Big East Fun Size Links

If you are not hip to the Octonion, I really can't help you anymore than demanding that you follow that link! If you don't, the terrorist will win. And you wouldn't want that! Would you?

Following that theme (possible Big East additions), Memphis is in secret negotiations with the Big East to join and they aren't.

The ACC sucks! Seems like it's been a while since I said that. This is also well worth your reading regarding the Big East/ACC thing if you didn't see the link.

Least cool person of 2007-2008 has been decided, and even if you aren't a Louisville fan you have to kind of feel that way too. Although if I was nominating someone, you know who that would be without me even saying it. Right?

Finally, I'd like to give a big hat tip to the sports writers of West Virginia for a banner week. You really did a great job guys. No, really!

FanHouse=Winner!

Why am I doing this here you say? I don't know. And when you don't know, it's a good idea not to shit on someone else's property, I guess. Anyhow FanHouse, of which I am part of if you didn't know, won an Eppy for best sports blog. So it's kind of a big party and stuff.

Drinking, of course!

And bell ringing!

And some things just because!

Fuck

I'm just feeling it. Ya know?



Hat Tip Bird Flip: Man, WV (Way to represent! Dicks!)

ESPN Doesn't Really Know What Rich Rodriguez Looks Like

Yeah, what the hell. I'll write here today. I followed this link from ballhype to see what the latest was with the buyout thing, and found out that ESPN will pretty much use any middle aged balding white guy picture to represent Rich Rodriguez. I have no idea who that guy is, but I'm sure it isn't Rich Rod!

I don't really want to go into the story, because it seems like I've more than said enough about how I feel about the whole mess over on FanHouse. So go there if you want to read more. Also, check out Fifth Column for more background on Garrison.

Update: The picture is gone, but the story remains.

Goodbye Cruel World Part 2

Yup, I'm moving on. Like I said back in January, it's no good trying to do too much if everything turns out half assed, and this blog has been very half assed this year. I gave it another shot, but there just isn't time in the day to do this justice.

I'm not going away completely, though. I've got an offer to write over at the Bastard Sons of Pinfall Marks. Hopefully look for a couple three posts a week over there from me. And I'll still be at the FanHouse. For any blogpollers, I'm still going to be doing that, so if you would put a link up to the Bastards site that would be swell.

Also, look for me over at In The Bleachers from time to time.

Thanks again for all the support and comments,

Johnny

Update: I'll be opening for Todd Burge and Rob Szabo on October 5th at the Blennerhassett in Parkersburg. Pretty sure it's free to get in. Come up and say hi. I'm the bald one.



Here's a video from Rob's last album (Like a Metaphor) called Breaking Even




and here's a video from Rob's last time in Parkersburg called Good Son

Mountaineer Vidoe #142,980

Yeah, I'm a little late to the party with this, but thought you would like it if you haven't seen it yet.

The Bulls Perspective

I'm totally spent, and all the reasons I thought about giving this blog up in the off season keep creeping back. So if this post seems half-hearted, sue me.

Ben Moffitt is a real man on and off the field- Yeah nice, me complaining more or less about how I never have time to make this blog as good as I know it could be and this guy goes to school, married, two kids, and plays D1 football. I'm going to go crawl in a hole.

Brett McMurphy's blog is a lot of quick hitters, which I like.

It's a Sellout- Friday nights game will be the first sellout for the Bulls.

So who wins the battle of the Mascots? A bull is a bull. You know horns, big. So big that it doesn't really need the horns. Or is it the Mountaineer. He's got a gun, but it's a muzzle loader. So he's one and done if his aim isn't true. Well, he's got a knife. But that's really not much use against a bull unless it's already dead.

Something I found troubling was that North Carolina was averaging nearly 300 yards passing until they played USF. They had something like 85 yards against the Bulls. Ouch! Also, that Selvie kid is giving me nightmares.

I can't say that I am all that impressed with the South Florida offense. That's probably because they are not a quick strike offense. They do just enough to keep the chains moving and the ball out of your offenses hands. Should we just call them impressively unimpressive? That was the case last year. 21 First downs compared to 13 for West Virginia. While only having the ball for five more minutes and only 50 more yards of offense. Just enough to win.

