Sports Agenda for Tuesday (9/11/12)
Big Story:
Man, the Baltimore Ravens looked really, REALLY good last night. Some more notes on the Dolphins and their struggles. UM prepares for a test, yes a test, against Bethune Cookman. And more news and nuggets from around the sports world including some Heat news.
Quote of the Day:
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." – John Kenneth Galbraith
NFL:
Danger Will Robinson. Actually, it should be Danger AFC.
The Ravens always have a stellar defense, but wow did their offense look good last night.
Granted it was against the Bengals, but lest you forget, the Bengals were a playoff team last year.
But yeah, Baltimore took them behind the woodshed and just annihilated them.
Joe Flacco looked great running the no-huddle offense, throwing for just fewer than 300 yards, and honestly, better than I've seen him play in the NFL.
He's got the arm and now it looks like he has the offense that is tailor made for him.
In other words, AFC teams better watch out.
The Charger beat the Raiders last night in the night cap.
Honestly, I didn't see much of it, but what I did see told me the Chargers run game, once a dominating factor in the league, was brutal yesterday without Ryan Matthews.
It's not going to be pretty for the Chargers and Phillip Rivers if they can't get the running game going.
Yknow, cause of that other guy up the road in Denver…yknow, Peyton something or other.
Kudos to Ed Reed last night for setting the highest interception return average. I'll always remember him for yanking the ball away at Boston College and taking off for a touchdown with it. Kid's a ball hawk like few others ever have been.
Elsewhere around the league….
It may be a really ugly game at Sun Life this Sunday as I'm not sure about the ability of either offense to score.
Reminds me of the old joke…how do you keep the Raiders and Dolphins off your yard? Put up goal posts.
Yknow your team is going nowhere when the Colt McCoy watch has already started in Cleveland.
On the bright side, Cleveland needs a quarterback so if they finish with a worse record than Miami, they can select Matt Barkley first overall and leave the rest of the players to the Fins.
College Football:
Of all the people to blame for Arkansas' just stunning upset at the hands of Louisiana-Monroe, I still think the blame lies at the feet of Bobby Petrino.
Remember, he recruited that team, which includes a defense loathe to playing very hard/well.
Yes, he can coordinate an offense and really make it sing. But his defensive recruiting leaves a lot to be desired.
Yknow, if you wanted to see a collegiate nightmare of scumbag coaches getting together….Nick Saban should hire Petrino to coordinate his offense.
Dadgum that'd be near impossible to beat with Saban coordinating the defense.
Seriously, everyone would be playing for number 2 with that combo, luckily we don't have to worry about it because Petrino is not going to be touched by athletic directors for a long time.
Miami Hurricanes:
So I did some digging around in the Hurricanes stats and found some interesting numbers.
First, UM is getting outscored 42-27 in the first two games.
UM is giving up a 163.85 QB rating to opponents and allowing them to connect on roughly 66 percent of their passes.
On the other hand, UM is doing really well on third downs, converting 47 percent and is converting 88 percent in the red zone.
But, the opponents are also converting 56 percent on third down and 87 percent in the red zone.
UM opponents are getting first downs however they want, with a nearly perfect balance of 26 rushing first downs and 25 passing first downs.
It's not a pretty picture for the Hurricanes, especially having given up 7 touchdowns already this season on the ground.
But hey, this is a very young team and unlike the Dolphins, there is plenty of hope for the future.
Now they have to play an FCS school that's 2-0 and ran up more than 400 yards of offense against them last year, if memory serves me correctly.
Or to put it another way, yipes!
Heat:
A rare appearance by the Heat with just a little more than two weeks remaining until training camp begins.
The team signed Terrel Harris on Monday giving them 16 players heading into camp.
They also recently signed Jarvis Varnado and one other player who's name escapes my mind right now.
In other news, LeBron and Kevin Duran are working out together again this offseason.
That's good for Durant to learn how to complete his game, while maybe Durant can teach LeBron to shoot just a bit better. How'd you like to face them in a game of 2-on-2?
Read an interesting column about the worst NBA owners. I liked the take that if you're talking about an individual, has to be Donald Sterling of the Clippers. But if you're talking about recent years, has to be the Maloofs and the Sacramento Kings. Seriously, just Google them to read how bad they really are.
