The Illini's tough schedule continues

(This post is dedicated to my friend Nate who doesn't think I follow University of Illinois sports before basketball season starts.)

Quick, how many BCS conference college football teams do you think could start their season with Games against Eastern Illinois, Rutgers, and Syracuse, and not only not be accused of scheduling cupcakes, but could actually lose two of those games in blowouts? Outside of the Big East, I can think of...one.
Illinois was destroyed 33-0 at perennial doormat Rutgers last week and this week they face a Syracuse team that's lost eleven games in a row including one last week that saw them blow a double OT game at home after two Iowa penalties gave them six, that's S-I-X chances at the endzone from inside the five yard line.

But, given that the team the 'Cuse took to 2OT was #14 Iowa, they could potentially roll over Illinois.

As an Illini supporter, I'm just glad they haven't started the Big Ten schedule yet. They didn't win a single conference game last year, and last year's team only lost to Rutgers 33-30.

DOG Quotes

(I'd love to make this a DOG "Quote of the Day" because I think it's one of the best things on TV, but I just don't see the show often enough. So I'll just call it a running feature and put the quotes up as I find them. By all means, feel free to supplement with finds from your own viewing)

Here's DOG responding to his wife when she went shopping and brought him home some fancy, name brand clothes:

"This isn't my name. I don't wear someone else's name on my shirt. No Honey. No names. I wear Jesus or Harley Davidson. That's it."

OH COLD CRUEL WORLD!!! How long must I wait until Monday Night Football?!

At first I thought ESPN's MNF ads were clever. They capitalized nicely on the catchy theme song, and the role the show plays as a social fixture in the fall.

But now that the season has started, were getting these countdown ads. It's like, "Tuesday. It's all about last nights game, you're talking about it all day, even though you aren't a Raider fan or a Charger fan, you've found that the Raiders-Chargers game was the highlight of your pathetic week. And now, even though you aren't a Steelers fan or a Jags fan, all you can think about is next Monday's random matchup!"

I had no idea that my life was so pathetic that all I thought about every hour of every day was how long it was until the Monday Night Football game between two teams I don't care about. Thanks for cluing me in ESPN.

Twisting the Knife

I was just talking to a friend tonight about the way former Dodgers tend to twist the knife when we play them the first time. Specifically, the way Paul LoDuca snapped Eric Gagne's save streak.

Tonight Caesar Izturis, my former favorite Dodger won his first game against his former team with a two-out walk off double in the bottom of the 11th.

Damn Dodgers.

Arizona Cardinals undefeated!

1-0, Cardinal fans. The Arizona Cardinals broke in their new stadium in style offensively, putting up 34 points on the 49ers. Defensively, they gave up 27 points in the highest scoring game of week one. However, with a trip to Seattle this weekend, the 0 in the L column may not last long.

How much improved is Reggie Bush's high school teammate Alex Smith? He looked very good against a Cardinal secondary that should be the strength of the Cardinal defense. The Rams intercepted Jake Plummer three times in week one. This upcoming Sunday, the 49er home opener against the Rams should be a good indication of where Alex Smith is at.

Is Arizona going to have success running the ball this year? Although Edge only put up 73 yards in the opener, and the team ran for 84, the Cardinals should improve as the season wears on. With the very limited action Edgerrin James saw in the preseason and with the offensive line of Arizona still coming together as a group, week one's running performance should not be an indicator of the difficulties the Cardinals faced last year with the run. If the line gets settled in and if the coaches find the plays that work the best with James, the running game should significantly improved from last season. This must happen in the Cardinals have hopes to make the playoffs.

I love the Raiders!

I don't know who ESPN thinks they are, but they're gonna have TBS' lawyers at their door today. The Superstation has been working hard to identify itself as the cable network for comedy, and then ESPN goes and puts the Raiders on in prime time in the most publicized Monday Night Football ever? Aaron Brooks & company got sacked nine times last night (say in Ferris Beuler's principal's voice). "Nine times". En route to a shutout. Now that's what I call "very funny"

I think we're to the point where we can call Al Davis the Fidel Castro of Football. He had a good run in the 70's but now he's just a failed dictator and all the fans in Raider nation are starving. Cuba draws the ire of the entire Western Hemisphere for being the last bastion of communism there, and Davis has made his the Raiders the only team in sports that is considered the #1 rival of every single other team in it's division. The only debate in my mind is over who's worse, Raider fans or Communists. It's a tough call, but I think I sort of feel sorry for the starving Cubans. Raider fans are getting what they deserve.

Kuo! That guy's good!

