Great Start

I am truly, really, honestly excited that football is here. Had a great start to the College football season. I mean it couldn't have gone any better. First, Arizona State thump San Jose state 45-3. Dennis Erickson era starts off in style. His methods may be shady, but he can get you the results in the college game. I am a big fan of his and I have huge expectations for him. I am glad he replaced the over-rated Dirk Koetter and I can't believe Dirk landed an offensive coordinator job in the NFL with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Devils were led by Ryan Torain rushing for 123 yards and three touchdowns on 17 carries and Rudy Carpenter completing 14 of 20 passes for a modest 197 yards and two scores. Dick Tomey can run from Tucson to San Jose, but can't hide from the Devils! Of course we all know his 8-5-1 record (including 4-2-1 at Tempe) against ASU is nothing but a fluke :-)

The biggest story of the day was the lowly Appalachian State beating the 5-Th seeded Michigan 34-32. No Division I-AA team had beaten a team ranked in the AP poll since it started in 1989. This was a stunner of gigantic proportions at the Big House. Is that sweet or what! I love a Big-10 giant being embarrassed like that though I would rather see Ohio State than Michigan experience this. I can't believe Lloyd Carr survives this. He should start typing up his resume for the off-season. Even Kirk Herbstreit is saying the Big-10 is probably the worst BCS division after what happened to Michigan last year at the Rose Bowl and this game plus what happened to the Suck-Eyes against Florida in the championship game. NCAA football is not known for parity quite like NCAA basketball or the NFL, but there's more and more parity these days. This upset by a division 1-AA team (or non-BCS sub-division of the super-regional or whatever stupid name NCAA has come up with this season) is another proof of parity after what Boise State did to Oklahoma in last year's Fiesta Bowl.

The other great result of the day was Cal beating Tennessee 45-31 at Berkeley. The Bears look FANTASTIC and Jeff Tedford is the man. He is building a legitimate program and has recruited some incredible athletes. His offense should be as good as any other team in the country. Get used to names on that like Nate Longshore, DeSean Jackson, Justin Forsett and Jahvid Best. I am not sure if that defense will hold up, but if it does, they are a legitimate threat to unseat USC. That late-season game in Berkeley should be awesome especially if both stay undefeated which I sure hope they do. Might even be a default national championship game. It was funny ABC also covered the "tree-huggers" in Berkeley who are living on trees to protect it from the University planning to renovate the Stadium. Only in Berkeley!

Of course Baseball kept pace with college Football with it's own big event as 23-year old kid Clay Buchholz pitched a no-hitter for Boston in his second career start. This would be big news anyways, but the fact that it happened to a RedSox pitcher and in Fenway just put it on the ESPN radar all that more. I am sure those chowderheads in Boston went nuts over it. They were all like "what Appalachian state? which Michigan?". Fenway was rocking all night as the kid just had 3 walks.