MafiaMan

I started this so as to avoid clogging up the World Jr thread over in Hockey...

That's the joke I was going for! All hail Barry!

Auburn doinks a field goal off the right upright in OT. 34-31 Wisconsin over Auburn. LSU...Ole Miss...Mississippi State...Auburn... Barry Alvarez announced in on-field chat with ESPN that he has fired Mike Riley and will coach the Badgers himself next season.

34-21...and then Baylor promptly scores again. 41-21 with 4:00 left in the 3rd and the entire 4th left yet. Bears marching for 50!

Wisconsin ties it at 31 thanks to a last-second field goal. Looks like the Outback Bowl is headed to overtime.

Melvin Gordon...same thing. 30 seconds left but struggling with tacklers fighting for an extra foot when he could have stepped out of bounds easily. Wisconsin forced to use a time-out.

34-14 Baylor Bears leading Michigan State with lots of game left. Unless Art Broyles calls the dogs off, Baylor should easily hang 40+ on the Spartans.

How do Dickinson and Williston look this year?

http://www.si.com/nhl/home-ice/2011/02/02/nhls-curbed-enthusiasm-for-heritage-classic Fetch, the above link talks about the NHL and its "meh" attitude toward the 2011 Heritage Classic game (Montreal at Calgary). I'll bet you didn't even know that Ottawa and Vancouver played a Heritage Classic in 2014 as well. The NHL couldn't care less about it, that's why.

I'm sick of it as well - primarily because the idea stemmed from the Heritage Classic game played between Montreal and Edmonton several years ago. The NHL jumped in and saw $$$$ almost immediately and had to practically be dragged kicking and screaming to include a Canadian team in the Winter Classic (Toronto last season). There was a second Heritage Classic game played a couple of seasons ago - of course, the NHL didn't bother covering it at all. Despicable. Plus, they hype this game more than the Stanley Cup Finals!

The tournament itself is being held in St Louis Park. The opponent involved in this donnybrook was Prior Lake, however. Sounds like a real broo-ha-ha.

I will add this...can't recall another team forced to watch not one but two teammates (in different games) carted off the field with obviously serious leg injuries. Ole Miss looked pretty disinterested in continuing play last night after their lineman was put in the air-cast, limped to the cart, and driven off the field.

Another smart play, this time by Michigan State...why do guys always want to fight for that extra foot as opposed to get out of bounds at the end of a half or game?

So TCU only looked good because Ole Miss didn't show up? Looked to me that the Rebels did show up...and then waved the white flag before halftime. You could see the demoralization in the players' eyes. But I give credit to TCU for beating Ole Miss into submission. BTW, Mizzou may be close, but there is no better nickname for a school than Ole Miss.

GT got the opening kickoff of the second half and a couple of plays later, ran off about a 50 yard TD run. I believe MSU turned the ball over on downs on their first possession of the half and GT promptly did the same thing they did to open the half - run right down the field and score. From 21-20 at the half to 35-20 a couple of minutes into the 3rd. MSU looked done at that point, even though they did eventually put 14 more points on the board.

NHL Network should be showing the game...

Love that game. Used to make my own Red Wings lineup based on phony Russian names like Boris Badinov, Chuck Checkov, and Sergei Slapshotov...just killed the league leader board in goals and assists. Back on topic, yes, the US gave up 41 shots, but that's an absolute huge goal that should not have counted. It's not like folks are complaining of a slash or nasty cross-check that happened away from the play.

I give lots of credit to Gary Patterson and how he kept TCU focused and didn't let that team sulk over not being one of the final four. Oklahoma has missed out on a title game appearance a couple of times recently and promptly been upset by cinderella Boise State and pounded mercilessly by Alabama in the bowl games immediately afterward.

Florida State over Oregon. Not impressed with what I've seen out of Arizona and Arizona State and think the Pac-12 is over-rated and ACC under-rated. Ohio State over Alabama. Heads will roll after this game. Baylor beats Michigan State. And it won't be close. Minnesota beats Missouri. The SEC is in flames.

So, going forward for team USA, get the puck in the crease and have someone pummel the goalie and get the puck across the goal line by any means possible. Good goal.

Well, there is the whole "evening out the whole season" issue. It was several years ago when Mankato and St Cloud had similar records near the end of the season. Mankato was on a roll and St Cloud had lost something like 5 or 6 in a row. Mankato even went into St Cloud and swept the Huskies in the 1st round of the WCHA playoffs. Thanks to the Pairwise, sputtering St Cloud made the NCAA tournament and the hot Mavericks were left at home. Not surprising, St Cloud was hammered in the first game of the tournament, I believe by Maine if memory serves me right.

That same rule will probably apply to any Alabama or Ohio State football message board today as well.

Chaminade over Ralph Sampson and Virginia is a nice upset win. North Carolina State over Phi Slamma Jamma is a nice upset win. Villanova over Georgetown is a nice upset win. Let's not over-react to one bad Big Sky team possibly beating another bad Big Sky team on their own court.

We had 2 TV channels out in SW ND back in the late 1970's/early 1980's...CBS and NBC. I'm not sure how they were allowed to do it, but CBS would show ABC's Saturday college football games as well as the NFL's Monday Night Football game. Most of those Saturday games involved the Michigan Wolverines. I fell in love with the fight song and winged helmets probably by the time I turned 10 years old. I also followed college basketball at the time and remember the players Antoine Joubert, Gary "The General" Grant, Roy Tarpley, and other great Michigan players who were there a few years before the great 1988-1989 team with guys like Glen Rice, Rumeal Robinson, and Sean Higgins. Since that area of NoDak was already dominated by Vikings and Twins fans, I decided to not join the bandwagon and instead cheered for Michigan across the board - Tigers, Lions*, and Pistons* specifically. Didn't follow a lot of hockey back then, but quickly adopted the Red Wings as well once I got to college in Grand Forks and started catching tons of games on CBC. *In the interest of full disclosure, the Pistons and Lions of the late 1970's/early 1980's were a mess, so I had a wandering eye with respect to the sports of professional basketball and football. I liked watching Dr J and his unbelievable moves on the court and my friends all knew me as a big-time Philadelphia 76er fan. Similarly with the NFL, the Miami Dolphins caught my eye in about 1980 and I would say that they were my favorite NFL team until I kind of lost interest in them after Dan Marino retired. Today, I don't follow the NBA and NFL nearly as much as I do college football, the NHL, and MLB.

Why couldn't they be successful in the SEC? GT went 11-3 this season and was 2-0 against two of the SEC's supposed best in Georgia and Mississippi State. 450+ yards of rushing against MSU? I'm impressed by that statistic.