Road teams dominate week 13 in the NFL

Going into the Sunday night football game between the home team (Minnesota Vikings) and the road team (Chicago Bears), 10 out of 11 road teams won. The lone exception was Tampa Bay who topped the Saints at home. This is an incredible statistic to me. It's extremely hard to win in the NFL, yet alone on the road. On Thanksgiving the home team won 2 out of the 3 games, with the defeated Detroit Lions being the only team to lose at home. 

BCS favors Oklahoma

So, the BCS came out today with Oklahoma ahead of Texas. The computers were the ultimate factor. In one poll Oklahoma was favored, and the other had Texas favored. The computers however had Oklahoma #1 and Texas #2. So, now Texas can complain and Oklahoma cheer. Oklahoma will beat Missouri without much of a problem in my opinion. This will send them to the national championship. They will play the winner of the SEC Championship with Florida and Alabama. I got Florida winning that game. This means Florida vs. Oklahoma for the championship. It's just great that computers decide the fate of teams. Something has to change!

BCS has work to do

So, the Big 12 South Champion has yet to be determined after all the games have been played. It's up to the voters and computers. Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech are all hoping to make the championship game against Missouri. Well Texas Tech has absolutely no shot because the voters see them as the 7th best team in the nation. They will be eliminated because of this. Oklahoma was voted 2nd in the human polls last week and third in the computers. Texas was voted 3rd in the 4th in the human polls and 2nd in the computers. Some say with the win against Oklahoma State, Oklahoma will pass Texas and make the Big 12 championship game. I disagree. I think the human voters will look at the Texas win over Oklahoma and this will make enough a difference to keep Texas ahead of Oklahoma in the polls. I like Texas making the Big 12 and the national championship game. 

A look back at the weekend that was

The biggest game of the weekend was undoubtedly Oklahoma vs. Texas Tech. What I thought would be a fairly good game, (I didn't think it was going to be great or close), turned into a butt-whooping. This win for Oklahoma now just makes the BCS into an even bigger mess. The winner of the Florida/Alabama game will play Texas in the national championship in my opinion. Will that happen? Probably not. In the NFL, the biggest story had to the benching of Donovan McNabb. Trailing 7-10 at halftime against the Ravens, head coach Andy Reid decided to pull McNabb and replace him with Kevin Kolb. I understand that Reid was trying to make a point to his team, but this wasn't the right time. You're only down three on the road, and you need this win. Kolb is not going to give you a better chance to win than McNabb. Anyone knows that. It was a dumb move, and one that may come to the firing at the end of the season for Reid. The undefeated Titans finally fell on Sunday to the Jets. Honestly, this was good for Titans to lose and get that monkey off their back. It was probably not good to lose to the Jets who are chasing them for home field advantage, but they got the Lions on Thanksgiving and they will be 11-1 come Thursday. There is a big game in the NFC tonight with the Packers playing the Saints. The Packers need the win to stay tied for the division lead, while the Saints need a win to keep their playoff hopes alive. I like the Saints at home by 5.

Cribs

Stephen Brua did our "Cribs" video at my apartment. We showed the whole apartment complex to start out the video with a few stats. We tried to show the apartment as detailed as possible; we looked at the living area, both bedrooms, bathroom, closet (guest bedroom) and kitchen. In each room, we tried to provide different music to depict the room. Overall, I thought the video was shot well and was entertaining considering the lack of "crib" it really is. 

Great Display of Sportsmanship

Stories like this one I heard today make me feel good about sports can do for people. Every day I hear about suspensions of NFL players for violating the league's substance abuse policy. It's not every day that you here uplifting positive stories of professional athletes. Well, today I did and it comes from the golfing world. J.P. Hayes, not a well-known golfer, for I've never heard of him before basically disqualified himself from a qualifying tournament. Hayes realized that he played with a non-sanctioned ball a day after he completed his round. He then called the tournament director who disqualified him and now will have to miss out on some of the 2009 season. Hayes did the right thing, even though he could have gotten away with it. We all have been through some similar situation before. Hayes is a great role-model for young golfers and athletes all-around alike. Doing the right thing is more important than winning in my opinion. It's especially difficult to be such a truthful and good sport when you play a individual sport. I salute Hayes and hope he becomes the next Tiger. 

