Bring Blount Force Trauma Back To The Football Field

I would love it if everyone would sign this pettition to bring back LeGarrette Blount back to the whoregon football team. Any bit of self respect the ducks had after suspending this fool for the rest of the season would be lost if they let this kid play another game.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/freeLGBlount/?e

-Beavers415

The Cheers and Jeers for College Football, Week 1

I want to get this out of the way. Some of you have asked for my opinion on the LaGarrette Blount breakdown on Thursday night. Let's just put it this way. He is the hands down winner of That Guy of the Year 2009. It's such a landslide that I cannot give away another That Guy of the Week till January because he raised the bar so high.

Let's move on to the Cheers and Jeers for the first week of college football.

Cheers! To all the whoregon fans who are upset with the year long suspension of Blount Force Trauma. For once I agree with you. Why wouldn't you want a guy who was suspended before the the spring game, was kicked out of the first fall practice and hit a Boise State player, one of your own players and tried to take on the entire blue donk crowd to play for your team at some point in the season?

And let's not forget all the people on the message boards who claimed to have met Blount and say he's a decent guy. After Thursday, who could argue with them?

Jeers! To the whoregon athletic department (Nike) who says they will no longer play a game in Boise because of the video board operator who kept replaying the Blount Force Trauma on Byron Hout. Sure, it was a bush league move but admit that you just don't want to have to lose to them again. Maybe they are using this move to finally convince them to play in China (http://thatguysports.blogspot.com/2007/08/ducks-to-migrate-to-china.html).

Cheers! To my wife for watching the entire first half of the Oregon State/Portland State game without me being within 250 miles of her.

Jeers! To 11:30am starts for Oregon State games.

Cheers! To 42K fans who showed up in Corvallis for the OSU/PSU game. It was rainy, an unusually early start, a holiday weekend and a match up that was a body bag game.

Jeers: To ESPN's selection of using Kenny Chesney for the 2009 college football anthem. I understand that the SEC and the Big 12 are your core market but country music does not get anyone outside those areas remotely excited about college football. And I'm almost 100% certain that it has critics in those areas too.

And according to the country music fan that I know, Chesney isn't really "country music." With that said, why not Merle Haggard? No doubt the song he would write would be, "Its college football, and I'm drunk, again."

-Beavers415

2009's Bold College Football Predictions

I have to apologize to our loyal fan. I did not complete the CFB preview as I have done the past two years. I just didn't feel like doing it. But instead I'm taking the low road and provide you with some bold predictions for the 2009 season. Here we go.

-USC will not win the Pac-10 conference title. Why? A true freshman QB who threw a ton of interceptions when he was a senior last fall. One of their starting cornerbacks was ruled academically ineligible for the season. They are also breaking in a new offensive and defensive coordinator. And road games at oregon, Cal and Arizona State. Sounds like Petey has his biggest challenge ever in So Cal but will probably still pull out a BCS bowl game.

-Cal is overrated. The o-line is green and replacing their coach who was one of the best in the nation. Only one linebacker returns to their 3-4 defense. And Jahvid Best was watching from the sidelines for part of fall camp with a "toe." Granted they have the best defensive backfields in the conference and QB Kevin Riley should be better. But with the expectations bestowed on this team I don't see them overcoming.

-Dez Bryant will be a household name by the end of the year but no one will know what team he plays for.

-Rutgers will run the Big East and will be a contender for the BcS Championship Game. Take that Utah!

-No one will challenge Florida in the SEC. Pac-10 fans will explain that's what USC was like for 7 years.

-Crappy Big-12 defenses will pad the stats of their conferences above average QB's to spit shine their Heisman resumes. Colt McCoy wins in a landslide.

-Lane Kiffin will still have a job by the end of the season. I told you this was a BOLD predictions article.

-Michigan State will challenge Ohio State for the Big 11 crown. And by challenge, I mean it will only take 6 games to determine the champ. Go Green. Go White. Prove me wrong.

-The whoregon ducks will show up 15 minutes late to the opening season kick off with the Boise State blue donks. Chipper Kelly explains, "we couldn't find a thing to wear."

-WSU wins the Apple Cup. Taking a page from Paul Wulff, Steve Sarkisian punishes his players by making them wear purple jerseys for the 2010 spring game.

