Week 2 is finished and we can safely say we’ve walked away learning a great deal about the teams, especially those in the top 10. Read more below!

USC had a bye week, and got to sit back and relax. They also got to watch an extra game that was quite revealing of the Ohio State Buckeyes, but more on that in a little bit. They’ve maintained their position at #1 this week.

Georgia looked a little better this weekend, beating a very underrated Central Michigan with a final of 56-17. Their showing has maintaining their #2 ranking, and may be getting into the groove. It couldn’t come at a better time, with an upset South Carolina fresh off their loss to Vanderbilt will be looking to make a statement next week.

Oklahoma looks downright scary, struggling early on against Cincinnati, but breaking the game wide open in the 2nd half. I must say though that the Oklahoma player who was pinning Cincy QB Grutza down and talking shit to him while he was screaming in pain with a fractured right ankle should’ve been ejected immediately from the game, and thrown out of the NCAA. I’d only expect that type of thing from a team like Miami U — not Oklahoma. Still, they’ve moved up to #3 with an overall very impressive win, 52-26.

Everyone — including me — expected a blowout in the Miami-Florida game, with the Gators winning by some outrageous score like 45-14, but that wasn’t even close to the case. The Gators struggled all game long against Miami, and managed to blow up the score late in the game. Still, let’s hope that the struggling against a young Miami team isn’t a sign of things to come later on in the season. The final was 26-3, Florida. They also moved up to the 4th position in the polls.

I spent much of the early afternoon actually worried about whether or not Ohio State would be able to pull off a win at HOME against Ohio University. Thankfully in the end, Ohio State managed to pull off the win, and in the 2nd half looked better, but the first half was absolutely horrible. Who were those players on the field? Sure as hell not THE Ohio State Buckeyes. The polls were nicer than I was. I actually think they’re more of a #7 spot team. Instead, they’ve only dropped down to 5th in the polls.

Week 2’s Game of the Week: Ohio @ Ohio State / South Carolina @ Vanderbilt / West Virginia @ East Carolina

Ohio State had a game on their hands at home with Ohio U. Anytime a team can come into The Shoe and give everything and more to the Buckeyes — especially when it is another team from the state of Ohio — you have to give the game props. A good, hard fought game including the starting QB of Ohio U getting injured and Ohio keeping it close with their backup. Great game from a football lovers point of view. Bad game from a Buckeye point of view.

South Carolina was probably everyones favorite, but as I told my family, I really thought Vanderbilt was extremely underrated and had a legit chance at beating them. In the end, it was exactly that. A damn good, close game that ended all sorts of long droughts. Many props to Vandy. It is just a damn shame the fans never ran on the field. C’mon, if your team does something big like knock off a ranked opponent when they had no business doing so, you’re obligated to show them love and rush the field! I’m not even a diehard Vandy fan and I would’ve rushed the field.

Two weeks in a row East Carolina has knocked off a ranked opponent, this time their victim was a top 10 ranked team in West Virginia. I’m sitting here scratching my head at where the hell these guys came from. I’ve known of them, even have a family friend who attends the school but these guys have just come out of nowhere. Many props to them for being ranked 14th/20th (14 in the AP, 20th in the USA Today polls).

Week 2’s Loser of the Week: West Virginia

Lucky for Pat White, the Gators Tim Tebow had a lackluster performance for the 2nd weekend in a row, Chris Wells was sidelined with an injury, and USC’s Mark Sanchez had a bye week. Unlucky for him, West Virginia got picked off by East Carolina. Better luck next game.

Week 2’s Winner of the Week: Vanderbilt / East Carolina

Vanderbilt’s win against South Carolina was awesome and well deserved. I like Vandy, and always cheer for the underdog. It’s nice to see the punching bag swing back and break a guys nose once in a while.

East Carolina isn’t flying under the radar anymore. Congratulations for making a program that is a virtual unknown to something everyone is talking about.

