ALDLAND is back with a jam packed podcast this week. The biggest moves in baseball free agency! NFL! College football championship games! Come for one, stay for the rest. Or come for all of them and stay for all of them. Either way.
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Last week was one of the best football weeks in recent memory, and although our Tuesday Afternoon Inside Linebacker weekly feature has fallen by the wayside due to worldly obligations, this week and the week ahead deserve note.
The Lions started things off on Thanksgiving with a wonderful win over Green Bay. It was Detroit’s first win on Turkey Day in nine years, and it was the first time Matt Stafford beat the Pack. The Lions also avenged the career game Matt Flynn had the only previous time he quarterbacked Green Bay against Detroit.
Brendan and I were in the Big House for Michigan’s surprise one-point loss to Ohio State, and I made it out of Ann Arbor in time to see Georgia come back to defeat Georgia Tech in overtime, note Vandy’s comeback win over Wake Forest, and watch maybe the greatest one second of college football in Auburn’s regulation toppling of Alabama in the Iron Bowl.
Records of note:
Bowl outlook:
The BCS national championship: Right now, Florida State is set to play Ohio State, but that could change after this weekend. Each team needs to beat its conference championship opponent, Duke and Michigan State (more on basketball later!) respectively, of course. Auburn’s also in the mix here. If the Eagles/Tigers/Plainsmen beat Missouri in the SEC championship game, one-loss/SEC champ Auburn could leap an undefeated Ohio State. But you don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask Florida head coach Urban Meyer:
There are a lot of people making a lot of decisions out there, but this is a big one. We’re going to tell a group of young men, who just went 12-1 in a most difficult schedule against six ranked opponents, that they don’t have a chance to play for a national championship? I’m going to need help with that one.
That was back in 2006, though, and in 2013, Meyer finds himself singing a decidedly different tune as the head coach of Ohio State. 2006 Urban Meyer got his way, something 2013 Urban Meyer ought to keep in mind this week.
(HT: @DrunkAubie)
ALDLAND will have a presence on the ground at this weekend’s Ohio State- Michigan game in Ann Arbor. According to widespread commercials promoting this game, the annual meeting between these two rivals is known as “The Game.” I have attended this game many times over the past twenty or so years, and I’ve never heard it called that. Unless Brendan, between gulps of Four Loko, corrects me on Saturday morning, I’m going to chalk this labeling up as a media marketing concoction.
Outside of pride, this game does not have a lot of meaning for either team. Ohio State is undefeated but has only an outside shot at the BCS championship game, and has already secured a spot in the Big Ten championship game against Michigan State. Michigan is bowl-eligible at 7-4, but they have a losing conference record and will be home dogs on Saturday.
In year three of the Brady Hoke era at Michigan, things are slipping a bit. His teams have yet to beat Michigan State and Ohio State in the same season, and it looks like the Wolverines could go 0-2 against their conference rivals this year. Michigan was 11-2 with an exciting Sugar Bowl win in Hoke’s maiden maize and blue voyage, but they were 8-5 last year, losing to South Carolina in the Outback Bowl. There’s still room– with zero margin for error– to improve on that mark this year, but even if they do, it may not erase the feeling that there’s a noticeable lack of spark with this Michigan team. Negative forty-eight yards of rushing against Michigan State says a lot about the Spartan defense, but it says something about the Michigan offense too, and although at least one critic has pointed a finger of blame at Hoke, most Wolverine fans have been calling for the head of offensive coordinator Al Borges. (Text message from a die-hard Michigan fan after the Nebraska loss: “I can never actually root for Michigan to lose, but I hate the offensive coordinator enough that I think a few more losses are in Michigan’s best interest if it gets the OC fired.”)
Still, the feel in Ann Arbor under Hoke is decidedly different than it was under the coach Hoke replaced, Rich Rodriguez. Should it be, though? Is there a chance Michigan fans are missing Rich Rod?
Ohio State is about a two-touchdown favorite on the road this weekend, and although that feels about right as I write this on Tuesday morning, my prediction is that they will not cover on Saturday.
Unless Michigan has beefed up their mobile reception capabilities, expect in-game coverage from Brendan and I to be somewhat limited, but you can always track us @ALDLANDia.