-The Dawgs lone victory will be over Idaho in the second game of the season but fans walk away with a sour taste in their mouths after the Vandal fans swipe all the the beers at the Husky Stadium tailgates during halftime.

-UCLA fails to make a bowl game. When Slick Rick Neweasal is asked why he couldn't replicate his second season success as he had at Colorado and Washington, he responds, "I'm the one who had to do the recruiting this time."

-Oregon State beats USC in the Coliseum. Quizz breaks Steven Jackson's season season rushing record. OSU shuts out the ducks in the Civil War. The Beavs will be the Pac-10 champs.

And with that said, here is my Pac-10 predicted finish.

1. Oregon State
2. USC
3. Stanford
4. Cal
5. whoregon
6. ASU
7. Arizona
8. UCLA
9. WSU
10. UW

-Beavers415

That Guy Of The Week?

Over the past week I've been enjoying my honeymoon in Glacier and North Cascades National Park. It's been grueling. No television, phone, or Internet and the only time I saw any information about sports was the one day I bought a local paper (I could check MLB box scores and a few paragraphs about national sporting news), heard from a bartender that Lance Armstrong was third while traveling through the Alps, and my brother mentioned via a rare cell phone call that the Blazers were making an offer to Paul Milsap which would be matched by the Jazz. So I'm a little behind.

But now that I have had time to get situated at home I'm able to read a week and a half of sporting news. Here are some of the highlights.

-Ron Artest. The That Guy Of The Week award winning basketball player recently told the press that the reason he took the Laker jersey #37 was this was the amount of weeks that Michael Jackson's Thriller was at #1. Ok, we all know the guy is crazy for obvious reasons but he is in the music industry. At least in Ron-Ron's mind he is. Let me explain.

Now if Ron-Ron was my friend this would be a terrific joke. I can only imagine Durante as a NBA star doing something like this, but he would follow up on the joke and wear a child molester locator on one of his ankles in an exhibition game. But that's not how Ron-Ron operates.

Back to the music angle. We all forget that this guy is in the music industry but he has produced and released his own albums. He really wants to make it big time and after Ron-Ron's awkward exchange with Ernie Johnson of TNT about knowing Nas, we all knew that this guys back up plan was music. Artest should be very happy that Plan A worked out well but don't tell him that.

(My favorite Artest music story was from a Bill Simmons account, when he saw a fan at a Clippers game yell "Hey Ron, I bought your new album and it sucked!". This was the season after the Detroit riots so people were pretty tense and Artest just turned around and smiled at the fan.

So I'll take Artest at face value as a musician who wanted to dedicate a number to the King of Pop and sarcastically mention, "that's so deep." But it is what we expect from Artest. Just crazy enough to keep you interested. Always entertaining (like it or not).

-So I'm reading today that Brandon Roy is wining about his slow to developer contract negotiations with the Blazers. He's in the newspapers and sports radio saying he is "frustrated" with the contract negotiations. If you're a Blazer fan you are hoping that things go smoothly and that Roy is still the hero that you imagine him to be. But this is the real world and we all know that these players have a family to feed.

That even includes the $49 he charged for an autograph in Portland this last week. Some bloggers (cough, Dwight Jaynes) start ruffling the feathers of the locals and a lot of people who expect their entertainment free throw a fit. But if people are willing to pay for a swipe of the pen then you can't knock the hustle.

The bigger story though is if Brandon Roy refused to sign autographs before and after Blazer games for reasons like "I don't sign things for free." I don't think that Roy is this kind of a person especially considering the crowd in Portland. But if he is then let us know.

-It's nice to get away from the national media and everything that is sports entertainment in our country. When I picked up that paper in Montana over 3/4 of the paper were the local American Legion baseball teams and other local sports stories. It was nice to see that at any level sports can be 100% entertaining if covered properly.

Which brings me to my phone conversation with my brother. I asked him who won the home run contest and he told me that it was Prince Fielder but didn't watch the end because the show was just too long. I guess after every participant hit, ESPN had to interview the player. But what was supposed to be a two hour program went on for three hours.

This really upsets me. I've seen the sport of football get butchered with its new and "improved" clock rules when the games run too long because of added commercials but this is a new low. This isn't a pitcher taking too much time on the mound or a player adjusting his batting gloves 15 times outside the batters box. This is the same company who hold Outside The Lines programs about these certain type of things to get people up in arms.

