Sports Notes Not Related to the NFL or MLB

Well, I had a reasonably successful week predicting games, got many correct, but scores were wrong. I was not overly impressed with Alabama when they beat USC. Not blown away. Now I'm convinced. These guys are going to take the West and could beat any East team in December if they play as well as they did Saturday. But now they are without their greatest weapon on offense. The loss of Tyrone Prothro is the type that many teams can't recover from. Two things though. Remember David Palmer? He wasn't the cornerstone of the 92 championship team, though a game breaker and always a threat, defense won that year. Remember Freddie Millons? He disappeared after an injury at UCLA the last season Alabama went 10-3. Reason number two: Alabama goes undefeated every thirteen seasons, look it up. 1966, 1979, 1992, 2005? You're welcome Bama fans the hex has been placed!

What is wrong with USC is the question of the week. It's Tuesday and the final is less than 60 hours old. Well since no one reads this blog and not everyone has asked the question I'll remind myself what I've been telling everyone.

Reasons for our poor play: (reasons are not excuses, I really am happy some of these happened)
* Spurrier doesn't have "his" players. Its not that we don't have talent, neither does Notre Dame or Penn State right now. We've got players they aren't Georgia or Tennessee players but they are good enough to play for most SEC or ACC teams. But we don't have the linemen where we knew we'd be weak. It happens, do you remember when we had one of the best two lines in the SEC? Like two years ago we had several top notch guys...attrition is a bitch. We haven't recruited this position well. Holtz can tell you this. He knew it last year and alluded to the youth and lack of experience. It caught up.

*Five games into a new system with a running quarterback. No not the one you think. Antonio Heffner is a running style QB, he doesn't have an SEC arm. I'm talking about Blake Mitchell. Blake was in a running offense in high school and for his first season at USC. He's thrown more passes in four games than he did in his high school career, and that makes him our best choice at QB. Knowing that he probably was getting 80% of the practice snaps, maybe higher.

*Losses to THE MAN. Once again these are not the guys I want on the team, but lets say it didn't happen. Cory Boyd, Moe Thompson, Demetrius Summers, and others could have contributed. Cory Boyd was poised to be the feature back after that idiot Summers screwed his life up with drugs. Thompson would have been a premiere DE this season in the SEC, but he too cannot seem to get the big picture. He would have been stealing paychecks every Sunday in 06.

*We do play in the SEC. Friends I don't care who you like, who your team is, no one can tell me that playing Georgia and Auburn on the road with the above factors is easy. We are lucky also, our toughest part of the schedule is still remaining against UT and Florida, not to forget instate rival Clemson.

Finally I want to give very belated props to my second favorite golfer Chris DiMarco, who for some reason isn't loved the way Paul Azinger is by patriotic golf fans. DiMarco was a stud this past month in the President's Cup, which oh by the way is a pretty weak version of the Ryder Cup. DiMarco is the best player with the least wins in any form of golf. You are due big boy.