The Devil is Wearing Orang for the Last Time at Home

So Greg Paulus was given an oppurtunity to do something very rare, play two sports in college. Not only has Paulus done it, and at two different schools no less, he has done it with professionalism on and off the field, earning the respect of his coach and teammates. Sure some dumb fans will not, and have not, appreciated the things that he has done, but that was also true of his basketball career.

Paulus will suit up for his hometown team today, in his hometown, for the last time today, and face rival Rutgers. He and the team have found harsh times, losing four straight, but they look to leave the fans on a high not. Greg has seen his better days, such as the Northwestern game, as he has accumulated 14 interceptions this season (almost a majority not really being his fault however). He also might leave Syracuse, albeit in just one season, as the highest completion percentage all-time.

Paulus has been a work in progress, I mean geez the kid has not played football in four years. The season has been special though, because you will not see many people do this. And for every interception thrown, there is a great play that has been made, and unfortunately for those fans that do not know what they are truly watching they do not always see that.

Today Paulus can beat rival Rutgers and leave on a good note however, he and other seniors like former quaterback Andrew Robinson and Delone Carter who is having a great senior season. I think they will be able to win, probably by a 31-24 margin over Greg Schiano and his overrated coaching performance.

Then hopefully the fans can respect Paulus and give him the credit that he deserves, I know I will.

No Ronnie Brown? No Problem When You Got Ricky

Ronnie Brown is done for the year, and that means trouble given the year he was having for the Dolphins and their offense. Or does it? Ask the Carolina Panthers about that Dolphins offense. In their 24-17 victory over the Panthers, the Dolphins and their run game did not seem to suffer too much without Brown as Ricky Williams more than made up for his absence.

Ol' Sticky Icky Ricky was able to run for 119 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries, to go along with two receptions for 19 yards and another touchdown. The team was able to control the ball for more than half the game, and gain over 300 yards. The run game was enough to give quarterback Chad Henne time to find six different receivers.

The Panthers were able to get their yards as well, and running backs DeAngelo Williams and Jonathan Stewart combined for 165 yards on 25 carries. The night belonged to Ricky though, as he was able to show people that he does indeed still have it, and keep hope alive for the Dolphins. Within those 119 yards and two touchdowns was a long of 46 yards, and bringing the excitement to the stands.

With the win the Dolphins improve their record to 5-5 and find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to the playoffs, but kept their hopes alive. The Dolphins will control their own destiny to an extent however, with games against New England, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Pittsburgh and Houston still to come. All teams they will be battling with for a spot back in the Playoffs.

Why Do the Polls Love USC So Much?

So USC has had quite a decade, a great run at it. But not this year! The team has a freshman quarterback and lost eight starters from their defense. I will not lie I hate USC, but how could you not expect them to fall from grace, and this was a perfect year for it. They played well early, but have since just fallen apart. So what happens? They find themselves falling just enough to not make a big stink, but not enough to make it impossible to sneak back into things. I got news for the pollsters, that is just not fair.

So going into a bye week USC finds itself ranked 18. That is right 18. You look at that without thinking and say 'well this is a bad year for them, and now they are 18 now number four in the nation.' Then you look into things and you realize that this is a joke.

They lost early on to an improved, yet still bad Washington team. They then beat Notre Dame almost more because Notre Dame ran out of time as they were making a furious comeback. Then came the big game at Oregon, where they were absolutely destroyed by a score of 47-20. Well alright at least they won next week, albeit against a down Arizona St. squad 14-9. So here comes the game on controversy, in which Stanford literally ran all over USC and dominated them by a score of 55-21.

Where does this put them? 18. What other team could lose two of three (with the one win being against a team that only has two conference wins against the bad Washington teams), with the average score of those games 51-20, and only drop to 18 in the polls?

This is just hilarious that this happens, how they are still ranked is extremely confusing. But hey, the pollsters love them, and maybe if they lose to UCLA or Arizona by 30 points they will drop out of the top 25 altogether.

But probably not.

Larry Johnson to the Bengals, Could be Fun

So Larry Johnson called a group of reporters a gay slur, which he brilliantly followed up by tweeting about his coach in the same manner. Oh, and he questioned his coaching credentials on top of it. Well that was dumb. He will definitely lose out on this situation.

Oh wait, apparently it was the best move he has made in his career since he rushed for over 1,700 yards two years in a row. After being told to not report to the team in any way whatsoever, Johnson was later released from the team. Take that Larry. Actually he will take it, because since he cleared waivers he is costing the Chiefs $2.14 million from his base salary for the season over the final eight games. So they are paying him a lot of money to leave.

Well maybe no team will sign him, and that will show him. Well not really, now the Bengals have picked him up, and though he is a backup to Cedric Benson, Benson recently injured himself against the Pittsburgh Steelers. So now, given that he is able to pick up the plays and Benson can not go, Johnson will be playing, maybe a lot, for the division leading Bengals. That is right, he went from the 2-7 Chiefs to the 7-2, second best record in the AFC, Bengals.

If he did not learn from this situation blowing up in his face, then he never will. No, wait, he just made the greatest move any player has ever made. Now he is going to get paid on a winner, while having a chance to show that he can still play and is not a troublemaker. Something he tried to do on the Dan Patrick Show in an interview, where he either came off sincere or fake, you can decide. He has a chance to show that his awful rushing stats in Kansas City was because the Chiefs are that bad. This is frustrating to no end.

TCU, the Reason Early Season Polls Still do not Help

So early this season BYU beat then number three Oklahoma and found themselves in the top 10 soon there after. Then, despite a loss to Florida St. the Cougars still found themselves in the top 20. In comes TCU, and not only do they beat BYU, but they annihilated them 38-7. TCU gets a little attention, still probably not enough.

