Jeff Garcia, but they have paid for that by now, so maybe this is the first sign of hope for a pretty hopeless team. For the sake of his job, Mike Nolan sure hopes so.

The best three year old race since the Belmont takes place this weekend at the best track in the world when the Travers goes at Saratoga on Saturday. Big Brown isn’t in this race, and stars have been slow to emerge into the public consciousness from this class, but this is a truly fascinating race. Here’s a look in order of morning line odds:

Pyro (7/2) - I have loved watching this horse at times, and I believed in him going into the Derby, but I can’t help but feel that this is a sucker’s bet at this price. He just hasn’t done anything to justify this support. He was brutal in the Blue Grass, worse in the Derby, he won the Northern Dancer but he wasn’t against anyone, and he couldn’t beat Macho Again in the Jim Dandy. He could win here, but there is much more value in my mind in betting against it. After all, whenever possible I’d much rather not have the favorite in my exotics.

Harlem Rocker (4/1) - Pyro might be questionable at his price, but this horse is a joke at his. That’s not to say that he doesn’t have talent. Heading into the Preakness, Rick Dutrow, Big Brown’s trainer, said that this was the only horse he feared. Harlem Rocker ducked that race, though, and has done nothing but underwhelm since. He failed badly on synthetic in Canada, and then won a meaningless Canadian race against no horses of note, and wasn’t particularly fast in the process (a Beyer of just 90). I’ll be leaving him out, too.

Mambo in Seattle (5/1) - There are lots of questions here, too, but this is the first horse I’m not going to rule out. This horse is lightly raced and untested, but he is brilliantly bred and should be fine with the distance, his trainer, Neil Howard, has a track record for patience with three year olds, his career best 104 is the best in the field, and he just looks like a winner. I won’t put all of my marbles in this basket because he hasn’t done anything, but he’ll be a part of all that I do.

Macho Again (6/1) - I love this horse. Love, love, love him. He was clearly second best in the Preakness, and he won the Jim Dandy over Pyro a month ago. There’s a good omen here, too - the winner of the Jim Dandy has won the Travers the last three years. I think that it is a bit odd that this horse has the best form of any horse in this field at a high level since the end of May, yet he s only the fourth choice. I see value in him, and will include him in my exotics.

Colonel John (8/1) - This horse was the second choice in the Derby, and he didn’t show up, so he has burned a lot of money for bettors. He hasn’t done much since the Derby disappointment, just running once in California and getting upset by Tres Borrachos in the Swaps. This is his second try on dirt, and I am not convinced he likes it. Too many questions for me - I’ll leave him out.

Da’Tara (8/1) - The breaker of hearts and stealer of dreams is back after his Belmont upset win. Actually, he was back already in the Jim Dandy, and he finished last. It’s probably not giving a Classic winner enough respect, but I think thatthis horse is a one trick pony, and I will ignore him until he shows me I should do otherwise.

Court Vision (12/1) - Nope. I don’t get this price. He disappointed amidst high hopes on the Derby trail, he has never run better than 90 on dirt, his last two races were on grass - what there says that he should be any better than 20/1?

Tres Borrachos (15/1) - Here’s some interesting value to throw into the exotics. He’s coming off a big win against a horse in this field, he is versatile when it comes to pace, he has run on dirt and is decent at it, and the price is good. He’ll go in my exotics, but not on top.

Cool Coal Man (15/1) - He tackled Big Brown in the Haskell. It didn’t go well. He was third, but not a threat. I don’t expect his day to be any better here.

Tale of Ekati (20/1) - Given how much talk this horse had in the spring, I can’t believe that he is at this price now. I really can’t believe that there isn’t any value in him at this price, either. Ouch. Pass.

Tizbig (30/1) and Amped (30/1) - Nope.

So, it looks like it comes down to, at least as a start, and exacta of Mambo in Seattle and Macho Again over those two plus Tres Borrachos. I’m sure there will be more by post time, and I am confident that this should be a gem.

It is obviously not at all my intention to turn this into a political debate. I just couldn’t help but take a betting lesson from the speculative frenzy around Barack Obama’s running mate this week. As I write this the announcement has not been made, though it seems to have leaked that it will be Evan Bayh (the leak came from a company that was printing Obama-Bayh bumper stickers. Did no one see that coming? Seems a bit inevitable). That’s  not of interest to me. Instead, what caught my eye was the news this morning that Rep. Chet Edwards had made the short list and was one of the few (three or four) potential candidates that had had his background checked.

Why would a Canadian guy care about a congressman from Texas? Well, I’m a bit of a geek. That’s not the point, though. The point is that I had never heard of him. The more I looked around, the more it seemed like no one else had. There was some strong support for him in Texas, Nancy Pelosi likes him a lot, and he has a solid resume, but he was not on the VP radar at all.

