I’ll just write a brief intro to bring this current (some of which is a repeat from my blog from earlier this week), and I’ll also provide the updated records instead of what I had on the original blog (replaced by ellipses).

LSU is 17-2-1 against South Carolina all time, which now includes three wins in the Spurrier era. South Carolina won the first game between the two schools in 1930 and didn’t win the second until 1994 (its only win in Baton Rouge), then earning the tie in 1995.

This was the 9th time in the LSU/South Carolina series that the game was decided by 8 points or fewer, so LSU is 6-2-1 in such games against the Gamecocks.

If you’ll look at my LSU/Florida rivalry post, I included a list of the larger point totals in that series. In four of the five instances in which the Gators scored over 40 and two of the three instances in which they scored over 50 against the Tigers, Spurrier was their coach. Obviously this game yesterday was a huge game anyway, but it always adds a little extra to the spirit of LSU fans to have Spurrier there.

Spurrier has now fallen to 11-4 against LSU now that he has lost all three games against the Tigers since beginning in South Carolina. Spurrier is now 67 years old, so there may not be too many more games against LSU, particularly if the league sticks with the 6-1-1 format, which means that every year LSU would only play one of the 6 teams in the East apart from Spurrier’s alma mater, who the Tigers play every year. If they continue on the same rotation, LSU will not play South Carolina again until 2018 and then not again until 2024. I have a feeling he won’t still be coaching at 79, but I guess it’s conceivable.

Continue to full post.

(if you follow that link, it will also take you to the other "rivalry" entries, including LSU/A&M.)

Alabama stays #1 and seems to have widened the gap over the competition.

Some may have expected LSU to continue the dominance it had shown in earlier games, the closest of which was the Tigers’ 41-14 win over North Texas in Week 1.

Although a win by a touchdown or so would have been preferable, I didn’t expect it to be an easy win at all. This was an SEC road game for the Tigers of LSU (in a pretty intense series of late at that), and wins at Auburn don’t come easy in these situations. As good of a program as LSU has had the last 12 years or so, it has not won by more than 5 points (which occurred in 2008, the 5-7 year that ended the Tuberville era) at Auburn since 1998 despite going to Auburn every other year since then. The prior instance of an LSU win of more than 5 points at Auburn was 25 years before that.

LSU wasn’t completely inept on offense, it just couldn’t turn field position into points or turn gaining a decent number of yards into first downs very reliably. LSU had 15 first downs to Auburn’s 9 and 351 total yards to Auburn’s 183. Auburn was 2/12 on third downs while LSU was 6/18. LSU was penalized about twice as much and had one fewer turnover, but Auburn’s third turnover was on the last play, so that wasn’t really a determining factor.

Both turnovers by the Bayou Bengals were fumbles by Zach Mettenberger (one of them with an assist from the center) in the first quarter. The first was when LSU had the ball at the Auburn 2. LSU kicked the ball at 4th and 2 or fewer four times, one field goal (which was good) and three punts.

I understand that there are normal fluctuations of a few points in the polls and either LSU will be undefeated and get a bit more support or will have a loss and will have to climb back up anyway, but I’m really annoyed that Oregon has been put ahead of LSU. I can understand if someone wants to say Auburn hasn’t started well, and some teams that clearly aren’t top teams have done better against them (though not at Auburn). That’s if you’re consistent about applying that standard and you’ll punish Stanford, for instance, for only beating San Jose St. by 3. Few are consistent though.

As an aside, that’s one reason I don’t have the Cardinal ahead of USC. USC had the somewhat shaky game against Syracuse, but it was much better than Stanford/SJSU, and at least the Trojans were impressive against somewhat of a lightweight at home. Another reason is the USC/Stanford game was at Stanford. Also, there seems to be something unique about the combination of the two teams that favors Stanford that might not indicate, for example, that Stanford would beat Oregon but USC wouldn’t.

