Nick Punto Day - Why I love Nick Punto!

Today is Nick Punto Day for Twins bloggers, as created by Andrew Kneeland of the Twins Target blog. I have been looking forward to this day because Nick Punto is one of my favorite members of the Minnesota Twins. Seriously. No, I don’t think he’s one of the best players on the team, and I’m certainly not interested in debating his value with any Nick Punto haters. I know you’re out there, and I know you’d love to tell me why he shouldn’t ever play, but I don’t care, so feel free to write your own blog about why he doesn’t belong in the major leagues, but don’t rain on my parade. This is just me explaining why I love Nick Punto!

I wrote last year about why Punto played as often as he does if you want to look at statistics, but this blog is kind of like explaining why I love my big comfy soft Adidas sweatshirts or my perfect fitting Twins Enterprise Twins hats (Twins Enterprise has nothing to do with the Minnesota Twins, but it’s only “fitting” that they make my favorite hats). Punto is obviously not the best player on the team, and my favorite clothing items are not straight off the fashion runways. I just really enjoy Nick Punto, just like I enjoy my most comfortable clothes! Punto isn’t my first choice for who I’d want to bat with the game on the line in the 9^th inning, just as I wouldn’t wear my favorite sweatshirt/cap combo to meet with a publisher about getting my new book into print (not that I have written a book, started a book or thought about starting a book…). Nicky is just a player that I know will make my evening more comfortable overall!

-Just to clarify, earlier tonight, long after I started writing this blog, I saw that Kbrobaseball had her Punto blog title comparing him to a “good ol’ pair of shoes.” I swear I did not steal her idea, as I had been planning this line of thought since hearing about Nick Punto Blog Day. Apparently this merely means that Punto has this kind of effect on some of his fans!-

Nobody hustles and goes all out quite like Punto does on every play, both on offense and defense. I am not at all a fan of him diving into first base, except in those rare occasions where it is necessary to avoid a tag. Even though physics says that’s not the fastest way to reach the base, he believes that it is until someone can prove him wrong. While he knows he’s putting himself at risk of injury, he does it because he wants to do whatever he can to get on base. His logic may be faulty in this case, but I still can’t be mad about the effort. He only has one gear: going all out all the time.

The Twins are always known for solid consistency on routine grounders, and the ability to make the spectacular plays as well. Of all the fantastic defenders the Twins have had in the last handful of years, I would put Nick Punto’s collection of Web Gems (even if they weren’t all on Baseball Tonight) up against anyone else on the team, or almost any other team for that matter. Torii Hunter has obviously had some of the most amazing catches in Twins history, so he would have to be at the top of that list, but I would still argue that Nick would be right there with him.

There are two Twins plays of the last 5 years that stand out in my mind above all others, in terms of the quality of the play (and I know once I write these, I will think of 30 other ones that should be at the top as well, but such is life). One was Torii Hunter in the 5^th inning (I think) of a game in which Johan Santana had a no-hitter going at the time. The ball was hit to left-center field, and seemed to be at a trajectory that would be impossible to even reach in time to cut off on a bounce, let alone to snatch out of the air. The cameras didn’t even show anyone in the area as the baseball shot out toward the direction of the fence. All of the sudden, there was Torii Hunter flying across the field turf, channeling his inner Usain Bolt (even if we didn’t know who Bolt was yet), propelling off the ground horizontally toward the ball and somehow capturing it in the leather pocket of his glove, followed by a good 2-3 somersault/rolls toward the warning track. I can still hear Twins television play-by-play announcer Dick Bremer saying the following lines as his excitement and volume level increased with each word: “He didn’t catch that did he?!?! He didn’t catch that did he?!?! He sure did!!” The catch itself may have been routine for Torii, but actually getting to the ball way out of his range combined with making the catch; that is what made it amazing.

The other play that is at the top of my own personal web gem list is what I titled The Nick Punto Superman play at 2^nd base, for my own personal DVD highlights. It was in Yankee Stadium a few years ago. I don’t remember if it was a bunt, or just a roller slowing up in the grass, but I know there was no chance it was going to be anything other than an infield hit. Punto got up to the ball, but the angle at which it was rolling vs. the direction he was coming from = no chance in the world of physics to get the ball to 1^st base accurately, let alone before the runner reached safely. He grabbed the ball barehanded, and had his whole body off the ground, almost as if he was lying down and had started levitating in a perfect Superman type pose. The fact that he was in the air should’ve eliminated any ability to put some torque on the toss, since the arm is only one component in getting power behind a throw. Yet somehow, he was able to take the energy from pushing his legs off the ground for the dive, and move it along to his arm, which was hanging below his body between his torso & the grass, to get something on the throw to first. As for accuracy, I have no idea how it got where it was supposed to go. Throwing across your body very rarely works out well for even the strongest and most accurate of arms (ask Brett Favre or Peyton Manning about that…), especially when you are suspended in the air. Yet little Nicky Punto got that throw to 1^st base in time for the out. The play continues to amaze me just thinking about. Even more amazing to me is that he made almost the identical play in 2009, in the exact same borough of New York, albeit on the opposite side of the street. The pretty much cemented that fact that it wasn’t a lucky play!