The Point? I do have one. Sports books were offering futures on the vice presidential nominees for weeks. The Democratic ones had been taken down in the last couple of days, but I could still find the last prices offered by several different books. Each book had several different potential candidates - from the favorites like Bayh and Joseph Biden to the longest of longshots. On not one list, though, did I find the name Chet Edwards. No one had set a price for this guy. That means that no one had given him a chance. Yet some how he became one of the four finalists. If you had just relied on the futures to shape your opinions you would have never known that this was possible.

I have a habit of using futures to get a sense of a situation. By seeing the odds that bookmakers set for different situations I get a quick sense of about how things should play out. BY watching the price moves of those futures I get a good sense of how the public is reacting and what they are thinking. What I learned from watching this situation today, though, is that the futures should only be used as a rough guide. They can’t replace your own work. Sports books mostly do a pretty solid job of setting prices, but they aren’t perfect, and they have a lot to cover, so sometimes they don’t provide a complete picture. We can allow ourselves to get lazy and trust the odds more than we should. This situation is a good, painless reminder that that’s not always a good idea.

I don’t mean to keep coming back to the Olympics when the football season is getting near, but there just keeps being interesting topics to consider. I promise I won’t talk about it anymore by next week. Anyway, I want to take a few minutes to talk about the sprints.

The Americans have mostly been the kings and queens of the sprint. Other countries have won from time to time (like my beloved Canada in 1996), but for the most part the Americans have been reliably the best there is. Not this year. There were six different sprint events - the 100m and 200m for men and women, and the 4×100m sprints. That’s six gold medals. The Americans won none. Tyson Gay was the world champion in the 100m and the 200m. He didn’t even qualify for the 200m coming out of the American trials, and he didn’t make the finals in the 100m. Ugly. The Americans were world champs in the relay too. At the Olympics they dropped the baton and were eliminated in the preliminaries. The women fared better, but only a little. They were completely shut out in the 100m. Alyson Felix was the world champ in the 200m. She won an Olympic medal, but only a silver one. The relay team was also world champs, and they also failed to get out of the preliminaries thanks to a dropped baton.

I’m not saying all of this to make fun of the American. Many of you readers are American, and I like you. Really. My interest is just to think about what kind of price you could have got if you had bet on the American shut out. It would have been massive. Gay was the favorite in the 100m coming into the game, the Americans were favored in both relays, and Felix was heavily favored in the 200m. The women’s 100m and the men’s 200m weren’t as favorable for the Americans, but their top runners still would have been at a good price.

Just think about the possibilities. You could have made a winning bet that ruled out four of six favorites. That’s a bettors wet dream. I obviously didn’t do it, and I doubt anyone else did, either, but considering the possibilities is one of those things that keeps people betting. Dare to dream.

I wrote a couple of days ago that I thought that betting on the 200m world record being broken at +200 was an attractive bet. Even though I had obviously thought about it happening, and even thought it could happen, I was amazed how thrilling it was to actually see it happen. Usain Bolt is in a small handful of the biggest freaks I have ever seen in my life. His 100m win was impressive, but winning the 200m and breaking an seemingly unbreakable record at the same time is even more eye-opening. The guy is an uber-freak, and I count myself very lucky to have been able to watch both him and Michael Phelps make a mockery of their sports this month. Incredible.

I have read numerous notes out of Carolina that Dwayne Jarrett isn’t impressing anyone, and that he is plummeting down the receiver depth chart for the team. That makes me wonder what it is about being an offensive star at USC that doesn’t seem to translate to the pros. I’ll give Matt Leinart and Reggie Bush incomplete grades, but they clearly have work to do to live up to their monster hype. LenDale White put up a lot of yards last year, but his average wasn’t impressive, and it was much more by brute force than grace. Mike Williams has been a disaster. Keary Colbert is nothing special. The list goes on. Not every player can turn into a star, but it seems that USC has had more than its’ share of costly disappointments in recent years. Or maybe I’m just biased by the fact I really don’t like USC.

Steven Jackson has ended his holdout with the Rams, and seems poised to sign a fat new contract. As seems to be the case in these situations, the size of the contract will be inversely proportional to his contribution to the team this year and in the future (for reference see Alexander, Shaun). It must be tremendously frustrating to teams that they have to retroactively pay stud running backs for what they did in the past.

I’m not at all convinced that BMX is worthy of being an Olympic sport.

It’s time to move on from the Olympics and get back into what matters - football. We’ll find lots of different ways to look at things in the coming weeks, but to ease back into it lets take a quick survey of some of the interesting stories out there concerning the most over-watched and over-hyped position on the field - the quarterbacks. I’m interested in these stories partly because of the impact they could have on the field, and partly because the betting public will almost certainly overcompensate for the situations.