I wonder if many pollsters who moved the Ducks ahead of LSU even bothered to look to find out Oregon scored 21 of its points in the fourth quarter and 36 of its points in the second half. I wonder how many of them realize that Arizona really should have been ahead at halftime after it had the ball at the Oregon 4, the Oregon 18, and the Oregon 2 on consecutive drives in the first quarter. In the second quarter, the Wildcats had the ball at the Oregon 13 on one drive and at the Oregon 30 on another.

I guess we’ll have to hope the Washington Huskies can do more with their opportunities than Arizona did and this will make LSU (who beat Washington, 41-3) look better, but that would require that the pollsters remember. I’m not betting on it.

This is only an anecdotal example of the problem, but I do take some comfort in the notion that pretty soon their opinions will just be advisory. It’s just too bad that there it still really matters this season and next what the pollsters (officially just those in the coaches’ and Harris polls, though both are influenced by the AP) believe.

If LSU wins easily at Florida in a couple of weeks, that might trump the Oregon situation. There is a lot left to play out of course.

Continue to full blog for thoughts and rankings of other teams.

Top 25:

rank / team / prior

1 Alabama 3

2 Oklahoma 11

3 LSU 1

4 USC 13

5 Georgia 20

6 S Carolina 7

7 Oregon 8

8 Michigan 6

9 Arkansas 9

10 W. Virginia 22

11 Florida St. –

12 Mich St. 17

13 TCU 12

14 Kansas St. 15

15 Nebraska 23

16 Clemson 21

17 Texas –

18 Okie St. 2

19 Va. Tech 16

20 Stanford 10

21 Ohio St. –

22 Florida –

23 Wisconsin 18

24 Notre Dame –

25 Cincinnati 25

Out of rankings: (4) Boise St., (5) Houston, (14) Baylor, (19) So. Miss., (24) Penn St.

Previews

1. Alabama – I don’t put the defending champions #1 as a general rule, but I couldn’t really see any strong arguments against. I’ll get to Oklahoma in a moment, but LSU, who was (rightly I think) #1 in some of the computers based on beating a more impressive list of teams last year, has some more obvious adjustments that need to be made. The Tide will have to travel to Baton Rouge, but this is a series where the road team has traditionally done better, so that’s not really instructive. The fact that a lot of the same players showed up for a championship game the way they did makes a difference.

2. Oklahoma – I don’t think we’re going to see two teams from the same conference playing for the national championship again, and I don’t think Oklahoma has what it takes to pull off winning such a game, but looking at last year’s talent combined with returning starters, and Oklahoma is a natural pick for #2. I considered the Sooners for #1, but I’ve done that a few times since their 2000 national championship team, and we have yet to see a team like that, with the possible exceptions of 2004 and 2008. Notice the 4-year increments? The Sooners return 8 starters on offense, 7 on defense, and both kickers. This was a team that looked like it had a good road to the national-championship game last year at one point, so the experience could make the difference.

3. LSU – I was already inclined not to make LSU #1 before the Honey Badger news came out. That’s going to hurt on a defense that nominally returns 4 starters, although with the depth, that’s misleading. We haven’t even gotten a meaningful preview of new QB Zach Mettenberger. At least we had gotten one of Matt Flynn before the 2007 season, and don’t forget that team lost two games, so I don’ t put this team in the same category as either last year or 2007, both years I ranked LSU in the top 2 to start out. That said, I am cautiously optimistic. It’s hard to rate your own team, but I think you can tell by my description of the other nearby teams why LSU is here.

4. USC – I continue to find it ridiculous how people acted like USC had won a conference championship and bowl game just because it was idle for both “playing weeks”. Since I use a measure that only gives you points if you play, the Trojans finished 13th in my rankings. It also didn’t help that they lost to Arizona St. I punish bad losses more than some other rankings do. Anyway, there was definitely some talent and it did gel more as the season went on, so I’m fine with including this team in the top 4. Even with a much lower starting point, that wouldn’t rule out success. In 2003, LSU was coming off of an (unranked) 8-5 season and won the BCS championship. Neither the (undefeated) 2004 nor the (BCS champion) 2010 Auburn teams were very highly-rated going in either. Auburn finished in the “others receiving votes” category in both prior years. I’m sure there were some others in the recent past who performed similarly.

