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Alabama’s Song, SEC Dominance, NCAA Bullshit & BCS Fuckery

Yes, the conifer trees of Stanford beat the Oregon Ducks in a narrowly decided conference game. The deed was done with a lousy game by the far superior Ducks, but credit to the Tree, they won then and have now won the PAC-10.X Championship after downing UCLA 27-24 before a curiously half full stadium in Palo Alto. With the win, Stanford will go to the Rose Bowl and the Ducks, the fifth ranked team in the BCS standings, very well may have to settle for a lower tier bowl. The BCS still sucks, and their crappy four team playoff ginned up for future years won’t materially improve anything.

So, we have a Saturday lineup of more conference championship games in the NCAA and a few decent games in the pros. What are people doing to celebrate the festivities? Hmmm, lets check in on Jim White:

Rare weekend at home without family. Gonna make a big batch of burrito filling tonight and then watch TV sports until I melt into the couch.

Well then!! Lets see what Jim may be watching. Like the Quacker fans, Jim won’t be watching his Gators in the conference championship game. No, the SEC will have Georgia taking on Alabama. Contrary to somewhat popular belief, I think the Dawgs have a chance. Georgia’s defense is not as good as the Tide’s, but they are still very good. And Aaron Murray is a very experienced 4th year QB who can get the ball down the field. Is that enough to beat Bama? Probably not, but worth watching.

The other games are, frankly, not nearly as interesting. Oklahoma/TCU, Florida State/Georgia Tech, Texas/Kansas State and Nebraska/Wisconsin will be on the tube. All relative snoozers. Really, Texas gets to play in a conference championship? What a joke. The Boise State/Nevada game may be interesting, as Boise always is. I miss Johnny Football already! And, yes, just give him the Heisman already.

In the pros, the game of the week is the Cardinals at Jets. Hahaha. Just joking. Normally you would have to say Stillers at Ravens is the game of the week, but with Big Ben still out, probably not so much. Instead, I am looking at the Monday Night game of Giants at Skins. Good or Bad Eli against new stud on the block RGIII. Are the Gents due for a letdown after their smashing of the Cheese? I think they may be. It is almost inexplicable that NBC did not flex eliminate the putrid Cowboys/Eagles game in favor of Tampa/Broncos. By the way, while nobody was watching, the Bucs have gelled nicely and are playing really good football for Greg Schiano. But this game is at Mile High, and Peyton seems to be on a mission, and that should be good for a Donkos win. Vikings at Packers and Squawks at Bears may also be worth paying attention to. Cutler is back for the Bears, so they probably have the edge.

On a tragic note, Chiefs LB Javon Belcher appears to have shot and killed his girlfriend at home and then drove to Arrowhead Stadium where he went up to Romeo Crenel and Scott Pioli, thanked them and then killed himself by gunshot. It was hard to imagine how Kansas City’s season could get worse before this incident, but it sure did. I really don’t know what to say about this, what a human tragedy. As of now, the NFL still plans to play the Chiefs/Carolina game at Arrowhead tomorrow afternoon. I guess the show must go on, but it is hard to see how it does for the Chiefs so soon.

Music is by the Doors and the Alabama Song medley; it is a great video. What y’all got?

Formula One Trash Talk: Malaysian Grand Prix

Coverage is again on Speed TV and the race goes off at 3:30 am Sunday morning East Coast time which is 12:30 am West Coast time Sunday morning.

Picking right up where he left off at the Australian GP, Sebastian Vettel has taken pole for the run at Sepang in Kuala Lampur. Vettel barely nudged out Lewis Hamilton in the last seconds of the final qualifying round, with Webber, Button, Alonso, Heidfeld, Massa and Petrov following in that order. Petrov had a great run in OZ, placing third for his first podium in his young career. It will be fun to see what he can continue to extract from the Renault, both at Sepang and during the rest of the year.

Little noticed was the fact that the fastest lap turned at the Aussie GP was put in by Massa. The Ferraris are stronger than they have shown in the results so far this year; they will come around I think. Not so for the Mercedes cars and Michael Schumacher. Schumi, again, could manage only eleventh place on the grid. The poor qualifications are shocking for the all time, by a large margin, leader in F1 poles with 68. Certainly the quality of machinery is a large part, but Michael made his reputation for wringing incredible things out of lesser cars well before joining Scuderia Ferrari, so it is really looking like the lion’s skills and drive are not what they once were.

It appears that Major League Baseball is back and the boys of not quite yet sumer have taken the field again. Except of course Manny, who being Manny, has apparently juiced and walked off into retirement. A shame, he was one hell of a professional hitter and a heck of a character; a sad way to see him him go. Also the NBA season is winding up, so there are plenty of sports to jabber about.

It is raining like hell here, so tonight is right for some storm music courtesy of the Doors.