Game of the Weak

Mike Hlas is an award-winning columnist with the Cedar Rapids Gazette and force behind The Hlog. Each week he will break down the biggest mismatch in college football. Considering the increasing number of Bowl Championship Series teams scheduling games against cupcake opponents, Mike's task is more challenging than trying to organize a family picnic involving members of the Oregon and Boise State teams.

There's so much Weakness in the opening week of the 2009 college season that you'd think swine flu set in long ago, at least in the offices of athletic directors across the nation.

With almost everyone in I-A playing nonconference games in Week 1, rare is the region spared by a hideous mismatch. For instance:

Louisiana Monroe (which now apparently goes by the snappy handle of ULM) is at Texas.
North Dakota is at Texas Tech.
Towson visits Northwestern.
Jacksonville State is at Georgia Tech.
Northern Colorado meets Kansas.


(Continue to The Wiz of Odds)

Q&As with Alabama and Auburn

Finally, it’s time for kickoff. And the debates about whether Alabama can win a national championship and whether Auburn can stay out of last place in the SEC West can intensify – if that’s possible.

Both schools enter the 2009 college football season with some intriguing questions and I am here to provide the answers as No. 5 Alabama prepares to take on No. 7 Virginia Tech Saturday night at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, while Auburn plays host to Louisiana Tech.

Let’s begin this top-five question and answer session with …

(Continue to Rue's Rant)

Weis Faces Heat as Fifth Season Opens

Do not count former Notre Dame linebacker Tom Reynolds among Charlie Weis' biggest fans.

According to the "Daily Domer", Reynolds is the man responsible for the following words that appeared on a huge billboard erected earlier this week just outside the Notre Dame campus: "Best wishes to Charlie Weis in the fifth year of his college coaching internship. Linebacker Alumni."

Ouch! Coach Weis could not be reached to comment on the billboard.

(Continue to Bob Birge's Irish Eyes Are Smiling)

Good Seats Left for Miami-FSU Game

There is a lot of chatter on sports-talk radio and Internet message boards in the Sunshine State about Monday night's primetime showdown between Miami and No. 18-ranked Florida State at Doak Campbell Stadium.

In this rivalry's prime, no other matchup in the country generated as much media coverage or fan interest. These days? The Virginia Tech-Alabama game on Saturday is the one most of the pundits are excited about.

(Continue to Seminoles Sports Center)

Bucs Mum on Their Thoughts

Anyone expecting a direct answer from Buccaneers head coach Raheem Morris on the firing of offensive coordinator Jeff Jagodzinski hasn't spent much time around the NFL

Tampa Bay's passing offense has been next to abysmal during the preseason, with quarterbacks Byron Leftwich and Luke McCown performing their best Alphonse and Gaston act during the first three games wrestling for the starting job.

It's been bad enough to kindle memories of the Vinny Testaverde era. Entering Friday's game against Houston, the Bucs were averaging 154.7 passing yards a game, with a league-worst 4.7 per passing attempt.

(Continue to Henry's Chopping Block)

Thrilling End to ODI Opener

If the ensuing six games in the ODI series involving England and Australia are as thrilling as the first, then we're in for an entertaining series.

England put up a valiant effort chasing down Australia's 260 but came up four runs short - and had they not leaked 50 runs at the end of Australia's innings, and made better use of the second powerplay, then they would have been assured victory.

Australia's bowling attack is well balanced, with the return of the innovative Bracken, measured Hauritz and effervescent Lee who, while unrelentingly competitive, still managed to have a smile on his face in the final four overs.

(Continue to Crick Down the Legside)

Commish: Do Something About Snyder

We’ll be hearing from Roger Goodell again very soon, I’m sure.

If he’s serious about the league’s public image being at stake, if the concept of a code of conduct he has enforced the last few years has any meaning, if “protecting the shield’’ is more than the cliché it has become lately, then the commissioner of the NFL will be calling Redskins owner Dan Snyder into his office and demanding that he explain himself – and then slapping him with a fine, or suspension, or both, that will be heard and felt from his FedEx Field luxury box to wherever in the world any casual fan has tugged on a cap with an NFL team logo.

Because if Goodell thinks his sheriffing job stops at the wallets and livelihoods of the players, he’d better think again. For every way in which the actions of the Michael Vicks, Plaxico Burresses and Pacman Joneses reflect poorly on the NFL, multiply it by a thousand – and that’s what Snyder and his partners in crime in the Redskins’ front office are doing to their own fans, right down to their own decades-long season-ticket holders.

(Continue to The Steele Drum)

Are You Ready to Talk Football?