I would need to write that book I mentioned previously in order to describe all my favorite defensive plays from Nick Punto over the years (and I would need a Lord of the Rings size series to cover all the plays by every Twin that I’ve enjoyed through time), but that play at Yankee Stadium just embodies who he is out on the field. He never believes that a play is impossible and he will always give it his all. I’ve often wondered what would happen if the effort and attitude of players like Nick Punto & Mike Redmond was combined with the talent of a Milton Bradley. That would be one unstoppable ball player.

I still can’t quite understand why Punto only seems to be able to swing the bat well in even numbered years, but that means we should be in for a good season for him, regardless of what different position he heads out to each game. I just know I can rely on him to play hard, and to care about what he is doing, no matter what the situation. No one can control their talent; sure, they can work hard on skills and practice consistently, but talent is a gift. Effort and dedication is what can be controlled, and I think that must be why Nick Punto is one of my favorite Twins of the past decade. My favorite sweatshirts & cap certainly have been there for me repeatedly, never failing to be comfortable, even when they felt perhaps they needed a break. So as sappy & sugary as this superfluous post may be, this is why I love Nick Punto!

(1st Photo taken by Liz Strand, 09/21/07. 2nd Photo taken by Kathy Willens, 07/04/07)

The Vikings Must Win, for the Sake of My Mental Health

I'm not exactly a happy (sports) camper right now. My Zags won their Thu & Sat games vs Pepperdine & Loyola Marymount, but completely forgot their defense on the team plane, after putting it to good use in Portland, Moraga & San Diego. Had they been playing any team with something resembling a winning record, they would've been tagged for a loss. I believe LMU had 5 key players injured, yet it was tied at the half, and close until the last 5 min or so. But hey, they got the wins, which gives them 8 in a row. Undoubtedly their RPI will fall, but they'll keep their spot in the top #10-12 in the rankings.

I was also disappointed by the Timberwolves ending on Friday night. Trailing by 3 with under 6 seconds left, rookie Jonny Flynn drove to the hoop, got the lay-up as well as a foul call. Flynn never gets foul calls! This is a frequent topic during the broadcasts. He calmy swished the FT, and the New Orleans Hornets called a timeout with 3 seconds remaining. As assistant coach Tim Floyd handed out money to college recruits and the two NBA teams took the floor for the pivotal last possession of regulation, Minneapolis local station KSTC-45 promptly cut to a furniture commercial.

I was not born for the Heidi game 40+ yrs ago, when the AFL championship between the Raiders & Jets was cut off for the start of the movie Heidi, with 65 seconds left and the Jets leading by 3 points, but I read all about it as kid wearing my purple Tommy Kramer jersey. While angry football fans flooded the network switchboards, only those in the stadium were able to watch Oakland somehow score 2 touchdowns in one minute, to win by 11! Not long after that, football television contracts included provisions that games would be broadcast in full, regardless of time.

Ok, so the Hornets-T-Wolves is not exactly the AFL Championship, and the number of viewers affected was slightly smaller, but it was still frustrating as I yelled at the TV screen, until the commercial ended and video of Hornets players celebrating appeared on my screen. Apparently they hit a shot...

My mother had the perfect response to this Hornets win though, stating that it was good that New Orleans won, since that was the only win that city would get this weekend. Atta girl mom!

In honor of today's annual Hockey Day Minnesota, where FSNorth shows wall-to-wall hockey games, including outdoor high school challenges, the Gopher men's hockey team made sure outstate Minnesota had more to cheer about. After a few winning weekends to get back on track, including a solid 3 pts (out of 4 possible) last weekend vs. North Dakota, Minnesota followed that up by letting St. Cloud sweep them in a home-and-home series, 4-3 in St. Cloud on Friday (the Huskies built leads of 3-0 & 4-1) and 4-1 on their home ice. Impressive...

Finally, Tubby's boys took the floor Saturday morning, for a huge game against #7 Michigan State. This was a "not quite a must win but pretty much a really need to win due to the pathetic loss at the currently not good Indiana Hoosiers" game that looked more difficult with the news that junior starting point guard Al Nolen would be out due to academic suspension, which could extend the rest of the season. Devoe Joseph started in his place, and he is a better offensive player, but Nolen definitely is the stronger defensive presence. Considering this, I just hoped the little yellow rodents could stay in the game. Maybe I should've wished for more...

Minnesota took control, with a commanding 8 point lead at the half, and 2nd half advantages of 13 or 14 points (I'm doing this insomniac blog without any stat sheets). Devoe Joseph filled in very nicely, as a scoring presence, and dishing out a good number of assists (I know he had 7 midway through the 2nd half). Unfortunately, Michigan St made the run every good team makes to try to get back in it, and that would've been a great time to have a stopper like Al Nolen on the floor, especially since he's one of the only guys quick enough to try to keep up with Spartans PG Kalin Lucas. Michigan St found a way to tie it late, and of course, Kalin Lucas was the gut who got open enough to hit a 3 pointer with 1:29 left to take a 3 point lead.

Senior Damian Johnson was able to cut it to 1 point, and the Gophers played shutdown defense to get the ball back with about 17 seconds left. Lawrence Westbrook took a shot with close to 5 ticks remaining (remember; no stat sheets), and even though CBS' Seth Davis tweeted that there sure was a lot of contact on his shot, it would've been rather surprising to hear a whistle at that point in a game, for better or worse. Westbrook's shot just sorta floated straight up, and a few Gophers tried to tip it to the net, but luck wasn't on their side and time expired with the scoreboard showing a Michigan State win.

