Monday Musings
*So I had SportsCenter on in the background last night, and looked up and saw Stuart Scott gesticulating in an animated manner, and it dawned on me that ESPN's studio shows would be far more entertaining if you could actually see the marionette strings moving the anchors around.
*You know what the Jets' lopsided loss to Kansas City means? It means we're spared the "All-New York Super Bowl" talk that pops up every time the Jets and Giants start off 1-0.
*How many weeks until either Keyshawn Johnson or Terry Glenn decide they're not getting the ball enough down in Dallas?
*Some random thoughts from College Football Week 2:
--College football is simply better when Notre Dame is on top. Doesn't matter if you love the Fighting Irish or hate them. College football needs ND to thrive the same way the NBA needs the Lakers and baseball needs the Red Sox and Yankees to do well. And make no mistake about it -- Charlie Weis wants this job far more than any NFL job could entice him. He's a Notre Dame graduate. He already has three Super Bowl rings. What could be better for a Notre Dame grad than to be the person who restores the program back to where everyone associated with the school feels it belongs?
--And while Weis is winning at Michigan with Tyrone Willingham's recruits, Willingham's new team, the University of Washington, has now lost in Seattle to Air Force and lost at home to Cal 56-17. In fairness, on the UW end of things, at this point this is more a reflection on just how badly things fell apart under the prior regime, as he inherited a 1-10 team. Either way, you'll hear a ton more about this in about a week, since Notre Dame travels to U-Dub on Sept. 24 . . . And, keeping with the Northwest theme, Washington State is 2-0, as it followed its opener over Idaho with a 55-21 win over Nevada. Next up for the Cougs is Grambling. After Grambling, there is a bye week, but I can check in with my alma mater, UMass Boston, and see if the Beacons want to re-assemble their disbanded program in time for a game if Wazzu wants another cupcake.
--Can we please have more matchups like Ohio State-Texas? What a finish. Too many top-flight schools avoid matchups like these because it hurts their BCS chances. If anything, this is further argument for a legitimate national tournament. A team like Ohio State could easily absorb a loss to a school like Texas and still qualify for a 16-team tournament. But either way, what would either school have gained through scheduling another game like Appalachian State? Instead, we got a matchup that presented the sport in a great light and delivered on the field. More, please.
--Oklahoma sure looks like this year's big, gigantic fraud. The Sooners followed up their stinker against TCU (which lost to SMU Saturday, I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think that was SMU's first win since they got hit with the death penalty a couple decades back) by struggling to hold off Tulsa. If Adrian Peterson wasn't an absolute thoroughbred halfback, they'd be in even bigger trouble.
*Hey, so remember all that talk about how things were going to change for the Boston Bruins once the new collective bargaining agreement got put in place? How the league's economics were the reason they couldn't re-sign the players they had, much less go after top-flight free agents? We were reminded about once a week that Boston was one of the few teams in the league to turn a profit every year under the old arrangement. Well, the lockout has come and gone, salaries were dramatically slashed, and there was a salary cap put into place.
And I just took a peak at Bruins ticket prices for the new season. And, well, under the new system, the one that replaced the old system from which the Bruins were already drawing a profit, the cheapest seat in the loge is $79, and that's for behind the net and in the corners; and a 10th row seat in the balcony sets you back $42 a pop.
And the Bruins have been signing their usual gaggle of third-liners and over-the-hill types.
In other words, business as usual.
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