Week 3’s Spotlight Games: Ohio State @ USC

Other games I’m really looking forward to are Georgia @ South Carolina, UCLA @ BYU, Middle Tennessee @ Kentucky, Oklahoma @ Washington, and Wisconsin @ Fresno State.

Sideline Commentary: Ohio State @ USC

I honestly don’t know what to expect from this game anymore. Ohio State had a tough time with Ohio U, and they’ve revealed several flaws which USC has an extra weekend to prepare for. I’m not 100% counting out the insanely long shot possibility that Ohio State held things back on purpose and kept things close to lure USC into a false sense of dominance and security or what, but that just isn’t Buckeye ball. You play to win every game, and if the Ohio U game is a legit showing of their true talent, then I feel damn sorry for all the seniors who came back for a championship.

The way I see it, those seniors came back and passed up millions that they’d be making right now as we speak for a final shot at a national championship. For their team, and for their friends. And to have the other players fail to support them in this quest, it’s just bullshit and sad. They have the talent, they have the depth, they have the coach, they have the schedule. They just need to win. If not for themselves, their school, their fans, their community, they should at least win for the seniors and give them something to remember for the rest of their lives.

Tags: College Football, Florida, Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Sports, Sports News, USC

The U.S. economy is constantly heading downhill and people are losing their jobs left and right. Virtually everyone in the country has been affected one way or another, and with the U.S. hurting as bad as it is, the rest of the world is suffering as well. At every level times are tough, and while some people have more money than others, you can’t deny that even the rich are feeling the cost of increased food prices, gas and so on.

My wife works for the University of Florida, which is considered a Major University. It is a state funded, public university with an undergraduate student body of roughly 34,612 (Wikipedia) and 15,081 postgraduates (Wikipedia) and has a wide range of popular college-level athletics and student programs. Due to the financial situation of the school, they are looking at doing major job cuts for the faculty later this year which puts her job in jeopardy. This is becoming a typical situation across the nation. Even big establishments and jobs once thought to be comfy and secure aren’t.

What I’ve been most confused about when it comes to this country-wide crisis for employment is if the jobs are constantly disappearing, who are the ones doing the jobs that others are getting released to free up funds for? Lemme explain..

Let’s say I am working for Business A, and I’m in a management position. It is my job to hire employees, pay employees, schedule work hours, place orders for restocking of items that we may be selling, and acquire new items. Now given the current economic situation, several employees below me have been let go, we’ll say 5 of 15. I’m down to 10. Then my number gets called, and they are out a manager and 5 other employees. That is 10 people left to do what took 16 people to do, and the 10 people remaining don’t have the experience or ability to do my job. Why cut my job? And why cut the other peoples jobs? You’re hurting yourself more, right?

Let me try this again, with another example. A major car company has a work plant. They build the cars. They have 10 thousand employees, and they shut down the entire plant to save money. 10 thousand people are out of a job and the company saves lots of money, right? That is 10 thousand people now unable to afford to purchase the very cars they were building in the first place, and since nobody is working on building those cars there, there are no cars to sell. That makes things worse, right? You’re taking away the ability to purchase items and taking away items to be purchased. Absolutely no flow of money either way in this situation. How is that helpful to anyone?

Gas prices are one of the main root issues in our economy right now, and I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t agree. The high gas prices get added on every items price tag at the end of the day, which is why a gallon of milk has been so damn expensive. It costs money to transport the heavy milk from the farms to the milk processing plants, then from the plants to the store. Even cabs have raised their rates. What used to be a $15 cab ride can now run you up to $20, or more. And don’t even get me started on how much of a difference cab drivers are showing now compared to the lower fuel prices of a couple years ago. Damn near killed a cabby for yelling at my wife over her not tipping him more than a couple bucks. It’s a tip, be thankful!

I could sit here all day and talk to you about what the problems are, list off personal stories about my own financial troubles, but none of that is any good anymore. Those with the power to do any real good refuse to listen to the real problems, and would rather talk about Iraq, Afghanistan, and things that will eventually cost our country more money. Help the homeland economy? That isn’t on the agenda. We’ll consider another tax rebate check, but that’ll do nothing more than let a bunch of poor people go out and buy some game consoles, sit at home and become distracted by a game or the TV and hopefully everyone will forget we’re in a failing economy.