After an extended break the ALDLAND podcast is back and better than ever. College basketball is finally on the menu, as is discussion of a big trade in the MLB. And as always, listen for ALDLAND’s college football picks of the week.
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
Jameis Winston is the Heisman-candidate quarterback of the #2 Florida State Seminoles. Last week, a previously inactive criminal sexual assault investigation involving Winston was reopened, initially without explanation. Today, an ESPN.com story cites research by the Tallahassee Democrat revealing that the initial investigation stalled after the alleged victim “changed her mind and did not wish to prosecute.”
Without knowing more about the case, and few do, there are a number of reasons and combinations of reasons why the alleged victim might have “changed her mind” and decided she “did not wish to prosecute.” One is that her allegations were not true. Another, which can arise in the college football setting (as illustrated with particularity in The System, a book I pre-reviewed and hope to review in full soon), is that the alleged victim felt pressure not to go forward with a sexual-assault prosecution of a major college athlete. Maybe she even felt fear. It wouldn’t be the first time.
That today’s story at least raises the specter of that second reason– and some would say it’s the obvious implication (the headline on the front page of ESPN.com tonight has fluctuated between “Official: Woman at first wary of Winston charge” and “Official: Woman didn’t want Winston Charged“)– makes the advertising on the side of the page at least questionable. (You can click the image to expand it.)
I recently started reading The System: The Glory and Scandal of Big-Time College Football, by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian. Keith Olbermann interviewed the latter on his new ESPN show, and the segment illustrates the flavor of the book:
At the very least, Benedict and Keteyian know their audience: While chapter one reminds college football fans why they love Mike Leach, chapter two reminds them why they hate Lane Kiffin. Chapter one isn’t Leach’s only appearance in the book– he’s back as quickly as chapter six, though on less happy terms, and he would’ve made it into chapter thirteen had the publishing date been slightly later– but it does offer new insight on Leach’s now-famous marital genesis story. As highlighted here, Leach’s first date with his wife, Sharon, saw him taking her to A&W and telling her to order based on the 2-for-1 coupon book he handed her. From The System we learn that Leach’s approach was even bolder: he and Sharon had only met the night before.
Look for a full review of this book sometime after I finish reading it.
ALDLAND was out in force last weekend for a cool, damp morning (11:00 am kickoff!) of football in Nashville. Brendan and Marcus broke down the game, as well as Vanderbilt’s bowl chances, in this week’s podcast, so listen to that for full game analysis. The Commodores took the lead in the second quarter on a perfectly executed fake field goal attempt. Two almost certainly erroneous targeting calls against Georgia helped Vanderbilt as well, but Vandy’s surprisingly poised redshirt freshman backup quarterback, Patton Robinette, who came on in relief of injured starter Austyn Carta-Samuels, deserves mention as well. (A botched Georgia punt was reminiscent of the last time these schools met in Nashville. This time, though, the Commodores were able to capitalize on the special-teams error.) Despite reasonably ample scoring, the game developed slowly through the first three quarters before the home team posted seventeen points in an exciting fourth quarter, erasing a thirteen-point deficit to claim an upset victory. It was Vanderbilt’s first conference win of the year (after a heartbreaking loss to Ole Miss to start the season), and both teams moved to 4-3 overall.
While Vanderbilt head coach James Franklin said that either Carta-Samuels or Robinette would be available for this weekend’s game at Texas A&M, he said yesterday that Robinette would start the game and that Carta-Samuels would not be available this week.
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Previously
Michigan On Top
Walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Death: Clemson outpoints Georgia 38-35
The World Series is here and the ALDLAND Podcast is here to talk about it. Boston . . . St. Louis . . . playing baseball. What more could you want? College football, of course, and there’s plenty of that as your favorite cohosts preview all the interesting week 9 matchups.
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
Baseball is back for a second straight week as Marcus and I react to the division series in both the American and National Leagues. Elsewhere, Jadaveon Clowney fails to escape the wrath of ALDLAND as we discuss his numerous “injuries”. Finally, picks and predictions for this week in college football.
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
The ALDLAND podcast finally gets around to some non-college football topics. MLB playoffs and NFL are both on the menu this week, as we make our picks for the World Series and recap the first quarter of the NFL season. But don’t worry if college football is your thing, since we obviously can’t go a week without discussing that either.
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Download the ALDLAND podcast at our Podcasts Page or stream it right here:
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