college football pictures from last weekend

mets/cardinals nlcs predictions

If the rain stays away, the NLCS will kick off tonight in Shae Stadium. There seems to be a prohibitive favorite.

Some predictions from around the web...
• Peter Gammons: Mets in six
• Buster Olney: Mets in seven
• Cool Standings: Mets in six
• John Donovan: Mets in five
• Baseball Musings: Mets
• Baseball Prospectus: Mets in six
• A Tad Opinionated: Mets in six

mizzou qb is the big 12's best

Missouri is the only undefeated team in the Big 12 and is tied with Nebraska at the top of the North Division. With his team at 6-0, is former Southlake Carroll quarterback Chase Daniel, now a sophomore at Missouri, the Big 12's best QB? Many think he is right now. And Texas had an opportunity to recruit him but dediced at just a little over 6 feet, he wasn't tall enough. Looks like it was their loss.

from the 80's video archives

The showtime Lakers "just say no" video.

thoughts on the tigers/a's series

The Detroit Tigers are four wins away from their first World Series in 22 years. If you're keeping score, of the four teams left in the playoffs, the team that has gone the longest without a World Championship is the Cardinals.

Some predictions from around the sports scene:
• Peter Gammons: A's in seven
• Rob Neyer: Tigers in seven
• Cool Standings: Tigers in six
• John Donovan: A's in six
• The Hardball Times: A's in six
• Baseball Prospectus: Tigers in six
• Baseball Musings: Tigers
• A Tad Opinionated: Tigers in five

tuberville blasts lack of a playoff

In case you missed it, Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville blasted the lack of playoff format last Wednesday, saying he doubts any team from the Southeastern Conference can make the BCS national championship game without a playoff. He very well may be right, though Auburn didn't help their cause much this weekend, losing to Arkansas 27-10.

a little trickeration by the razorbacks

Here's a nifty trick play that Arkansas pulled off against Auburn in its stunning 27-10 upset on Saturday. It's being called the "Fish Bucket" play and its the second trick play Arkansas has successfully engineered in three weeks. The Razorbacks used a bit of trickery in their Sept. 23 victory against Alabama below. Arkansas has turned around its season since suffering a 50-14 loss to USC on Sept. 2 in Fayetteville and could be 7-1 entering a Nov. 4 game at South Carolina.

Razorback players complaining after the game that officials tipped the Crimson Tide players and coaches shortly before the ball was snapped that something was coming, and Alabama was able to hold the Razorbacks to a modest 10-yard gain thanks to a nice open field tackle.

not a big jeff kent fan...

In this Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, Tom Candiotti reveals he had Jeff Kent drilled to help out his fantasy baseball team.

"It's '92 or '93," Candiotti says. "I'm playing for the Dodgers, Jeff Kent is with the Mets. I'm in a fantasy baseball league. I don't have Kent on my team and he's off to a torrid start and he's killing me."

Ramon Martinez is warming up in the Dodgers' bullpen to pitch the series opener. Candiotti strolls to the pen and, within earshot of Martinez, tells pitching coach Ron Perranoski, "Perry, I just talked to Bret Saberhagen, and Sabes told me that if Kent gets drilled his first time up, he's mush for the rest of the series."

"Ramon just absolutely buries one in Kent's ribs," Candiotti says. "It was so bad that he went down on one knee, and he had to come out of the game. I sat there thinking, 'What did you just do? You told a complete lie, you got this guy drilled!'

The best part of the story is when Candiotti talks about how after that, "Pedro Martinez (Ramon's brother) started drilling Kent, and so did all the other Dominican pitchers. For years, Ramon drilled Kent every time." Of course, it's worth noting that, uh, non-white pitchers seem to be beaning Kent all the time, and we're not sure the reason is fantasy baseball.

madano still the man in dallas

Modano still Stars' central force By MIKE HEIKA / The Dallas Morning News

It's not like Mike Modano hasn't played through distractions before.

There was that breakup with longtime girlfriend Kerry Nelson. There was that time his Stanley Cup ring wound up on eBay. There was that time his financial adviser mismanaged a huge chunk of his savings.

So losing the captaincy, heck, that's small potatoes. All right, maybe not that small, but Modano said that it's something he can handle.

"I wasn't happy, I didn't think I did a bad job and I was disappointed," he said. "But it's time to move forward, and that's what I'm going to do. There's no use thinking about it or talking about. It's not going to help us play any better this year."

And Modano wants to play better. Even after leading the team last season with 77 points, even with a strong comeback from a distraction-filled 2003-04 campaign, even having proven critics wrong for the third ... or fourth ... or fifth time, Modano still wants to play better. And the funny thing is, he can.

"If the rule changes continue to go the way they have, they're playing right into Mike's hands," Stars coach Dave Tippett said. "The thing about Mike is he is a tremendous skater, just an incredible athlete, and he hasn't lost a step. He takes great care of himself and he still can fly, and these rules really reward players like that."