How about some real fixes! Need a place to start? Why don’t you start with the broken educational system in the U.S. and give teachers incentives for being good teachers. I’m talking real, worthwhile raises and bonuses. I’m talking boosting a school districts funding. I’m talking doing something as small as boost local school funding to provide more regional coverage of local school athletics which drives up local support. I’m talking about giving students better learning material and more access to computers on a broader scale. Let’s take $5 billion extra for each state and dump it into their public school systems and watch what happens.

Short on good teachers? Loosen the educational requirements of a teacher and setup programs to identify prospective teachers on a personality level, rather than pure knowledge. A fun teacher will help you learn things better than a stuffy teacher who will stick a book in your face and walk away. Give them extra tax breaks for being teachers, give them 100% free medical care at any doctor they choose to visit, and at any hospital they want to use. Beyond the failure that is Medicaid and Medicare, and give them total freedom. With worthwhile incentives, you can lure in great teachers to help build the future leaders of the country and they could prepare those future leaders how they should be prepared, and maybe we might not end up with the batch of failures that we’re dealing with right now.

The foundation for any great country is education, and if you can’t figure out that 1+1 = 2, and if you can’t read The Cat and The Hat then how do you expect to do any sort of leading in any possible avenue in your life? You can’t. You do need a certain level of basic skills in your life to succeed and if the schools are incapable to fulfill those requirements and needs of the kids then something needs to be done.

I don’t mind sharing our past success to help the future of another country or two become brighter in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I think enough is enough and that we are at the point and have long since been at the point where we are wasting insane amounts of money of a cause that has already been accomplished. Instead, that money desperately needs to be dumped into the economy otherwise those two countries may be some of the last we’ll ever be able to help and we might be the ones in dire need of outside assistance. How would you like that?

The sad fact is that there are many problems in the countries economy, and that it will take many years to recover from them. We just need people dedicated to actually fixing the problems instead of giving the country more and slapping a tiny little band-aid on a critical wound. We just need those people to come into power and take the bull by the horns and get the jobs done. Until then — we’re screwed.

I see a dead U.S. Economic System.

Tags: Economy, Education, News, Politics, Sports, World News

Showing once again why the game of College Football is such a wonderful thing and that there is no such thing as an automatic win, Vanderbilt — the SEC’s resident punching bag — beat a Top 25 ranked South Carolina tonight with a final of 24-17 at home.

The game was filled with injuries on both sides, but in the end it was Vandy who won by stepping up after a horrendous first half showing. The game was filled with excitement with a blocked field goal attempt and a botched punt return recovered by Vanderbilt that quickly resulted in points. Let’s just hope that this is a sign of things to come this college football weekend.

We’ll be in for a treat.

Tags: College, College Football, South Carolina, Sports, Sports News, Vanderbilt

Week 1 is in the books, and we now know a little more about what we should expect during this season. Also what could be considered an injustice in the polls and more! Read below.

The Preseason #1 Georgia failed to impress anyone with their opening game against Georgia Southern, winning with a final score of 45-21. A win is a win, but they allowed more points than any of the other top five teams against possibly the 2nd weakest team in the bunch. They don’t deserve the #1 spot, and the polls agree, now showing them at 2.

USC did what they do and rolled against Virginia with a final score of 52-7. They looked strong and this was just another game where USC played USC football. High scoring, and very few points given up by the USC Defense. They’ve now taken the #1 spot from Georgia.

Now this is where the polls screwed up. In a perfect world, it would be Ohio State, USC, and then Georgia, or USC, Ohio State and then Georgia. Instead, Ohio State has solidified its position at 3 in the polls with its dominating victory over Youngstown State, 43-0. While Ohio State lost Chris “Beanie” Wells due to a foot injury in the 3rd quarter, Ohio State ran 4 different QB’s out there and each took the team down and scored. What does that say? They have impressive depth in the team, and can get the job done despite having a couple injuries during the season. Their defense was strong as ever, pitching a shutout and limiting Youngstown State to -11 rushing yards. Sending a statement to USC’s RB corps much?

