Now That's A Sports Weekend

It was such a tasty sports weekend, wasn't it Erin Andrews?

I don't even know where to begin with this smattering. (But it won't be with Purdue.)

The ALCS is looking to be a good series. The Indians put up 7 runs in the 11th inning to win Game 2 and that has to have Boston fans thinking now. Schilling was terrible, the Indians got very little from Fausto Carmona and still won. Uh-oh, Boston. Maybe this is punishment for disrespecting the Anthem.

The Rockies have are now 20-1 in their last 21 games and they're up 3-0 on the D-Backs. That's kind of ridiculous and awesome at the same time.

Brett Favre became the all-time leader in career interceptions just two weeks after becoming the all-time leader in TD passes. That's kind of amusing. I don't think they stopped the game to present him with a statue of him chasing a DB returning a pick, though. (But it would have been funny if they had.) ESPN is still finding new ways to slobber Brett's knob -- right now they have a "list of Favre's best games played right after his birthday." Seriously? Give it a rest.

The Patiots absolutely pasted the Cowboys (in Dallas, no less) yesterday. I don't think I've ever been happier about a Boston sports team winning. The Cowgirls are not nearly as good as their 5-0 record suggested and the Patriots completely de-pantsed them and exposed it for all to see. Tom Brady is having a superhuman season right now, and the Patriots haven't scored less than 34 points in any game this season.

George Steinbrenner is apparently "ceding" control of his Yankees to his sons. Okay, then. Does anyone still think George is running the show? He doesn't appear in public anymore, he's never at Yankee Stadium... it's kind of silly at this point.

Vinny Testaverde is still alive. Who knew? The Jets probably should have re-signed him.

The BCS Standings are out (and, really, doesn't it make sense for all polls to start around this time?) and Ohio State, amazingly, is #1 despite being in what they were even admitting was a rebuilding year. Get ready for more insufferable tOSU fans and shirts that say, "We don't rebuild -- we reload!" But it's pretty damn amazing to look at the BCS as well as the other, more traditional polls. South Florida is #2 in the country?? They've only existed as a D1 program for like a decade.

Once again, our friends over at Hawaii almost blew their chance at a perfect season, narrowly beating San Jose State in OT. And yet they find themselves at 18 in the BCS and 16 in the AP. Completely ridiculous and unjustified. I know this is the voters humoring Hawaii/WAC supporters because it is indeed hard to say a D1 program that is 7-0 shouldn't be ranked. But they're really not even as good as their ranking suggests. Just wait and see if they get into a major bowl against a big-time program. It might get embarrassing for them. Like, I'm talking 6 or 8 picks for pass-happy, overrated sexual assaulter -- err, I mean, quarterback -- Colt Brennan. Hell, he threw four picks against San Jose State! He threw for a ridonkulous 545 but also tossed the ball 75 times. Hawaii rushed for... 56 yards. Total. That's kind of... imbalanced.

Amazingly, I'm going to talk about the WAC twice in this post -- I actually watched the OTs last night in the Boise State-Nevada game. (Why college football is being played on Sundays now, I do not understand.) BSU won the game, 69-67 because Nevada failed to get the two-point conversion in the fourth OT session. I'll admit, I wanted to see them hit 70 points. But still, can you imagine your school putting up 67 points... and losing? One thing I also have to say about this game is that the combo of WAC offenses, weak defenses and tired players led to the offenses in the OTs being completely unstoppable. Just look at the OT scoring summaries... the first few were one or two play "drives" of 25 yards and, boom, there was your TD. What irritated me, though, was Bill Curry, who was supposed to be providing color analysis for the game, just wanted the game to be called a tie and wouldn't let it go. At about the third overtime, he began pointing out that these "kids" were "tired" and that "somebody could get hurt." Jeez, Bill, are you a cub scout den mother or something? It's (supposedly) big time college football. Don't give me this "the kids are tired" bullsh-t. They want to win as much as anyone. And ties were eliminated a while ago, Bill. Deal with it, or shuffle off to retirement. At one point, a Nevada defender twisted a finger or wrist or something on an awkward tackle and Curry acted like this proved his point. Like guys couldn't get hurt earlier in the game. Just intolerable to listen to. Shut up and call the game.

Hey, is anybody else tired of seeing Dane Cook pretend to be such a huge baseball fan and continually enunciating to us that "There's only one October"? Well, Saturday Night Live finally decided to have some fun with it and what bothers me about this sketch is that practically nobody laughs... maybe they don't get it because they haven't seen the commericals, or maybe they all just really love Dane Cook. Still, pretty funny and it's about time.

