The Sports Curmudgeon

My vagabond summer is entering the home stretch and unless I get very fortunate with access to a computer and the Internet over the next two weeks, I will not be able to do Mythical Picks. So, let me give you a recap of last week and point out the gambling lesson therein. I opened the NCAA season with a 4-0 week – and warned everyone that did not mean similar results would reliably follow. And all I had to do was wait until the second week of the college football season to say something along the lines of “See, I told you so!” I made six picks last weekend; only two were correct.

There are still two Monday night games left in the NFL weekend and I did not pick the Thursday night opener so I made picks in 13 games. The record was 11-2 last weekend against the spread; and in addition, I picked Tennessee to win outright as a money-line bet. That’s so good that I have to say it again; it’s not going to be like that every weekend - - and when Mythical Picks return in a couple of weeks, I am fully expecting the oddsmakers to get their revenge on me quickly.

Of course, there is great weeping and gnashing of teeth in Ann Arbor and in South Bend this week. Not only have the Michigan and Notre Dame teams lost their first two games this year, they have both looked horrible in doing so. And they face each other next… Now that’s the good news for fans of one of these teams. Here’s what Dwight Perry had to say about this game in the Seattle Times:

“Notre Dame (0-2) at Michigan (0-2) – destined to be remembered as the Woes Bowl.”

Another team that has started out the season at 0-2 is North Texas. That’s not all that surprising; North Texas is anything but a “perennial power” in college football. However, it’s new coach, Riley Dodge, came there from a “perennial power” in Texas high school football where he lost only one game in the last five seasons. Now, he has doubled that total in the first two weeks of this season. Losing the opener to Oklahoma is understandable but last weekend’s loss was to SMU and that’s not nearly the same thing. Somewhere, Gerry Faust is nodding knowingly…

Western Kentucky is a Division 1-A school – albeit not a very good one. In one of the rankings of college teams from top to bottom, Western Kentucky is ranked 118th. They reached all the way down to the NAIA ranks to schedule West Virginia Tech for last weekend and won that game 87-0. Western Kentucky scored 49 points in the first quarter alone… Any cheering done in that stadium anytime after the middle of the first quarter was like applause at a hit and run accident.

Hawaii beat La Tech last weekend and they play UNLV next weekend. Rather than fly all the way back to Hawaii and then to Las Vegas, Hawaii will stay here on the mainland. That makes a boatload of sense; I’d do the same thing if confronted with that kind of a schedule. However, please remember this when one of the NCAA “talking suits” tells you that there can’t be a football playoff because it would interfere with the scholar-athletes’ pursuit of an education – the mainstream purpose of the university. Here’s a team cutting a week’s worth of classes. Might that same “talking suit” explain to me how that furthers their educational pursuits?

If you love controversy, here’s something for you to root for in the next couple of months. Root for USC, LSU, West Virginia and Oklahoma to go undefeated and for all of them to continue to win all of their games with ease. Then sit back and hear the screams of anguish and the charges of “foul play” that will surely emanate from whichever schools do not get to play in the BCS Championship game.

In NFL action over the weekend, the Chargers used defense and two turnovers in Chicago territory to score twice and beat the Bears 14-3. Will someone tell me how that is so different from “Martyball”? Wasn’t Norv Turner there to juice up that offense?

In my NFL pre-season analysis, I said that Cedric Benson would be in the spotlight in Chicago after the Bears traded Thomas Jones and elevated Benson to the status of “featured back”. When the Bears were down two scores late in the 4th quarter yesterday, they had fourth and one in Chargers’ territory and had to get that first down to pretend they could still pull out the game. They gave it to Benson and he went exactly nowhere. I liked Cedric Benson a lot coming out of Texas, but he had better improve a lot over yesterday’s performance lest he become a real target for fans in Chicago.

Amazingly, the Bears are now in sole possession of last place in the NFC North as the Lions, Packers and Vikings all won yesterday. That’s not gonna last all that long, but it’s interesting to note at the moment.

Did you happen to watch any of the CBS NFL Pre-Game show yesterday? James Brown tried to Keep Dan Marino, Bill Cowher, Shannon Sharpe and Boomer Esiason involved enough that they didn’t fall asleep on the set – while carving out some time for Charley Casserley.

Memo to CBS Honchos: Enough already. That set has a population density that rivals Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, at ESPN the new MNF broadcasting team hits the airwaves tonight for its first real game. It can’t be a surprise to anyone who reads these essays that I am not a fan of Joe Theismann as a TV analyst, so I have to think the announcing will be better this year. Now for the real challenge. Can ESPN find it in its heart to limit the promos for ABC sit-coms and/or new Disney movies throughout the second quarter of every game? I sure hope so.

All of the networks go overboard on showing big hits in football games and ESPN’s “Jacked Up!!” segment has always been particularly annoying. Now that Bills’ TE Kevin Everett required spinal surgery for a neck injury and has “sparse movement” in his limbs as of this morning, might the glorification of those kinds of plays be toned down just a wee bit?

I see where the three Duke Lacrosse players who were charged and then released are now suing a whole bunch of folks for a whole bunch of money. What I did not see was that any of them decided to sue either Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson for defamation of character. If they did that, it would be fun to watch either of those gentlemen on the witness stand under oath. I know I’d be glued to CourtTV if they carried it.

Finally, Gregg Drinnan in the Kamloops Daily News quoted comedian George Carlin commenting on some of the lesser lights of televised sports:

“Competitive eating isn’t a sport. It’s one of the seven deadly sins. ESPN recently televised the U.S Open of Competitive Eating, because watching those athletes at the poker table was just too damned exciting. What’s next, competitive farting? Oh wait, they’re already doing that. It’s called The Howard Stern Show.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…