5. Georgia – Three SEC teams finished in the top 5 last season, so I’m putting three in the top 5 right now. I didn’t say, “Where’s another SEC team,” but I’m skeptical of Oregon, #5 in both major polls, and I think we just got a bit of a preview of this year during the Dawgs’ 10-game winning streak last season. Whoever wins the West can expect the SEC Championship game to be very interesting. I have been a Murray believer for a while, we’ll see if he has the great year that he has the potential for this season.

Full post

Good morning Gabbers, gawkers and others to my NASCAR update. We'll be talking about Canada possibly getting more race dates, Allmendingers woes, Sponsorship happenings, and just racing in general. It's been a tad humid here in PA. The locusts are so loud I can't sit in my carport to have coffee and a paper. The squirrels have taken to destroying my garden 2 years running despite the fact that there are bird baths in all the surrounding yards as well as bird feeders AND the one neighbor feeds them peanuts, and other stuff. These squirrels are fat. I'm thinking squirrel pot pie or Kabob's on the grill? Oh yeah. I am declaring war. Now where's that Acme phone number?

ARMY NATIONAL GUARD

Well, despite all the jawing back and forth for and against military sponsorship in racing the Army National Guard has re - upped with Dale Jr. Next year they plan on sponsoring 20 races. That's 2 more than this year. The Daytona 500 is included in those 20 races too. 

WHERE IS LOGANO TO LAND?

Reports say Joey Logano is one of the drivers Penske is considering for the #22 car that Allmendinger has vacated. No official announcement has been made yet but Kenseth will be in a car at Joe Gibbs Racing which means more sponsorship is needed to keep Logano in the car. Logano has been with JGR since he was 16 years old coming up through the ranks. So there are loyalty issues on both sides and much has been invested in turning Logano into a Cup racer. Joe says he doesn't want to lose Logano but an announcement either way is coming in about 2 weeks.

Mean while JGR has filed a law suit against Trans Lux for non payment. They sponsored Logano's race winning Nationwide car in California but didn't pay up. Trans Lux is the maker of video display boards and score boards for high school fields to arena's. They were supposed to be on Denny Hamlin's Cup car at a race this fall. 

JERRY GRANT PASSING

Jerry Grant passed away on August 12th at the age of 77. He was the first driver to turn an official lap faster than 200 mph in an Indy Car in 1972 at 201.414 mph in Ontario, Calif. He was in the Indianapolis 500 a total of 10 times. He raced in 19 NASCAR Cup races from 1965 to 1974. 

MORE CANADIAN RACES?

It would seem that our Canadian neighbors are enjoying the Nationwide races that have been held there. In fact there's a Nationwide race there this weekend at the Circuit Gilles Vileneuve. A road course that draws big enthusiastic crowds and they race rain or shine. NASCAR is experimenting with the rain racing there. 

CEO of NASCAR Brian France is talking with the track owners about bringing a Cup race to this track. BUT he doesn't want to add a race to the schedule. So that means a track loses a race. So which one?

Ron Fellows is a new co - owner of Mosport International Raceway in Ontario, CA and wants to have a truck or Nationwide race added to his track. Both truck and Nationwide could add more races. So this is possible.

So it's off to Canada we go?

NEWMAN GETS A NEW SPONSOR

The October Hollywood Casino 400 Kansas race sees Newman with a new paint scheme. Code 3 Associates will be on his car for that weekend. This sponsor is a nonprofit organization specializing in animal rescue and recovery in disaster areas. Newman is big on animal causes. He owns several dogs so this is a sponsor that hits close to his heart.

Newman still has no contract for next year but insists even though sponsorship woes are ongoing that he's not trying to go back to Penske for the ride in the #22. His goal is to stay with Stewart Haas Racing in the #39.

