Mom I'm Grounding Myself...

Ok, about two months ago I posted this article concerning the cheating/roster problem of the Florida State football team. For shame Florida State. Fast forward to today and after extensive snooping the administrators have decided to drop the hammer and...place themselves on TWO YEARS PROBATION. Holy crap man, what does that even mean? According to the Associated Press it means that scholarships will be revoked and eligibility will be denied. But wait one a minute, did this not already happen? I suppose that they've found out that the number of cheaters is now 60 and I'm assuming they were in violation of independent occurances otherwise that professor is an idiot. Two years probation. Dom, 4real and my fraternity was placed on probation for something like two years and that did absolutely nothing for us, besides enhance our ability to sneak around more. Two years probation. Just like many of the kids in honors classes in High school are just the better cheaters, this "penalty" seems like a front. Two years probation. And let's not forget the rules for NCAA which try to keep student-athletes from getting too many perks, such as the Kevin Love/Wooden situation earlier this year OR perks that restaurants/bars like Championship in Tucson gives to athletes to come in. Would this not fall under unauthorized special treatment? I remember agreeing to the academic integrity agreement when registering for college not to mention on my SYLLABUS at the start of every semester. Unless I'm unaware of some fine print on these seemingly duplicated documents for student-athletes, I'm almost certain probation and loss of eligibility for your sport should be the least of your worries. Two years probation. Expulsion/Failing was what was in the books for me. So really two years probation? That's just a nice way of saying we're taking away their scholarships, but really we're gonna have them do these bullshit jobs - for example Zeppelin spotting which was a job for student-athletes in the 80's at the University of Arizona - which pay unusually high wages. I mean I find this entertaining seeing as how for so long we had to sidestep a probation - and just like FSU - imposed our own sort of punishment. Being in the driver's seat for this I find funny, because a self-imposed probation just allows you to change the rules as you see fit, while still creating the image of punishment for the overlord. That's like quitting a job after you find out you're gonna be fired. Keep whatever pride you have left FSU. You have two years.

*note on the picture - the only ties it has are the girls from FSU but I like boobs, and since it's National Pitcher/Catcher day it's nice to celebrate
More after the jump...

A Little Last Minute Late Bowl Season Breakdown.

Bowl season is over and there are a lot of teams happy with the results, and a few who were not. The Big Eleven continued to struggle in the Bowl Games going 3-5 and losing both BCS games to superior conferences. Illinois was thrashed by USC and Ohio State lost to an SEC contender for the second straight year. Here are a few wrap up thoughts on the Bowl Season that was.

I still think that a playoff system is necessary in college football. Whether it’s a 4 team, 8 team, or my super special 16 team bracket is up for discussion. Unfortunately for some, Georgia stomped on Hawai’i in the Sugar Bowl. Hawai’i, and really the WAC in general over the last 2 years was a major catalyst for my reasoning of a playoff system. The irony is after that game was over Georgia President, Michael Adams is saying we need a playoff. Mere days after his victory suggested otherwise. But he’s still right, the 3 loss Bulldogs deserved a chance as much as Oklahoma, LSU, Ohio State, West Virginia and others.

It was only mildly mentioned by me, and I haven’t read it any where else but the irony is amazing in Tallahassee. The Noles were playing in the Music City Bowl. They lost because about 20 of their players were academically ineligible. They were ineligible because they cheated in a Music History class. Irony.

Because of this seasons flip flopping of the rankings every week the folks in El Paso, TX got to witness the Brut Sun Bowl as they have every year since the Depression. The Oregon Ducks soundly defeated the South Florida Bulls. Why is this important, it’s a December Bowl game. It wasn’t even a BCS game. It’s important because both of these teams were ranked #2 at one point in the season and they played their last game in 2007. Had this game taken place during the season prior to November this would have been the game of the week by far. Instead it was a pre-New Years Bowl Game. That is rare, but I suppose it will happen when there are 8 different #2 seeds (I don’t feel like going back and re-researching this I’m just guessing 8 seems about right to me).

Does the name Tony Temple mean anything to you? Probably not unless you follow Mizzou. The Senior back rushed for a Cotton Bowl record 281 yards and 4 TDs. He only had 3 games over 100 yds all season and actually finished with 40 of less in 7 of the season’s contests.

