The college football season gets going in earnest today with a whole plate of games. Some of them are ridiculously easy (Charleston Southern?!?! I’ll never understand why Florida doesn’t get more grief for their brutal non-conference scheduling), but there are more than a few that will have my attention today. Here, in chronological order, is a look at some of the highlights:
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Wow, was Michael Vick ever bad last night. 7 of 11 sounds good until you hear that it was only for 26 yards, and that he threw a pick. The ball was all over the place and he looked like, well, a guy who hasn’t played football in a couple of years. There’s another factor here, too – it’s going to take a while for Vick to get back to where he was, but remember that where he was wasn’t exactly at the top of the pile n terms of accuracy. The guy has never been much of a passer, so expecting miracles is probably a bit silly. My expectations for his week three return are very low – even if it is against the Chiefs so he will have all the time in the world to pass because that team is seemingly allergic to the pass rush.
It’s Finally here. After months and months and months of waiting, the world’s finest team sports gets underway tonight. It’s college football time!!! Normally the opening Thursday night games are less than exciting, but this time around we have one real gem and a couple of others that are more than worth a look. Here’s a quick preview of the highlight’s of tonight’s action:
Interesting developments in the Ricky Rubio story. Apparently he had come to terms on a deal that would have sent him to Minnesota this year, but after the deal was struck he backed out of it and decided he would rather spend two more years developing in the comparative safety of his home country of Spain. I can understand that on some levels, and I can forgive a young kid of a lot, but I can’t help but question his competitive drive just a bit if he backs off of an opportunity to play in unquestionably the best league in the world – especially when he would have been going to a young team with lots of talent that would have been built around him.
I was very, very disappointed to see the Vikings play last night. I’m so sick of Favre and his whole act that I was really hoping he’d continue to struggle. Hopefully that would lead him to going away faster. Unfortunately, he looked perfectly competent last night. In fact, he looked even a little better than than. He was comfortable and confident, and you could already tell that he was enjoying the concept of having an all-World running back for the first time. I don’t feel nearly as assured now of the ultimate failure of this experiment as I did a while ago, and that disappoints me.
This whole Detroit-Free-Press-started, ESPN-fueled scandal about possible NCAA violations at Michigan is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever seen. The basic story is that a couple of journalists (or should I say ‘journalists’) at the DFP talked to several current and former Michigan players and allegedly discovered that the players were practicing far more than they are allowed to NCAA rules. Instead of applying a little bit of rational thought and a bit of investigative journalism, the writers ran with it for all it is worth. Unfortunately for them, there are several reasons why their story is thoroughly ridiculous:
– The whole Michael Vick debut last night was much ado about not very much, wasn’t it? He played early as promised, but he threw a total of four passes, barely ran, and otherwise only served as an unconvincing decoy. It was less than I expected to see by a fair bit, but nothing he did was concerning, either. It really shouldn’t be surprising that he was such an afterthought – he can’t play until week seven, so the Eagles have little incentive to spend a lot of time now working on him. All in all, the coverage of the lead up to this game was all smoke and no fire. There was another conclusion to come out of this game as well – the third preseason game is supposed to be the one where the top players are at their best and play the most, but this was a dull, lousy game that was not at all worth watching. If this isn’t an argument for why we don’t need fur preseason games then I don’t know what is.
– Tennessee has a starting quarterback now – senior Jonathan Crompton. When Lane Kiffin’s choice had to be between him and junior Nick Stephens then you know that Kiffin is in for a long year because neither guy is very good. Both of them looked very spotty last year – and that’s being kind. I am undecided on what Kiffin’s long term future holds, but in the short term it won’t be pretty.
– Sports betting was dealt a significant blow today. A federal court of appeal was supposed to rule on the sports leagues’ attempts to get an injunction to stop Delaware from starting sports betting on September 1. They decided not to stop there, though – they went all the way and ruled that the whole thing broke the law. Delaware can still appeal to the Supreme Court, or even ask the court of appeals to reconsider, but the chances of success seem bleak. The NFL has admitted that the state is allowed to take multi-game bets – parlays and the like – but they can’t do single game bets. It’s the single game bets that were going to be the most attractive, so the state may not even bother going forward with their plans now. Very disappointing.
As you probably know if you have read this blog much I am a diehard Michigan fan – the kind that bleeds maize and blue.Given that you’ll have a sense of how much I have enjoyed the last year or two of football, and the last decade of basketball. I’m optimistic now, though – In Rod I trust. The being said, the press conference by coach Rich Rodriguez today pretty much terrified me.
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