Pedroia Wins AL MVP

All 5 feet 9 inches of Dustin Pedroia won the AL MVP in his second major league season. The Boston Red Sox second baseman took home the crown after winning the AL Rookie of the Year the previous season. Pedroia beat out Twins 1st baseman Justin Morneau and teammate Kevin Youkilis. Pedroia collected 16 1st place votes, while Morneau had 7, and Youkilis 2. Now the part that makes this quite amazing is the team that Pedroia plays for: the Boston Red Sox. If you would have asked me my top three MVP's for the Boston Red Sox at the beginning of the season, Pedroia wouldn't have been in there. He played alongside the likes of Manny Ramirez, David Oritz, Mike Lowell, and Kevin Youkilis. Well, Ramirez was traded, Ortiz struggled all year, and Lowell was hurt a lot of the season. Pedroia was the player for the Red Sox that lifted them to the AL wild card and put them into the postseason. He deserved the MVP and another player who should have got more votes was Carlos Quentin for the Chicago White Sox. He got hurt at the end of the season, and I believe if he didn't get hurt, Quentin would have received the award. Congrats to Pedroia, one of my favorite players. 

Albert Pujols wins NL MVP

Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals took the 2008 NL MVP honors Monday in front of the likes of Ryan Howard and Ryan Braun. Pujols batted .357 with 37 homeruns and 116 rbi. Ryan Howard of the World Series Champion Philadelphia Phillies finished second in voting, and the Brewers' Ryan Braun finished third. Manny Ramirez of the Dodgers finished fourth after some said he was indeed the MVP. Well if there was a MVP of the last two months, Ramirez would have won it unanimously. Ramirez like C.C. Sabathia couldn't have won the because they were traded to the national league during the season. Pujols was a solid choice for the honor, but Pujols himself declared indirectly that he didn't deserve the honor. Last year's MVP went to Ryan Howard of the Phillies. Well, Pujols complained that the MVP should go to a player on a playoff team. Howard and the Phillies missed the playoffs last year, while Pujols and the Cardinals did make the playoffs. Well the reverse happened in 2008. Pujols wins the MVP, while his team didn't make the playoffs. This creates the debate that a player must be on a playoff team to win the award. I personally disagree with that philosophy. I think the MVP should go to the player who is the most valuable to his team's success. If I had a vote for the NL MVP, I would have given my first place vote to Ryan Braun.

The 21 Effect

I recently watched the movie "21", which is a flick on counting cards playing blackjack. It's a great movie and I have the poster up on my wall. Well, anytime I watch a gambling movie, it gets me in the gambling mood. Friday night at work, I look at my buddy and tell him the idea of going to the casino later that night; he was all about it. I yell the idea to a couple other buddies and they raised their hands up in approval. The four of us were ready to roll. We planned on leaving at 11:15 that night. Before we all met at the movie theatre to go, I needed some cash. I went to the ATM, but I was blank on what my pin code was. It took me about 8 guesses to finally get it. That was comical. We ended up finally getting on I-29 at about 11:45. We got there at about 1:45 and started playing blackjack. I love the casino atmosphere no matter how I'm doing. I could never really get a winning streak going, even though I did get four blackjacks in about a 20 minute span. When my luck runs out is when the dealer is switched. We had a pretty cool guy dealing, but when he left, so did my money. Some lady came and gave me about 8 losing hands in a row. I couldn't come back from it. We got back after a solid night out at 6 am. Just a night out. 

T.O. Top 10

Terrell Owens was on David Letterman last night. He was the subject of the Top 10 list: Terrell Owens Advice for Kids

10. It's not whether you win or lose, it's how crazy smooth you look playing the game

9. Get into a line of work that involves cheerleaders

8. Look good

7. Smell good

6. Election Day is right around the corner. Make sure you get out and vote. 

5. On or off the field, play it safe: wear a cup

4. Don't hassle the hoff

3. Listen to me, don't cry during a press conference

2. There ain't a damn thing to do in Green Bay

1. Show up to practice every day, unless you're renegotiating

This was quite comical, especially #3. If you haven't seen that video, make sure you check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNO6O7cK1M

NL Cy Young Announced

Tim Lincecum of the San Francisco Giants was named the NL Cy Young award winner on Tuesday. Frankly, I'm surprised he won the award. I probably would have picked him second if I had a vote. The other contenders were: Brad Lidge of the Philadelphia Phillies, Johan Santana of the New York Mets, and C.C. Sabathia of the Milwaukee Brewers. In my estimation, Brad Lidge should have won this award hands down. Lidge is a closer, and he didn't blow a save all year. His stats may have not been historic, but he did what he was payed to do every single time. Another reason I thought Lidge would have won it was because he played for a team that ended up winning the World Series. Lincecum was a poor Giants team. Sabathia had an outstanding stint with the Brewers, but he wasn't there the first half of the season. Santana had a strong end to the year, but wasn't consistent throughout the year. I have no problem with Lincecum winning it, but I thought Lidge was more deserving. 

