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General Sports

Modern Sports Records – A Mirage of Technicality

Nothing speaks to us sports fans like accomplishments that go into the record books. When a running back breaks his school’s rushing records or a basketball guard sets the mark for the number of assists in a season we sit up and take notice, but how often are these new records based on an uneven playing field?

This issue was brought back to my attention while watching the Pittsburgh – Cincinnati Big East Game which is the 12th game of their season. The announcers were going on about Dion Lewis, whose 1,640 yards are 46 shy of Dorsett’s freshman season total of 1,686 yards in 1973. However, Tony Dorsett had 1 less game to get those yards.

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NFL General

American History NFL

As they filed out of my living room, I reminded myself of why I had given this party.  There were enough events to choose from, but I had resisted the urge to go out and “mingle” and chose instead to have a group of friends at my house for something I considered important to my life.  Some of these friends actually understood what they had just seen.  Most of the others figured out it was important, but they really didn’t know why.

Americans watch the Superbowl and the announcers on the telecast always brag about a billion people watching the game around the world.  Even assuming every American watches the game, I always wondered how they came to such a high number.  Now that I’ve lived overseas for a number of years this question intrigues me even more.

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NFL General

Making Sense of the Mock Drafts

With so many people making their own mock drafts this year, I felt it might be more worthwhile to make a comparison of different versions including some bloggers and paid journalists.

I started by making a Google search and the first hits were actually bloggers followed by some acknowledged NFL journalists from different media sources. Although the results might be affected by the timing of the actual updates, I have tried to keep this in mind in my analysis and have included the last update in the table.

The problem with making a mock draft is that many times the picks are traded away and the teams that take over the slot might have different needs. This can completely change the whole draft order. Almost all those making their selections seemed concerned with this and it means any guessing has to be taken with a grain of salt.

With all this in mind, the following is my analysis of the coming draft based on the input of 6 different mocks prepared during the month of February. It will be possible for a player to be a consensus pick more than once.

Categories
College Football

Why We Still Care – Why seemingly pointless bowl games still capture our attention

There it was.  The Motor City Bowl was on and I was glued to my TV hoping that Central Michigan of the Mid-American Conference would manage just one more score.  After they did and it was all tied up, I continued to watch as Purdue of the Big Ten drove for one last time and won on a late field goal.  The following day it was Texas -vs- Arizona State and then I couldn’t wait until the next day when Maryland was due to play Oregon State and two other games were to take place.

I have no loyalty to any of these teams.  I don’t even follow very many of their conferences.  Yet here I was following all the results and enjoying all the trappings of the yearly bowl season.

Categories
General Sports

Unanswered Questions of 2007

2007 is almost done and sports fans around the globe have questions that remain unanswered.  

One question has a chance of being settled in 2008 if the New England Patriots manage to finish the season and run through the play-offs to a Superbowl victory without a defeat.  Unfortunately, many others will never be answered on the field of play and we are left to speculate on the hypothetical.

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NFL General

A True Professional

If you saw the Dallas Cowboys play the Philadelphia Eagles this weekend, you might have felt like you had taken a trip back in time. In a situation reminiscent of “Roger the Dodger” and his famous two-minute drills, Tony Romo put everything on the line and pulled a victory out of nowhere.

Categories
College Football

The Inspiration called Virginia Tech

Living overseas, I’m only exposed to the main sports headlines and whatever they decide to talk about on the games I’m lucky enough to see.  Today, watching Virginia Tech beat Boston College for the ACC title and a birth in the Orange Bowl, I’ve been struck by the lack of talk about the one thing that was on most of our minds back in September when the season started, the drama of the Virginia Tech campus shooting.

Categories
College Football

Big Ten Football Rocks!

Hey all you Big Ten bashers!  What’s your problem?  You just don’t like success?  Why do you keep picking on the greatest conference in college football?

Didn’t you know that with 43 out of 44 non-conference games played, the Big Ten has only lost 8 games?  Of those 8, Michigan lost those two fluke games and 3 others were lost by Minnesota.  This means only 3 other teams lost a non-conference game.  Is that dominance or what?

Categories
NFL General

Superbowl in London? Please say you’re kidding!

Now that the Dolphins and Giants have played their “historic game” that turned out anti-climatic, NFL executives and media monguls can stop their talk about how the NFL is ready for the “Next Frontier”.  It was great hype to make sure this game went smoothly, but anyone with a clue should realize it all is nonsense.

And please, for God’s sake, stop talking about sending the Superbowl to London!

Categories
All Other Sports

Team U.S.A. – Choose Your Sport

In the U.S. where basketball, baseball and American football rule, the performance of our national teams in other competitions is sometimes overlooked.  Considering the importance placed on sports in our society and the money and resources available you are left to wonder how we cannot be more competitive in sports outside of our “comfort zone”.  

The Rugby World Cup ended for Team U.S.A. today following a thrashing at the hands of South Africa.  This was hardly a big surprise.  The United States is not exactly a rugby nation while South Africa won the World Cup in 1995 and is a contender whenever it steps on the pitch.