Oklahoma went out and blew away Chattanooga 57-2. Impressive offense, and defense. They look to be the class of the Big 12. They’ve held on their 4th spot in the polls. Let’s just hope that the off field night club incident doesn’t hurt their season and the athletes in the attack recover quickly.

Florida going up against Hawaii and totally blowing them away in the first half, 56-10, also looked very impressive and have maintained their 5th spot in the polls. They just need to work on their 2nd half performance. Other than that, they look like a very good Florida team who will give the SEC East some real issues throughout the season. Am especially looking forward to the Miami (FL) game this coming weekend. Go Gators!

While the main focus has been on Chris Wells’ foot injury in the media, I honestly don’t see it as a problem and in fact it could possibly be more helpful against USC. The way I see it, USC’s defense is big and mean and loves it when you try to match your size and strength against them in the run game. They’ll catch you and knock you flat on your ass.

That is exactly what Chris Wells does. He will run at you head on, full speed and smash you in your mouth. I think — mind you I am a die hard Buckeye fan — I think he would enjoy limited success against USC’s defense, and would only be helpful and effective in short yardage situations, and wouldn’t have the ability to really break through the USC defense for a long run.

Instead, they’ve proven they have many different looks at the QB position, and have the ability to run it from that position with speed, and the ability to sling the ball all over the field. Ohio State would have a better chance at beating USC if they used their QB’s more in the run game, give dual QB looks, and spread the defense thin all over the field.

It isn’t like Ohio State has never broken away from the traditional play style before against a team. Let’s not forget Ohio State v.s. Oklahoma State in the Alamo Bowl (2004/2005). Troy Smith was ineligible to play due to his off the field issues. Instead, Tressel used Ted Ginn Jr. at the QB position and ran the ball. Big fan of how he used Ginn in that game, and I would love to see something similar happen again.

Meanwhile USC has a bye week, and is waiting for Ohio State to pay them a visit. Less than two weeks away. Can’t wait! Go Buckeyes!

Week 1’s Game of the Week: Tennessee @ UCLA

UCLA’s QB Kevin Craft was as much of a dud as you could be in the first half, tossing 4 interceptions — one of which was taken back over 60 yards for a touchdown. In the second half, he was a machine who could barely miss a pass. He took UCLA down the field and brought them back into the game which UCLA eventually won on a field goal in OT, 27-24.

Week 1’s Loser of the Week: Michigan

Michigan’s 25-23 loss to Utah makes it two years in a row that they’ve failed to win their season opener and home opener. It was also the debut game for their new head coach Rich Rodriguez.
(Side Note: West Virginia took care of business, and Pat White is on everyone’s shortlist to win the Heisman.)

Week 1’s Winner of the Week: Ohio State

Ohio State showed off their depth, their experience, their offense and their defense. What did people see? A very good Buckeye squad which was the only top 5 team that didn’t allow any points.

Week 2’s Spotlight Games: Miami (FL) @ Florida

Other games I’m really looking forward to are South Carolina @ Vanderbilt, and Georgia Tech @ Boston College.

Tags: College Football, Florida, Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Sports, Sports News, USC

Team: Ohio State Buckeyes
School: Ohio State University
Conference: Big 10
Location: Columbus, Ohio
Stadium: Ohio Stadium or The Shoe
Team Colors: Scarlet and Gray
Mascot: Brutus the Buckeye
Current Ranking: AP Preseason (2), USA Today Preseason (3), BCS (N/A)

The Hype

Making it to the big dance two seasons in a row, and subsequently losing both games, essentially the same team from the past two BCS National Championship appearances are returning for what many expect in yet another BCS National Championship run.

