Those BCS games sure have been awesome so far

During our week off, we had a chance to kick back and watch (I use that term loosely) the bowl games without having to write anything about them. We especially appreciated you anonymous commenters who called us pussies for doing that. After all, you ARE a SPORTS blog, right?

Yes, we are. So here's our awesometacular BCS recap to this point in time.

Rose Bowl: USC pounds Illinois because Juice Williams can't throw a football to save his life. The only highlights of the game are USC's three excessive celebration penalties, proving once again that Pete Carroll runs a tight ship in LA.

Sugar Bowl: Georgia beats Hawaii by 140 points, while going easy on them. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say maybe the BCS should have found a way to get Missouri into this game instead of Hawaii.

Fiesta Bowl: Featured two teams that always seem to crap the bed in important games. I thought this game would somehow wind up a tie - even though that isn't possible - but West Virginia dominated. There can't be any school out there that's had a worse time in the BCS than Oklahoma. They were big favorites in the 2004 National Championship before getting absolutely violated and humiliated by USC. Last year they were heavily favored to beat Boise State and lost. And this year they were facing a team that had recently laid an egg against Pitt and lost their head coach. And to top it all off, West Virginia lost Steve Slaton early in the game. Yet Oklahoma got killed, despite again being heavily favored. That's either an indictment of the quality of the Big-12 or Bob Stoops. Or both.

Orange Bowl: Since Mangino didn't get a Gatorade bath, this game didn't quite live up to its potential. But it was a well-contested game. Too bad the teams were Kansas and Virginia Tech. I'm glad Kansas won, but this game was competing with Borat YouTube clips for most of the night. Borat won.

-WCK

Patrick Ewing: Talent Assessor

Patrick Ewing has a lot of experience in pro basketball. He was a great player for a long time, went to the NBA Finals, and is now an assistant with the Magic where he's helping Dwight Howard become the league's next great big man. Naturally, one would assume that he can spot talent.

Wrong.

Here's what Ewing had to say about the Knicks, courtesy of the bastion of the journalism world, The Daily News:

"They have a lot of talent, they're a talented bunch of guys. How talented they are has yet to be seen. Sometimes you may have too much talent. There's only one ball and you can't have 12 guys who want to score."

I would think this is partly just Ewing trying to say kind things about his old team, while maybe also taking a subtle shot at Isiah.

But could he be right? Could the Knicks be too talented? I guess I might as well take a look.

Stephon Marbury - Talented at being a talented player who's a team cancer and perpetual ball hog.
Jamal Crawford - Same as Marbury, but with less cancer.
Nate Robinson - Extremely talented at being psychotic and missing dunks.
Jared Jeffries - Talented at somehow remaining in the league, and being paid exceedingly well in the process, when he should be playing in Europe.
Jerome James - Talented at eating, and being paid $30 million for doing nothing.
Eddy Curry - Talented at being 6-11 and unable to rebound. Also talented at eating.
Fred Jones - Talented dunker, not much else.
Zach Randolph - Actually talented. However, also talented at getting into a lot of trouble.
Mardy Collins - Talented at getting superior players thrown out of games and suspended.
Malik Rose - He's still playing?
David Lee - Actually talented, but can thank talentless coach for not playing him enough.
Quentin Richardson - Talented headband wearer.
Randolph Morris - Talented at never showing any emotion.
Renaldo Balkman - Sort of talented if used properly.
Wilson Chandler - Um, who?

Just to sum up how talented the Knicks are, here's a fun story involving James. He's been out all season after having surgery to remove a cyst and a bone spur on his right foot. During that time he's bulked up to well over 300 lbs. He recently returned to practices and is waiting to pass a league-mandated fitness test before he returns to the court. But that may take a while, because when asked if he thought he could pass the test, James said, "I haven't been running."

Or apparently been trying to stay in shape in any way whatsoever.

This is definitely one talented team.

-WCK

The quest for the worst Super Bowl ad ever

You probably don't remember this SalesGenie Super Bowl commercial from last year. Or maybe you do because it was so awful.



Yep, no dancing celebrities, no monkeys, no making it rain. And to top it all off, the ad looks like it was filmed for a local television station. It's an absolute crime that this thing appeared during the Super Bowl. I want the best, most expensive, and ridiculous ads during the Super Bowl, period.

But SalesGenie could care less. Even though the commercial was voted the worst of last year's Super Bowl ads, it helped the company make some serious bank by driving traffic to the site.

So what are they planning on doing this year? Why, making three even worse commercials, of course.

"If it positively impacts business like it did last year, we’d be thrilled to be the worst again," said founder and chairman Vin Gupta.