PENSKE RACING ON

Sam Hornish Jr has jumped into the #22 car since Allmendinger was released from it but not without issues. Hornish is full time in Nationwide and is 3rd in the points so he certainly wants to win the Nationwide championship. Nationwide is in Canada this weekend. A bit of a stretch to be in 2 places at once. So Parker Kilgerman will be practicing in and qualifying the #22 car till Hornish gets back from Canada. 

Hornish will have to start from the back no matter where Parker qualifies the car per NASCAR rules. I'm guessing they wanted a good pit stall choice because they could use the top 35 owners points to secure him a starting position. You don't lose your pit stall choice even if you have to start from the back.

Parker Kilgerman will be driving for Red Horse Racing in the Truck Series at Michigan as well. He sees no issues with doing double duty and feels confident because he's tested Cup cars before. I'm thinking this may be an audition for the #22 car ride next year.

SPEAKING OF ALLMENDINGER

Insiders say NASCAR doubts AJ will be done with the Road To Recovery program in August. It is thought that AJ had more that one of whatever he took and on more than one occasion because he tested so high. They can't pin point the exact drug or brand but they know he tested too high to have been a one time occurrence. This was my thinking as well when he finally told his story. 

I still say he thought up a story and practiced it in the mirror till it sounded believable. Saw his video interview with Marty Smith on Sunday before the race. Marty believes his story. I'm saying well rehearsed and I'm not buying it. Whatever the case may be, AJ is determined to get through the program and get back to Cup level racing. I'm sure the whispers in the Cup garage have more info than we're getting. He's got a tough road to Cup racing when he's done with the Road To Recovery.

If you want to see the interview with Marty go to You Tube and type in "Allmendinger On Failed Drug Test". 

WATKIN'S GLEN

Last weekends race at The Glen had a wild finish. Due to Bobby Labonte driving the last 20 laps with his motor smoking and dropping oil on the track, there were quite a few drivers that didn't get the finish they wanted or deserved. Those that spun out were Dale Jr ending his day in 28th , one lap down and dropping to 4th in the Cup points, Stewart ending his day in 19th, Gordon ending his day in 21st, and Kyle B who was in 1st on the white flag lap and ended his day in 7th.

Ambrose and Keselowski went on to have the battle on the legends. They beat and banged their way around the track on the last lap to the finish. High fives and back slaps between the #2 and #9 crews all around at the end. Can't say it was a boring finish. Still love the Kurt Busch vs Ricky Craven finish the best but this finish will be on the high light reels along with that one for years to come.

Why didn't NASCAR throw the yellow flag for a caution to clean up? Nobody knows. They say that the drivers just used up their brakes and tires and that no official reported oil on the track. Funny thing is that at practice Friday at Michigan 10 minutes in they yellow flagged practice because they thought they saw fluid on the track. Hhhhhmmmmmmmm.

How did my fantasy league picks do? Well, Brian Vickers blew his motor on the 1st lap. Then on lap 26 Kurt Busch lost his entire wheel assembly. My saving grace was choosing Ambrose and Keselowski. They came in 1st & 2nd. I'm thinking that Stewart, Gordon, Montoya, Dale Jr, Kahne, Truex, and Hamlin all having issues helped me out too. I'm sure by looking at all the movement in the league that they chose those drivers and I REMAIN #1 on Yahoo. 

You can see the last 3 laps if you go to You Tube......http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sv-BndcjVw or type in....2012 Watkins Glen Finger Lakes 355 - Final 3 laps Wild Finish (HD).....AMFForumvideos is the channel. It has several videos from the race.

MICHIGAN - PURE MICHIGAN 400

This weekend we're at a very high speed track. Mark Martin grabbed the pole position making him the oldest driver on record to get a pole at Michigan International Speedway. He ties Bill Elliot for career poles at 55 poles AND he's driving the #55 car. That's so Twilight Zone.

Besides Parker Kilgerman subbing for Hornish in the #22, David Reutimann is subbing for Kyle Busch who just took off Saturday morning for the Canada Nationwide race. He will get to keep his spot because he qualified his car.