In terms of sports losses, this hit me pretty hard. Knowing they had the game under control and lost it, keeping themselves on the outside of the NCAA tourney bubble with only a few more chances to beat a team "better" than they are, was quite a bummer.

So as you can clearly see, I am so due for a big win that sends me leaping off the couch for joy (that would be a roughly 1-1.5 inch leap), and I'm guessing many other Minnesota sports fans feel the same. So Dear Vikings, please take this opportunity to ensure that no one in purple & gold takes the field for the Pro Bowl next week, as you would be preparing for a much more important game in Miami! My mental health & well-being is counting on you! (Who knows...I might even fall asleep before morning if they win!)

Posted via email from trueliz's posterous

While You Were Sleeping...

Anyone who follows me on Twitter or is my friend on Facebook, has likely noticed the odd hours during which I usually publish blog entries. My brain is still healing (very slowly) from a concussion/mild traumatic brain injury (mtbi) from a couple years ago. This limits how much time I am able to read and write (or do things requiring analysis) in any given day. I still love to write though, so when my head allows, I like to jot down some thoughts about whatever is on my mind. This usually happens after midnight, and before 6 am. My best guess as to why, is that it's quiet at night. Anytime things are going on around me, my brain seems to work harder to separate everything, so when late night arrives, my creative side comes to light as most distractions have gone away, even though it is usually headaches keeping me awake that late. Go figure. I generally send out the link to the blog later in the day on Twitter too, since normal people are usually sleeping when I post my thoughts. On Tuesday, I just started that tweet with 'While You Were Sleeping:" and Amanda Rykoff suggested I should just go with that for the blog name. While I do hope that I can have something resembling a normal sleep schedule again in my near future, for now, "While You Were Sleeping: Random Thoughts from Liz" does seem like the perfect title!

Oddly enough, I am about to post this blurb while most of you are sleeping, or wishing that you were still sleeping while smacking the snooze button on your alarm. Goodnight from me, and good luck with your day!

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Random thoughts on Captain Sully Sullenberger, Boise St-TCU & the BCS, and the former GB QB

As usual, I have a lot of sports-related things on my mind, but I’ll start with a hero; a real hero, not the kind of hero who hits a game-winning shot in the playoffs.

 

Sully

Captain “Sully” Sullenberger was the big hero last year, and has been able to start 2010 in the news, without any miraculous landings needed. As I watched a few of the 2009 retrospective type shows (yes, I’m a sucker for anything like that; could be why I was a History major), I continue to be amazed each time the story is told about him piloting U.S. Airways 1549 to safety in the river. I got to hear the discussion with the tower for the first time, I believe during the VH1 look at 2009. The tower tells everyone else that takeoffs & landings need to be stopped, since a plane has an emergency and needs to return. Sully comes on & says that he needs to land in the Hudson. Verbatim response from the tower “I’m sorry, say again?” I can only imagine what they must’ve been thinking when they heard that.

 

The camera phone type videos that have been shown of the landing (which I somehow hadn’t seen before) just solidify how amazing it was that everyone survived. That plane was still going fast! The line “brace for impact” isn’t usually followed by such a successful finish. As my mom & I were discussing this, she said looking at the video again in the last week, of the people standing on the wing of the plane in the water, she was suddenly more amazed. As a flight attendant, she had to do safety training that included going out on the wing, and the wing is slippery. It’s not exactly a stable place to stand. Yet in the water (which I’ve heard can make things more slippery), everybody was able to stay in place until the rafts & boats rescued them. I cannot even fathom that no one was lost, and to continue to have the presence of mind, and selflessness, of waiting until everyone else was off, and then going back to check the whole plane again, even as the back end inside the plane was dangerously full of water, just adds to the heroism of Sully Sullenberger.

 

The man has shown in the nearly 12 months since this happened, that he’s not big on getting a lot of attention, or taking a lot of credit; he was just doing his job, is what he keeps repeating. Yet, he also was wise enough to realize that if he didn’t acknowledge the praise people from the flight were giving him, that he was minimizing the fact that their lives were saved. I’m guessing he would like to have just started flying again quietly and continued his life, but of course news cameras & media followed his first day back on the job, so he is learning to somewhat embrace the position he’s including writing the book “Highest Duty” which I have on audio book, so I can hear him tell his story.

 

On January 1 of this new decade, Sully was the Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses parade, along with his wife Lorrie, and had the honor of doing the coin toss for the Rose Bowl game between Ohio State & Oregon. On Monday (Jan. 4) he spoke to employees at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, and was even able to speak to Astronauts (& Cosmonauts) on the International Space Station from mission control (video can be found here on NASA’s Featured Videos page: http://bit.ly/6nChxi ).  I’m a little jealous that NASA employees in Houston get to see Astronaut Mike Massimino and now Sully Sullenberger, but I’ll make a New Year’s resolution to get over my envy! 

 

Of course, you know you’ve made it when Harrison Ford is going to narrate your documentary, which will be shown on TLC (January 10, 9 EST/8CST) called, appropriately, “Brace for Impact.” My Tivo is already set!

 

I’m just pleased, that with all the end of year talk about Jon & Kate, Britney, K-Fed, Kanye, Rihanna’s horrifying abuse from Chris Brown (& his return to the music charts in less than a year), Spencer & Heidi, and White House party crashers, that discussion of a true inspirational hero could stand out as one of the great stories of the year. Thank you Captain Sullenberger!

