Sports Blog

Alabama’s Terrence Cody Changed The Landscape Of Modern Day Collegiate Football

One of the biggest men in college football in 2009, Terrence Cody, at 6 foot 4 in. tall & 350 lbs, has altered how colleges look at bigger players. A superb run stopper makes a world of difference for football clubs wanting to free up their linebackers.

I think that increasingly more we will see enormous players, just like Terrence Cody, arriving onto the scene in college football. An enormous man at that magnitude in the middle of the defense actively playing middle guard or nosetackle is an extremely precious resource.

Now don’t get me wrong, individuals the dimensions of Terrence Cody with his explosiveness do not come around all the time. The NFL football team, the Baltimore Ravens discovered excellent potential in this big guy’s physical skills, size, and speed enough to draft him at number 57 in the second round of the 2010 NFL draft.

It isn’t really simply size which makes the difference in a guy like this,it is also the speed. The quick 1st step from the line, when combined with the leverage of the bodyweight, it is 100 % pure physics of mass times acceleration equals momentum… and momentum he does have!  Read more...

The Best Vanderbilt Hoops Games In Recent Years

The Vanderbilt Commodores are a good college basketball team. They have never made it to a final four and they don’t get the exposure of some of the other SEC teams, but they are incredibly exciting to watch.

Sure I am biased because I went to school there, but this team has had some incredible wins in recent years. Here are the top 5.

Two years ago, Tennessee was ranked as the number one team in the country. They had just beaten Memphis (also located in Tennessee and also were ranked #1 in the country at the time) and had just a day off before having to face Vandy. Vanderbilt crushed the Vols to move up to the #13 team in the nation.

If you are a fan of college hoops then you know Florida was dominant in 2006-2007. They were the first back to back champions in quite some time. What you may not be aware of is the fact that Vandy handed them their first loss as defending champions.

Even though I hated them at the time, the Gators were an incredible team. Al Horford, Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer and Taurean Green were all on this team.  Read more...

Georgia Bulldogs And The Heisman Winning Herschel Walker

The Georgia Bulldogs football team has been one of the most successful in history, having won nearly two thirds of all games they have played since 1892. Members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC), the “Dawgs” can routinely be found in the top 25 polls of the best teams in the nation, and are usually considered amongst college football’s elite programs – though recent years have seen them somewhat less successful than they have been in the past. Their stadium in Athens, Georgia is the fifth largest of its kind to exist on any American campus, and seas more than 90,000 fans. The Bulldogs have fielded a host of great players in their history, but perhaps none have been as well known as Heisman Trophy winner Herschel Walker, who carried the ball for the Bulldogs from 1980 to 1982.

A pure runner  Read more...

Why Is Texas Tech A Favorite For The CWS

Well the Spring brings yet a new opportunity for the Yankees to make a case for them to being World Champions yet again. Now as to whether his will happen is still yet to be determined, the one thing that is known is that there will be a lot of talk about the team and the off season trades and deals that were done.

There is little doubt that the Yankees will make an impressive case as to why they are on the doorstep of beginning another dynasty run. Few players and fans were optimistic last season when the club played one of the best seasons that had in quite a long while. These fans then were tuned into the fact that it was a new day in Yankee Baseball.

There is a lot of hype when it comes to the teams pitching. This means that the team is in a position that they will be able to dominate the rest of the college baseball world. There has been a number of players that have made a commitment to the Red Raiders to play this season, this as a result will lead to the team having a much better than normal team.  Read more...

Utah Utes, Urban Meyer, And The BCS Wall

From the beginning of the Bowl Championship Series’ development, there were many complaints from the smaller conferences that the system denied them access to the upper tier BCS bowl games – and the increased revenue those games provided. For a team like the Utah Utes, the criticism had merit. With a long history of championship football within the various conferences in which they competed, the Utes felt they were as good as anyone else in the country. Other teams, like Boise State, felt they too were worthy of contention. New fans of college football are today more accustomed to the notion of mid-major teams being provided greater access to bowl games. Last year’s TCU and Boise State BCS match up was a clear example of how much things have changed. For those unfamiliar with the history of the BCS, however, the breaking of that BCS wall between mid and major conferences may be somewhat of a mystery. It was actually the direct result of Urban Meyer’s time as the coach of the Utah Utes – a short, two season span of time that enabled a school from the forgotten Mountain West Conference to crash the major conferences’ BCS party.  Read more...

