There's No Crying In Football!!!!

Hello all,

What do Tim Tebow and Adam Morrison have in common?? Apparently, neither one has watched the all-time cinematic classic, A League of Their Own. Or, if they have, neither one took the words of manager Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) to heart when he proclaimed (which is rated as the 54th best movie quote of all time by the way- clearly underated!)

Are you crying?? There's no crying in baseball!!!

Maybe Dugan was referring only to women's baseball... But while I think this quote is applicable to not only an all-female baseball team, but perphaps male sports as well; I guess neither Tim Tebow or Adam Morrison agrees with me because as the sports hernia so elegantly stated it- Tim Tebow played a touching tribute to Adam Morrison this weekend when he started crying on the sidelines in the loss to Alabama. Now- while these two do have much in common (mainly the fact they are college superstars with seemingly no place at the next level), there are some differences (besides the fact they play a different sport). But which one is the bigger gaffe???

For all those who don't remmember Morrison's breakdown, Youtube highlights here, but in brief, he broke down with 2.8 seconds left in the sweet sixteen against UCLA with his team down 1 after several Gonzaga turnovers gave UCLA their first lead of the game. To me, Morrison's weep job was waayyy worse for several reasons. First, his team was actually in the game when it happened- Gonzaga was down just 1 with 2.8 seconds left (but UCLA had the ball) when the 6-8 swingman started to breakdown. Second, Morrison actually laid down in the middle of the court (on which there was another game to follow), until several UCLA players felt so bad they stopped celebrating with their guys and went to help him up. Lastly, Gonzaga had a legit look at a game tying and overtime forcing 3-ball at the end of the game- so what would Adam have done if it had gone down??? But, The Sports Hernia, does make a good point- Adam waited till 2.8 seconds to begin crying while Tebow was seen weeping at 1:03 left to go- beating Morrison to the punch by an astounding 61 seconds! In either case, no disrespect at all to either one of these guys, I just wish they would've done us a favor by holding it in until they got to the locker room. But, I do wanna say that Tim Tebow will probably and very deservingly go down as one of the top 5 college football players of all time. The guy is a machine, a warrior, a winner, and I am glad I got to see him play for 4 years! One question I do have about Tebow is I wonder what his teamates think of him?? (Yes, I know they all have to say they love him on interviews and I'm not saying they feel otherwise but am just curious). Watching him yell at defensive players in the defensive huddle in the 4th quarter Saturday made me wonder and got me thinking about how many times I've seen Mariano Rivera yell at Derek Jeter (two players that play totally different positions much like offense vs defense in football) over the years....

As for the games on Saturday, there really isn't much to say about the SEC game other than how shocked I and I'm sure a lot of other people were about how dominate Alabama was. I thought the game would be like last year's in that it would be decided in the 4th quarter, but the Gators never made a push in the 2nd hald and were outscored 13-0 after halftime. Mark Ingram was great- tying the SEC championship game record with 3 TDs, and should gain strong Heisman consideration if not the frontrunner. Greg McElroy was outstanding (12-18, 239 1TD 0INT) for Alabama, and his ability to beat man to man coverage took away Florida's gameplan of putting 8 men in the box all game. Did it look to anyone else like the game winning drive he led against Auburn a couple of weeks ago gave this guy a whole lot more swagger?? I couldn't believe the confidence and zip he had on his throws; completely different than earlier this season.

I want to give NO respect to the 6 voters (4 in the ESPN/Coaches, and 2 in the AP) who gave Texas first place votes after watching their pitiful performance (which they should have lost) against Nebraska on Saturday (I can only justify one vote- if Nick Saban voted Texas #1 to avoid giving his vote to his own team). Now, I am in no way saying that Alabama should be a unanimous #1, because that's not it at all and I would understand TCU getting votes after the amazing dominate season they've had, Cincy after a great win over a very good Pitt team or even Boise (hey they beat Oregon and never stopped rolling), but Texas?? Texas, to me, is everything that is wrong with pre-season polls and the BCS. The Longhorns have proved this year that if you get a high pre-season ranking, the best way to get to a big bowl is by playing NOBODY and hoping a few other bid teams lose. This year, they have played 3 "ranked teams"- Oklahoma without Sam Bradford, Oklahoma State without Des Bryant and Nebraska; and looked good in only one of them (the OSU game, they were close to losing against Oklahoma). They cancelled their annual game vs Arkansas and their other "big" non-conference game was a showdown at Wyoming... Mac Brown took a page out of Les Miles' playbook on Saturday when Texas almost blew a chance to kick a fieldgoal late in the game on what would have gone down as the poorest clock management in the history of college football. Bo Pelini made headlines when overheard in the tunnel after the game saying,

BCS! That's why they make that call! Cheaters! They should be f*cking ashamed to accept that trophy.

I do have to say, JS and I came to the conclusion after the game it would have been very interesting to see what would've happened if it were Nebraska who needed the extra time and not Texas....

Much respect fot the testicular fortitude Lane Kiffin must have to continue to take jabs at Urban Meyer by saying Alabama was gonna win Saturday's game because "even though Florida has better players, Alabama is so much better coached, more disciplined and does the little things right" on gameday Saturday morning. I do like Lane for not taking the middle of the road, politically correct, 5th ammendment-like responses that most coaches do and for throwing some fire into the Florida-Tennessee rivalry. I also wanna take a moment and reflect on how ballsy he really is, knowing that Florida will be loaded once again next year, Urban Meyer is a proven great coach with two rings, and Tennessee HAS TO PLAY them every year. I do love Lane and he is doing a great job rebuilding the program in Knoxville, but his players may pay the price for this one next year and I don't think anyone can fault Urban if he decides to run it up a little bit....

I wanna give big-ups to Drew Brees and the New Orleans Saints for a great come-back win on Sunday, following their beatdown of my Patriots last Monday. I watched and bet (which I obviously lost and will pay up when EJM jr confirms SM md paid up on their last one! haha) on the Saints-Pats game last Monday night with a huge Saints fan from the bayou; and was very impressed with how easily they took care of New England (and actually the fan as well for not relentlessly ragging me....). This Sunday was remarkable, what a great stand on the goaline to hold the Redskins to a missed FG late which gave them the chance to tie it up, and what a great throw over the top by Brees to tie it up. This year's Saints team looks like they have it all; their offense has always been great but the defense is making huge plays- Jonathan Vilma, Roman Harper and off-season signee Darren Sharper have been terrific. They've been fun to watch all year and I hope the Saints-Vikings matchup materializes in the playoffs because I would love to see Favre (even though he looked awful last night) and Brees square off and provide a great QB duel by players not named Brady and Manning.... Also, big props to Robert Meachem for his strip and TD at the end of the first half in what was one of the best football plays I've ever seen.....

Kentucky looked good this weekend, holding off a UNC team that looks like they have enough talent to make a deep tourney run once again despite losing 4 out of their top 5 scorers from last year (only Deion Thompson is back; Ellington, Lawson, Hansborough, Green are all in the NBA). I would love to see these two teams play again in March when the UNC newbies and the Kentucky freshman have a little more experience under their belts....

Whoever takes the ND job will have a much tougher first year after Jimmy Clausen and Golden Tate declared for the NFL draft today....

BBC named Nickelback as the worst band of all time. Also making the list, Savage Garden and Maroon 5....

As always please be sure to check the "near you" tab on our homepage, www.roosterfly.com, for a list of games, shows and theatre events in your area and please post any upcomming event you know of as a comment...

Till next week,

MN