And what pisses me off the most is that the solution from ESPN will be to cut the outs down or participants so we can get the show within its time slot. But don't worry, you'll get your interviews where the participant never says anything clever or controversial. Just your bland talking head bullshit that makes you wonder if the players all have the same PR firm.

If you don't believe me that this won't happen here's your proof.

The NBA 3 point and slam dunk contest.

So here is a first for us. That Corporation Of The Week goes to ESPN for fanning the flames of poor reporting. When the Montana locals can do more with less it really shows you that the formula that equals greed will destroy everything. Including sports.

-Beavers415

Pre-NBA Draft Thoughts

Before the draft starts here in a few minutes I just wanted to record some of my thoughts.

-What will the Blazers do with all their picks? They have a late first rounder and three second round picks to improve their team. The crazy thing is they won't be selecting players with them late in the draft unless it is some Euro who wouldn't play for three years anyways. Regardless of what happens, this is the first draft in a long time where the Blazers don't have to do anything to get better. But with all those picks something has to give.

Simply put, I have no clue what the Blazers are doing.

-Shaq to Cleveland is all the buzz in the sports world this morning. I think it all has to do with the NBA propping up their Kobe/Shaq feud because the Big Drama has to have more championships then Kobe.

We all know that this year's championship was the first time that Kobe was the main player but here is the ironic twist. Now Shaq is trying to add more notches to the championship belt but he can only do it with the best player in the league.

So that's Kobe, Dwayne Wade and now possibly El bj to bring Shaq another ring. If Wade gets a MVP trophy, which is highly likely, Shaq would have played with four different NBA MVP's when you include Steve Nash. All of those MVP's coming when Shaq was not on the team.

Think about that when you ask how much Shaq brings to his club?

-Beavers415

Sports Wish List

(Note, this entry has been edited due to the facts brought up to me by our loyal readers in the comments below)

When you live in an area where you don't get to watch your favorite baseball team your summer sports entertainment can get really limited. I seriously got excited tonight when ESPN announced they would be showing live coverage of the USA/Spain Confederations Cup semi-final game. So I spend a lot of my time wishing these days. Something like this....

-Somehow the San Francisco Giants become more popular and the MLB networks start showing their games more on national TV. It is some what plausible. The Giants are around 6 games over 500 with seventy games played and their is a general buzz and star power surrounding this team. Good or bad.

Like Tim Lincecum. The kid rocks some sweet locks that makes you wonder, "Is that guy rocking a mullet?"

But don't forget Barry Zito. Here is the 84 mph Cy Yound fire baller who is one of the highest paid pitchers in baseball. If this guy falls apart it is always in the print, but how cool would it be if he puts it together and brings back 2002? How can ESPN stay away from this?

-I wish we could get a NCAA decision on the scandals at USC. In the past two years the NCAA has discovered that USC booster's may have bribed OJ Mayo and Reggie Bush's family to play for the Trojans. Also add former basketball coach Tim Floyd just flat out gave some guy cash to ensure Mayo would play in LA. It's a slam dunk for a "lack of institutional control" so why haven't we seen anything on this?

How insane would it be if the NCAA is just digging and digging and finding crazy stories that even the writers of Blue Chips couldn't make up? Is it so bad that if the NCAA did nothing less then what it did to SMU football with the death penalty it would be a blatant definition of the double standard?

Could you even imagine if this happened to a football and basketball program at the same time? It would change west coast sports forever. Sure some other schools would get these freak of an athlete types but just taking USC out of football would automatically put about 10 teams in competition for the west coasts top program.

But don't forget the lost attention the Trojans give the teams that play in the Pac-10. Not only are they a media magnet but the challenge of having USC in your football conference only makes team strive to achieve more (unless you are UW).

I'll get back to you on how this hurts Pac-10 basketball.

-I wish somehow magically the PGA Championship actually became a respectable major in the golf grand slam. Either that or get rid of it. I know that you have to have four tournaments so you can complete the "grand slam" but why do events like the Australian Open and PGA Championship get lumped with their more respectable three?

I guess the Aussie Open is the solid #4 for the tennis circuit and I'm sure all of Australia would come unglued and blame it all on the Yanks. But who is going postal on America if we started calling Torey Pines or Sawgrass the final piece of the golf slam?

