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Fire Rick Neuheisel
Posted by The Danza on Dec 31, 2007
Rick Neuheisel was just hired by UCLA a few days ago. Now, FireRickNeuheisel.com is up for sale…..for $250,000. But the owner is not one of the typical guys who hordes domain names involving firing college coaches, which has become a big thing lately with all of the firings that go on each year. No, this guy wants money donated to the schools the Neuheisel has screwed up in the past. $75,000 to Colorado and Washington for non-athletic scholarships, for those students who Neuheisel didn’t have boosters pay to play. On top of that, he also wants $100,000 steered toward the Teach For America program, “because there’s no better way to stop this cycle of using sports as a focal point for school than at the beginning.” Very interesting. Who knows? Maybe it will be sold and make money fairly soon. Some are already saying that UCLA will regret hiring Neuheisel.
Running Diary: Independence Bowl featuring Alabama Crimson Tide and Colorado Buffalos
Posted by The Late Spider Moltisanti on Dec 30, 2007
As Always all times are Central Time Zone
Interesting match up here, two mediocre teams from major conferences. This is how you decide which conference is better; have two mid tier teams (Bama from SEC and Colorado from Big 12) play each other, it’s not the top teams that determine how good a conference is but the teams that are played each week by the top teams.
7:07 - Kickoff and Alabama has it. Gotta admire Nick Saban’s decision to receive the ball to start the game. His QB John Parker Wilson hasn’t played well since about mid season and he puts the ball in his hands to start the game. Might be the best way for JPW to get his confidence back or it might be the best way to give Colorado and early takeaway. We shall see.
Merry Christmas From TH&L and the ‘86 Dallas Cowboys
Posted by The Danza on Dec 25, 2007
We here at TH&L have been on a kind of hiatus over the last week. We’ve all been traveling, and there’s been nothing new really worth talking about or making fun of in the sports world. While browsing YouTube for some kind of sports-related Christmas video, I found what quite possibly could be the most ridiculous video I’ve ever seen. Merry Christmas from the 1986 Dallas Cowboys.
I guess they figured they needed to do something for their fans after losing 7 of the last 8 games that season.
We’ll be back in full force prior to the the big bowl weekend and week coming up. Until then, rock out on your new Guitar Hero game, video your friends doing something stupid on your new camcorder, and savor all the fruitcake you could ask for. Merry Christmas to everyone!
Update On the Reggie Bush Investigation and His Heisman Brethren
Posted by The Danza on Dec 20, 2007
A little over a month ago, I wrote a post on the Reggie Bush NCAA investigation and how it is not being highly publicized by the major sports networks. At that point, the investigation had progressed slowly but was coming to what seemed to be a very important juncture with new evidence being introduced. Since then, there has still been very little coverage of this developing story, whether it be because of lack of hard evidence (although that obviously has never stopped ESPN from reporting anything else in the past) or a more meaningful underlying motive (as introduced in our previous post regarding the investigation).
Over a month has passed, and we finally have another article to reference, this time from a source that’s geographically close to the action: The LA Times. Given, there’s really no new evidence in this piece, but it is interesting to hear what former Heisman winners have to say about stripping Bush of the Heisman Trophy.
Another important event that could open this story wide open is the release of the book, Tarnished Heisman, by Don Yaeger (also co-author of Jose Canseco’s new book and author of a book about the Duke Lacrosse scandal), which is set to be released on January 15, 2008. It supposedly goes into heavy detail of all of the transactions, affiliations, and wrongdoings Bush and his family participated in while at USC. It will be interesting to see if this book’s release will have the same effect on this investigation that Jose Canseco’s book had on baseball’s steroid investigation.
Polish Sausage…. Ditka….. Ditka….. Sausage…. Bears
Posted by The Danza on Dec 18, 2007
Rest in peace, Chris Farley. Today marks the 10th anniversary of his tragic death. While this may not be sports related, for all of the 20-30 somethings out there, we were in our lives’ formative years when Farley was making everyone laugh on SNL and in movies, and I’m sure all of us have borrowed a little bit of Farley comedy over the years. Most of you probably remember and love the clip below from “Da Bears” skit with Michael Jordan. So, as you watch, pour one out for Farley today.
A-Rod’s Clean!