Way to shoot for the stars, Vin. By the way, Gupta was the mind behind last year's wonder, and he penned the three pieces of shit the company will unveil this year. They'll hit the airwaves during Super Bowl XLII’s pre-game show, first and third quarter action.

While that certainly sucks, at least you won't have to watch the third quarter ad because whatever NFC team is playing the Patriots will have forfeited by then.


By the way, in my enlightened opinion, this is the best Super Bowl ad ever.


-WCK

In case you want your New Year's party invitation rescinded...

Normally during the holiday season, you're supposed to send out Christmas cards to friends and people you know. Even though you may not enjoy doing this, it's at least a good, friendly gesture that people appreciate during the holidays.

But the times they are a changing, my friend.

ESPN has decided to add some flavor to an old holiday tradition, and by "add some flavor to", I mean "completely take a dump on."

Yes, there are now 8 stupid "Holiday Smack Cards" that you can send out to insult people during the Christmas holiday. Which is a great idea. Nothing says Christmas cheer like getting a holiday card that calls you a loser.

The e-cards also directly target the Yankees, Chicago Bears, and Notre Dame. The least original may be Grossman and Griese throwing "gift-wrapped" interceptions to defensive backs. It took a brilliant mind to come up with that. Probably the same brilliant mind that came up with the "Enjoy the Whatever Bowl loser!" insult. There is no comeback to that my friends.

Sometimes an idea is so bad, it's good. And other times, an idea is so bad, it should be buried 6-feet deep and never discussed again. This is one of the latter.

-WCK

No wonder the 1986 Cowboys finished 7-9

I don't know what the hell was going on in the mid-1980s with football teams and music videos, but it wasn't pretty. We had the Rams, uh, Ramming It, the Bears Super Bowl Shuffle, the Seahawks Locker Room Rock, and the Dolphins sucking as usual.

Now it's the Cowboys' turn to look stupid. This video takes about 14 seconds to start, but it's the 1986 Cowboys Christmas video to Dallas. It features everything you'd expect. Herschel Walker looking like an absolute wuss, popped collars, and horrible holiday singing. This video is exhibit A as to why 1986 marked the first time since 1965 that the Cowboys failed to finish with a winning record.

By the way, I can think of a lot of other places I'd rather spend my Christmas than Dallas. Like Hell, for instance.

-WCK

The Bay Area is officially in Sports Hell

With the Bonds indictment getting dropped on us yesterday, I think it's time that I admitted what I think everyone already knows. The Bay Area sports scene has reached its absolute nadir. We are officially the anti-Boston.

While Say Hey did a run down of a few of the miseries the Bay Area has gone through of late, it's actually much, much worse than that. We're even partly to blame for Simmons' ridiculous Patriots columns and an annoyingly undefeated Hawaii team. Here's the full rundown of the hell that the Bay Area finds itself in, and how it's even seeped into the overall sports conciousness.

1. Barry Bonds, who grew up in the Bay Area and is the greatest Giants player in history (yes, better than Mays), is indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice. Even though everyone out here knows Bonds did steroids, until Thursday we could at least say "Well, he wasn't charged with a federal crime." No longer. By the way, the Giants also finished the 2007 season dead last in the National League West (19 games out of first place) and are about to start a major rebuilding phase.

2. Alex Smith separates his shoulder early on in the 2007 NFL season. Since coming back to play he's been dreadful. Nolan said it was due to a lack of confidence. Smith said it was because he was still hurt, and threatend to shut himself down for the rest of the season in response to Nolan. Although they finally put their disagreement to rest yesterday, I'm not sure it matters. Both are horrible at their given professions.

3. Nolan's dad, who coached the 49ers for eight seasons from 1968 through 1975 and led them to three straight NFC West division titles, died this week. Bill Walsh also died in July.

4. The 49ers have lost their last 7 games.

5. As a commenter reminded me, the 49ers have to give up their 2008 first round draft pick to the Patriots.

6. The Golden State Warriors, who set the NBA on fire last season by beating Dallas in the first round of the playoffs, are the only winless team in the NBA with a record of 0-6.

7. The Raiders haven't won a game in more than a month. And they have a 12-year-old head coach and an animated corpse for an owner.

8. Almost half way through October, Cal is ranked #2 in the college polls. They proceed to drop 4 of their next 5 games, primarily because Nate Longshore is rushed back too soon after injuring his ankle against Oregon.

9. Stanford beats USC, which is arguably the biggest college football upset of the year. They proceed to drop 4 of their next 5 games to such stalwarts as TCU and Washington State.

10. Up by 14 points with less than 5 minutes to go, San Jose State collapses against Hawaii, and eventually loses in overtime. Forces entire nation to continue to acknowledge Hawaii as an unbeaten team, despite the fact that they aren't very good.