Chicago - The Bears made the surprising early decision to appoint Kyle Orton their starting QB over Rex Grossman. I think that that’s the right move, though I don’t get why they would have announced it now instead of waiting until after another preseason game or two. Regardless, the big thing to note here is that the Bears are in trouble. Orton is better than Grossman, but he’s a long way from good. A couple of years ago they showed that that can be overcome if the team is otherwise dominant, but that’s not the case this year, so it could be a long season in Soldier Field.

Buffalo - Trent Edwards is looking like a star. That doesn’t matter much given that it is the preseason, but it’s nice progress, and Edwards has been showing progress for two years. He has a system that he’ll be comfortable with now that his QB coach is his offensive coordinator, and he has the skills, and the team, to make a bit of noise. I’ll be very carefully watching watching this one - if he plays well then the team will be worth a bet, but if he isn’t clicking on all cylinders then the public might ride the hype too far and create opportunities on the other side.

Miami - I like that they picked up Chad Pennington, but I think that people are expecting too much from him. He’ll be better from the start than Chad Henne would be, but he’s still Chad Pennington, and he’s a long way from his peak. There seems to be a sentiment in the media that the combination of Parcells and Pennington will leap this team forward. I’m not buying it.

Cleveland - Derek Anderson suffered a concussion in the last game. If it is even a little serious then this could be Romeo Crennel’s worst nightmare. His way of managing the potential quarterback battle was to ignore it - leave Anderson in lace, and keep Brady Quinn out of sight. Now Quinn could get some valuable face time. If he plays well then Cleveland will have a situation on its hands, and it could get tense. That’s the last thing a team that is trying hard to make the playoffs needs to deal with.

Minnesota - This one scares me. The Vikings have the potential to be really good. All Tavaris Jackson has to do is not screw up. He’s having a heck of a time staying healthy, though. He has knee problems already, though, and those don’t tend to get better in a hurry. There’s no one else on the roster that I would rather have taking the snap than Jackson on the team, though, and they would suffer a setback if he is not ready. Again, the biggest challenge will be in balancing the challenge the situation presents with the reaction of the public.

The Jets - I just don’t care.

We’re back, and we’re hitting the ground running. We’ll be focusing heavily on football for the next while, but before we do I want to take a look at the Olympics before it is too late. I have very much enjoyed watching these games, and attempting to find attractive bets despite a level of knowledge that falls well below that I have for other sports. That’s right  I’ll admit it - I know football better than table tennis. As we speed into and through the second and final week of the games, here are five spots that I’ll be paying attention to and may consider pointing part of my bankroll towards:

1. Women’s 4×100m relay - You probably know that I don’t like low payoffs. That being said, the Jamaicans arguably represent value despite being at just 1/3. The team swept the top three spots in the 100m, and they are clearly in form. The Americans can’t match them in depth or confidence. If you like this bet then you’ll want to make it now, because it’s not going to get any better as the race gets closer.

2. Men’s soccer - The Brazilians are hungry for Olympic gold - something which, incredibly, they have never won. They have been thoroughly dominant so far, they have a deep, complete team. They will certainly be up for their next game against rivals Argentina. They are at 3/2. That’s not a terrible price if you like the team.

3. Men’s flatwater kayak - K1 doesn’t get much attention. If it did then Adam Van Koeverden would be a mega-star. The Canadian is the defending gold medal winner in the 500m K1 race. He’s also the world record holder, and he hasn’t lost a race in two seasons. In the qualifiers for the 1000m event he was dominant, so he is clearly in form. You can get a reasonable -132 price to bet that he will win gold. That’s not bad.

4. Men’s 200m - If you don’t like Usain Bolt’s chances of winning this race, his specialty, after his showing in the 100m then you just haven’t been paying attention. He was ridiculously fast, and is in pretty much perfect form. There is absolutely no value in betting on him to win the race. Where it gets interesting, though, is if you bet on whether the world record will be broken. The mark of 19.32 seconds was set in 1996 by Michael Johnson, and it hasn’t been touched since. Bolt has some owrk to do before he can go that fast, but if anyone can do it then it is him. It’s worth a shot at the +200 price that the record will be broken.

5. Men’s triathlon - This event can be unpredictable, but the women’s race went pretty much exactly to form at the front, so it could be worth a bet that the men’s will do the same. If that happens then Gomez will win by a mile. He has won 11 of his last 13 races dating back to last June. In the other two he was second and seventh, so he is never out of it completely. He’s the world champion, so he knows what pressure is and how to cope with it. The heat won’t be a problem for him, and he already has a win on this course. Pinnacle is offering a price of +122 if you bet that he will win the race. I like that.

With preseason in full swing and the NFL and College football regular season right around the corner we have a little house cleaning to take care of.  Because of updating databases, getting some seasonal previews up, as well as handicapping the days card, blogging will have to take a back seat.  Daily blogging will resume on Monday the 18th, although we may pop in with a post or two before than.