Black Saturday

When things go bad, they can go REALLY bad and that's what happened this weekend.

The trip down to Austin for the Ohio St. game was a fun one, but the outcome of the game was not so fun.

Here are some of my random comments on the weekend:

--The Defensive gameplan had problems from the start because of the Tarrell Brown suspension and Andrew Kelson being held out because of injury. I would need to rewatch the game (I was just happy to be in my seats corner endzone), but whatever we did on Ginn and Gonzalez did not work on the first half. Gonzalez was open the entire first half and the Ginn TD before half was a backbreaker. My girlfriend's 13 year old cousin told me this but why didn't UT just put one of the young guys on Ginn and have Ross go man on man against Gonzalez. Because what the secondary was doing in the first half was just ugly. One of the very few times I'd criticize Chizik but this was a bad gameplan.

--Offense had too many missed opportunities with the Jermichael Finley drop and the fumble on the goalline being too much to overcome on a night that produced very few big plays for the Longhorns.

--This Oline is still dominant. While the offense may have sputtered much of the night, you cannot blame the Oline which still opened up holes for the backs and gave Mccoy adequate protection. Selvin Young and J-Chuck played well and they were very close to breaking a long one on multiple occasions.

--McCoy is more mobile than I thought, but he needs to keep it on the sprint draw to loosen up the defense. I expect these adjustments will be made before OU.

--Those blaming this loss on Greg Davis need their head examined.

--Matthew McCouaghney was up to his usual antics. I saw him leading a whole section of students into a frenzy pre kickoff. And also showing up on Godzilla time sometime during the 3rd quarter when he was trying to inspire a comeback.

--Lebron James, Cris Carter, Lance Armstrong, and a bunch of others I'm forgetting were also in attendance at this one.

ND looked great in a thrashing of what I believe is still a pretty talented Penn St. 41-7 in South Bend.
. Charle Weis had his team more than ready for Penn St. and the Irish capitalized basically every mistake. A huge tilt with Michigan awaits this Saturday.

Some other games that I wish I would have seen Saturday

Tech/UTEP -- Tech escapes in overtime. UTEP deserves credit for taking Tech to the wire.

Fresno/Oregon -- You knew this one would be close and it was with Oregon winning 31-24 on a gutsy call by Mike Belotti. He calls a fake field goal with about 4 minutes left and the score tied at 24. The ducks convert the fake and win by a TD. And I had Fresno +4. Did I mention it was bad for me?

Tennesee/Air Force -- Have not seen one highlight from this game but the Falcons take The Vols to the gun and fail on a 2 pt. conversion to lose at the gun.

Georgia/South CArolina -- Would have loved to have seen Mark Richt's crew go in and blank Spurrier at Columbia. Must have been some kind of performance. HP Boy Stafford looks to be the starter now with the nice story but very mediocre Joe Tershinski out with injury.

SMU/UNT -- I had to mention this one because the Ponies my buddy Brian promised were going to be much better got steamrolled by the Mean Green in Denton. It's hard to hit rock bottom at SMU but Phil Bennett is trying this season. Expect an appearance on the Bottom 10 this week for the Mustangs. The Sam Houston St. bobcats loom on the horizon.

Doug Christie and his wife are getting a TV Show on BET

I have to watch this trainwreck waiting to happen.

Since going to the US Open last week with Sarah, I have begun to appreciate that sport.
Andy Roddick had a hell of a tournament and just got outlasted by Roger Federer in the men's Final. It was quite humorous while watching Roddick's semifinal match on Sunday in the UT law school lounge area. Sarah wants to see how Roddick is doing and turn it to the tennis match. Well, I'm controlling the remote and about 25 Texas fans are watching the ND/Penn St. game and OU/Washington games. Safe to say when I turned it to tennis, the channel got turned back to football at a very fast rate.

The Final Sign it's just not a good weekend to be associated with UT, Chris Simms throws 3 INTs and the Buccaneers get blanked by The Ravens 27-0 in the Tampa opener. Oh yea, one of those INTs was returned for a touchdown. Imagine that from Simms. I have found it interesting in hindsight that the Big 3 apparently were much of the reason holding Texas back from winning national championship. Their ridicule included making fun of Billy Pittman's bell's palsy and almost forcing Pittman to quit school. It wasn't until Vince showed up and instilled confidence in his teammates that the team made the jump the next level. At least something to think about when you consider the Simms era.

Major returns to Austin this weekend as the Offensive Coordinate. Somehow you don't have to envy that assingment.

Finally, I better comment on my pitiful gambling weekend.

I'll be the first to admit my picks were really were god awful this week. It's early in the season, but so far this year has not been anything close to last year's success. Gambling on college sports is a grind so I'm going to try and hang in there this week and hope things turn around. I don't want to make excuses but I've had to make my picks very early the last couple weeks because I've been traveling. A lot of things happen between Thursday and Saturday (i.e. Drew Tate getting scratched from playing right at game time) and there are many cappers around the internet who don't put their plays up until Saturday morning.

From now on, I am going to put up my early plays and update the blog accordingly before kickoff. Hope that will help the rest of the season for those that are following my picks. I know that's probably noone after this week but I'm confident things are about to turn around.

The upcoming week's games look just about as entertaining as a middle of September can possibly get. The following games are all scheduled for this upcoming Saturday:

2:30 Games Central
Auburn/LSU
Miami/Louisville
Michigan/ND
Oregon/Oklahoma

Later Games

Florida/Tenneseee
TCU/Tech
Nebraska/USC


Holy shit!

I have been away from Dallas the last two weeks, but I will certainly by the television for this week's action. It's either that or go to the SMU/Sam Houston St. game. Let's hope my luck turns around as well.