Because our members take their football very seriously, the management at the Grill Room have been working feverishly over the past couple of days to get our TVs aimed just right at the great NFL satellite in the sky for the impending 2009 season.

Nothing better than a hearty meal, a German bier or five, and some good ol' football to help wile away the darkening months of a European fall and winter.

And because our discerning clientele know that the only sure-fire way to botch up an expertly prepared main course -- in this case the great game itself -- is a shoddy announcing crew, we have carefully prepared a diner's guide aimed at rating the best and worst of those talking teams from the five networks that will be offering up NFL football fare this year: CBS, FOX, ESPN, NBC and the NFL Network.

(Continue to The Grill Room)

Super Bowl or Bust for McNabb

PHILADELPHIA—Shortly after the Eagles lost to the Arizona Cardinals in last year's NFC Championship Game, the radio sports talk shows in this town were full of fans and media pundits wanting to run quarterback Donovan McNabb out of town on a rail.

To McNabb's detractors, it was another case of him choking in an NFC title game. After all, McNabb is 1-4 in conference championship games. Never mind that McNabb had brought the Birds back from a 24-6 halftime deficit to a 25-24 lead with under 10 minutes left in the game or that the Eagles defense allowed the Cardinals to march down the field to score the go-ahead touchdown while chewing up the clock, it was all McNabb's fault.

(Continue to NFC 'Easter)

A Mess at One Buc Place

This all looks for very, very bad for Raheem Morris, your rookie head coach for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Here he was, on his birthday, getting up in front of the gathered media to explain the firing of his offensive coordinator, Jeff Jagodzinski, a mere 10 days before the 2009 season opener against Dallas.

Say what you want, Morris was nervous and uneasy with the explanation.

He kept saying that the offense needs "more precision, more direction."

(Continue to Buccaneer Bow Shots)

Giants, Jets Still Have Questions

The NFL preseason has come and gone for the Jets and Giants, and heading into next week’s season-openers, the big questions on both teams still have to be answered.

The Jets open their season Sept. 13 at Houston, and the Giants open their season the same day at home against Washington. For all of the new faces and big-name players on both squads, how each team fares this season will be determined by two very different phases.

The Giants, who went 1-3 in the preseason, are one of the favorites in the NFC to reach the Super Bowl. They have a stout defense that overcame a rash of injuries last year and is one of the best in the league.

(Continue to New York Minute)

Marino Ranks 8th All-Time?

You could see this one coming. As Dan Marino's achievements fade in this new era of the West Coast offense and more permissible passing rules, he continues to slide down the list of all-time greats.

Marino placed eighth on a Beckett's Magazine list of the greatest quarterbacks, and for the first time I can recall, modern stars Tom Brady (6th) and Peyton Manning (7th) were ranked ahead of him.

It has for a long time been a fait accompli, what with Brady's Super Bowl winning heroics, and the incredible numbers he put up in 2007, when he passed for 50 TDs and just eight interceptions. Brady set a new all-time record for TD passes that Marino once held for 20 years.

(Continue to Dolphins Watch)

No. 1 with a Whimper

The 2009 college football season is finally here, and our undisputed No. 1 team, the Florida Gators, will storm into the Swamp by taking on ...

Charleston Southern.

Let me tell you something about those Bucs. Their school has about 3,000 students, not enough to fill up one section at Florida Field. The private Baptist institution was founded in 1964 and started playing football in 1991. But the most important number for this weekend is not that they're a 73-point underdog (that's hypothetical, since most Vegas books have this one off the boards, so fergettabutit!)

It's $450,000, as in how much Charleston Southern is taking home for this beating, so the school can fund some nice facilities, presumably including a rehab center to mend the wounded warriors in future engagements of this ilk.



(Continue to BCS Guru)

Boise State Dominates Oregon

When any team plays an OOC game not only is the reputation of the team on the line, but the conference as well. If it were not for a number of turnovers and missed field goals by Boise State the Oregon Ducks could have been embarrassed.

Give Oregon credit for playing at Boise State, but the reality of the situation is the Ducks were out coached and outplayed. In any game star players have to perform like star players.

(Continue to Inside the Pac-10)

Lightning Struck with Tanguay

Nice move by the Lightning this week, signing left wing Alex Tanguay to a one-year deal for $2.5 million, a pretty good bargain when you take into account some of the millions other teams have been throwing at free agents.

It's less than half what Tanguay made in each of the past three seasons with the Flames and Canadiens.

Tanguay is a very good offensive player when he's healthy, and he's responsible at the opposite end of the ice, never having been a "minus" player in nine previous NHL seasons.

(Continue to Through the 5 Hole)