Posted by The Danza on Dec 18, 2007
Or so he says. Alex Rodriguez felt compelled to do a “60 Minutes” interview to say to the world, “Hey, I’m good enough without the steroids or HGH.” He’s borderline cocky in his interview, saying:
“I’ve never felt overmatched on the baseball field,” he said. “… I felt that if I did my, my work as I’ve done since I was, you know, a rookie back in Seattle, I didn’t have a problem competing at any level.”
He went on to say “no” to a question of whether he had ever used steroids or HGH. Ok, maybe I’m a little skeptical of his words because of some things that I have heard from people close to the source, but I don’t believe him. Prepare yourselves for a conspiracy theory: I don’t think Major League Baseball will let A-Rod’s name be associated with any steroids or HGH allegations, regardless of whether he’s tested positive before in the past (*cough, cough*).
This is a dark era for baseball, an era where there is a lot of blame being thrown around but very little accountability stepping up. It’s the Players’ Union’s fault, or Bud Selig’s fault. No, wait, it’s the media’s fault, or the fans’ fault for wanting the “long ball” so badly. I don’t know, and I don’t care whose fault it is. Baseball is in a tough spot. Its home run king is a very publicly accused juicer. Its second greatest pitcher of the last 35 years “took it in the butt.” (Nolan Ryan was the greatest, damnit!) Read the rest of this entry »
Richie Rod To The Big House
Posted by The Late Spider Moltisanti on Dec 16, 2007
Both Yahoo! and ESPN are reporting that Rich Rodriguez will be leaving as head coach of West Virginia’s football team and take the same position with Michigan. A press conference has been scheduled for Monday morning to announce the hiring.
This looks be a great hire for Michigan and the Big 10 conference. Rodriguez’ spread offense will infuse life into a team conference that has struggled to compete with the fast athletes and big play offenses of other conferences. Michigan is always one of the top teams in the Big 10 and now maybe other schools will follow suit by converting to high powered offenses, either by coordinators or head coach, in order to keep pace. Auburn just hired Tony Franklin of Troy to be its new offensive coordinator. Franklin has run a spread offense at Troy University successfully to the point that the Trojans hung over 40 on Oklahoma State and stayed competitive with a tough Georgia team. Could we be seeing a trend developing in college football? We’ll see.
Picture/Headline of the Week: 12/15/07
Posted by The Danza on Dec 16, 2007
ESPN “Trying” To Be “Accountable” for Its “Crap”
Posted by The Danza on Dec 14, 2007
Sorry for all the quotations in the title. I felt a little like Chris Farley’s Bennet Brauer character from SNL, but I think all of them needed quotes….well, except for crap maybe. Apparently, ESPN has a representative to the public that is independent and holds ESPN accountable for the way that they report the “news” to the public. And I must say, Le Anne Schreiber really lays it to them in her December 10th piece. With regards to all of the coaching rumors that have been running rampant with numerous coaches already having accepted positions at multiple schools, we here at TH&L thought this was an interesting independent perspective into the way the media actually works. Schreiber has complete access to all of ESPN’s journalists and producers, so she sets the record straight directly from the sources that make the broadcasting decisions.
The main problem: I have no idea how to actually find this “Ombudsman,” as she is called by ESPN, through links on their website. I found this link on Deadspin earlier in the week, but I can’t find my way back to it from ESPN’s main page. For some reason, I think this may be on purpose. Either way, we now know who writes these horrible things about ESPN, so we can now do a keyword search for “Le Anne Schreiber” every time we have beef with ESPN, which is daily. Read the rest of this entry »
Michigan Looking Into Richie Rod (or so ESPN says)
Posted by The Late Spider Moltisanti on Dec 14, 2007
Just watched College Football live on ESPN and Rece Davis, Desmond Howard and Joe Schadd just said that Michigan is targeting West Virginia head coach Rich Rodriguez to fill its head coaching vacancy. This is ESPN, so you will forgive my skepticism as I say I’ll believe this when I see him in front of a podium with a Michigan M emblazoned curtain behind him singing “Hail to the Victors” with the rest of the room and all the male cheerleaders (I wanted to throw up watching Bobby Petrino do that at Arkansas. Seriously, Male Cheerleaders on the podium with the new head coach?) More on this story when it develops or is reported to be false.