Then this past weekend, a still undefeated and now number four ranked TCU has another huge matchup with Utah, with a lot of media attention, that includes ESPN's College Gameday. So what do the Horned Frogs do? They just go out and destroy number 16 Utah by a score of 55-28. How many blowout wins does TCU need to have to get their respect? To go along with these wins they have also beaten BCS schools Clemson (the possible ACC Champ) and Virginia.

I suppose there are a few games where you can look at and say teams like Alabama, Florida and Texas would have faired better, the Air Force game for example. Ask Florida about Arkansas and Mississippi St., or Alabama about Tennessee, and Texas about Texas Tech. Who is to say TCU would not have won those individual games more convincingly?

The problem I have is that people say they need the early season polls as a bench mark, and that teams will earn their way into the top five if deserved. Well what about the top two? TCU has performed as well as any of those teams, and still people say no chance they make the BCS National Championship. Just look at the stats, and the fact that they have played some reputable teams despite what some people may ignorantly say they have not. In rushing yards per game, points per game, total yards per game, passing defense, rushing defense, total defense, points per game, and passing efficiency defense per game the Horned Frogs find themselves no lower than seven on any of those lists. Give them the respect that they have EARNED.

Manning, Peyton. Enough said

So why would a team give Peyton Manning a short field? Well I think it might just be beacuse with two minutes left after the punt and one timeout remaining jackass Bill Belichick knew what I knew, Manning was going to score either way. He just did it the possession before. He has now comeback 40 times in his career.

To watch Peyton Manning really is fun, and I look forward to watching him almost as much as my own team because of the way he has mastered the game. I know there are a lot of people out there that probably do not like him, just like me and a lot of people do not like players, and a quarterback, like Tom Brady. But I do not know how you can watch Manning and not respect his game.

Last night was a great example, and a great example is this year in terms of how he can probably put me and my dog out wide to the right and complete 55% of his passes. Halfway into this season there are five players that have 24 or more catches, two of which were nobody's coming into the year in Pierre Garcon and Austin Collie who have combined for 61 receptions.

Oh, and he has only completed nearly 70% of his passes, thrown 20 touchdowns, and has a passer rating of 104.3 while leading his team to 9-0 thus far. No big deal.

Sure people will question the decision by the grump Belichick, but why not just respect what Manning can do? It was just so much fun to watch, enjoy it because they do not all come like him.

What makes Cincinnati different?

Now given that title, and after their victory last night over West Virginia 24-21, I could begin to talk about how Cincinnati is this great team, and they have all these intangibles, including a great coach, quartback(s) and wide receiver. Nope, not this time. Instead I have a question for that question, why is Cincinnati not getting the respect that other teams would?

Three years ago West Virginia is being coached by Rich Rodriguez and they are on their way to the National Championship and nobody has a problem with that, except for Pittsburgh who beat them in the season finale. That year Pat White and Steve Slaton were leading what was a very good team, and everybody agreed with that statement. West Virginia was not the preseason pick to be in the National Championship, but they were a school that people could see in there, and from the Big East, a respectable conference.

Now we have Cincinnati, a team that won the Big East Conference last year, and now find themselves with wins over the third and fourth teams in the conference (with a matchup with number two Pittsburgh, still to come) still being looked at as a team that can not be in the National Championship. Now there are a lot of reasons to get rid of the BCS and have a playoff, and not all of those apply to this situation, but I just do not comprehend this. The Big East has had a team get that type of respect before, and would again if this were Pittsburgh or Syracuse, teams with storied traditions. How about when Miami was in the Big East?

To throw TCU and Boise St. away, which is another thing that gets me, is one thing because they do have lesser schedules. Cincinnati though is a different story and it just does not make sense to me, and probably will not. Is it their fault that Illinois, who was in the Rose Bowl a couple years ago, has taken a nose dive and now is a game that looked to be season setting, but is now a should win?

Hey Cincinnati, TCU, Boise State, you guys may go undefeated, and you may not, but in the end we are telling you it does not matter. Get some tradition and we will talk to you in about 30 years. Just what college kids, and football fans, need to be told.

Say it ain't so Jay

So, Jay Cutler coming to the Bears was supposed to thrust them into the Super Bowl discussion right? Well, that is not quite working out so far. Cutler opened up another can of criticism last night when he threw five, let me repeat FIVE, interceptions against the 49ers. This is bad enough, but two of them were in the red zone, the end zone no less.

I will come right out and say it, I am a Cutler fan, and I think that he is most certainly better than this. However, this is starting to eat away at how good he actually is, and the numbers that I looked over when he was with a sub-par Denver Broncos team might be a product of his quarterbacking.

Part of the reason Cutler is having problems is because the running game just can not find its way. Last year Matt Forte was one of the top backs in the NFL, now he finds himself averaging only 3.4 yards a carry. This, along with Cutler having already thrown 17 interceptions, with five last night and four in week one against the Packers in another loss, have the Bears looking up at other teams for the playoffs.

Now all of the interceptions were not his fault, Devin Hester fell down once, there was a pass interference that was not called, and the final one that was his second in the end zone came on the last play and was somewhat of a Hail Mary play even in the red zone.

The problem the Bears have going forward is the psyche of the team, and where Cutler is at with his receivers. They are 4-5 now, with a small chance of catching the Minnesota Vikings for the division, and on the outside looking in. The questions are mounting, is Cutler the man? Is coach Lovie Smith on his way out? Where do they go from here?