Ohio State successfully recruited the much anticipated #1 High School recruit, and many expect him to play a part in this season in a similar role that Tim Tebow played in his freshman year along with Chris Leak for the Florida Gators. Also, there is more bad news for Michigan fans with Jim Tressel receiving a contract extension and pay increase. Jim Tressel is under contract with the Buckeyes until the 2013 season.

To go along with amazing new talent, the Buckeyes return last years star talent which breaks Buckeye and Tressel tradition in sending Junior’s to the NFL if they can go high in the NFL Draft. Players like James Larunitis, all but guaranteed a first round draft spot is returning to head up the linebacker corps and defense. In prior seasons he has become known for being in on every defensive play in some fashion or another. Expect nothing different this year, as he heads up the defense.

The Players

It’s hard looking at teams anymore to find just one or two players that are great and stand out above the rest. College Football is a team sport, and the team has to be good to win games. In this case the Buckeyes team is good and it has some great players on it.

Chris “Beanie” Wells has come out and stated that he didn’t play as best he could have at the first quarter of the season, and has had his sights on changing that this year. Expect him to be a legit contender for the Heisman. After all, it’d be ironic if a Buckeye is who prevented Tebow from joining the only player in history to win two Heisman Trophies in their college career — another Buckeye in Archie Griffin.

Ohio State has been a little odd the past couple of seasons with matching named tandems. Like Chris Wells and Mo Wells, this season Brian Hartline and Brian Robiskie look forward to showing some highlite reel catching ability, and will help out Todd Boekman by giving him easy targets, even in tough situations.

The Projection

I project Ohio State to realistically go 11-1, to 12-0. I think they have too much depth, too much starter skill and the coaching of the entire team, from Tressel to others, it is just too hard for these players to not go out and win games. Expect them to be in the BCS National Championship game or at least give a strong run for it, even if they lose to USC early on.

The Game

You normally always have to side with the rivalry game, but keeping with a newer tradition in the Buckeyes schedule, they line up an early preseason favorite early on in the season — this season is no different with USC being the game.

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Tags: College Football, Ohio State Buckeyes, Ohio State University, Poll, Ranking, Rankings, Review, Sports, THE Ohio State Buckeyes

It’s finally here!! Tonight, the College Football season kicks off, and one of the greatest sports out there will finally be back. It’s a special time of year where the smell of the air changes, the atmosphere with the people around you becomes different, everyone has an extra bounce in their step and odds are you’ll either be wearing your team colors in the next 4 days, or you’ll know someone who will.

While you’d think that the love and passion for college football is limited only to the states since it is based here, you’d be surprised at how beloved the sport is internationally. Asian countries like Japan root strongly for Pac 10 teams such as USC. There is even an anime that features a character wearing a Texas Longhorn shirt. Showing pride much? I look forward to this season, both as a fan, and an analyst.

Tags: College Football, Sports, Sports News

Kyle Busch’s recent tantrum and display of showing his complete lack of concern for others physical well being in response to typical NASCAR racing on Carl Edwards end which brought Edwards and win and Busch a 2nd place finish; it has brought both parties a 6-week probation.

I’m all for some good, rough racing. I don’t mind a couple wrecks here and there, and to most those wrecks are the biggest draw for NASCAR. I still have Richard Petty’s infield flip stuck in my head, even remember staring at the images in a magazine one day after school. Amazing, absolutely amazing. But, where do you draw the line?

This isn’t Busch’s first time he has had some action in which he was involved with another driver before or after a race. Earlier this season even, he was involved in a highly publicized incident with Tony Stewart which resulted in a similar situation. While this year Kyle Busch is almost unbeatable behind the wheel, and he has collected quite an impressive list of wins.. Where do you draw the line and suspend him for a race or more — end his season early?

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Tags: Carl Edwards, Kyle Busch, NASCAR, Opinions, Poll, Sports, Sports News

Before heading to bed last night, I saw this story about this 9-year-old boy who has been banned from pitching in his little league because he is too good. The problem is that he is playing with other 9 and 10-year-olds, and he is throwing 40mph pitches. He has the skills of a 11 and 12-year-old, and has shown amazing control — not once beaning anyone.