You know what? If you don't like the Reverend, Fuck You!




Just sayin'

South Florida Preview

Hmmmm, I ran this picture last year and ended up eating a lot of crow and flashing my wood working skillz because of it. Hopefully things will turn out a little different this year.

South Florida is entering their 10th year of football. That includes 1-A and 1-AA. I believe that I heard on the radio on the way to the ECU game that they are the quickest team to go from no team to ranked. Yeah, 10 years is pretty f'ing good. The Bulls are returning 16 starters from last years team. Nine on offense and seven on defense.

They are led on offense by sophomore quarterback Matt Grothe. Grothe started as a true freshman last year completing nearly 64% of his passes with 15 td's and 14 int's and 2,576 yards. He also lead the team in rushing with 622 yards and nine td's. This year he has completed 60% of his passes with four td's and no int's and 652 yards through three games. He also has 88 yards rushing and one td. He's also a hell of a bartender.

Freshman Mike Ford is leading the team in rushing with 170 yards on 33 carries and four touchdowns. Man, can that be right? A second look shows that Grothe has 38 carries this year, and Ben Williams has 30 carries for 117 yards. It hasn't been an overly impressive offense to this point. But good enough to be 3-0 I guess. As a whole, USF only has 464 yards rushing. And behind an experienced offensive line.

South Florida doesn't have any receivers that jump out at you on paper, but Grothe has completed passes to 14 different receivers. The three leading receivers for the Bulls are Taurus Johnson (13, 150, 0), Amarii Jackson (10, 128, 2), and Jessie Hester ( 10, 107, 1).

Defensively, the Bulls are lead by senior linebacker Ben Moffitt, sophomore DE George Selvie, and cornerbacks Mike Jenkins and Trae Williams. Jenkins and Williams are considered to be the best corner combo in the country. Moffitt has had a slow start statistically this year with 22 tackles, three tackles for a loss, and one interception. Well, I don't guess it's that slow. But Moffitt had 85 tackles, 9 for a loss, and 3 sacks last year. The guy you really want to keep you eye on this year is #95 George Selvie. He already has 21 tackles, 15 for a loss, and eight qb sacks. Yeah, let's get someone to block that guy!

Like West Virginia, USF is all about speed at every position. They run a ball control offense that usually doesn't turn the ball over, and they are very aggressive on defense. I'm not making any excuses about last years game, but I would have liked to have seen a little more misdirection out of the Mountaineers on offense. It seemed all day that the Bulls were sending everyone to the point of attack as soon as the ball was snapped, and West Virginia seemed more than happy to keep running right into the heart of the defense. And the one time West Virginia did do a little misdirection, it worked like a charm. But just that once.




Let's hope we try a little more of that this year.

Week Four Blogpoll Ballot

Oh I don't know, I would have thought that the polls would have started to make a little sense by now, but several teams that I had ranked lost some head scratchers. And there are a few teams like Miami that I refuse to put in the poll barring a miracle. So looking down at the bottom, you'll see a couple new teams and a couple old teams moving back in. And no, I am not kissing up to Brian! I still think Michigan is worthy of a top 25 ranking.

I don't think a whole lot needs explained here, but you are welcome to add your comments to change my mind before the Wednesday cutoff at 10am.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU	--
2	Southern Cal	--
3	Oklahoma	--
4	Florida	--
5	Ohio State	5
6	California	1
7	West Virginia	--
8	Oregon	2
9	Boston College	1
10	Texas	2
11	Rutgers	--
12	South Florida	2
13	Georgia	3
14	Kentucky	4
15	Wisconsin	2
16	Penn State	7
17	Clemson	3
18	Cincinnati	7
19	Hawaii	5
20	South Carolina	5
21	Nebraska	--
22	Missouri	4
23	Purdue	3
24	Michigan	2
25	Virginia Tech	1

Dropped Out: Texas A&M (#17), Louisville (#19), Georgia Tech (#22), Alabama (#23).