11. Oakland A's suck all year, finish one game ahead of the Rangers in the AL West standings. Don't seem to have much upside headed into 2008.

12. Just to really piss us off, home town boy Tom Brady - who attended the same high school as Bonds - is currently leading the New England Patriots to an undefeated season, which has caused Simmons to write some of his worst columns in years.

The only thing the Bay Area has going for it right now, literally, is the San Jose Sharks, who are currently ranked second in the Western Conference. Other than that, it's like a combination of Cleveland meets Buffalo here in the Bay Area.

-WCK

Unless you're Peyton Manning, don't appear in national ads

It's hard to miss Peyton Manning when you're watching TV. That's because he appears in an average of 3 ads per commercial break. That hasn't hurt the Colts at all because they're 7-0. But pretty much every other NFL star that's appeared in national TV ads this season has watched their team stink up the joint.

Let's take a look:

Steven Jackson - Nike ad. Team record: 0-7 and got injured.
Shawne Merriman - Nike ad. Team record 3-3.
LaDainian Tomlinson - Vizio ad. Team record 3-3.
Reggie Bush - Subway ad. Team record 2-4.
Jason Taylor - A version of him appears in Manning's phone ad. Team record: 0-7.
Vince Young - Madden. Team record: 4-2 and got injured.
Tony Romo - Pepsi ad. Team record: 6-1.

We realize Marvin Harrison appears in Manning's ad as well, but since he's Manning's teammate, he doesn't count.

So if you take Manning (and Harrison) out of the equation, guys that have appeared prominently in national TV ads have a combined record of 15-24 (We're counting Merriman and Tomlinson as one) with only the Titans and Cowboys having winning records. That's horrible. I'm guessing Nike wishes they had gotten someone besides Steven Jackson in their marquee ad.

At least the Cowboys are 6-1, but that's definitely because Romo gets sacked and fumbles in his commercial.

-WCK

The Notre Dame ship be sinking

The words of Michael Ray Richardson seem to be perfect for Notre Dame right now. Because clearly, the ship be sinking.

While the departure of Sophomore Demetrius Jones was the most widely reported departure from Notre Dame this year, the team has been losing key players by the barrelful.

Yesterday offensive guard Matt Carufel finally made his departure from Notre Dame official, the South Bend Tribune reported on its web site. Carufel, who played in Notre Dame's first six games and started in three of them, left the program last Wednesday after he was dropped behind classmate Eric Olsen on the team's depth chart.

Carufel was the 2005 Gatorade Player of the Year in Minnesota and reportedly has Iowa and Minnesota, two schools in his final five two years ago, high on his list of possible transfer destinations.

Carufel is the fourth sophomore to leave the Irish in the last four months. The others were tight end Konrad Reuland and quarterbacks Zach Fraser and Demetrius Jones.

Four sophomores have left? Man, considering many college players don't even start until their junior or senior year, these guys must smell something that stinks at Notre Dame, and odds are it's Weis. By the way, if this were the NFL, Weis would have already been fired. And who knows, he may still be fired at some point.

Regardless, this just seems like poetic justice for the Irish after they kicked Ty Willingham to the curb a few years back. It also proves what we knew all along - that Weis is an arrogant asshole who used Ty's players to get a 10-year contract extension.

You reap what you sow. And Notre Dame hasn't been sowing anything since Weis showed up.

-WCK

Notre Dame is ranked lower than a former D-III team

Notre Dame may have one win already this year, but they still suck. Of course I'm sure you want to know exactly how bad they suck. You'd like it quantified. Ok then, here you go. The University at Buffalo, which was a D-III school less than 15 years ago before moving up to D-IAA in 1993 and D-1 and the MAC in 1999, is actually ranked ahead of Notre Dame for the first time ever. And if you don't know how bad Buffalo is, well, they're truly awful. Buffalo has won a total of 15 games since 1999, and 3 of those wins have come this year (making this a monster year for the school). Buffalo has consistently been the team everyone just absolutely beats down every year. They are the ultimate cupcake team.

But if that isn't bad enough, look at some of the other teams ranked ahead of Notre Dame. Kent State? San Jose State? Man, you've gotta be kidding me. I think most of the teams on that list have never been ranked ahead of Notre Dame. Keep it up boys.

-WCK

America sucks at producing Olympic champions

I always thought the United States was great at the Summer Olympics. We kick ass every year, win tons of gold medals and send countries home crying. But how is our country at producing Summer Olympic Champions? Apparently we're terrible at it.