The league is saying it is a safety issue, when it has been said to be more of a political issue. He was asked to play originally for the defending champions team, and an administrator for the league has ties to the defending champions. Because the little boy decided to go play for a different team, he is unable to play all of a sudden when his team was making a run for the playoffs.

Taking it a step further, the team has been disbanded, and the coach has announced that he has resigned. The other kids have been penalized because he was too good. What the hell is wrong with this? So, what do you think?

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Tags: Baseball, Opinions, Poll, Sports

It’s pretty obvious to anyone who has gone to a sports website where they talk about College Football. There is a new rivalry. You take a look in the comments section of articles and you see all kinds of hate and bashing being shared between the two fan groups. At times it gets damn ugly. They bring in educational standards and statistics between the conferences, they pull out police reports on players the other teams once considered star players. You can even spot a your momma comment in there if you look hard enough through the 1,000’s of comments traded back and forth.

The teams in this rivalry? Ohio State and Florida; two teams who could very well be facing each other at the end of the season in a rematch and repeat of the 2007 BCS Title Game which saw Florida beat Ohio State 41-14.

Where did this rivalry get started? The media. Leading up to the big game, the media was reporting almost 100% that the Buckeyes were going to come in and absolutely slam and crush the Gators in dominating, physical, smash-mouth, manhandling, Big 10 fashion. One outlet reported that James Laurinaitis (Son of Animal, the famous pro wrestler) would “body slam” Offensive players. Florida Coach Urban Myer spun this web of personal hate and idea of the Buckeyes having an “I’m better than you” attitude to the Gator players, and everyone ate it up — especially the fans.

As the game went on, it was clear the Gators came out to brawl, and the Buckeyes were outright owned. However, the bad taste in the Gator fans mouths over all of the media hype and buildup to the game remained, which resulted in Gator fans raiding message boards where Buckeye fans would be.

Now, it is common place for a Gator fan to raid a comments section, posting site or online community dedicated towards Ohio State, continuing this issue. However, there is still more to this rivalry, which extends it past just Florida and Ohio State.

Due to Ohio State losing to LSU in the 2008 BCS Title Game, and OSU’s 2nd consecutive loss to an SEC team for the title, and being combined with the fact that Ohio State has been the class of the Big 10 for several years now, many conferences — especially the SEC — feel that the Big 10 is overrated. This has caused a conference-v.s.-conference rivalry between the SEC and the Big 10.

The SEC has really boomed in the past several years, while traditional conferences such as the Big 10 have seen less and less superstar players with true, legit speed and focus more of powerhouse football and overwhelming size and strength.

Part of the reason the SEC has been largely improved in recent years is credited to its ability to lure fast players. A good example in the SEC is a team that in my personal opinion has given up way too much size for speed; South Carolina. When watching last years game between Florida and South Carolina, and laughing as the announcers talked about how much bigger Tim Tebow was compared to every player on the South Carolina roster, you can’t help but admit that it they’ve given up too much size for speed. Bad coaching, bad recruiting, and you just can’t win with speed.

Other SEC teams have found a perfect mix of strength and speed, with teams like Florida, LSU, Auburn, and Georgia having said builds. You look at them and know they can run the ball at you with speed, and knock you on your ass with their power. Something the Big 10 is starting to regain with players such as Ohio States RB Chris “Beanie” Wells who happens to be one of Tim Tebow’s biggest rivals for the coveted Heismen Trophy.

Things look good this year for another Big 10 v.s. SEC fued building season, and we very well could be looking at that rematch for the ages. I’m a Buckeye fan first, and a Gator fan second. I want this game like I did two years ago. Either way, I win and lose. But in the end, it is a damn good game and that’s what matters.

Tags: Buckeyes, College, College Football, Florida, Gators, Ohio State, Ohio State University, Opinions, Sports, University of Florida

Now that the Beijing Olympics are done, looking back at all of the stories that came out of it, what story most defines the Olympics? Vote below, select up to 2 stories.

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