 

 

BCS: Boise St. & TCU

Since I already expounded on this subject with both Facebook & Twitter, I’ll keep it brief here: I am about as irritated as I can get about something in sports (I can get more irritated about real life, but we’re just talking sports now) at the fact that the BCS matched up Boise St. & TCU in the Fiesta Bowl Game, played last night, 01/04/10. I’m glad they “admitted” two very worthy schools from non-BCS conferences, but they are robbing all of us the opportunity to see how they matched up against schools from the big, bad, “powerful” BCS conferences. All this does is guarantee that the little conference schools will be .500 in BCS bowls this year, and since there are no playoff games, so there is no advancing to the next round, we can’t see if they are Cinderella teams whose clock strikes midnight or if they are worthy applicants for the National Championship game. Let’s face it; they couldn’t look any worse than Cincinnati did in the first half vs. the Florida Gators in the Sugar Bowl, and if Nebraska had held on to beat Texas a month ago, Cincinnati would have been the #2 team in the BCS and would’ve been in that Championship game vs. Alabama. Computers should not be deciding championships.

 

Another thought stream that I put on Facebook the other day:

College football needs a playoff, because undefeated teams like Cincinnati, TCU & Boise St. deserve the chance to try to prove that they are the top team in the nation.

 

College football needs a playoff, because Cincinnati was only a few Nebraska plays away from competing for the National Championship, and clearly, they were not qualified.

 

 

Pro Bowl is not in Hawaii? And it’s before the Super Bowl?

Can someone please explain to me the logic behind putting the Pro Bowl the week before the Super Bowl? Aside from the fact that players don’t want to go to play; they want to go to Hawaii with their families, it makes no sense! Generally the two teams in the Super Bowl will have some talented players on their roster, and likely a number of them will have already been named to the Pro Bowl. But this guarantees that fans won’t get to see those players participate, as they obviously won’t be playing an exhibition the week before the big game.

 

 

The Legacy of Brett Favre

Speaking of Pro Bowlers…Brett Favre. I recall stories all summer on any network that carried sports, discussing that Brett Favre was likely ruining his legacy with his waffling about retirement, and would certainly ruin his legacy by trying to play this year, after ending last year on the down month (never mind that pesky injury he had). While the Vikings lost some games they should’ve won and we don’t yet know what will happen in the playoffs, it would be hard to argue that these numbers will bring him down: 12 wins, 33 touchdowns while the gunslinger only tossed 7 interceptions, 4200 yards (his 3^rd highest total) and a career best 107.2 QB rating (which is not my favorite stat to compare quarterbacks, but can be valuable to compare seasons of any one quarterback). He completed 68.4% of his passes, which is his personal high. Only Drew Brees (70.6) & Peyton Manning (68.8) had better completion percentages, and they had better completion percentages to the opposing teams as well, throwing 11 & 16 interceptions, respectively.

 

Just to clarify about Brett Favre, I did not jump on this bandwagon, or do a 180 on cheering for a player I hated. I never hated Brett Favre. I have recently learned this was rare among Minnesota Vikings fans. Of course I hated the Packers, and wanted to see Favre throw to the team in purple, and wanted John Randle to slam him into the icy turf at Lambeau & concrete floor in the Dome, but I always enjoyed watching Favre play. While I never quite understood why his interceptions were because he was “just trying to make a play” while Dante Culpepper (back when he was actually good) would be making “a dumb decision,” I still thought he was fun to watch, and thought he showed how football showed be played. I just wanted him to lose every time he was on the field against the Vikings, or in any game that would affect the Vikings.

 

Once there was a shot at the Hall of Famer coming to Minnesota, I was on board for that, though I certainly could’ve done without nightly reports about him, when nothing new had happened; just tell me when there’s something I need to know! Now I can only hope that Favre can help lead the Vikings to somewhere they have never been: the winner’s circle of the Super Bowl! If that should happen, all those meaningless reports of him on high school football fields, or false sightings of his wife shopping in Minnesota, will be nothing but a distant memory!

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My Thoughts on the Vikings - One of the best seasons in 30+ years, impact of injuries, my wish list for the coming weeks & how one gutsy call would’ve guaranteed no overtime vs. the Bears

These are my thoughts, and you have no obligation to agree, but even if you disagree, they will still be my thoughts…

 

Once Brett Favre was on board, before this season started, I predicted a 12-4 record for the Minnesota Vikings, assuming no major injuries. They are currently 11-4, so a win vs. the Giants in the friendly confines of the Metrodome (I’m not saying Mall of America Field) would give them that record, and they have had some major injuries, which would put them ahead of what I would’ve expected.

 

Antoine Winfield’s foot issues have been huge, both due to all the games he missed, and while playing the past 2 weeks, when he clearly has been far below 100% (or even 70%). The loss of EJ Henderson has been very mentally painful to fans, while quite physically painful to him. The Arizona game was already decided when he was injured, but in the 3 games without Henderson, the team is 1-2. Plus there have been all of the week to week injuries, which are commonplace in the NFL, but exist nonetheless.