Vikings outlast Packers

The tightest game of the week might have also been the ugliest. There were so many penalties, my brother and I wanted to stop watching. Frerotte, the Vikings quarterback threw three interceptions, one returned for a touchdown. Adrian Peterson saved the day for the Vikings as the last drive of the fourth quarter he was absolute beast. He concluded the drive with a 20+ yard touchdown run. The Packers had only one offensive touchdown. The other touchdown was a punt return to give them a 24-21 lead. The Packers had a chance to win with 25 seconds, but kicker Mason Crosby pushed the 52 yard-field goal attempt wide right. Ugly game, but yet entertaining. 

Gangster Movie, better than "The Godfather"

Stephen, Travis, and I made a short film entitled "The Hit". We took a rather simple idea of a gangster style and ran with it. The beginning of the film we shot in a room upstairs of the union with Ariel as the boss. The next sequence was shot at Cottonwood Coffee downtown. We were able to use their whole space, including the back room to enter the alleyway. The last scene ends with Ariel again going to open the envelope. We used a lot of different tactics to get the feel of the movie we wanted. We wanted an old-school type of feel, so we decided to make it black and white. The audio we used was quite useful creating the panic kind of feeling for Travis. We didn't want any audio from dialogue to make this more dramatic. We used another type of audio to make the point of the old-school style. Softly under the sounds of the song, we have a sound that appears to be the sound of film rolling. We thought this would add to the quality of the theme. This was a very fun project to work on and we were very happy with how it ended up. Hope you enjoy. 

BCS MESS

Okay, college football is fun to watch. But the bowl games are ridiculous. No one cares about any of the bowls in the month of December. We have to wait for over a month for real meaningful bowl games. The BCS screws us all over. Honestly, we have no idea how good a team is going to be after a month break. It's like having a one game season in January. It's not fair to the teams or fans. The BCS needs to be abolished. A playoff must be instituted. Divison I-AA has a playoff and so does all other sports. Why doesn't the tops of college football not have one? It doesn't make sense. Well, for the universities it does I guess. They make a boatload of money. That's the only thing keeping college presidents shying away from a playoff. Hell, even president-elect Barack Obama wants a playoff. How awesome would it be to have the top six or eight teams playing for the national title. Having three or more games in a weekend that have title implications would be outstanding. The fans deserve it, the players deserve, hell everyone deserves it. Let's change. 

Gas Prices Are... Low?

I just wanted to say how astounded I was when I saw the Casey's General Store's sign saying that unleaded gas was $2.29 a gallon and super unleaded is $2.19. Wow. I can remember during the summer when I refused to drive, because the price of gas was $3.89. Down a $1.70 now I feel as if it's a bargain. My question is how long will this last? Will spring come and shoot it back to the $3.00 range? I have absolutely no idea, but I guess as drivers all we can do is enjoy the low price, I guess low for what we're used to, and roll with it. 

Game of the Year?

Texas vs. Texas Tech may have been the game of the year. I had to work Saturday night, but I got to see the last five minutes of the game. Well, it turned out that I got home just in time. Texas got the ball down by 6 with those 5 minutes left. Heisman hopeful Colt McCoy orchestrated a drive down the field that led to a touchdown with 1:26 left in the game. Now down one, it was Texas Tech's time to see if they could upset the #1 Texas Longhorns. Heisman hopeful Graham Harrell led his team down the field thinking field goal to win the game. At the Texas 3o, Harrell through a checkdown pass that slipped through the receiver's hands and glided in the air. A Texas defensive back was there for the interception, but let it slip through the wickets! It should have been game over. The next play, Harrell throws to the back shoulder of outstanding wideout Michael Crabtree and Crabtree broke a tackle at the three yard line and walks into the endzone with one second left. It was simply amazing. One of the best endings I've even seen. Might be the most memorable finish since the Boise State miracle a couple years ago. Wow, was it a good ending.