Trouble Spells For NFL As Owners And Players Hit A Deadlock

Will we be watching NFL football in 2011? Can the nation of America really go an entire year without its beloved and treasured sport? What would Sundays be without a full day’s worth of games, but is this really a possibility or a bunch of empty threats? Hard to say. The NFL may go on strike in 2011 because of disagreement between owners and players. Sounds like nothing new as we’ve seen this before, but things really do in fact look pretty serious this time around for a number of different reasons.

There’s a collective bargaining agreement in place currently, but the owners have decided to back out from it. An uncapped season is the first step toward strike, and this is being put in place for 2010-2011. Unless there’s an agreement, we’re going to see an NFL strike next year.

The potential strike, if it happens, will be caused by what owners see as unfair salaries going to players. Specifically, owners want a different rookie wage scale, so that they can give new players less lucrative contracts in case the player doesn’t work out.  Read more...

Wisconsin Badgers Football – Barry Alvarez And The Badger Revival

Since playing their first football game in 1889, the University of Wisconsin Badgers football program has seen its share of ups and downs. With an overall record of 614 wins and 465 losses, the ups have outweighed the downs, to be sure, but when the program has been down it has been for an extended period of time. For example, after their 1901 season, Badger teams suffered through what could only be described as a 35 year period of utter mediocrity – with the one exception being the team’s 1912 undefeated season. Another thirty year period of poor performances and mediocre results occurred after the Badgers’ 1962 loss in the Rose Bowl. It would not be until Barry Alvarez arrived as the team’s head coach in 1990 that the program’s fortunes would begin to turn around.

Alvarez’ coaching pedigree  Read more...

Southern Cal Trojans – Pete Carroll’s USC Years

Trojan football has been a part of the NCAA since 1888, with the University of Southern California team having consistently been one of the teams to beat. With 11 national titles to the program’s credit, the Trojans have spent much of their history dominating the Pacific 10 Conference in which they compete, while also routinely threatening the national championship picture. Over the last decade, USC has spent much of their time ranked within the very top tier of the vote tabulations that have counted: the Associated Press (AP) and Bowl Championship Series (BCS) polls. Over the course of that decade, the Trojans were led by Coach Pete Carroll, who made a name for both himself and his team with a fast-paced style of offense and hard-nosed defense.

Not love at first sight  Read more...

Nebraska Cornhuskers Legend Tom Osborne

In the course of the last half century, there has not been a college football program that has seen more success in terms of wins than the Nebraska Cornhuskers. As one of only seven NCAA football programs to garner 800 or more wins in their history, the Cornhuskers have been a college football power for most of their 119 seasons, holding the fourth highest number of wins in Division 1 football. In addition, they have achieved five national championships, with three of those coming in the last quarter century. Those three national titles were earned under the guidance and tutelage of the legendary Thomas “Tom” Osborne, who coached the Nebraska Cornhuskers between 1973 and 1997.

His basic strategy  Read more...

Miami Hurricanes – A Championship History

For nearly thirty years now, few college football teams have enjoyed more consistent success than the Miami Hurricanes. Not only do they now hold the record for the most consecutive wins at home in college football history – having during one stretch won 58 home games in a row. Things were not always so positive for the Hurricanes, and they spent much of their history without a national championship. That ended in the 1983-84 season when the Miami team won the national title at last. That event would be repeated four more times over the next twenty years, as the Hurricanes posted after a winning season and positioned themselves as one of the most elite teams in the NCAA ranks. Their winning ways have been highlighted by a total of two Heisman Award winners and a series of incredible winning streaks including the aforementioned home victory streak.

Success and resentment  Read more...