 

Everyone knows that injuries are a part of the game in football (or any sport for that matter), but I think these two injuries have made the defense much more vulnerable, and while I wouldn’t have predicted the offensive issues for 10 of the last 16 quarters, it will take adjusting to play w/o Henderson, and Winfield needs to figure out if he is hurting the team in 1-on-1 coverage if he is not healthy enough now. Pittsburgh Steelers are a great example of what can happen when a great defensive player is out. For the season, the Steelers are 8-7 and are one of a handful of AFC teams with a shot at one of the last 2 playoff spots.  Troy Polamalu has only played in 4 full games this season (playing only the opening series vs. the Bengals before being injured again doesn’t really count). In those 4 games, the Steelers are 4-0, including the win over the Vikings. This makes them 4-7 without him. Talk about a huge impact on the team!

 

The Vikings have only had 5 games this season with both Antoine Winfield & EJ Henderson playing for the whole game. In those 5 games, the Vikings are 5-0. In all games with EJ Henderson, Vikings are 10-2, and in games with a healthy Antoine Winfield (last two weeks seemed to show he was not healthy, and he went out halfway through the Ravens win, after which QB Joe Flacco ripped through the MN pass defense & nearly led his team to a win), the Vikings are 6-0. So while teams need to adjust to injury losses, there are solid stats showing what that has done to the team.

 

That being said, EJ Henderson will not be returning this season, and with the looming possibility of no bye week in the playoffs, Antoine Winfield has no extra time coming up to heal, so if the Vikings want to make an impact in the postseason, they need to play around these injuries…and even if both were suddenly & magically healed, they don’t play on the offensive line or in special teams.

 

However, with all this gloom & doom, the Vikings are going to finish the season 12-4 or at worst, 11-5, which would be their best record since being 11-5 in 2000, or 15-1 in 1998. If they do beat the Giants and get that 12-4 record, the last time they had 4 or fewer losses other than 1998, was 1976 when they finished 11-2-1 (back when the seasons were still 14 games, before the switch to 16 in 1978).  12-4 would be their 2^nd best record in the 32 seasons of a 16-game schedule, and 11-5 would be 2^nd as well, but tied with 2000, 1992 & 1988. Everyone would love to be finishing the season on a higher note, but the 2^nd best record in 32 years would be a solid accomplishment regardless.

 

The back-to-back division championships are something special for the Vikings too. ESPN analyst/former Super Bowl Winning Coach Jon Gruden pointed out before Monday Night Football that this was the first time the Vikings had pulled that off in over 30 years. They had that solid era in the 70’s, where they won the division each year from 1973-1978 (and they won 11 of 13 division titles from 1968-1980), but in modern history, that just hasn’t happened. Prior to last year’s NFC North title, their last one had been back in 2000, when they were still in the Central division, so even standalone titles had been rare lately.

 

While 3 of the last 4 weeks have been less than pretty on the field (minus the 2^nd half of this Bears game…only the 1^st half & OT were ugly), this is still a regular season that will go down as one of the best since the reign of the Purple People Eaters. I have only been able to enjoy that wining era through books, since it took place before I was born, up until I was starting preschool. Hence, I am going to try to look at this season as a whole, rather than just the last month. If the Vikings go on to the Super Bowl, no one will care how they did in December. On the other hand, if they had won all these December games & lost early in the playoffs, all the talk would be about why they didn’t rest their players. I’ll cross my fingers that these “learning experiences” will carry over to the post-season, as a reminder of what they need to do to win those games when it counts!

 

My hope for the weeks ahead, aside from the obvious wish for the Vikings to win any other games they play, includes the following things:

• A Cowboys win over the Eagles (along with the Vikings win), to get the Vikings that first round bye. The bye honestly doesn’t matter to me; in recent Super Bowls, it has not increased the odds of winning it all, but this team clearly plays better indoors, and that would guarantee starting off with a home game.
• If the Eagles win next week, and get the #2 spot, then I will be cheering for them to lose so Minnesota could avoid playing there. Preferable locations to play of the teams in the playoffs, in my opinion, in order (this is based on the location alone, not the team) – Dome, New Orleans, Dallas, Arizona, Green Bay & Philadelphia
• The defensive secondary covering the receivers like TMZ covers Tiger Woods’ other women.
• Offensive line playing a complete game, with pass protection & run blocking. Of course no game can ever be perfect, but if they protect for Favre, he’s shown repeatedly (and in the 2^nd half vs. the Bears) that he will find open receivers. Plus, I couldn’t write about the Vikings without mentioning that Favre is 40 years old, so they need to keep him from being plowed onto his backside repeatedly; he is almost old enough to be at risk for breaking a hip with each fall. As for run blocking, look at what Adrian Peterson did vs. the Bears once he got past the line of scrimmage. It seemed like if he could get ½ yard, he was getting at least 6 yards.
• Peterson should go ahead & give up that one last yard in exchange for holding on to the ball (though a facemask call would’ve been nice, as the neck swiveling might make it harder to hold on), but I wouldn’t harp on that play too much. Sure, the Bears won the game after that, but a better hold by Kluwe on the extra point, a better punt by Kluwe early on, a catch by Berrian early in the 2^nd half when the ball hit him on the hands, 1 or 2 interceptions by Ben Leber when the throw was to him (though 1 can be canceled out by the Bears dropped INT) or a tackle on multiple kick returns, would’ve eliminated the need for that OT altogether. AD drops the ball too often, but he also has that special explosive game that no one wants to take away, and sometimes that risk-taking & reward goes hand-in-hand. Go check out Walter Payton’s first 3 years in the league, and you just might discover that he fumbled even more often than Peterson. The point here though, is to make the plays that are right there for you. Hold the ball, catch the ball, turn the ball the right direction, kick the ball or hit the runner with the ball.
• Jared Allen and Kevin Williams’ (and Ray Edwards for that matter) pictures being removed from milk boxes. It seems like, in terms of a pass rush, that they have been non-existent. The Bears have had a shaky o-line this season, yet they looked Pro Bowl worthy for much of Monday night. That’s a problem, considering the talent that was lined up against them.
• Special Teams tackling. Defensive tackling.
• Brett Favre running the offense. No, I don’t think I’m a coach, and I don’t have a better plan than Childress does, but maybe Favre does…it seemed like in the 2^nd half, when Favre was allowed to open up and play his style of game, things moved along much nicer in the offense. And this didn’t mean that the run was abandoned; it just worked better, as the pass opened it up more. Old school football knowledge says you run to open up the pass, but this season, when the Vikings have been successful, they’ve passed to open up the run.

