Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Wild, Strange Sports Weekend

Ok, that was one of the nuttier sports weekends that I can remember. Let’s take a look at it chronologically:

Friday Night – West Virginia, ranked 5th, loses to South Florida, ranked 18th, after Steve Slaton, who rushed for at least 100 yds and a total of 9 TD’s in the previous 4 games, gained only 54 yards with no TD’s.

Saturday – The football upsets continue, as unranked Colorado scores 17 in the 4th quarter to take down #3 Oklahoma, #7 Texas is trounced 41-21 by unranked Kansas St., and #10 Rutgers also loses to an unranked opponent, this time Maryland 34-24. Nighttime comes and on national TV Auburn, who came into the game 2-2 and not ranked, took down #4 Florida at the Swamp, 20-17, after their kicker totally clutched up and hit a 43 yd FG TWICE, after copycat Urban Meyer tried to mimic Mike Shanahan and Lane Kiffin in the NFL, calling a timeout right before the ball was snapped the first time.

The nuttiest ending on Saturday was the great Cal/Oregon game, which ended when Oregon fumbled the ball through the end zone about 2 inches before scoring the potential game tying TD with only 20 seconds left in the game. The strong performance by both teams showed strength of the Pac 10 this year. USC, who had many issues up north in Washington before escaping with a 27-24 win, has their hands full this season as they face Cal, Oregon, and Arizona St. all on the road starting in late October.

Sunday – Before we address the goofiness that took place in the NFL on Sunday, let’s look at how the wild National League playoff races ended up. The Mets completed their meltdown, as a 7 game lead on Sept. 12th was not big enough to hold off the surging Philadephia Phillies and Ryan Howard, who homered in his last 4 games to lead his team to the NL East title and keep the Mets out of the playoffs. Mr. Future Hall of Fame Tommy Glavine showed his age in getting rocked for 5 hits, 2 walks, and 7 earned runs while only recording a single out for the Mets on Sunday. Also on the Phillies, MVP candidate Jimmy Rollins hit his 20th triple of the season, becoming one of just 4 major leaguers ever to have 20 HR’s, 20 2B’s, 20 3B’s, and 20 SB’s in a season. Also on Sunday, the Colorado Rockies won their 13th game in their last 14 to force a play-in game against the S.D. Padres on Monday. As if overcoming those odds wasn’t enough already, they then went into extra innings against the Padres, spotted them an 8-6 lead in the 13th, and had to face All-time saves leader Trevor Hoffman. No sweat, as they started off the inning with 2 doubles and a triple to tie the score, and eventually ended the game and San Diego’s season with a sacrifice fly.

Now, on to the nuttiness from the NFL on Sunday. First of all, Daunte Culpepper, in his first action since looking terrible in early 2006 as a Dolphin, completed a mere 5 passes for only 75 yards, while adding 28 on the ground. No matter, he still accounted for 5 TD’s (3 by ground, 2 by air) as the Raiders beat those hapless 0-4 Dolphins, 35-17. In Detroit, the Lions entered the 4th quarter down 13-3 to the Bears – a defensive battle, not too much excitement. They then scored an NFL record 34 points in the 4th to win the game and take their record to 3-1 while leaving the struggling Bears at just 1-3. In San Diego, the Chargers came home to finally have a feel-good game against the struggling KC Chiefs. Wrong…those Chiefs spotted the Chargers a 10 point lead, and then came back to spank the Lightening Bolts 30-16. Hey AJ Smith, Marty certainly had his playoff struggles, but at least he got you there. Norv has already lost more games this year, 3, than Marty did all of last year, 2. Making a change might have been the right call, choosing Norv was the wrong call. At Dallas, a Cowboy WR had 7 catches for 184 yards and 2 TD’s…hmmm…that T.O. sure is talented. Oops, it was the unheralded Patrick Crayton with the monster game, not T.O., who had a very pedestrian 3 catches for 33 yards in Dallas’ demolition of the truly pathetic, very injured St. Louis Rams, 35-7. Finally, the night game came and Donovan McNabb, coming off a 381 yd, 4 TD game against Det, was set to lead the Eagles against the NY Giants, who through 3 games were not known for their stout defense. The result: 12 sacks of McNabb, 6 by Osi Umenyiora, as one my favorite ex-Trojans, OT Winston Justice, was clearly not up to the task of blocking Umenyiora. The Eagles scored only 1 FG after scoring 56 points the week before, and lost 16-3.

What a wild, crazy, unpredictable weekend…exactly why we love sports!