The Alamo Bowl was the 500th game of JoePa’s career and his 23rd Bowl Win. With the Penn State semi-success over the last couple seasons and Florida State slowly slipping into futility, it looks like JoePa and Bowden will be going head to head until one of them actually does die on the sideline. JoePa has 3 more Bowl Wins and 1 less win overall. JoePa could pass Bowden before conference play opens up next year.

Colt Brennan looked a little less than Heisman worthy against Georgia. It will be interesting to see how far he falls in the draft and if the chip on his shoulder can make him a really good NFL QB, or if he’s gonna be the biggest bust since Leaf. Time can only tell on that one.

Notre Dame did not play in a Bowl game. This was a big story in one of the worst seasons in ND Fighting Irish history. It however isn’t all that uncommon for the Irish who have gone from unstoppable to laughable in the last decade. From the 1987 (‘88 Bowl) season to the 1998 (‘99 Bowl) The Irish played in 11 Bowl games. Since the 2000 (‘01 Bowl) season they have played and lost in 5, 3 times in BCS bowls. They have also lost they’re last nine. Next year is not looking that promising either for Touchdown Jesus’ tribe.

The Pac-10 went 4-2 in Bowl Games this Bowl Season. UCLA had an interim coach, was still hampered by injuries, and barely lost to BYU. Look out for the Pac-10 next season with parity (except for USC) becoming more prevalent in the conference the Pac could surprise some folks next year.

And on that note it is becoming more and more obvious that the SEC and Pac are becoming the top two conferences by far. Environmentally more people want to live in California (4 schools) and Arizona (2 schools) then in Ohio or Nebraska. There is also better football being played at the High School level in the western states. We are looking at a major paradigm shift in the college football world. They play is much better in the SEC and Pac-10 and the recruits are going to these schools for a reason. And if USC gets hit with sanctions because of the Reggie Bush fiasco and if Carroll leaves the Pac will be stealing a lot of those recruits further evening out the Pac-10. It could be the beginning of a good decade for the West Coast teams. There is an outside shot that there could be as many as 5 (USC, Oregon, ASU, UCLA, Oregon State, Arizona, and Cal all have a chance) Pac-10 teams in the top 25 at some point next season, perhaps all at once, and at least 3 (Oregon, USC, ASU) in the preseason rankings.
More after the jump...

Florida State v. Louis Armstrong

most of you won't be there

25 players suspended. Florida State has 25 players on their football team suspended for cheating on a History of Music exam. Bowden said that he does not plan on using any of his redshirt players to fill in spots for the bowl game, which is a good move seeing as how it's not a BCS bowl. But, honestly who the hell is gonna play for the Seminoles? Should they take a page out of the Cincinnati Bengals book and just recruit right outside of the prisons? Maybe call Keanu Reeves - sorry Shane Falco - and get a replacement team out there? or maybe just simple Bear/Man/Gun with Kentucky... best out of 40.

By the way, History of Music? Seriously, how hard could that test have been. Obviously a Gen Ed, come on FSU, raise your standards a bit. Or maybe they're low for this
More after the jump...

Today's Top Stories

Marc Crawford not informed Slap Shot was fictional, put a bounty out on Scott Moore.
Marc Crawford, current LA Kings coach, former Canucks coach is being implicated in one of the dirtiest hits in NHL history, and it was all done from the bench. Multiple reports came out in the last 24 hours citing recent court documents that stated Crawford was behind Bertuzzi’s career-ending attack on Scott Moore a few years ago. Reports state that the attack was pre-meditated and was called for while in the locker room as retaliation from an earlier shot delivered by Moore to Markus Naslund, the Canuck captain earlier that season in February. After ordering the hit Bertuzzi attacked Moore from behind breaking 3 vertebrae in his spine and ending his career. The recent reports are part of sworn testimony by Bertuzzi while being investigated in the $38 Million dollar lawsuit being put together by Moore’s attorney.

The NBA playoffs get off to a great start in 2007-2008 campaign.
NBA officials must have realized that 82 games is a long time and decided to showcase some quality match-ups much earlier in the season than usual. This coupled with increased quality and intensity of play might just bring the NBA back into the limelight much earlier than it’s usual April/May debut. Recent match-ups have included:
11/26: Washington @ Dallas, Phoenix @ Golden State
11/28: WAS @ San Antonio, Houston @ PHX
11/29: Denver @ Lakers, HOU @ G. S.
11/30: LAK @ Utah, Orlando @ PHX
12/1: Toronto @ WAS
12/2: ORL @ LAK
12/3: ORL @ G. S.
12/5: PHX @ TOR, DAL @ S. A. , LAK @ DEN
12/6: DEN @ DAL
12/7: PHX @ WAS, TOR @ Boston, UT @ S. A.
12/8: UT @ DAL
12/9: HOU @ TOR, G. S. @ LAK
That’s 21 games between two .500+ teams in a 2 week span. This is a good thing for the NBA, and for the sports fan.