 

That’s almost all for now; congratulations if you’ve managed to make it this far!  One final head-scratching thought: if Brad Childress wanted to take a chance that if they lost, would’ve taken the heat off his team and moved it all to him, or could’ve made him a hero if they won, he could’ve gone for two after Sidney Rice’s TD catch with under 20 seconds left. If they were successful and came out with the win, the talk would’ve been about how gutsy he was, and what a tremendous comeback was led by #4. If they had failed, the talk would’ve been about what a dumb decision he made, and how it ruined the great comeback by #4, rather than focusing on all the other issues the Vikings had throughout the game. Just an interesting option to ponder after the fact…

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Perhaps I should've waited a day

I was quite proud of myself for managing to write the Urban Meyer blog just hours after the news, but now it just becomes a tribute of sorts to a current coach, who happens to be on a leave of absence. At least I enjoyed writing it!

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Urban Meyer...

I was sitting with my parents & aunt on Saturday night, discussing all the knee-jerk reactions the airline industry was already having to the attempted terrorist attack on the NWA flight in Detroit (which deserves a complete post of its own), when I looked to my phone & saw a new AP news alert text message out of Gainesville, FL "Urban Meyer is stepping down as coach of the University of Florida football team." I did a double, or possibly quadruple take on this text, and quickly switched to my ESPN text feed, to see that they had already posted two messages about Coach Meyer's decision. I'm only slightly exaggerating when I say that I would’ve been less surprised to see a leprechaun next to a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

 

I have always been a fan of both Florida St. & Florida football. I realize if I lived in Florida, that this could get me killed, but as a Minnesota resident, I felt I had the right to cheer for both (behind my favorite hometown Gophers, of course). Florida St. was usually my favorite of the two, especially when former Cretin Derham Hall QB Chris Weinke was there, even though the Gators were my favorite basketball team of the two (still bummed that Teddy Dupay & company did not pull out the 2000 Championship over Michigan St., but just reaching the finals helped me win multiple March Madness pools). That shifted when Urban Meyer arrived in Gainesville. Being a fan of the underdog, I was quite excited about Utah’s big BCS win (see the next paragraph), which somehow led to me becoming a big fan of a dynasty. Go figure. Tim Tebow’s arrival merely cemented the Gators position as 2^nd on my list of teams, ahead of the Seminoles, but Urban Meyer is why they would stay in the spot for me next year & beyond.

 

This is the same Urban Meyer, who brought an undefeated Utah Utes team to a BCS bowl game, in his 4^th year of being a head coach of college football (2^nd year at Utah following 2 years at Bowling Green). Utah is in the Mountain West conference, which makes them an outsider in the BCS conference party. Lead by QB Alex Smith & Meyer’s spread offense, the Utes pounded the Pitt Panthers (out of the BCS member Big East conference) to win the Fiesta Bowl & finish their season with no losses on their record, becoming the first non-BCS team to win one of these bowls. They joined Auburn & Boise St. as three teams undefeated before the bowl games that had no chance to compete for a National Championship, but that would take a few books to write about, not just a blog entry. (USC ended the 2004 season as the “National Champion” with their crushing of Oklahoma, and Boise St. lose their bowl game, leaving Utah, Auburn & USC as the only teams with no blemishes/e)

 

The once feared Florida Gators had been stumbling (especially by their standards) since legendary Coach Steve Spurrier had stepped down (and been humbled in the NFL), being replaced by Ron Zook, whose qualifications included something like being a high school gym teacher, if I remember correctly. The Gators parted ways with Zook after the end of the 2004 bowl season (which is actually in early 2005, which sometimes gets confusing), and courted the hot young Urban Meyer to move east to Gainesville. Meyer was barely 41 yrs old by the time he coached his first Gator football game, but he showed that age was not what mattered for coaching success, nor was a lot of time as a Division I head coach. The Gators finished 9-3 in his first season there, ranked #12 in the AP poll. This still isn’t a successful season in the eyes of Florida fans, but after not even being in the AP poll at the end of the 2004 season (and falling behind rivals Georgia & Florida St., as well as in-state school Miami), this was a leap in the right direction.