In a game built for speed, Modano might be experiencing a rebirth at 36. In four preseason games, Modano had three goals and three assists and was plus-5. Through two regular-season games, he has only one goal but is plus-2 and has seven shots on goal. Those aren't earth-shaking numbers, but there is a feel around the team that Modano could be ready for an explosive season. Consider these points:

•Linemate Jussi Jokinen scored only 17 goals last season as a rookie. Jokinen should be better at putting the puck in the net this season – he had three goals in five preseason games. Modano could pick up some points from Jokinen's improvement.

•The power play that struggled during the early past of last season was among the top three in the league (22.2 percent) after the Olympic break. Continuing that trend has been one of the big projects for Tippett in the off-season, adding two key pieces in Jaroslav Modry and Eric Lindros and a key assistant coach in Ulf Dahlen. Modano could pick up points here.

•The addition of Jeff Halpern as a checking-line center should take some checking responsibility off Modano. For the last eight seasons, Modano and Jere Lehtinen have pretty much been matched against the other team's best players every night, with the thought being that Modano would always win those battles. But in recent playoff series against Colorado, Modano's line struggled against Joe Sakic's line – and there was no real help from Niko Kapanen. But Halpern is different. He is more of a tenacious center who can attack opposing team's top players and give Modano a break.

When the thought of a 90-point season was broached to Modano, he smiled. "It would be nice," he said "I haven't seen one of those in a while."

In fact, he has seen only two in his career – his last season in Minnesota (1992-93) and his first in Dallas (1993-94). So could a player who has had ups and downs find a huge up in the twilight of his career? Nothing is impossible.

"I think what's great about Mike is he doesn't worry about numbers, and he doesn't need the numbers to define a great season," Tippett said. "He could have 90, I don't know, but I think if you look at the consistency of his career numbers, you realize he could have 80 and do a lot of little things right and be one of the best players in the league." In fact, there is no doubt Modano still is the best player on the team.

"I know how other coaches think and I know how they game plan, and every single game plan against us starts with trying to stop him," Tippett said. "That's just a fact." Tippett added that Modano could have had 100-point seasons, but he is the type of player who gave that up for the chance to play for a winner. And, he believes, Modano will show that same attitude this season.

Brenden Morrow, who got a contract extension and the "C" for his sweater before the season started, said Modano already has been that way about the captaincy. "We've talked about it a little bit, and I know he is disappointed. But he's never shown any animosity to me about it," Morrow said, before joking: "We still have breakfast a couple of times a week, and he still pays when it's his turn."

And maybe Modano has learned from distractions. "He is a leader and he'll prove a lot of people wrong about that," said Darryl Sydor, a good friend of Modano's who is back with the Stars this season. "He's disappointed, but you'll just see it in hard work. I just think he's excited about playing. I just think he's ready to have some fun."

And what better way to handle a distraction than to have a little fun. "Honestly, I just want to play," Modano said. "I'm looking forward to the year."

this is classic... from espn gameday

I doubt the Florida fans are implying that Corso is a South Carolina fan.

ohio state/texas highlights

ohio state whoopin that texas ass

weekend preview

• The A's go for the sweep of the hapless Twins

• Detroit returns home with a split looking to rough up Randy Johnson... How can you win 17 games with a 5.00 ERA?

• The Tigers rallied from a 3-1 deficit against Mussina, who was undefeated at Yankee Stadium over the past four regular seasons when staked to a lead of two or more runs (29-0 with six no-decisions). But Mussina is now just 5-3 in 10 postseason starts in which he has led by two runs, and his team lost both games in which he didn't record a decision.

• The Red River Shootout (sounds much better than the "Rivalry" as they call it now) has two pretty evenly matched teams with texas and ou.

• And T.O. returns to Phily.

gotta love college football...

stars get a little revenge

Daryl Sydor scored on a break-away after exiting the penalty box in overtime to give the Stars a 3-2 win against Colorado in OT. The Stars' 7-0-3 mark since 1995 is the fourth-longest unbeaten opening-night streak in NHL history. The Avs lost their first home opener (5-1-1) since moving to the Pepsi Center.

texas/ou

Texas and Oklahoma will take turns choosing seating areas at the Cotton Bowl for their annual game in Dallas. Of course, OU has traditionally been in the south end zone which is where the tunnel that Texas uses to go on to the field is.

In somewhat related news, former OU quarterback Rhett Bomar apologized to the NCAA in a letter he wrote dated Aug. 24. He's still waiting to hear if he'll be reinstated by the NCAA to play at Sam Houston State.

showalter, out

After much speculation, it's official: Buck Showalter won't be back for the 2007 season. Buck was apparently given the option to resign before the Rangers fired him late yesterday.

man do i hate the yankees

Here's a link for all you other Yankee haters. My least favorite Yankees... Jason Giambi and Derek Jeter.
Go Tigers!

i dont know....

really makes me want to root for k-state

Now this is a real fan...

the best and worst in the nfl

Bottom 5 teams
5) Detroit
4) Houston
3) Miami
2) Tennessee
1) Oakland

Top 5 teams
1) Indianapolis
2) Chicago
3) Baltimore
4) Seattle
5) Cincinnati