Week 3 haiku

Auburn Tigers foe
Mississippi State
Final 3-2?

Bad weather + football = awesome

Although, in this case, it might be too much.

This was Texas Tech's home field 24 hours before kickoff against SMU. Before Ike's rain hit Lubbock.



http://www.sportingnews.com/blog/the_sporting_blog/entry/view/11991/texas_tech_is_playing_football_here_in_27_hours

LR 54, nWa 57

Arkansas Business reports...

Little Rock MSA No. 54 Among Milken's Best-Performing Cities List

The Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway metropolitan statistical area ranked No. 54 among the Milken Institute's 2008 list of America's Best-Performing Cities Index.

Released Thursday, the index measures the hottest places for jobs creation in the country.

The Little Rock metro moved up on the list from No. 73 in 2007.

The Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metro dropped in the rankings from No. 21 last year to No. 57 in 2008.

Letters to Ramon

Who knew Marquette grads had it out so much for Notre Dame. Jeff G. explains...

Rival Catholic schools. There's a reason we don¹t have a football team, even though MU is (or at least was when I was there) one of the biggest Catholic schools in the country , and it¹s called Notre Dame. They were coddled in their nice leafy suburban campus with maid service and the like while we had to live three blocks from Jeffrey Dahmer.

Digger Phelps would not play us in Milwaukee unless it was during finals or Christmas Break b/c we were ill-behaved savages. A friend of mine left a hawker on his seat during a time-out. Yeah, we hate them. And they make it easy.

Rappin' Haiku

Straight Outta Compton,
Just Sippin' on Gin and Juice,
Shutup, Gentle Ben.

This week's games

You have to love the ACC. There are so many moderately good teams that are evenly matched, it's hard to figure out who is going to win. But the games are fun to watch. Here's another example this week as Georgia Tech, winner over Boston College last week, travels to Virginia Tech, loser to East Carolina in the first week. But that's just one of the five tough match-ups to pick this week, including Kansas as the underdog at South Florida, and Wisconsin as only a one-point favorite at Fresno State (what are these teams doing traveling to South Florida and Fresno, the Game Day crew may be asking afterward). Notre Dame fans and grads, and there are a lot of them in the pool, don't forget to go to confession if you go with Michigan. Oh yeah, and there's some game featuring USC (Tim Bichlmeier's team) against Ohio State (Richard Betts' team) for a possible four-point bonus. Should be some good ones.

So here are the games for Week 3. For $800 and the Ramon Escobar Trophy, always the right choice for your kid's show and tell at school, select your winners and e-mail them back to me by 5 p.m. Friday.


Kansas-South Florida
7 p.m., Fri., ESPN2
Line: South Florida by 3

Georgia Tech-Virginia Tech
2:30 p.m., Sat., ABC/ESPN
Line: Virginia Tech by 6
* Underdog worth three points in this game

Michigan-Notre Dame
2:30 p.m., Sat., NBC
Line: Michigan by 1

Collision in the Coliseum
Ohio State-USC
7 p.m., Sat., ABC
Line: USC by 10
* Underdog worth four points in this game

Wisconsin-Fresno State
9:30 p.m., Sat., ESPN2
Line: Wisconsin by 1


Good luck.
****#****

Letters to Ramon

E-mail from Will Johnson on Monday:

"Can I add a nickname to my name on the distribution list too? If so I'd like to be referred to from here on out as DJ U-Excplicit Johnson."

E-mail from Will Johnson on Tuesday morning:

"I wasn't serious about now being referred to as DJ U-Explicit. I had a couple drinks last night while watching MNF."

Glenn B.'s analysis of Week 2

It was a bloodbath out there, especially with respect to the directional states (SC, WV, guilty as charged). Indeed, the only state that did well was the fictional state of East Carolina, which is, on a good day, not even a good state of mind.

Here are my advance picks for Week #3:

North Texas
South Alabama
Southeast Missouri
Middle Tennessee
South Florida

Behold the awesomeness that is me

And in other news: UCA quarterback Nathan Brown really isn't that good. He has a weird, throwing motion. So he isn't a pure passer and he doesn't have great feet either. He's a product of UCA's offensive system, they throw all the time and the reality is that once you get past a couple of schools in that conference, most of the other teams are middlin' at best.

If you got some free time on Saturday night, it wouldn't be a terrible thing to go watch UCA and UAPB play at War Memorial, but don't skip your daughter's wedding for it.


Aggies' Denham has a good night, but it isn't quite good enough
By Jeremy Peppas - Special to The Bee
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, September 7, 2008
Story appeared in SPORTS section, Page C7

Print | E-Mail | Comments (1) |

CONWAY, Ark. – UC Davis found its rhythm late Saturday night against No. 22 Central Arkansas.

After a miserable first half, the Aggies (0-2) started rolling late, but it wasn't enough as Central Arkansas (2-0) held on for a wild 24-21 victory.

The game wasn't decided until the final minute of the fourth quarter, when Central Arkansas defensive back Anthony Gambles intercepted a Greg Denham pass in the end zone.

The interception was the lone blemish on a good night for Denham. In his first career start, Denham, a sophomore, completed 30 passes for 296 yards and three touchdowns.

Denham admitted he had some jitters in the first half, but, he said, "I got more confident. I was able to get into a rhythm."

In the first half, Denham only completed 6 of 13 passes and was sacked three times. But in the second half, Denham wasn't sacked and completed 24 of 32 passes.

"It was our offensive line," UC Davis coach Bob Biggs said. "We got a little bit more time, we were able to get the quarterback a little bit more time to throw. That was the difference."

UC Davis had to go to Denham because the Aggies couldn't get anything going on the ground. As a team, UC Davis finished with a miserable 11 net yards on the ground.

"We have to have more balance," Biggs said. "We have to be able to run and throw, and we weren't able to run. That's got to improve."

Denham's main target was wide receiver Chris Carter, who finished the game with 13 catches for 189 yards and two touchdowns.

"That guy was good," Central Arkansas coach Clint Conque said. "At the end, we had two guys on him and he was still making plays."

For Carter, a junior, it was a career night. But he still left the field disappointed.

"I really wish I could have that last play back," he said of the game-ender. "Maybe make a better play on the ball, but he made a good play to get the interception."

UC Davis comes home to face Portland State on Saturday night.

Nutt 2, Hogville/Wally/Beck 0

Wake Forest 30, Ole Miss 28
"Sam Swank kicked a 41-yard field goal with 3 seconds left to cap a dramatic final minute and give No. 20 Wake Forest to a 30-28 win over Ole Miss on Saturday. The Rebels (1-1) were a minute away from giving first-year coach Houston Nutt a signature win in only his second game, when Snead led a 7-minute, 80-yard drive."

Arkansas 28, Louisiana-Monroe 27
"Ole Miss, coached by former Arkansas coach Houston Nutt, lost at No. 20 Wake Forest 30-28 on a last-minute field goal. The Arkansas crowd cheered when the score was announced. Of course, the Razorbacks would have lost by the same score and in exactly the same fashion if Jeremy Gener's 45-yard kick in the final minute had been good for Louisiana-Monroe."

Monroe? In the words of Ted Knight, "Monroe???!!!"