In a recent study (that may be far too generous a term) of how many medal winning athletes a country produced per 1 million people from 1996 to 2004, we sucked a fat one. We ranked 46th out of 99 countries. Cuba, no real surprise, came in first at 2.4 medals per million people. We averaged .33 per million. India came in last at 0.0 because they obviously have no athletic people whatsoever.

Such well-known athletic heavyweights as Kazakhstan, Bulagria, Azerbaijan and Bahrain took us to the woodshed in terms of people per million that win medals at the Summer Games.

Now I know what you're saying. We have a big country. True, but other fairly large countries are significantly ahead of us as well, including Germany, France (oh, that's bad), Russia and Australia.

Of course we also have lots of athletes in America that would kick butt on another country's team but they aren't quite good enough to make the U.S. Team. Ok, true, but that ruins the fun of this post. Just remember that Kazakhstan - home of Jew-hating Borat - is technically better at producing medal winning athletes than we are.

So mothers, start feeding your kids steroids, or something like that. I want more medals.

-WCK

Troy Hudson's rap career goes THUD

You may or may not remember that Troy Hudson, also known as T-Hud (or Thud as I like to call him), had his official CD release party last week in Minneapolis. And you may also remember, according to the Fanhouse, that T-Hud was spending a bit too much time rapping and not enough time balling.

We decided it's time to check in on T-Hud and see how his first week of sales went.

Might want to get back in the gym Thud, I mean T-Hud. His album, Undrafted, was ranked #116,515 on Amazon, which puts him slightly ahead of Ron Artest's horrific My World album at #125,309. And keep in mind, Artest's album has been out for 10 months, so you know it's not quite as popular as it once was. Not a good sign T-Hud. Also when you type him into Billboard's album charts, it doesn't even have a peak position for the album. Basically Billboard pretty much refuses to acknowledge it exits.

So what went wrong? You know, aside from everything. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he titled a song Pussy Whipped. Because nothing says gangsta like being pussy whipped.

Anyway, here's an old video of T-Hud doin' whatever it is he does. I like how instead of having a dogfight in the video, there's an underground Kimbo Slice style fight. That should at least keep PETA off his back.



-WCK

The Phillies Are A Mess (Part 2)

Allow me to bestow upon you the disaster that is the Philadelphia Phillies ...
Let me first start this by saying that in our MLB preview at The Bulletin, I picked the Phillies to finish first in the NL East. I thought the starting rotation (with 6 guys who could start) would be one of the best in the league (the Dodgers have the best by far) and that Chase Utley and Ryan Howard would continue to be the leaders both on and off the field. I bought into the whole "The Phillies are the team to beat" - thank you Jimmy Rollins.
Now Rollins has backed up his play on the field (he's batting .293 with 12 runs, 11 RBIs and six home runs ... not to mention completing the most exciting play in baseball - the inside-the-park home run), but the rest of the team has fallen asleep at the wheel.
Utley's batting only .222 while Howard is hitting a meager .213 with only one home run (granted he gets walked 50 percent of the time - 18 so far, but he's got to make the most of his opportunities). It's a sad day for a Phillies fan when you say the best hitters on the team right now are Pat Burrell and Aaron Rowand.
And now what happens. Charlie Manuel throws a hissy fit at Howard Eskin (local radio personality) and maybe really blew a gasket because now we have Brett Myers in the bullpen as the setup guy and Jon Lieber back in the starting rotation. Good thing the Phils paid Adam Eaton $24 million over three years.
But the truth is, the pitching isn't the worst of it. Yes, the Phils don't have any kind of bullpen and the closer, Tom "Flash" Gordon could go down at any minute. But if you're not getting it done at the plate, you're not gonna win any games.
I applaud the "desperation" move, although don't necessarily agree with it. Something had to be done to shake up this ballclub. The sense of urgency needs to be back, and maybe this will help (although after the move, the first thing the Phils do is drop one to the Washington Nationals in extra innings).
But this is a typical Phillies April. Championships may be won in September and October, but you have to form that path in April. At 3-10 (now the worst record in the baseball), things are not looking good.

-PB

Newsflash: The Phillies are awful

A lot of sportswriters were luvin' the Phillies heading into the season, and now they're jumping off the bandwagon like it was on fire. The despair in Philly may have reached rock bottom on Wednesday night when the Phillies dropped one to the Triple-A Washington Nationals in extra innings. That loss kept them at the bottom of the NL and combined with the Royals win it officially made the Phillies the worst team in baseball. Ryan Howard, who went 0-5 with two Ks, seems to have decided to save his MLB required sophomore slump for his third season. He also may be wishing that he had signed for more than $900K this offseason, seeing as he can't hit anything right now.

-WCK