What else are you supposed to do on Monday night?
ESPN released its numbers from Monday Nights Ravens vs. Patriots game and they were not only the highest the network had ever seen (12,529,000 homes average) but with over 17.5 million viewers it passed Cable’s all time highest rated program. Take that High School Musical 2. Thus further proving a few theories I have always maintained. ESPN has better programming than the Disney Channel, Football provides more viewing pleasure than Musicals, the 17.2 million people who watched High School Musical 2 need to get off the couch, 17.2 million (estimated) people watched a made for Disney Musical.

Florida Doomed to Lose
Sorry to the folks in Florida. It really must be kinda tough to be a fan of pretty much any team in the US’ Wang. Every time the Marlins win they trade away most of their roster. And this time, they weren’t even winning they just decided screw it and got rid of the last two people on their roster with WS rings from only 4 years ago. Do the Marlins think it will be easy to replace the All Stars Stats? Cabrera finished off last season with 34/119 and batting .320/.419/.542. And Willis’ numbers, though slightly down from past years included a 10-15 record in 35 games started with a 5.17 ERA but a career ERA of 3.78 and Florida is losing one of their better bats in Willis. A real shock is that he heads to the AL. How can you even support the Marlins at this point when the players there don’t last longer than 5 years. Is it even worth buying any Marlins gear. In Miami, Wade has only played in 10 games leading former All-Star and Shaq’s first little buddy to stack up over 20 minutes/game this season. When Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway is in your starting line-up and it’s not 1994, that’s a bad thing. And Shaq’s been limited to under 30 minutes/game due to the fact that he’s 35 and 325 lbs. The state only has 2 football teams in the final top 25 and one of them is South Florida who had one of the craziest years in College Football History. Furthermore typical Bowl powerhouses (until recent years) Miami (5-7) and Florida State (7-5) finished out of the BCS picture for the 2nd straight year. Florida State is playing Kentucky in the Music City Bowl and Miami didn’t even qualify for a bowl game. And Florida is getting a gift playing after New Years in the Capital One Bowl. Oh and they are the home to the Miami Dolphins.

Don’t get upset at the numbers
To cap off a column I wrote a few months ago about the wacky College Football season here are some final numbers going into Bowl Season:
Tim Tebow: well deserving of the Heisman with 29 Passing TDs and 22 Rushing TDs and only 6 Total Turnovers, but might not receive it because he’s a Sophomore.
Colt Brennan: well deserving of the Heisman with 38 Passing TDs and 8 Rushing TDs and almost 4200 yards passing (in limited minutes due to blowout and injury), but probably won’t receive it because he played at Hawai’i.
Final Tally: 61 total times a Top-25 Team lost, 28 of those were top-10 teams, 7 times (in 14 weeks) the #2 team lost, 4 times the #1 team lost (3 of those the #1 and #2 lost in the same week) twice the #4 team lost, 3 times the #5 team lost but after all of that the #3 team only lost once all season. Of course when said #3 team moved the #2 they didn’t fare so well. Yet these same voters who ranked Cal (6-6), Oregon (8-4), BC (10-3) and South Florida (9-3) as a #2 during the season are the one’s deciding that deserving teams can’t play in the National Championship game, wonderful system. Fun Stat: LSU was 6-0 this season as a #2 Ohio State 3-1 as a #1.
There was a 15 lateral victory by Trinity College and Jonathon Weiner actually called it, perfectly, pretty much ensuring a good shot at a successful future in broadcasting. But the best quote of that game, and of the entire college football season, by far was by a little known 6 foot even 250 lb offensive lineman Josh Hooten, who not only once but twice held the ball, if only for a nano-second, during the 15 toss drive, including the blind over his head toss. “On these lateral plays, a lot of times there’s some fat guy trying to score and he gets tackled at the 10-yard line. I didn’t want to be that guy. I just hot-potatoed it and looked for someone to block”.

See Ya Tomorrow Sports Fans.
More after the jump...