The Dodgers are 3-4 seven games into their longest road trip of the season, but after a four game split at Shea Stadium over the weekend, I'm feeling more optimistic about the team than I was even before they went 1-2 against the lowly Brewers. One of the biggest reasons is Hong-Chih Kuo. And it's not just the fact that the Dodgers just happened to find the 25 year old, Taiwanese version of Pedro Martinez in their minor league system just in time for the division race and the post-season, it's that stuff like that has been happening to them all year.

Throw rookie Andre Eithier into left field, he hits .325, and has a cannon arm. Plug Russell Martin in at Catcher and all of a sudden the pitchers are all pitching better and you've got a .290 #6 hitter with at least ten good years ahead of him to get better. Why wouldn't there be a rookie reliever somewhere in the system who's had Tommy John's surgery twice but can still throw six shut-out innings of 96 mph fastballs against the leauge's best offense?

When the Dodgers won the division in two years ago, you could smell it before it happened. They'd look cooked in the bottom of the seventh and then Sean Green would hit a huge Home Run, or Steve Finley would get a clutch hit at just the right time. They had so many miracle, come from behind wins that you knew something special was happening. You knew they were destined to win the division, and this season, the Dodgers are going to win the division again, and you can feel it because of the Rookies. They're popping up in just the right places at just the right times to put the team over the top.

The Mets had two big wins vs the Dodgers this weekend, and should still be the favorites to win the inevitable NLCS matchup with the Dodgers next month, but who's spot would you rather be in? The Mets, watching the stars fade before your eyes? Or the Dodgers, going into Pedro's ball park, and pulling a kid who looks like the next great pitcher out of a hat? My wife (raised in a Mets house) read me something last week that called the Mets, "Where talent goes to die". This season, the Dodgers have re-asserted themselves as the organization where talent is born.

Broncos have more to worry about than just loss to Rams

Heading into last season, Mike Shanahan was 10-1 in season- openers, so Broncos fans were shocked when the team started 2005 with a loss to a non-playoff team with a rookie head coach. That disappointment soon gave way to optimism when the Broncos won their next five games, went 13-3 and broke another Shanahan pattern, that of turning a strong start into a mediocre finish.

But this year's opening loss to a rookie head coach seems more portentous than last as the inevitable QB controversy between Jake Plummer and Jay Cutler was moved from where Broncos brass scheduled it, 2008, to last night.

It might have seemed that the controversy was inevitable given the reputation of Jake the Snake and the way the Broncos traded up to draft a prodigious QB out of college. But the standard development track for a quarterback is a year of clip board, and a year of backup time before moving into the limelight. In the NFL, Even physical specimens like Carson Palmer require a year of learning complex defensive and offensive schemes before becoming field generals.

That all seemed fine in Denver considering that in 2005 Plummer's troublesome INT total dropped to a career-low 7 from his 20 in 2004. And Jake lead the Broncos to their first AFC title game since you-know-who was under center.

Unfortunately for the Broncos, Cutler's stellar pre-season was immediately followed by Jake Plummer throwing three interceptions, and losing a fumble, projected through 16 games, the total of 72 giveaways would be a career high for any quarterback, even Plummer.

To his credit, the fumble was mostly the fault of Rookie Mike Bell's weak pass blocking, and it could be said that one of the Interceptions was the fault of the receiver. But those excuses aren't going to quiet the voices of the fans in Denver.
Right now, Jay Cutler doesn't know the offense well enough to step in and lead the Broncos. He said as much yesterday. But if Jake Plummer doesn't prove that he can return to 2005 form in a big hurry, the Broncos may well conclude that they have nothing to lose by going with the rookie.

If they haven't already. Last year Plummer recovered from a slow start, and performed exactly as his coaches hoped he would. The result left the Broncos short of the Super Bowl. If Broncos management thought that the best case scenario with the Plummer was good enough, they wouldn't have gone to such great lengths to acquire Cutler.


Cutler may well be the best leader for the franchise over the long term, but if he takes over this year, Broncos fans would need to demonstrate patience with the young player as he goes through his learning curve. And they certainly never did that when the team was nurturing a young John Elway.

Bronco fans should learn from the fans in Cincinnati who's wait for Palmer was rewarded with a Pro Bowl third season. The fact of the matter is, the success of the 2006 season almost certainly still depends on whether we see Jake the Great, or Jake the Snake. Regardless of who's holding his clipboard.

........

However, in spite of the controversy, I see some defenite bright spots for the Broncos. They had two running backs average better than six yards per carry, and their defense didn't allow a touchdown, even when Plummer's fumble handed the ball to the Rams' offense inside the five yard line. It looks like the Broncos defense could be even better than last year.