Seriously, if Phil Mickelson had won 6 tournaments and all of them were the PGA would any one be calling him "the 6 time major winner?" Even Fox Sports has enough respect to stay away from that one.

-I wish the 0regon ducks would never change. They are like the weird 2nd cousins at the family reunions that you love ripping on.

This past week our 2nd cousins unveiled their new "outfits" which included the addition of two new colors, "carbon" and "white steel." The helmets are even different with a strip down the middle saying random duck stuff and the "carbon" or "white steel" (I can't tell which color is meant to describe which) helmets have circles in its solid color pattern to give it the look of chain mail.

But the best news was they got rid of the steel plating and are going 100% wings (except they are getting rid of the knee section all together). But the wings are fantastic. When I heard about the idea of putting wings on their shoulder pads last October I thought it was a joke. But soon they were wearing all black uniforms with wings and the fans were eating it up. And they had to have because by now if their was a strong sense of opposition we wouldn't be here right now.

(And this is way worse then prancing around in a bro/manzier for a full football season. When our fans saw them in person we were all calling for a recall but I think the stupid ass person who made that decision got locked into a season contract with the new design before he could say "the strap is stuck." This was worse then when Millhouse bought 10,000 of the nerd super hero comic books while Bart was away from their store.)

The best part is our cousin just thinks he's the cock of the walk. Talking up the light weight material and 80 possible uniform combinations. And since everyone is talking about it any press is good press. Plus their players love the uniforms and that their number one concern. Because we know that self respect isn't high on their list.

-I wish the Blazers never have to get rid of Rudy Fernandez. Unfortunately he looks like the odd man out when you have players like Brandon Roy and Lamarcus Aldridge staring for the team. With salary cap and ego issues to arise, you know someday we'll have to watch the next Drazen Petrovic electrify other fans.

But if he was the unheard of star who wanted only to play in Portland for his entire career no matter what that would be too cool. The guy is going to have the passing skills that bring down the house like Magic Johnson, his own posterizing effect that brings on a whole new level of international shame, and a charisma that just makes it fun to watch basketball.

And this blogger thinks that if the refs didn't have some cheap calls on Rudy in the gold medal match then we wouldn't have to hear about how Kobe saved the US team when all of us who stayed up to watch that game know that Kobe did more to put the US team in the whole then anyone else there. It was Dwayne Wade who kept the US team in it when it mattered the most.

But I digress. Regardless, it will suck to see Rudy making sweet passes, dunks and "score the ball" for another team. And my fiance will stop rooting for the Blazers and move onto Rudy's team's bandwagon. As will the entire female population of Portland.

-Beavers415

How To Celebrate A Championship?

Leave it to LA to remind America how to celebrate a championship...riot style.

http://laist.com/2009/06/14/photos_people_celebratingrioting_ov.php

Here are some highlights from the link which also has some sweet photos including a pair of Laker supporters chucking a garbage can at light rail train.

"Metro reports that Blue Line is shut down between the 7th/Metro and Grand stations due to revelers reportedly placing trash cans on the tracks"

"No one was injured on Metro Bus Line 33, which was stopped by revelers, who broke every single window, including the front one. It was stopped under the freeway near Venice and Figueroa"

"A shell station at Olympic and Grand was looted."

"Looted sneakers store The HOLY GRAIL on Pico at Flower"

While no one died, I saw reports that eight police officers were injured in the melee. Two things to think about here.

If you are one of the rioters this morning, most likely waking to a horrible hangover, you're seeing this report of injuired police and probably thinking that the night was a success. Seriously, how many of them do you think feel any remorse for those cops.

Then you have the rest of Los Angeles who have ounce of self respect. Your favorite team wins a championship and you think to yourself how great it is to be a Laker fan. Other then Jerry Buss' kids horrible trophy acceptance speech and Phil Jackson's horrible "X" hat the night has been a tremendous success. Then some thugs that feel entitled to destroy the society you live in ruins your night and cities image.

One more thing to think about. Could you imagine if you were one of the cops, who more then likely are Laker fans, having to stop these idiots from trashing your city because your favorite team won?

Yep Laker fans, your town really deserved another championship.

-Beavers415