 

The 2006 season showed everyone why Florida President Dr. Bernie Machen had wanted Urban Meyer at Florida (Dr. Machen was the Utah president from 1998-2003, so he was very familiar with Meyer already). Behind the solid, but not superstar, senior quarterback Chris Leak, the 12-1 Florida Gators became a surprise contestant in the BCS National Championship game vs. Ohio St. Many thought that the 12-1 Buckeyes should’ve been playing Louisville (12-1), LSU (11-2), USC (11-2), Michigan (12-1, but their only loss had been weeks earlier to Ohio St.) or even the underdog Boise St. Broncos, who once again stood at 13-0 before the bowls, but the BCS computers chose Florida. Oh, I forgot to mention that besides that senior QB Leak, there was a highly recruited freshman out of Nease High School’s football team (he was home schooled for classes), Tim Tebow, who came in to play QB for some plays, including goal-line situations where he could plow through the line, or try one of his never-seen-before jump passes. Tebow would go on to be a decent QB after Leak’s eligibility was exhausted.

 

9 ½ out of every 10 “experts” predicted that Ohio St. would crush the “overrated” Gators. Perhaps Boise St. set the stage for Florida the week before. In the Fiesta Bowl, taking place in the same Glendale, AZ stadium where the National Championship would soon be played, the Broncos somehow found a way to beat the mighty Oklahoma Sooners, who even had the return of their injured running back, Adrian Peterson. Boise outplayed the Sooners, then fell behind late, before some of the most incredible plays in college football led them to an improbable win. Many sports fans would agree that was one of the most fun games (in any sport) that they had ever witnessed. Perhaps it was not merely a coincidence that the underdog wearing blue & orange uniforms pulled out the win.

 

I was lucky enough to be in Florida for a work trip for that National Championship, wearing my blue Gators sweatshirt as I watched the game with my co-workers from our hotel bar. If I believed in gambling of any sort, I might have placed a $5 online bet for the Gators to win, which might have paid out a whopping $20…if I’d ever done that sort of thing. After all the talk about if Florida even belonged in this game, they left everybody with the impression that perhaps Ohio St. didn’t belong in that game. As I recall, Buckeyes kick returner/wr Ted Ginn ran the opening kickoff back for a TD (and injured his foot in the celebration), but Florida didn’t blink, and just set out from there to win the game & finish #1. As a side note, this championship was sandwiched nicely between Billy Donovan’s men’s basketball team winning back-to-back National Championships. It certainly was good to be a Gator!

 

To avoid turning this into a full book, I’ll skip the play-by-play of the following seasons, but Urban Meyer definitely made his mark in college football. Sophomore QB Tim Tebow won the 2007 Heisman Trophy, becoming the first sophomore to win the award, and later became the first player to finish in the top 5 in Heisman voting in 3 different seasons. Urban Meyer has just had a standing flight to New York every year lately for the Heisman Trophy ceremony. They only finished the 2007 season as the #13 team, but they bounced back rather nicely in 2008, winning the National Championship over Oklahoma. This championship was part of an amazing 22-game win streak, started after Tim Tebow’s “Promise” following the loss to Ole Miss (“I’m sorry…I promise you one thing…you will never see a team play harder than we will play the rest of this season. God bless.”) Along with being a fantastic Head Coach & Quarterback combination, Urban Meyer & Tim Tebow had possibly the best bromance in the country! Perhaps this could be explored in a later blog as well.

 

Unfortunately for Gator fans, that 22-game win streak came to an end a few weeks ago in the SEC championship game vs. Alabama, relegating the Gators to the Sugar Bowl, rather than the storybook ending of Tim Tebow riding off into the sunset after a 3^rd National Championship. But while everyone knew that the Sugar Bowl would be the send-off of Tebow, no one thought it would be the last college football game for Urban Meyer. Sure, there were people who thought Urban (named for Pope Urban) would take the Notre Dame job, but he’d turned it down once before, and I had no concerns about that. I had no doubt that the Gators would re-load again next year, even if Coach Meyer was going through Tebow withdrawal (something I am trying to prepare for as well).

 

We have heard that Meyer has health issues, and wants to spend more time with his family, and while it is not life-threatening, the 27 hr a day/8 day a week head coach of football job, is one that provides enough stress to continually put his health at risk. So the man with 2 National Champions (& 3 BCS bowl game wins, hopefully 4 soon), winner of 6 different National Coach of the year awards in 2003 & 2004, and just named Sporting News Magazine’s Coach of the Decade, will be retiring now, at age 45. After the shock has gone away, I will just miss Urban Meyer being a part of college football. I am glad to see him putting his health, faith & family first though, as all too often, we sacrifice all of the above for the job, and somehow the job never shows the same dedication to us when the situation changes. His college-student daughter has already commented that she will be happy to get her daddy back. I wish him & his family nothing but the best, as he goes through this healing process, which will be both physically & mentally difficult. I have a feeling his players might be a little extra inspired for his final game on January 1, against the Cincinnati Bearcats, who already lost their head coach to Notre Dame. Go Gators!

Posted via web from trueliz's posterous

"Strandom" Thoughts - College Basketball edition: WCC, Zags, Trey Thompkins, Wesleyan School & more

I (once again) have neglected this blog for awhile, so I am just going to jot down some college basketball thoughts that are on my mind, just to get back into the swing of it!