Last week, during the first couple games of the MLB postseason, you may have seen a few ads for Frank TV. Or like a few thousand. After about the 500th cutaway to a Frank TV ad, one of our readers and friend (when he doesn't do his disappearing act) sent me a text message that simply said, "Frank TV looks good." Sometimes it's the simple humor that makes me laugh most.

I'm sure there was more -- I know there was -- but that's all the time we have now, folks.

Poor Hawaii

You've probably been hearing more about the University of Hawaii football program this year than you ever have, mainly because of their sensational system quarterback, Colt Brennan. Nobody picks apart vaunted defenses such as Northern Colorado or Charleston Southern (seriously? Charleston Southern?) like him.

But this post is actually about some whining the football program is doing. You see, they have long flights to get to their away games which result in "demanding" road trip conditions. (One can only assume that none of these guys studied Geography in high school as the reason they would be surprised by how far away Hawaii is from basically any other land mass.)

From the article:

"We're very isolated out here and I don't think people tend to appreciate that and don't realize how much we overcome," Brennan said. "When people come and play us, they gain time. No one ever talks about this and says it straight: When we go and play teams, we lose time."

Yes, you lose time. But teams coming to play you, that's easy? I don't completely follow. It's hard to adjust anytime you travel that far.

While many teams complain about how difficult it is to travel to the islands, Coach June Jones said traveling east is "way worse."

"They should try it. We sleep on the plane all night and try to get ready to play a football game," he said. "It's [traveling west] not even the same ballpark going east."

Yes, you sleep on your private, chartered plane. I'm sure it's a nightmare.

Then the story gets particularly interesting to me, though. More from Colt Brennan:

Brennan said it's much easier for teams to play in Hawaii because all the players just have to stay up late to adjust to the time change, while the Warriors are forced to sleep and wake up earlier than normal.

"It's a lot harder to get up early at 3 in the morning and go play a football game at 7 in the morning," he said. "So people tend not to respect us, and that's why we're always an underdog."

Hmmm, get up at 3 in the morning and go play a game at 7 in the morning. Really? Since Hawaii is in the WAC, they play mostly Western teams, meaning their road trips usually put them in the Pacific or Mountain time zones. 7 AM Hawaii time is 9 AM Pacific time and 10 AM Mountain time. Played a lot of games against Boise State or BYU at 10 AM, have you, Colt?

But let's not just pick on Colt for hypotheticals. Let's look at their actual schedule and all the unfair road game times they have to face this year.

9/7 @ La Tech: 7 PM Eastern, 2 PM Hawaiian.
Doesn't seem unreasonable or "7 AM."

9/15 @ UNLV: 9:30 PM Eastern, 3:30 PM Hawaiian.
Gosh, that seems downright midafternoon.

9/29 @ Idaho: 5 PM Eastern, 12 Noon Hawaiian.
When most college games are played.

10/12 @ San Jose State: 8 PM Eastern, 3 PM Hawaiian.
Again, not even close to the AM.

11/16 @ Nevada: 11:05 PM Eastern, 6:05 PM Hawaiian.
Gee, that almost sounds like an advantage for Hawaii.

And that's the road schedule. Their earliest road game is at Noon, Hawaiian time and that only happens once. Seems like this bitching is all a bunch of mularky. But wait, let's look even closer at their schedule (and hey, what a schedule, boys -- well done) and see what the visitors to Hawaii have to endure.

9/1 vs Northen Colorado: 7:05 PM Hawaiian, 9:05 PM Mountain.
Kind of late for the hapless Bears to begin getting steamrolled.

9/22 vs Charleston Southern: 7:05 PM Hawaiian, 12:05 PM Eastern.
So it's okay for Charleston Southern to have to fly 6,000 miles and then play after midnight their time? Classy hosts.

10/7 vs Utah State: 7:05 PM Hawaiian, 9:05 PM Mountain.

10/28 vs New Mexico State: 7:05 PM Hawaiian, 9:05 PM Mountain.
Seems to me Hawaii is getting the better end of these WAC matchup timeframes.

11/10 vs Fresno State: 6:05 PM Hawaiian, 8:05 PM Mountain.
Okay, the first somewhat fair one.

11/23 vs Boise State: 3:05 PM Hawaiian, 5:05 PM Mountain.
I wonder if Boise State pressed this issue.

12/1 vs Washington: TBD.

So I don't know. It seems like Hawaii schedules games mostly in the evening when their opponents are really not used to playing games. Add onto that the inherent exhaustion that comes with simply traveling 3,000-6,000 miles just to get to Honolulu and you have a pretty disoriented visiting team. Brennan then throws four quick-strike TDs and suddenly you're down a ton and out of your game plan. Good formula.

But to bitch and moan about how hard the gents from Hawaii have it is disingenuous at worst and clueless at best. Just look at the schedules, boys.