Jimmie Johnson will be joining Hornish in the back at the start of the race because of an engine change during first practice.

NASCAR decided to allow the teams to scuff their tires during 2nd practice if the felt like it. Teams are allowed so many sets of tires. Scuffing the tires is when they put a set of tires on and drive 2 - 5 laps on them. This heats the tire up and then they harden so they less prone to blistering. Just one more trick to dial in a car for the race.

My fantasy picks this week are Kenseth - Dale Jr - Ambrose - Hornish. Wish me luck. 

EBAY NO NO'S

Well folks, as of September 1st you will no longer be able to buy that magic demon destroying potion for $51 dollars on eBay. That's right, no more magic items to be sold on eBay. That means no potions, voodoo dolls, hexes, spells, curses, prayers, blessings, psychic readings, tarot card readings, etc can no longer be purchased on eBay. You can however buy Holy Water. BUT that 800 year old village in Tuscany is still up for bids. I'm thinking of packing up and shipping all my squirrels there. Wonder if squirrel voodoo dolls exist? 

F1 FUN

Ever wanted to know what driving through the New York Lincoln tunnel at 190 mph looks like? Go to You Tube and type in David Coulthard drives Red Bull through Lincoln Tunnel. He wears a helmet cam. Awesome stuff. Again I apologize for not being able to create links and move videos but I can tell you where they are.

Well that's all folks. Hope your Sunday is sunny and full of family or whatever makes you happy. Thank you for stopping by.........

Well boys as we enter another weekend of the NCAA tournament, how many of you have basically thrown your brackets in the garbage because all or most of your teams were beaten by lower seeded teams? Sure as I was finishing up my finals on Friday night teams like Lehigh, Ohio and Norfolk State were  pulling of some of the biggest upsets in their school's history. While other teams like Notre Dame, were snatching defeat away from almost certain victory. Here is a little video from Friday's action....

As most of the losing coaches mentioned today, their teams did not play good enough to win. However, they were also humble enough to state in their press conferences that they were outplayed by the winning teams in each of these games. As Michigan found out on Friday, you live by the 3 point shot, you sometimes die by the 3 point shot. I think there needs to be a philosophy change in Ann Arbor next fall or they will continue to fail.

How about Calvin Johnson becoming the richest wide receiver in the NFL this past week, about time Bill Ford opened his wallet and paid a player to finish his career in Detroit. Maybe Mr. I is finally rubbing off on the old tightwad. He should also open his wallet up again, and offer Matthew Stafford a little more loot and keep him in Detroit for the remainder of his playing days in Detroit. This is a lethal combination, and with a decent running game to balance their attack they could dominate the NFL for a long time.......

In keeping with the Sunday Hotchnut theme, this ought to bring back some good old memories from his Thunder Bay Senators Bruce Ramsey-Jason Renard. If I remember right, Bruce was the CHL's all time leader in penalty minutes, and this one was a good one

Ramsey vs Bezeau.....

Ramsay vs Serge Robarge, one of the few times I seen him take a whipping from anyone.

As Spring Training draws to a close, and we near our fantasy drafts in our various leagues we are in I was wondering to myself if this team will live up to all of the expectations from a near miss last year? Who will step up and be a hero this year, or will it be a summer of lost expectations? That is what every sports fan wonders in anticipation of the upcoming year for their favorite teams.........

This is the time of year, where I state that baseball has made an awful mistake by not honoring this man for his accomplishments. Sure Pete Rose made mistakes during his career, but everyone does. He should be honored for this accomplishment alone, not remembered for a gambling addiction that took over his life and led to his downfall. As in all crimes that a person commits, he served his time and should be allowed in the Hall of Fame. This like Cal Ripken, Jr. and even Hank Aaron's records were all thought to be untouchable but yet were broken. Let's give Peter Edward Rose his due, and not wait until he dies before justice is served. He belongs in Cooperstown with all the greats of the game..........

Thanks for reading my post