• In the first month of this men's college basketball season, there was a lot of talk about the West Coast Conference (WCC) possibly sending more teams to the NCAA tourney than the Pac-10, due to all the solid wins from the conference, including Gonzaga winning the Maui Invitational, San Diego over Stanford & Oklahoma, Portland over Oregon, UCLA & Minnesota, St. Mary's over Oregon (& crushing San Diego St.), and even last year's 3 total wins team, Loyola Marymount, winning at USC (& now at Notre Dame just a few days ago). Even though Portland cooled off after Anaheim with some weak losses, the WCC has still looked strong. My favorite conference might want to erase today from the calendars though...Gonzaga played the 2nd worst game I've seen them play (@Virginia a few yrs ago was the worst in my opinion even though the point totals made today's the worst in over 20 years) in Madison Square Garden vs. Duke, losing 41-76 while shooting 28% overall, 10% on 3's & even a pathetic 48% on free throws. The Portland Pilots were taking on Washington in the evening, with a chance to redeem the conference, a yr after knocking off Washington in Oregon. The Huskies annihilated them though, 89-54 (both Zags & Pilots only had 17 1st half points). University of San Francisco lost the green & gold "USF' battle vs University of South Florida by 20 pts. San Diego lost a lead vs. Southern Illinois to fall by 2 points...but at least Loyola Marymount gave the conference one win for the day (and already their 5th on the season) over Cal State Baskersfield. Yikes.
• Speaking of the Zags & Duke...I am trying to find something redeeming out of the absolutely pathetic game they played in almost all aspects (they actually weren't terrible on defense for much of the game). Here's all I can come up with: They have made a habit of falling behind early this season, and coming back to win (or having a chance to win, such as their 2 pt loss vs. Wake Forest). Perhaps this absolute butt-kicking will hammer home the message that falling behind by double digits & coming back is not the way to have a successful season. It's good to be able to do that, but it's not a best practice to try to make a habit. To keep myself sane, I'm just comparing this game to the Vikings vs. Cardinals 2 weeks ago. Gonzaga just wasn't "there," but hopefully they will show in their next few games that it was an aberration, and not a sign of things to come.
• One final WCC related thought: When Notre Dame looked at their schedule earlier this year and saw they were playing two Los Angeles teams in one week, if you had told them they would be 1-1 in those games, I'm guessing the entire team (& 98% of fans) would've assumed a win over Loyola Marymount & a loss vs. UCLA. Again, this is the LMU team that was one of the worst in the country last year, with those three wins, during the season in which they got a new head coach, who took a medical leave a few wks into the season, quit 2 months later w/o ever returning from that medical leave and then took a Portland Trailblazers asst job the very next week. Yet when the final buzzer sounded in South Bend, Indiana last Saturday night (12/12), the final score was Lions 87, Fighting Irish 85, thanks to a Notre Dame 5-second violation and a game-winning 3 by Jarred DuBois. I was very happy (and surprised) to see LMU get that win, and was even more disappointed that it was not televised anywhere on my 100 DirecTV sports channels, than I had been when I discovered that before the game...yet somehow, I could find a game like Northern Iowa at North Dakota in Grand Forks today (not the North Dakota St. team from Fargo that was in the NCAA tourney last season, the UND team that regularly loses by 40 points in their slow process of acclimating to D1 basketball). Go figure.
• I figure the job of the analyst in a college basketball game is to research stuff about the teams/players, and be able to speak quasi-intelligently about that throughout the game. I realize this often doesn't happen, but the ESPNU team for Saturday's Illinois at Georgia game were selling a local school a little short. Georgia's leading scorer is sophomore F Trey Thompkins (given name Howard Thompkins III, hence "Trey"). Analyst/Former Alabama head coach Mark Gottfried, twice mentioned that Thompkins had gone to high school at Oak Hill Academy (the basketball "factory" school in Virginia that has a long list of former players including Carmelo Anthony, Michael Beasley, Kevin Durant, Brandon Jennings & Rajon Rondo, to name a few), and that Thompkins wanted to be closer to home, so he chose Georgia. While it is true that he went to Oak Hill & he chose Georgia, he skipped a step. Trey had been a student at the Wesleyan School in Norcross, GA, before transferring to Oak Hill for his junior year. After one year in VA, he came back to Wesleyan for his senior year, where he, along with Clemson sophomore G Tanner Smith, led their team to a Class A Georgia State championship. This game was even being played in Duluth, GA rather than on campus in Athens. Duluth is just a few minutes from Norcross (and Duluth is also where Gophers Soph Ralph Sampson III is from, but I digress...). Since my aunt Margaret works at Wesleyan, I know how much fun it is for the school (employees & students) when this is mentioned! Heck, it's fun for me when this is mentioned.
• While on the subject of Norcross, and the Wesleyan School, one other note is on Al-Farouq Aminu, the Soph star for Wake Forest/future NBA lottery picks. Aminu graduated from Norcross High School, immediately across the street from Wesleyan, where he won two 5A state titles. But before he transferred to Norcross his sophomore year of high school, he too was at Wesleyan. So if you look at the freshman on the basketball team in '04-'05 , one is a starter at an SEC school, and two others at ACC schools. Not bad for the little Christian school with barely over 1000 total students, K-12. They also have had many other athletes playing division one sports including former Air Force star RB/WR/KR Chad Hall, Georgia women's basketball player Anna Marie Armstrong & Colorado St. basketball player Chantel Kennedy, just to name a few. When Aunt Margaret told me a few years back that they had some really good basketball players, I was thinking of my high school, which was about the same size, who during my years had some D3 basketball players, and one D1 walk-on player. I soon realized that when she said they were really good, she meant D1 college star athlete type good!

That's all for now. I have many more thoughts stored away on subjects other than college basketball, but it is time to rest the brain once again!